Familiar faces win Everett City Council, Port of Everett races

EVERETT — After a short time off the Everett City Council, it looks like Scott Bader will return.

Bader, who previously served on the council for almost a decade, was ahead with 59.1% of the vote Tuesday night. His opponent, Demi Chatters, garnered 40.6%.

On Wednesday, Bader said he was grateful for the support from voters and for their choice to keep the council moderate.

“I think that’ll serve us well with the challenges ahead for Everett,” he said, “especially in regards to public safety.”

Over email, Chatters noted votes were still being counted but said “based on the turn out so far, it is possible that Everett will not get the representation and problem solving that we need to build the future that we deserve.”

She added she was proud of her campaign and thankful to volunteers and supporters.

In the race for Position 7, incumbent Judy Tuohy was far ahead of Judith Martinez.

Both council positions are at-large seats and come with a four-year term.

And in the Port of Everett commissioner race, incumbent Tom Stiger seemed to have successfully fended off challenger Bob Champion.

City Council

Position 6

Bader, 59, diverged from Chatters on key issues, including the city’s “no sit, no lie” law. In 2021, he supported the first “no sit” ordinance, which prohibited sitting or lying down in an area around the Everett Gospel Mission in 2021.

For Bader, supporting first-responders is key to securing public safety. He believes the city should give police and social workers legal tools to tell people on the street: “You can’t live this way, we need to get you in treatment.”

Chatters, 48, disagreed with the expansion of the “no sit” ordinance earlier this year. In her view, Everett needs more than police response to deal with the city’s homelessness problems.

The crisis is “really a function of a lack of planning to create space for our community over time,” she said. She wanted to ensure the city’s land use and zoning policies allow for “gentle density in our neighborhood spaces.”

Chatters, who ran for City Council in 2021, is the director of operations at a Seattle law firm. Bader is the director of parish financial services for the Catholic Church Archdiocese of Seattle.

Position 7

Tuohy, who led with 63.7% of the vote, was first elected to the council in 2014. She is the executive director of the Schack Art Center.

Martinez, who was trailing with 35.4%, is a public safety specialist with the Snohomish County Public Utilities District and a member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 77.

Like Bader and Chatters, the candidates for Position 7 also disagreed on “no sit.”

Martinez, 40, said the council was “lacking that empathy” when it voted for the expanded law. Tuohy, 69, was among those who voted for it.

However, both stressed the importance of affordable housing.

Tuohy’s solutions included providing incentives to developers to build, as well as funding nonprofit housing projects. Affordable housing is an even bigger problem than many realize, she argued.

“We see the unsheltered population, but we don’t see the people that can’t afford to live in their apartment” and “have a friend or a family member that they can go stay with,” she said.

Martinez mentioned the Norton playfield project, a proposal for a supportive housing complex that never came to fruition due to zoning restrictions, as an example of a form of housing the city should be supporting.

Port of Everett

Stiger led with 62.9% of the vote to Champion’s 36.7%. The pair were competing to represent District 2, covering the Mukilteo waterfront and some of southwest Everett.

The position has a six-year-term and pays $23,916 annually. Commissioners shape port policy and appoint its executive director. Stiger has had the job for two terms, plus a prior stint representing District 3.

Champion, 68, is a former Mukilteo City Council member who spent 40 years as an aerospace scientist and executive at Honeywell. He ran in part on environmental awareness, saying commissioners should weigh the impact of potential port development in their decisions. Strengthening relations with Boeing and determining the next steps for a former NOAA property in Mukilteo were other top priorities.

Stiger, 84, said in an earlier interview he would prioritize “economic development and job creation.” Mukilteo waterfront development, a collaboration between the port and the city of Mukilteo and expanding the international shipping terminal also loomed large. He worked in education for almost three decades.

Sophia Gates: 425-339-3035; sophia.gates@heraldnet.com; Twitter: @SophiaSGates.