City Council Candidates Answer Questions from the Chamber

The Chamber makes it a point to be at the heart of important issues like workforce development, quality of life, and civic engagement. That said, the Chamber is not a political action committee and does not endorse candidates. The Chamber is an independent organization led by the private sector. We provide nonpartisan information and host community education and outreach opportunities because we believe people have a right to know what candidates for public office believe about issues that affect our community. It is our goal to give every citizen the ability to learn more about policy making candidates and encourage you to get out and vote.

There are seven people running for seats on the City of Shelton Council. (See a list of candidates who have filed for all positions.) Each candidate was invited to answer four questions posed by the Chamber. We hope these responses shine a light on their values and perspectives so you may begin to understand their viewpoints and make informed voting choices.

Note: The Chamber will not host a candidate forum for the August 1 Primary since only one race has more than two candidates.

Candidates for Council Member No. 1

Mary Eagleson

What do you believe to be the role of a city councilmember and what makes you an ideal candidate? I feel the roll of a councilmember is to put the interests of the people and city of Shelton first on their list of priorities.
I have always thought of what this city needs and what we can do for the people as a priority in my life here. And since we have a city council because of me, I believe that proves I care about this city.

The City is facing significant financial challenges and tough decisions will need to be made. What increases to revenue or reductions to expenses might you propose to address this reality?
As far as revenue goes we need more homes in our city. Without knowing just what all the expenses are that our city has I cannot tell you what reductions need to be made at the moment. But according to the last couple of council meetings I have notices that cuts are and have been made to help with the budget. Beyond that I cannot give a definitive answer.

What are your top policy proposals aimed at mitigating and preventing homelessness?
I feel we need to do everything we can to come up with a way to have an institution built with different sections in it so that many of these homeless people can get the help they need. If you can get them help and train many who are will to have a productive life then maybe we wouldn’t have so many people on the streets. But we would need medical people willing to work in this kind of profession.

If the City received a $1 million grant to use for any purpose, what would you do with it and why?
Well, first I would see what is the most important problem that is needed to be tended to in the city. Then the first thing I would spend money on is more police in this city. And with my way of thinking I would spend on getting undercover police so we can try to find out where these people are getting the guns and drugs in this town, so that people could once again feel safe walking down our streets.
Without being part of the city planning committee, it is hard to say what else I would spend the money on. We have many streets in this town which also need replacing but that is a large expense.

Tristen Smith

What do you believe to be the role of a city councilmember and what makes you an ideal candidate?
To an outsider, it may seem that the role of being on the City Council is easy. You get a government sized budget to make the city better, and everyone has the best idea of how to spend it. Unfortunately, running a city isn’t easy. Not only does the city council have to approve and help budget for our annual festivals and provide spaces for events, but they have to keep the city clean and organized while dealing with a growing population of unhoused individuals. Then there are the parts many people don’t even want to think of: urban planning, population density, aging infrastructure, sewers, water, emergency services, roads, libraries, public services, the police department, upholding the codes and bylaws and so much more.
It takes a strong individual to want to tackle all of the issues our city faces, and I am that individual. I have worked in high-intensity retail environments with all sorts of personalities and backgrounds. I have a tendency to listen carefully to the ideas and opinions of others and come up with creative solutions using the best parts to create a cohesive plan. I want to make the heart of Shelton a better place for residents and visitors alike. I want Shelton to thrive with a bustling downtown.

The City is facing significant financial challenges and tough decisions will need to be made. What increases to revenue or reductions to expenses might you propose to address this reality?
The City of Shelton has a growing problem on our hands, and unfortunately it lies square on the shoulders of the City Council to get it fixed. The city needs to do everything it can over the next few years to tighten their belts and budget time, money and projects. Any projects that can be kicked down the road, need to be put off to fix the crisis right now. Our budget needs to be gone over with a fine toothed comb and all departments need to present their costs and take the responsibility to cut wherever they can. In addition, I believe the City itself needs to hire a grant writer to apply for the hundreds of grants available across Washington. It is time for us to take back our money and put it to use around our own community, and start taking the ever-increasing burden off of the taxpayers in the city.

