Gabriel Rench, Latah County Commissioner candidate, sat down at the ASUI and Economics Club’s co-hosted Q&A event Oct. 21 to talk background, policies and the future of Latah County.
Tom Lamar, the incumbent District 2 Latah County Commissioner, sat down on Oct. 20 to discuss similar topics.
The ASUI moderator asked prepared questions, questions submitted from the Zoom audience and questions from the live audience in the ASUI town hall room. Rench answered from the comfort of the studio for his podcast, CrossPolitic, a Christian-based political talk show hosted by Rench himself.
Rench said his original motive for candidacy was inspired by his concerns regarding taxes in Latah County, but he is now more concerned by the current mask mandate. Rench was arrested Sept. 23 at a Christ Church-hosted psalm-singing event. He said this mandate, among other lockdown procedures, is wildly unconstitutional.
“We have intruded into people’s lives in ways that the Founding Father’s never would’ve imagined,” Rench said. “I mean think about this: What America are we living in when our mayor, on May 20, shut down businesses and downtown? Where in the constitution does our mayor have the authority to tell my friends to shut down their businesses, not provide for their families, not provide for their employees and at the same time, that same mayor takes his taxpayer paycheck?”
Most of Rench’s campaign has been critical of both Lamar and Mayor Bill Lambert’s decision making throughout the pandemic. Rench likened the mask mandate to the government affairs of Saudi Arabia, implying citizens being required to “wear something on their face” is similar to Middle Eastern culture and “third world countries (he) doesn’t want anything to do with.”
Rench argued masks are not effective “for the general public” based on decades of research he claimed to have read and studied from both political sides. If he was elected, he would encourage removing the mandate and allowing Latah County citizens to “do whatever they want.”
Rench also discussed his tax reform plan for Latah County, promising he would not raise property taxes.
“I’ve looked at the budgets,” Rench said. “I’m familiar with them. I have no plans on cutting anything, yet. I’ve never been County Commissioner, I don’t know the heads of each department. It does no good for me to already be telling them how I’m going to cut their budgets. I would love to work with each department leader and sort through it to figure out how to be fiscally responsible. I’m not an unreasonable guy.”
Rench weighed in on climate change during the webinar as well. Rench believes climate change is cyclical, saying humans impact the environment on a micro level, but not on the macro level. He criticized alternative energy solutions, such as wind turbines and solar panels, which he believes to be ineffective. Rench said he thinks the government has yet to come up with good solutions.
Some viewers had concerns with Rench’s faith interfering with his work as Commissioner. Rench countered by claiming “everyone’s beliefs affect the way they work, it’s inescapable,” saying the same goes for Lamar.
Rench hopes forums like this will occur more frequently.
“Everyone needs to not respond with that first initial desire to impute the worst motives on people,” Rench said. “Both the right and the left need to take a deep breath…. More conversations need to happen, more communication needs to happen. That’s what community is. Community is a bunch of people who disagree with one another and yet still figure out how to get along. That’s what makes a good community.”
Carter Kolpitcke can be reached at [email protected].