Four candidates to interview for Lake Stevens mayor
Published 1:30 am Saturday, June 6, 2026
EVERETT — Four candidates will interview Wednesday to fill the open Lake Stevens mayor position.
On May 12, the Lake Stevens City Council voted on 10 candidates, with four receiving enough votes to advance to the interview process. The interviews will occur in front of the public 6 p.m. in The Mill, 1808 Main St. in Lake Stevens.
After which, the council will choose a new mayor.
The candidates are former City Council member and fire captain Kurt Hilt, retired Everett Deputy Police Chief Jeraud Irving, current City Council member and Amazon adviser Brian McManus and former City Council member and real estate business owner Gary Petershagen.
Currently, City Council President Anji Jorstad is mayor pro tem. The previous mayor, Brett Gailey, resigned from the role April 13.
Kurt Hilt
Hilt is a captain with South County Fire, where he has worked for 27 years. He was elected to the Lake Stevens City Council in 2015. Toward the end of his four-year term, he ran for mayor against Gailey but was unsuccessful.
Last year, when City Council member Marcus Tangeant unexpectedly died, Hilt was appointed to fill the empty seat.
“I stepped away and was happy to step away, I think I proved that, but I also want to help my city,” Hilt said in an interview. “I still want to be engaged.’
Hilt would focus on using his experience as a City Council member, going through several budget cycles, to help the “somewhat gloomy” economic forecast for the city, he said.
“We have spent through our reserves,” he said. “You have to fund police, you have to fund some of those essential services, but it may not necessarily be cutting, but would certainly be no more growth in staff.”
Hilt is also prepared to fight against the Growth Management Act, he said. The state is mandating growth but the residents voted against growth in the last City Council election, Hilt said.
“It becomes important then for that mayor and for all of the mayors to go to the legislature and our legislators and say, ‘This just does not work,’” Hilt said. “What doesn’t work specifically isn’t the Growth Management Act, it’s the Growth Management Act’s perspective that one size fits all.”
Also, there is an opportunity at the local level to amend city codes to allow smaller apartment buildings rather than the “humongous unmanageable apartment complexes” that residents dislike, Hilt said.
If he is not chosen, Hilt is likely to run for mayor in 2027, he said.
“I’m certainly going to entertain that, you know, this is a full-time position, and I’m also on the verge of retiring from South County Fire,” Hilt said.
It’s also likely he will run if he is chosen by the City Council, he said.
“It’s not that I don’t want to be committal,” Hilt said. “As long as I felt that this is something I was enjoying and I was able to be effective at, then yeah, absolutely I would.”
Jeraud Irving
Irving worked for the Everett Police Department for 27 years and retired as Deputy Police Chief in January 2025. He was also an American Red Cross board member until February of this year.
“My life has evolved around public service,” Jeraud Irving said. “I’ve always had a passion for working in the community and helping the community.”
His career in law enforcement gave him the ability to lead and be a voice for the community, he said.
“Even though I retired I still feel I have the ability to work hard and lead from the front,” Irving said.
Working as police chief gave him the opportunity to work closely with Everett Mayor Cassie Franklin, he said. From her, he gained insight and wisdom he would bring to the role of Lake Stevens mayor.
“She was instrumental in being able to get me on the path of understanding how it is to run a city,” Irving said. “I do have the ability to look at the bigger picture and make decisions that are best serving our community.”
His first priority would be public safety and funding room in the budget to put patrol officers in a boat on the lake, he said.
“Having that ability to be out there seven days a week and protect our motoring public on the water is very important to me,” Irving said.
He would also bring in additional resources and find new ways to help those going through a mental health crisis, Irving said.
“I just need to have a better understanding of what is needed from our community and the city as a whole,” Irving said. “I don’t want to go in there with a mind that I’m going to make changes right away. I need to understand exactly what things are working well and what can be improved.”
If he were to be appointed, he would definitely run for election in 2027, Irving said. However, if he is not appointed, he’s not sure if he’d run.