What are your top policy proposals aimed at mitigating and preventing homelessness?
Homelessness is a rapidly growing issue in our city. Crime, litter, and people with no place to go have produced a disastrous mix that has resulted in nothing but anguish and exasperation for all involved. We need to approach this situation with a strong strategy involving three parts. First, we need to solve the immediate issue by providing a bed or a place to sleep for individuals who do not have any other option. Second, local parks should have strictly enforced nuisance rules and sleeping hours. Any violation of laws should be met with swift disciplinary action. Downtown doorsteps should be kept clear of loitering individuals and they should be redirected to permitted areas. Third, a long term strategy involving solving the individual barriers that caused the homelessness should be introduced, and each person should be put on a path that leads towards future success as a productive and revitalized member of the community.

If the City received a $1 million grant to use for any purpose, what would you do with it and why?
If I was solely in charge of a $1 million grant, I would use $500,000 of it to create two public restrooms downtown. I would hire two city workers ($150,000) on rotating shifts to help keep them clean several times a day. In between cleanings the city workers would continually empty the trash cans along the main road, and we could install additional trash cans all throughout downtown. This would functionally remove all barriers to cleanliness, and lead to another part of spending, hiring and training two new police officers ($250,000) to patrol and enforce acceptable behaviors in the evening, including removing local transients from doorsteps and maintaining eyes on the local occupied parks. Any remaining money would go towards a grant writer, who would be able to bring in more money for the city without having to put an additional burden on taxpayers.

George Blush

What do you believe to be the role of a city councilmember and what makes you an ideal candidate? The city council position is similar to being a board member, Board Members balance budgets, make rules and work with Directors and staff to keep businesses running. The city council makes decisions on the budget and city ordinances that they implement through the City Manager and staff to keep the city running. I have lots of successful board experience at Crossroads housing and The Mason County Housing Authority and that will allow me to be an ideal city council member.

The City is facing significant financial challenges and tough decisions will need to be made. What increases to revenue or reductions to expenses might you propose to address this reality?
If elected I will work with city, county, state and tribal leaders to find grants and work to partner with them on services where possible. I also want to partner with local Nonprofits and service groups to see how they can help our city be successful. Shelton is the heart of Mason County and our success helps our neighbors be successful too. Let’s build those relationships find the funding and hire full time grant writers to make sure we do not get in this situatiion again.

What are your top policy proposals aimed at mitigating and preventing homelessness?
First thing we need to do is get utility bills and building costs under control. They directly impact Housing costs going up and we need to find ways to reduce them so we don’t price people out of their homes and businesses. We should also be hearing from Nonprofits that are taking city and county funding to help the homeless regularly. That way we can see if they are doing what they are funded to do, giving community members in need a hand UP. The only way we can fix this problem in Shelton is to work together and stop accepting the unacceptable.

If the City received a $1 million grant to use for any purpose, what would you do with it and why?
I would put the money in the bank and use it to cover the budget for the year. Then I would take the revenue coming in and put it in the bank to cover next years budget. For some strange reason the city operates on a deficit which is like putting everything on credit. Not only do you incur regular fees, if revenue is not what we expect we pay late fees too.That is how we wind up in situations like we are in now and it’s times like these we get to see how important every dollar is. By being financially sound it allows us to become a proactive city instead of a reactive one. That will allow our community to grow and flourish into the cleaner safer place I want it to be.

Candidates for Council Member No. 2

Melissa Stearns

What do you believe to be the role of a city councilmember and what makes you an ideal candidate? Some of the many roles of a city council member include policy making, appointing a city manager, to create and review city policies, law changes and budget. Work closely with our Mayor and other elected officials and advise, and prioritize what’s important to our community. And communicate well with the community!
I’m an ideal candidate for several reasons. For starters, I’m a lifetime resident of Mason County and have lived most of my life in the city. As a local Realtor for over 20 years, I’m invested in the community. This is home and always has been. It’s been devastating to see the downturn of our fantastic little town. The crime and homelessness increase over the past several years is tragic and it impacts everyone. I care about our home and I want my kids to continue to call our community home!

The City is facing significant financial challenges and tough decisions will need to be made. What increases to revenue or reductions to expenses might you propose to address this reality?
Invest in a grant writer, get more funds coming back into our community to help off set cuts. Attract new businesses by cleaning up downtown, get our sense of safety back, the domino effect of sales taxes. Prioritize local economic development. Make affordable housing a priority, faster construction with less red tape. If we can get more roofs over heads we have more contributing members to society, who care about where they live instead of the opposite and destroying our town. More law enforcement officers with less overtime.

