By The Herald Editorial Board
Marysville voters will determine the winners for four seats on a city council that serves a city of more than 72,000 people, the second-largest city in Snohomish County. While Marysville enjoys relatively stronger financial stability than other cities in Snohomish County at the moment, it still faces challenges in providing infrastructure and housing that meets the demands of recent growth; growth that poses its own challenges to the city’s character.
Marysville voters enjoy a slate of community-minded candidates focused on providing good government and representation who are seeking election to the city council.
Position 1
Peter Condyles, who was appointed to the council in July 2022 to fill a vacancy and won election to complete the term in 2023, is challenged by John Snow, who previously ran last year for the state Senate seat for the 39th Legislative District.
Condyles is a land use and economic development project manager for an Everett company. He previously served on the city’s task force on growth management and its community development block grant committee. With a degree in history, Condyles is president of the city’s historical society and a board member on the county heritage organization.
Snow is a 13-year Navy veteran, medically retiring as a petty officer, first class, with experience in budgeting, logistics, personal management and leadership. He, too, has a degree in history, minoring in criminal justice. He is active as an advocate for veterans and civic engagement and helped organize the city’s first Pride celebration.
Condyles, who serves on the council’s finance and economic development panels, also represents the city with Snohomish County Tomorrow. He’s running, he said, to serve three principles: to protect, promote and preserve, guiding his work on public safety; responsible budgeting, spending and investment; and community beautification.
Addressing its infrastructure needs, Condyles noted the city worked with developers on fee permit increases that provide revenue for those needs but remain among the lowest cost fees in the county.
Managing growth and providing adequate opportunity for more housing will be a major challenge for the city, Condyles said, but the city is addressing that by seeking community feedback to fit that guidance alongside state requirements. Key to that feedback, he said, has been the city’s recent meetings among its 11 neighborhoods where it can provide greater detail on plans for public works and more.
Snow said he’s running to offer leadership and teamwork skills he developed in the Navy. His main goal, he said, is to keep money in the local economy, recirculating and supporting locally owned businesses and families. He listed public safety as a priority, keeping streets safe by addressing the issues that can lead to crime.
Snow is supportive of recent state legislation to approve housing construction and affordability and would like to find appropriate areas and methods for increasing housing density.
Snow, who is a Lakewood resident, said some outlying residents can feel a little removed from the city. Along with the neighborhood meetings, one potential for outreach, he said, would be to city’s young adults and youths by establishing a Marysville Discord channel, a social network group chat for their communication with officials and themselves. Additionally, Snow has backed establishment of a municipal broadband network to improve internet access for all city residents and businesses.
Snow offers voters a reasoned, skilled and principled candidate, who noted that even where he and Condyles might disagree on various proposals they still share overall goals for the city.
Condyles’ appreciation for and work on local history adds to the perspective he provides to the council and community. In his late 20s, he remains the youngest member of the council, but has in a few years used those perspectives as well as his knowledge of development and land use to the city’s benefit. Condyles merits a full term on the council.
Position 2
Mark James, who is seeking his third term on the council, is challenged by Chris Davis.
James, an Army veteran, local business owner and long-time resident, has an advanced certificate of municipal leadership from the Association of Washington Cities. He previously served on the county planning commission and the Marysville Police Foundation as its chair and as a volunteer with the Citizen Emergency Response Team.
Davis, a disabled Navy veteran, has been an active volunteer in his children’s schools and has assisted with the school district’s levy campaigns. He also is a youth and family support advocate through the Faith Action Network, other nonprofits and is an outreach chaplain with the Lutheran Church.
Davis said his main interest in running for council has been his concern for adequate affordable housing and other costs of living. He’s supportive of recent state legislation and the city’s own ordinances on housing, but still wants to see more done on housing and cost of living concerns, especially for seniors.
James said he’s running for a third term to continue a focus on keeping city taxes reasonable, keeping the budget balanced and maintaining public safety as top priorities. James said the city has made progress in recent years with infrastructure, including the First Street bypass, improvements to State Avenue and the expansion of the city’s parks and trails, while keeping the city financially strong and without taking the 1 percent property tax increase the city is allowed, instead keeping that in reserve.