He would need to understand why he wasn’t chosen, how he could improve and what set the chosen candidate apart, he said.
“I just have to take a step back and say, ‘OK, what worked and what can I improve on that would allow me to take that next step,’” he said.
“I look forward to this opportunity to be able to be a part of the community of Lake Stevens and show that leadership that I’ve had and I continue to carry with me and utilize all my training and experience to the betterment of our city,” Irving said.
Brian McManus
McManus owns Lake Stevens Brewing Company and is a Senior Adviser at Amazon Business. He was elected to the City Council in last year’s election, beating incumbent Petershagen.
Many of his constituents wanted him to run for mayor, McManus said in an interview, but it was Lake Stevens City Administrator Gene Brazel who talked him into it.
“That was kind of a non-endorsement endorsement, if you will,” McManus said. “He stays neutral, but he really encouraged me to throw my name in.”
McManus wants to be mayor because he would have more autonomy, he said.
The mayor’s job is to “make the strong business case as to why we should do certain things as a city,” McManus said. “I really know how to broker deals, if you will. Like, get the right point across, the right information, and let everybody make a good decision.”
He will maintain the same priorities he has as a City Council member, McManus said, first of which is being fiscally conservative.
“Try to keep to a budget that’s not only going to be managed by our revenue projections,” he said, “but also maybe comes in a little bit under that, so we have a little bit of a rainy day fund.”
He also hopes to resolve the city’s dispute with the Lake Stevens Sewer Commission, McManus said.
Also, he wants to stop focusing so much on growth and instead get “our infrastructure set up to handle the influx of new citizens,” McManus said. “We’ve kind of hit our population levels that we have to hit by 2044, or very close to it.”
By 2044, Lake Stevens’ population goal is 48,565, according to the city’s Comprehensive Plan. It’s current population is more than 42,000 people.
It was always McManus’ goal to get on council, learn from the experience and then run for mayor, he said. If he is not selected this time around, he will run in 2027.
If he is selected, the city council will follow its process to appoint a new member to fill his seat.
Gary Petershagen
Petershagen served for nine years on the Lake Stevens City Council. He was appointed in 2016 and was reelected twice before losing to McManus last year. He owns a real estate development business and a business that provides inspection services to the construction lending industry.
He wants to be mayor to bring experience to a relatively new city council, Petershagen said in an interview.
“None of the four new members, including Council Member Packard, have served in any capacity in the city for a great deal of time,” he said. “I just felt with my experience that I could bring some context to the discussion. There’s a lot of things that are taking place that did not happen overnight.”
During his time on the council, he observed both mayors, John Spencer and Brett Gailey, and saw how to empower staff to get work done without micromanagement, Petershagen said. Also, he can bring his experience as a business owner to the role, he said.
“The council that is in place right now, from a business perspective, I think the knowledge there is not as deep as it should be,” Petershagen said.
Without going through the ups and downs of business, it is easy to be overreactive rather than see the bigger picture, he said.
“I do think that is kind of taking place a little bit within the city,” Petershagen said. “We have a couple of council members that think the city budget is in crisis and that’s not the case.”
Petershagen would focus on improving the city’s infrastructure to allow for development, he said. Even though, “that in itself cannot be solved by one person.”
He would also make the U.S. 2 trestle and Highway 9 improvements a priority, Petershagen said.
“The only way that those particular items are going to be addressed is through regional cooperation, coalition building with the communities that surround us,” he said. “Those issues are big issues and they cannot be solved by one community alone.”
Overall, he wants to maintain Lake Stevens’ high quality of life, Petershagen said.
If her were to be appointed, he is not sure he’d run for election in 2027, he said.
“I’m focused on carrying forward what Mayor Gailey and Spencer have put in place and keep the city moving forward. Time will tell as to what options there are, and so forth, but at this point I’m not even thinking about it,” Petershagen said.
If he is not appointed, he will not seek election in 2027, he said.
Taylor Scott Richmond: 425-339-3046; taylor.richmond@heraldnet.com; X: @BTayOkay