What are your top policy proposals aimed at mitigating and preventing homelessness?
Emergency housing and job support programs. Increased law enforcement. Increase municipal laws for no camping in parks and no loitering in areas downtown. Families need to feel safe visiting, shopping and spending money downtown. Prioritize ordinance enforcement. Make it harder, it’s too comfortable here. We allow the homeless to take over and cause damage, destroy our community and don’t hold them accountable for their actions. This has to change!

If the City received a $1 million grant to use for any purpose, what would you do with it and why?
If the city received a $1 million grant to use for any purpose, hiring a grant writer could be hugely beneficial. Outreach programs for crisis intervention. Create a new position within the police department for a designated homeless and business downtown officer. Allow the PD to monitor and gain control of the destruction of our downtown businesses. Affordable and emergency housing is also critical!

Kathleen McDowell

No responses were submitted.

Candidates for Council Member No. 5

Mark Frazier

What do you believe to be the role of a city councilmember and what makes you an ideal candidate?
The role of a city council member is to be a representative of the citizens of Shelton, while maintaining the current and future stability of our beautiful city.
My entire adult life has been dedicated to public service as a firefighter and as a paramedic. I have 23 years of experience serving the citizens of Shelton and greater Mason county. I have also lived most of my life in the city and owned my home for the past 17 years.
This combined experience makes me an ideal candidate for city council because I have had a front row view of the various challenges our city is facing.

The City is facing significant financial challenges and tough decisions will need to be made. What increases to revenue or reductions to expenses might you propose to address this reality?
This is a tough reality that Shelton currently faces. In my mind we have three options; increase our population, strengthen our business community, or we will have to address raising taxes. I know the the third option is the most sensitive, but as a council, we have to be transparent and relay the situation in its entirety to our citizens.
Before we address any of these options we need to re-evaluate the services that the city provides and eliminate any excess financial burden. We need to research partnerships with county and private entities to encourage programs that would reduce duplicated services. Exploring alternate forms of revenue needs to be a priority, asking department heads to write their own grants is not an efficient way to run a city. Creating a grant writing program should in theory pay for itself and will allow our departments to focus on the tasks they’re responsible for.
To increase our population and strengthen our business community I want to create an environment that encourages growth. One of the consistent re-occurring conversations that I hear is that “the city is hard to work with”. I don’t have the answer in this exact moment, but I want to create a program that is easy to navigate and encouraging to anyone who wants to embrace moving into our community.
These programs are intended to create inherent efficiencies will directly improve our financial viability.

What are your top policy proposals aimed at mitigating and preventing homelessness?
Homelessness is not just a problem that we face in the City of Shelton, this is systemic and affecting us as much as any other city in Washington. We also need to stop addressing the homeless as just a city problem. These are not tax paying residents and the major “camps” in the area are generally not within the city limits. The City of Shelton does not currently have a homeless program, we are relying on local non-profit organizations to address the crisis.
My top proposal would be to create a partnership with the county to create a diversion program. This program would research the financial impact of homelessness in our community. It would also coordinate with the county health department and the proposed grant writing program to ensure proper application of federal/state/county/grant funding to the various agencies who are the working on the problem.
Another proposal would be to ensure that organizations who offer temporary services are following the proper permitting and health codes. This will create accountability for any impacts on the city created by the execution of these programs.
These are just a few examples of a more active approach we can take to address the homeless crisis we face.

If the City received a $1 million grant to use for any purpose, what would you do with it and why?
I would do two things:
First, I would create an advertising campaign selling all of the amazing opportunities the City of Shelton has to offer. By adding a robust public relations campaign to an accessible and encouraging permitting program, we would kick start the strengthening of our population and business community.
Second, I would enhance our parks and recreation program by increasing the programs offered and improving the infrastructure we already have in place. We have an amazing parks and recreation program in the city and getting more citizens involved would be a fantastic way to create more community pride.