The city’s financial management, James said, has allowed it to bank a reserve of about 17 percent of the budget, and a restructuring of its investment portfolio has added about $1 million to the city’s general fund. At the same time, a 0.2 percent sales tax for the city’s transportation benefit district is helping to support maintenance work. Even with the sales tax addition, he said, the city’s sales tax remains among the county’s lowest rates.
Davis agreed that the city’s finance team and legal department have done fantastic work, and a balanced budget is a necessity, but he said he supported more city investment, using more of its tax capacity and schedule of impact fees for roads, sidewalks and other infrastructure work, housing and more.
Davis suggests opening more opportunity for mixed housing and retail developments, in particular for the city’s northern neighborhoods and wants to see some cooperative efforts with the county housing authority and the Tulalip Tribes.
James says the city is seeing a good deal of housing construction that offers more choice, including middle housing, but the city needs to take care to balance that mix of housing, while easing land-use regulations without lowering community standards.
Davis also suggested, from his vantage as a chaplain, his concern for the mental health of the city’s police officers, especially after dealing with more emotionally demanding calls. He would like to see a mental health program for officers following traumatic incidents.
Davis’ concern for residents and desire to serve is clear.
James, however, has built a record of service and fair consideration of varied viewpoints on issues in his two terms that has been valuable to the council. Voters should keep James on the council.
Position 3
The decision by current city council member Tom King not to seek reelection prompted five candidates to file for the office, resulting in a primary election that ended with Dan Perkins and Amber Cantu as the the top-two candidates. Prior to the primary election, the editorial board recommended Perkins, a retired Marysville elementary teacher, for the council seat.
Position 4
Michael Stevens, first appointed to the city council in the fall of 2010 is seeking his fifth four-year term on the council, and is challenged by Lauran Tapp.
Stevens, currently serving as council president, is an architect, with previous service on the city’s planning commission. He holds advanced municipal leadership certification from the Association of Washington Cities. A deacon in his church, he has also volunteered with Citizens for Marysville Schools.
Stevens, currently the council’s longest-serving member, said he first sought appointment to the council, offering his perspective of a young father. He’s seen changes and growth in the city since then, and said he wants to continue to offer his guidance on that growth as well as maintaining a good quality of life for families.
Tapp, born in north Seattle but attending schools in Marysville, lived in three other states before returning to Marysville. Tapp works as director of student engagement for Columbia College at Naval Station Everett. Previously she worked at Cascadia College and the University of Washington and was a staff analyst for Boeing’s “Structures University.” She volunteers with Mercy Watch, providing aid to homeless individuals.
Tapp said she’s running to serve interests in housing and affordability, community planning, public safety and promotion of family-wage jobs. She believes her background in higher education can contribute to those and other discussions.
Tapp believes the city has responded well in encouraging and facilitating housing construction, but said there could have been more foresight in planning for traffic and other infrastructure needs around that growth. She said she’d like to see some study on where and what the city’s housing needs are, with concern for providing more opportunities for home ownership, which she sees as key to building personal wealth.
Stevens shared his concern for housing affordability, especially for young adults like his own children. He also advised an opportunity to assess what recent state and local changes have brought, and whether adjustments are needed. He supports recent changes that will make it easier for the county housing authority to be more competitive in the development market.
Regarding response to transportation needs, Stevens said cities do have to deal with situations — when city limits and urban growth areas expand into developed areas — where the city has to deal with existing development and infrastructure. Retrofitting traffic control and roads takes more effort than starting from scratch. Still, he said, it’s an exciting time for transportation in the city, especially with planning underway for Community Transit’s Swift Gold Line, connecting Everett, Marysville and Arlington, which will serve the growing center of family-wage jobs in north Marysville.
Tapp offers voters an opportunity to add the representation of an additional woman to the council, and one with a perspective of service developed in the higher education field. She’s well focused on needs vital to the Marysville community.
Stevens, however, offers a breadth of service and institutional knowledge of the city, matched only by Mayor Jon Nehring, whom Stevens succeeded following Nehring’s appointment in 2010. Voters should retain Stevens and his experienced hand.
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