Keep current members on Snohomish City Council

Published 1:30 am Thursday, September 18, 2025

The city of Snohomish has an important election coming up in November of this year with four of seven council seats up as well as the mayor. I served on council from 2020 to 2024. What I know about our current city government is that they understand the separation of powers between the executive branch (mayor and staff) and the legislative branch (council). They demonstrate what it means to be a representational government by utilizing extensive community outreach and council meetings to understand community sentiment and make decisions accordingly.

Our government faces a risk by replacing a majority of our government with inexperienced candidates who have a clear bias on issues who are presenting biased and incomplete information in their campaigns.

The city campus is a hot topic, understandably. It’s expensive. What the council and mayoral challengers aren’t including in their campaign rhetoric is that the cost of maintaining the current aging city buildings in 20 years will come close to the cost of a new campus. That the public works site has to move by 2027 as its in the flood plain. That the new campus combined with the fire district greatly enhances emergency response in the event of a large disaster.

The first street master plan began to address long deferred maintenance (100-year-old pipes have and are failing in multiple locations across the city) and is still in the planning stages. The city, in an effort to be fair and representational, started a citizen advisory committee that is in the process of analyzing all of the plans and options.

While I for one always enjoy a fresh perspective I feel that a change of government this significant is not warranted.

Donna Ray

Snohomish