PORT ANGELES – Two candidates for Port Angeles city council say they have different ideas on the biggest issue facing they’d like to tackle if elected.
Brenden Meyer told the Port Angeles Business Association Tuesday, he thinks one of the most important thing he’d try to get done if elected, is improve transparency with city government.
The ability to stream video of all their meetings, the public meetings. That’s probably my most important thing, is the transparency on our local government in the city especially is sub par. And yeah, that’s one thing that I would definitely stand behind, because I think it would drive civic engagement. It would help cut down on hearsay, you can actually hold your officials accountable for what’s going on.
Martha Cunningham says she would focus on jobs first.
I think without jobs good paying jobs, people can’t afford to buy houses. There’s a lot of houses sitting vacant right now that people can’t afford to buy. We can’t fix our schools properly and people can’t have a good quality of life if they don’t have good paying jobs.
The two candidates both say they don’t support a proposed sales tax hike to go toward affordable housing. Meyer says the small amount of money wouldn’t be worth it.
I’m against the proposed tax. I don’t think $50,000 a year, or 1.1 million dollars over 20 years going into affordable housing, I don’t think it’s gonna do much. I think it’s more of like a virtue signaling but no, I don’t think so. I think we’d have to cut expenditures and go through the budget. I think we can be a little more stringent on its expenditures.
Cunningham says the city should look at other ways to deal with the housing issue
The median wages are already below the rest of the state and I don’t think adding a sales tax on to that is going to help the situation at all. We have some projects coming up, building housing that is a cooperation between private builders and nonprofits where they’ve taken the square foot cost down from 300 and something to 100 and something. And there are other ways we can solve the housing problem without raising taxes.
The 67-year-old Cunningham is a freelance editor, former paralegal and substitute teacher. 37-year-old Meyer is a self-employed media marketer and consultant. They are competing for the seat being vacated by Cherie Kidd, who is term limited.