The two challengers running against Rep. Mary Helen Roberts, D-Edmonds, have very different reasons for doing so.
Republican Brian Travis of Lynnwood said he’s concerned about traffic and property taxes and has specific ideas for helping on both.
Douglas Kerley, also a Republican from Lynnwood, has ideas on foster care and education. Unlike Travis, he’s specifically targeting Roberts.
In the state’s new primary system, the top two vote-getters in the primary advance to the general election, regardless of party. The 21st District covers Mukilteo and most of Edmonds and Lynnwood.
Kerley, 58, doesn’t believe the two-term incumbent, who is serving as vice chairwoman of two committees in the House of Representatives in charge of social services, has done enough to improve the foster care system in the state.
“Foster children are already behind the eight ball,” said Kerley, retired from his job in maintenance on computers for the U.S. Postal Service. “This is not a good situation to begin with, but when you compound it by placing (children) in homes without proper supervision, it opens a panorama of all kinds of problems. She’s had the votes in the Legislature and has effectively done nothing,” he said.
Roberts said Kerley is wrong, that she has supported some reforms to the foster care system and that others are in the works. The functions of different agencies related to foster children are being combined and better coordinated, she said.
A new law requires that every child in foster care be visited by a caseworker once a month, she said. Their visits now are more focused on helping parents and the children, she said, as opposed to enforcement or removing the child from home.
“A lot of change needs to be made, and sometimes change is slower and more difficult than you want,” she said.
She sponsored a successful bill to extend Medicaid benefits to all foster children until age 21.
Roberts, 60, ran a small business importing folk art from China and southeast Asia before she was elected to the Legislature in 2004.
In Olympia, Roberts focuses on issues related to children and education. She raised children in the Mukilteo School District.
“I feel a lot I did in my community as a parent, and that has made a big difference in how I perceive issues and what I have chosen as my priorities,” she said.
She also serves on the House Higher Education Committee and is combining efforts in the two areas by pushing for expanding funding for child care on college campuses, she said.
In other issues, she’d like to see more use of drug courts as alternatives to jail time and is supportive of environmental causes, including extending state help for public transit whenever possible, she said.
Travis, 33, works for New Concepts in Marketing, which promotes food and household sundry products, he said.
Traffic remedies should focus on adding buses and expanding freeways and roads, he said.
“We should abandon the fantasy of light rail, not spend another dollar on it,” he said. Travis also said the state should have an elected commissioner of transportation who can “bypass the local regulations and local entanglements.”
Travis also calls for $50,000 to be cut from the assessed value of every home to provide property tax relief.
Kerley said that regarding education, one hand often is not talking to the other.
“We need to coordinate the programs between the high school level and college level for continuity and cash savings purposes, so we are not paying twice for the same thing,” he said.
Kerley describes himself as a “mainstream Republican. I’m not a tight right anti-abortion Republican out there,” he said. “I believe in unions and an individual’s freedom and right to choose.”
Douglas Ivar Kerley
Age: 58
Hometown: Lynnwood
Party: Republican
Experience: Former union steward, American Postal Workers Union; former board member, Snohomish County Labor Council.
Mary Helen Roberts
Age: 60
Hometown: Edmonds
Party: Democrat
Experience: Represented the 21st District in the state House of Representatives since 2004; former member of the Edmonds Community College Board of Trustees; co-founder and former chairwoman of the Children’s Campaign Fund, a political action committee; past executive director of the Washington State Women’s Council; House Appropriations Committee analyst.
Brian M. Travis
Age: 33
Hometown: Lynnwood
Party: Republican
Experience: Current Republican precinct committee officer
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