Candidate for Jefferson County Commissioner, District 3 Hello. My name is Stephen Nieman, and I am running for County Commissioner in Jefferson County, Washington. I want to explain why. Although born in the early 60's, I grew up in the 1970s, immersed in what historians call an era of apocalyptic expectations. That era impressed upon my generation a sense of imminent catastrophe. Environmental disaster was framed as the coming Ice Age. Climate fears filled the news. Nuclear war with Russia seemed inevitable. Population explosion, resource exhaustion, pollution  crises, energy shortages, and gasoline rationing were constant themes. The economy was stagnant. Calls to idealistic political action were everywhere, and desperation hung in the air. The effect on me was unfortunate. As a boy I had been exceptionally good at sports and gained some notoriety in the Wisconsin region where I was raised. When I left for a small college in Colorado, I had no clear vision for the future and soon dropped out. There I befriended an Englishman, a rugby player of some standing, who introduced me to the sport. I took to it naturally and was quickly advanced in the sport. For a time I found my place. My friend started a business and invited me to become a partner, largely because the travel demands of tournaments, games, and practices made it difficult for us to secure traditional employment. I lived for my team, but really, myself—yet I felt no real purpose, even though I was good at what I did. When I moved to the Northwest in 1987, I joined a strong in Seattle and played in the Canadian Fraser Valley Rugby League. I performed well, and was fortunate to play with a very good group of men, some, very much better than myself. We won a national championship with a Seattle side in 1990, and I was selected for regional and divisional teams. Still, the sense that living for myself was incomplete never left me. In 1990 I met Amy, who would become my wife. I knew immediately she was the one. I stepped away from the game to court her properly. Somehow I persuaded her to marry me. A year later our first child was placed in my arms, and in that moment I understood my purpose: to dedicate myself to others. Over the next thirty years I dedicated my life to my wife and family. It was no longer about me; it was about them. As hard as construction work was—the cold, the wet, the heat, the mud—I found joy in providing for my children.                  Strangely, when I put the needs of others first, I felt a sense of purpose. Later, as a superintendent and administrator, I took deep satisfaction in seeing people succeed. For a brief time in the mid-1990s I coached high-school rugby and again loved watching young people realize their potential. When my oldest daughter Anna won a regional voice award and earned her pilot’s license at eighteen, when my middle daughters earned national Tae Kwon Do titles and represented Team USA at the world championships in South Korea, I felt the quiet joy of having given them a home in which confidence could grow. When our children gradually left the nest in Port Ludlow, I tried the things I thought I had missed—sailboats, motorcycles, hanging out with friends. Yet in the early-morning hours of meditation and prayer I realized something           essential: I find my purpose in in recognizing the needs of others and seeking to apply myself for their benefit. I carry a philosophy of service grounded in objective values that I believe orient both myself and those around me. I felt I could offer that philosophy, together with the administrative skills I have gained, to Jefferson County. When the Jefferson County Republican Party first asked me to run in 2022, I declined. The county is heavily Democratic, and the request seemed unrealistic. When the invitation came again in the spring of 2026, I was working in a Hawaii office of the firm whose local office I managed. I took a few days to examine the county’s economic landscape. What I found concerned me. While Jefferson County is generally well managed, a governing philosophy has become deeply entrenched. There appears to be a shift away from fostering economic growth and job creation, coupled with a religious-like zeal to an unusually restrictive Critical Areas Ordinance. At the same time, I saw a growing tendency toward expanding government oversight, increasing reliance on grants and public programs, and building a larger administrative structure to manage that dependence. Those trends convinced me that the county would benefit from a broader discussion about economic opportunity, private-sector growth, and the long-term sustainability of public policy. I do not see how the next generation can maintain a sense of hope and opportunity for personal advancement under the philosophy that currently pervades our county. I believe in the principles of our Republic: a free-market economy in which government’s primary role is to provide a stable framework that enables individuals to realize their potential through hard work, innovation, and personal initiative. This revolutionary philosophy has served as the foundation of prosperous and free societies throughout history. I am concerned that many of our high school graduates see few opportunities for upward mobility within our community. Unless they come from families already employed in government or possess credentials that public institutions happen to value, many young people are left with service-sector jobs that offer limited prospects for meaningful economic advancement. As a result, talented and ambitious young adults may feel compelled to leave the community in search of opportunities elsewhere, diminishing both their future and ours. Having grown up surrounded by persistent messages of societal and environmental catastrophe, I understand their influence firsthand. I also observed the toll these narratives took on many young people who embraced them wholeheartedly, only to find that the architects and advocates of these social experiments rarely shared in the sacrifices or hardships that resulted from them. I am offering the administrative skills I have gathered over a lifetime. They are not sufficient by themselves to finish the entire task, but I believe they are strong enough to begin moving the needle—from dependency toward hope in an economic future where personal advancement is possible through hard work and free enterprise. I ask the people of Jefferson County to look at the young people coming out of our local schools and to consider the thoughts those students carry as they try to imagine a future here. Should we really be inciting them to become revolutionaries when the possibility still exists for them to achieve their dreams through principled leadership? Our country has never been perfect, yet our system of governance has prevailed in maintaining what remains the greatest nation on earth and has allowed many of the wrongs of the past to be corrected from within. I am running for Jefferson County Commissioner, District 3, because I believe I can dedicate myself, with you, to economic renewal—not for ourselves, but for the children among us. Our high-school seniors are our assets. They deserve the gift of hope that with hard work and ingenuity they can build a future for themselves right here in Jefferson County. I humbly ask you to consider hiring me as your servant for an economic philosophy of renewal.