Tom Gilmore

What do you believe to be the role of a city councilmember and what makes you an ideal candidate?
City council members are the only elected members of city government and serve to set the policy agenda for the city. The role of council members, as the only members of government who are directly answerable to the residents, is to ensure that the goals of our city are inline with the wants and needs of Shelton residents. Most importantly, ensuring proper stewardship of public resources, and making fiscally responsible decisions to serve our community.
My experience as a public policy and government finance professional for the state of Washington has provided me with what I believe is a great foundation to serve in the capacity of a city council member. I understand the difficulties and hard choices that must be made to strike the balance between providing robust public services to the community, while working within the confines of fiscally responsible budgeting; without putting needless burden on residents or the economy.
Finally, as a parent raising two young children in this community, I have long-term vested interest in ensuring a positive development of our community.

The City is facing significant financial challenges and tough decisions will need to be made. What increases to revenue or reductions to expenses might you propose to address this reality?
The causes of the financial challenges the city faces are the same issues that are causing financial challenges to residents and taxpayers. The May 2023 consumer price index reflected a 6.6% year-over-year increase in the cost of groceries, this puts a strain on the disposable income of our residents and decreases the revenues of our local businesses. Increases to interest rates over the past 12 months have also slowed our housing market and discouraged consumers from making large purchases that may require financing. All of these items decrease the city’s tax base (TBD fees, B&O taxes, REET) and many of them decrease the number of fee for service operations completed by city employees.
During times of economic hardship, it is not reasonable to look at taxpayers as a solution to our problems. Increases to sales taxes or business and occupation taxes would only put further financial strain on our community. I believe that these issues are temporary. Inflation will slow and interest rates will likely fall. I feel a fiscally prudent course of action is to triage expenditures to ensure the most necessary items are addressed while optional expenses are held until we see economic stabilization.
If there is any call for increasing revenue sources, it should be limited to ensuring fees for services are sufficient to cover the cost of the service provided.

What are your top policy proposals aimed at mitigating and preventing homelessness?
The 2022 Point in Time count performed by the Department of Commerce (the most recent published count) suggests that there are nearly 240 unhoused individuals in Mason County (167 households, 35 of which contain minors). This number is proportionally greater than in neighboring Thurston County. To address the issue of a large unhoused population, our community needs to look at how to both find affordable housing or transitional solutions for the current unhoused and ensure services for at-risk populations to mitigate housing losses.
As of January 1, 2023,the Mason Transit Authority began a pilot program that provides an example of these services to offer fare free rides. I believe that continuing this program beyond its pilot, will provide a safety net to ensure that loss of primary transportation does not have to result in loss of income for residents. In turn, this will also help decrease loss of primary housing and mitigate homelessness.
Our region is under served by a regional housing authority. Currently, Mason County falls under the umbrella of the Bremerton housing authority, which is likely too far removed from our community to address our specific needs. The city of Shelton and more broadly Mason County, are eligible for HUD Community Development Block Grant and HOME grants under the umbrella of the Washington State Consolidated Plan. We need to work with the state Department of Commerce to receive grant funding to establish a regional housing authority, which can provide resources to at-risk members of our community, as well as developers who may wish to build low cost or income-controlled housing in our region.

If the City received a $1 million grant to use for any purpose, what would you do with it and why?
Given the need in the near term to be deliberate in local spending, a $1 million grant could be used to help address the $1.3 million decrease in state provided funds in the 2023 city budget. This could help ensure all of the city’s basic needs are met. Another potential need that could be addressed, is utilizing the results of the recently commissioned study on the city’s water reservoir storage once completed. If these results find there is a need to expand our current water storage capacity, a grant of this nature could be used to resolve that without further strain on rate payers. A third option, that relates to my answer from the previous section, a grant of this size, could also be used to establish a regional housing authority local to the Shelton/Mason County area to help address our housing security needs.
Finally, if these basic needs are met by the current budget and other potential funding sources, I feel a great potential use of a $1 million grant would be expanding offerings from Shelton Parks and Recreation. Shelton Parks and Recreation serves an important role in maintaining the community foundation of Shelton through maintaining local parks, providing programs such as youth basketball, pickle ball and softball leagues, and providing community program staples such as Movies in the Park. Funds could further support existing programs, provide seed money toward the establishment of new programs such as early childhood and parenting programs like toddler music classes or toddler gym play programs and support the Shelton Parks, Recreation, Open Spaces and Trails (PROST) plan which would endeavor to keep our public spaces maintained, updated to serve our growing community, and safe.

Candidate statements are published as they are as submitted to our office. We do not make corrections of any kind or verify statements for truth or fact.