A first-time office seeker will try and unseat incumbent Rosemary McAuliffe in the 1st Legislative District’s state Senate race.
Jason Bontrager (R-Bothell) owns his own real estate investment firm and has been active in local Republican circles, including serving as a precinct committee officer. McAuliffe (D-Bothell) has been in the state Senate since 1993 and served on the Northshore School Board for 14 years before that.
McAuliffe said she is seeking a third Senate term because she is “just at a point where I want to finish what I started.”
In that area she wants to see various education reforms enacted during her time in Olympia come to complete fruition, such as the requirement for students to pass the 10th grade Washington Assessment of Student Learning in order to graduate. In addition, she wants to see the state adopt alternative assessments to assess those students for whom the WASL is not the best test of learning.
“I want to ensure all students can be assessed properly,” said McAuliffe, the ranking minority member of the Senate education committee.
Bontrager, meanwhile, opposes using the WASL as a graduation requirement, but feels the test is useful. He also opposes the way the test is graded, saying it’s too “subjective.”
“There cannot be any gray area (on WASL scoring),” Bontrager said.
McAuliffe also said funding education is a huge priority for her, and that the state is “almost there” in terms of finding a stable funding source.
Bontrager wants to focus more tax money into the classroom, which includes “adequate” pay for teachers and ensuring teachers get the best benefits possible. He says too much tax money is tied up in what he calls “the rafters” of education bureaucracy.
Education also figures prominently into McAuliffe’s business plan. She said that jobs are available, but that not enough workers are knowledgeable in the growing fields, which she said are medical, biotech and services. To that end, she wants to emphasize worker retraining programs.
For Bontrager, the key to economic development is tax incentives and eliminating “useless” regulations that he says hamper business growth.
Another goal of McAuliffe is to make sure community and technical colleges have the space to handle more students. One solution to the problem of enrollment slots at four-year colleges being taken up is to build a fly-over off-ramp in Bothell from Highway 522 to serve the campus of Cascadia Community College and the University of Washington, Bothell.
Under an agreement the state has with the city of Bothell, the campus can only accept so many students until a traffic solution is in place. Once a solution to allow traffic to flow is in place, the college can expand and accept more students.
“We have the money in place to do it,” McAuliffe said of the estimated $8 million cost.
Bontrager believes tuition increases at community colleges, including one that took effect for the current fall quarter, are unfair and cut off access to higher education. He said if tuition is raised, then additional financial aid should be made available for students.
McAuliffe also wants to look at reforming the state tax system, including the business and occupation tax that has been so unpopular with business interests. She says the key is not to tackle the entire issue of tax reform at once but to look at various aspects, get public input and make a decision on reform.
Bontrager also opposes the current business and occupation tax, and he would like to see it either reduced or eliminated. He believes doing so can actually help the state financially in the long run, with companies investing the tax savings into equipment and employees, which can lead to greater tax revenues for the state via other revenue sources.
On transportation, McAuliffe sees a need to finish projects on time and on budget, and to not only include roads in the plan, but also transit, including rail.
Bontrager believes building more roads in the short term will help alleviate congestion, but suggested that the region plan now for more mass transit. His proposal is to have public agencies begin purchasing right-of-way to build future transit projects, whereas Sound Transit’s commuter rail projects have been subjected to getting right-of-way access to rail lines by the Burlington Northern-Santa Fe Railroad. He says the region currently doesn’t have the population base to support a mass transit system, but acknowledges that planning should begin now.
“It’s a great idea, but it’s the wrong decade,” he said about transit. “Why is it we’re buying rail cars if the infrastructure is not in place?”
The 1st Legislative District includes the cities of Brier, Bothell, most of Mountlake Terrace and the Lake Ballinger area of Edmonds. It also serves the Martha Lake and Thrasher’s Corner areas as well.
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