Collini seeks another term as District 1 commissioner

Washington County commissioner Lisa Collini said she is running for  re-election to continue working on the positive things happening in the county.
 “I am seeking re-election because I love my job, and I think we’re heading in the right direction and doing some positive things for the county, and I would like to continue to be part of that,” she said.
 Terms of office on the three-member county commission are staggered. Collini’s first term as commissioner was two years. The next term for the District 1 commissioner will be a four-year term in office.
 District 1 covers most of the populated area of Weiser. Commissioners must live in the district they represent but are elected at large by all county voters.
 Collini said she has fulfilled her 2018 campaign promise to treat the position of county commissioner as a full-time job and devote as much time as needed. Being a focused representative for county residents has been a top priority.
 “My 100 percent attendance last year shows that I kept that promise,” she said.
 In addition to commission duties, Collini said she has regularly attended the Idaho Association of Counties conferences to keep up on issues affecting counties.
 She also is the county representative on the Weiser Economic Development Task Force, a member of the Snake River Economic Development Alliance and a board member of the Area 3 Senior Services Agency.
 One item commissioners are working on is to streamline and clarify the county code. Some codes can be interpreted in a couple of different ways, Collini said.
 The result will be code that will be easier to understand and for planning and zoning commissioners and planning and zoning department to administer.
 “We’re trying to make the codes more easily understood, less ambiguous,” she said.
 Commissioners are currently reviewing a draft comprehensive plan 10-year update that has been a work in progress for many months. The board will approve it at some point in the near future. The planning document provides a vision for which direction the county and its residents want to go in the next 10 years with regard to growth, zoning, business, recreation and other issues.
 Planning commissioners with input from the publice have done a tremendous amount of work on the comprehensive plan, she said and now commissioners are reviewing it.
 “We’re going to look through the draft. That’s been a big issue and we’re now finally in the home stretch,” Collini said.
 Growth is coming to Washington County as the Treasure Valley gets more crowded. The population increase is not all people moving to Idaho from out of state like it was a few years ago.
 Now, growth in rural counties like Washington County is coming from Boise, where people are leaving the crowded city for open spaces  
 Collini said the county doesn’t want to lose farmland to subdivisions. For people who want to build a house and live in the county, the idea of growth corridors near U.S. Highway 95 have been discussed in the past. That idea would allow the privacy of a few acres with proximity to the city.
 “There’s a lot to think about with growth, but I think the key there is managing the inevitable growth that is coming,” she said.
 Collini has experience with city and county land use and zoning issues. In 2010, she was appointed to the Weiser Planning and Zoning Commission and in 2014 was appointed to the Washington County Planning and Zoning Commission.
 County commissioners also serve as the Weiser Ambulance District board of directors. They are working toward at least partially funding classes so that employees can increase their education and advance in the organization. There are drivers that would like to upgrade their education to become EMTs and EMTs that would like to become paramedics.
 Investing in ambulance personnel and their education is a way to retain employees. The county can’t pay what paramedics can make in Ada or Canyon counties, and it becomes difficult to recruit for the district. It’s a beautiful place to live, but there needs to be incentives to keep people, Collini said.
 “We are thinking that if we have people on the inside that want to advance, we ought to help them do that. They are here, they are local and they are going to stay,” Collini said.
 Since moving to Weiser in 2006, Collini said she has been active in the community, volunteering for Citizens on Patrol. She was a poll worker for eight years. She retired from a 35-year career as a court reporter in Arizona and southern California.
 Collini said she is a constitutional and fiscal conservative. A life-long Republican, she said property rights and personal rights come first.
 As a county commissioner, she said she is always aware that the board is entrusted with tax dollars.
 “We are in charge of the taxpayers money and we need to spend it wisely, conservatively and when it’s necessary,” she said.