Incumbent Snohomish County Council member Dave Gossett faces a challenge in the Nov. 8 election from a Bothell-area woman making her first bid for public office.
Eva Davies, a Republican, is a native of Germany, a mother of nine and been involved in grassroots activities through the Republican party and various campaigns, such as John Carlson’s gubernatorial bid in 2000.
Gossett, D-Mountlake Terrace, has served on the County Council since 2001. Prior to that he served 12 years on the Mountlake Terrace City Council and served as Mayor for six years.
Gossett believes that keeping up with infrastructure demands, such as roads and parks, is the greatest challenge facing county government.
“In the future we have to be very creative,” he said. “The bottom line with traffic is we need to spend money. If the voters don’t want to spend money, we have to be creative and look at finding fixes to traffic choke points.”
Davies believes voters will approve Initiative 912, revoking the state gas tax increase. She believes the solution lies in the private sector, although during an interview she did not offer any specific solutions.
“We can’t go into the taxpayer pockets deeper and deeper,” Davies said. “We will have to work with what we have. The voters won’t give us any more money.”
Davies has a similar private sector approach in terms of dealing with the county budget. Since the overwhelming majority of the budget is devoted to law enforcement, Davies said she wants to “inspire the public” to help with law enforcement so that the county won’t have to “raise taxes.”
Gossett says he would like to shift the focus of the sheriff’s office to crime prevention rather than just sending people to jail, but he admits that solution is a long-term one. Instead, he wants to see the county place a greater emphasis on infrastructure in its budget.
“We have to find ways to get us something today,” Gossett said. “It may not be perfect, but it has to be usable.”
Gossett says he is supportive of adding more deputies to the sheriff’s office, and he wants to add more based not on number of officers per 1,000 residents served, but rather, based on response times.
“The fact is, we have some people who live way out there,” he said.
Davies said she doesn’t know how many deputies are needed, and that living near the King-Snohomish county line, it takes “a long time to get an officer down there.” She said she would like to find the money in the county budget to add more deputies.
On growth, Davies says she wants to see the county add and improve roads before growth goes into areas. She also wants to ensure that when the county allows apartments to be built, that the apartments fit into neighborhoods.
“We don’t want to build ghettos,” she said. “I lived in one in Germany and that’s no fun.”
Gossett said the county must improve its planning and design standards because cities want areas to be of a particular quality before potentially annexing them.
“We have to make sure that if we want Bothell or Mill Creek to annex an area we have to make sure we meet (those cities) standards,” Gossett said.
In terms of economic development, Gossett said he would like the county to begin streamlining its permit process.
“We have to have a system that is timely and predictable,” he said. “I think that will help greatly with attracting businesses to Snohomish County.”
Davies, meanwhile, is a proponent of building a four-year college for Snohomish County. She is also advocating easing up on rules, regulations and fees so as to entice businesses to relocate here.
Both candidates, meanwhile, are reluctant to open Paine Field to commercial flights.
“Personally, I’d love to fly out of Paine Field, but it has to work for everybody,” Davies said. “We need to make sure some places don’t encounter extra noise when planes take off and land. Maybe we can have planes fly to the west more to avoid giving residents more airplane noise?”
Gossett, meanwhile, says there is nothing the county can legally do to keep an airline from offering flights from Paine Field, but said there are deterrents available to the county.
“If somebody wants to come, they can come. But we don’t have to provide them with publically-funded infrastructure,” Gossett said. “I don’t think we should spend money on it.
“I think it’s unwise, unfair and a betrayal to the community.”
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