Ulises Infante, a candidate for Grant County clerk, currently works in that office, and his desire to help people is what drives him.
Infante said he grew up in Brewster and has lived in Grant County for more than 10 years. He worked in banking for close to five years, some of that time in Quincy. Currently, he is an interpreter and collections deputy at the county clerk’s office.
“Something I like to reiterate is I genuinely do care, I have a passion for service. I like serving my community, I like serving people,” Infante said in an interview with the Post-Register.
He is also involved at the county level as the second vice president of Grant County Public Employees Association, the union for county employees, he said. And, he is chairperson for the county’s Health and Wellness Committee, which makes recommendations to the board of commissioners about the county’s health plan.
He said for the past four years he has been president of Upper Columbia Basin Habitat for Humanity, an organization is that undergoing a name change. He helps lead the Quincy Spanish Assembly of God, he said, and he serves on the board of Moses Lake Community Health Center.
This is the first time he has run for an elected office.
He said he was drawn to run for the county clerk position to serve a larger portion of the community, helping people who are in, most of the time with their interactions with the clerk’s office, “in some difficult situations.”
If elected, he said, “every change I’d want to make would be rooted in service, to the office and the departments in the county.”
One idea is to change the office hours to be open during the noon hour, “to accommodate people who have the same work hours as us.”
He would also seek to serve the other county offices, such as the prosecutor and public defense offices, he said.
Asked to name an aspect of his leadership style, he called it servant-leadership, “where we are not standing on the side, telling people what to do or to do things, we demonstrate it and help when possible.”
One of his strengths, he said, is being able to say he doesn’t have an answer at the moment but will say “let’s find out.”
“Something I have shown in my work is I am willing to learn and talk with others and work together,” he said.
He said he would be honored to be voters’ choice “because I am the right candidate that has that passion for service that goes beyond mere work experience. I believe in being surrounded by people who don’t just think the same way I do but that can also challenge me to look at things from a different angle and propose different solutions and ideas.
And, working in the office now, he said he can see its strengths and weaknesses.
“I believe that it is time for a change, and that I am the candidate that can build on what has been established and lead us into the future,” he said.
Voters can contact Infante at uinfante@ulisesinfante.com.