Over the last year, various contacts with various people in town. I was encouraged to consider running. Through those contacts and observations of what has happened within our city, I began to investigate and try to determine if that was feasible. It's not something I was aggressive chasing after, not something I was really interested in. It came down to seeing who would file. And subsequently through that week, seeing no one else filing, another people contacting me wanting to know if and when, and encouraging me to do so. It just came down to, at that point in time when I filed, there was no other opponent [to Mayor Rowe], and that was not an option. And so I filed actually over the phone and faxed in the application to the county.

Boy, action… Can you restate that again so I can hear it in its context? [question restated]. Some of the decisions as they were made, try to bring them more to light. The areas of bad press that we've received, specifically with development decisions -- Willow Run, for instance -- challenge in some way, shape or form by whatever means necessary, what is apparent at that point in time to do something that was a unilateral decision, and try and make it work. At that point in time, no one understood fully the implications of what it is, but whomever takes office in the future is going to have to make some very difficult, and unfortunately, some very expensive decisions for the city to rectify those things.

In the past, relationship between council and mayor has been strained, I think due to large fact because of communication that has either been non-existent or perceived on both parts, by both parties, to be -- how can I word this? [sighs] Self-serving? And that's the best way I can put it.

I wish, walking through all of this as a resident of Sultan, has been very difficult in my contact with my peers around the state. I have been always reminded of what's been shared around and communicated around our state and the [unintelligible] Sultan's been in. And it's been difficult. And what's said is, is Sultan is a great place. It's a beautiful setting. You can't ask for a more spectacular place to live. I just think that if we can work together and make the right choices, Sultan will be, I would like to think, a spectacular jewel within the county and within the state.

The sign-off on the Willow Run lot changes, it's a real eye-opener to see that. To me, there are, for some people who purchased those homes, there is some responsibility for those people who didn't involve an attorney themselves who bought things on paper that hadn't been exposed for what they were buying. A little expense ahead of time having things checks out, I think would have saved them a lot of heartache now. Although, there has to be responsible for those deceived and duped buyers, as well as those that signed off on that. That's something that I think should not have happened.

I think also, too, we should, as a community -- or as mayor -- that the cutting back of the budgetary needs of the police department and how that has taken place in some of the…the difficulties that have existed between our mayor and our chief of police, which have never been publicly clarified, I think those things have been a detriment to our community. We need a community that's safe for everyone to live in. And to randomly remove things, to take away and to tear apart simply over a cup of coffee…down at one of the local eating establishments, I think it was wrong.

I recognize that we have had a loss in a financial basis as the result of the impact of the Initiative 695 and others, where we lost a million dollars. However, I think it is important and will be important for whoever takes office next, one, to go through the budget and systematically identify and rectify some of the accounting procedures that we have. And let everybody on the council know and let every department person know who's impacted by the city's finances, know where we stand. Those are things that we don't have. We don't have financial projections that come out every month, so department heads know, "Okay, this is where our budget is, this is where we have money, this is where we don't have money." We need to make sure. And that the loopholes that exist within our tax code as a city, are closed, whereas businesses who operate within the city limits of Sultan are paying their taxes. And right now there are businesses operating that are not paying their taxes. They are not being collected. They're going elsewhere. And it's wrong.

Wow. Our current infrastructure is in need of a lot of upgrading. Note, First Street. City water-sewer issues there, road issues. There are other sewer lines around town that need to be replaced. Those types of things are going to have to be borne by the city at large, because they are part of the city in and of itself. New and current development should take care of their own development, and the enlargement of needed facilities as in the sewage treatment plant. I think what's happened is, is Sultan's been…caught in the urban growth management system, whereas all of the development that can take place in Monroe pretty much has taken place, and the overflow is coming towards us, whether we like it or not, whether we've realized it or not. Ten years ago the projections for Sultan were substantially less than what we are today. When they built the new sewer system out there, they had no idea Sultan would be this big this fast. I think, not necessarily poor planning, but short-sighted planning. In the reality of what's taking place within our state, it's going to cause us all a great burden. Now specifically, as far as taking care of the infrastructure within the community, I do not feel dropping mitigation fees or hook-up fees for new development to encourage new development, is wise. As a matter of fact, I think it's foolish and short-sighted. Somebody has to pay for it. We need to take care of what's existing within our city, update that, make it safe. Those decisions have to be made soon. Otherwise, we are really going to find ourselves in a great negative financial hole. And we do need to take advantage of it. We have almost the completion of the water/sewer going east, in those areas. Development out there is going to facilitate, I think, a good possibility of growth for business, but yet with that we have to have the responsibility to make the decisions that affect us all as a community. We just can't say, "Okay, bring in all these businesses. Let them have it [the facilities]," and go for it and not realize the impact that's going to be down here on this little sewage treatment plant.

Not really. But people need to live somewhere. And with that, economic development to me means more jobs, and not necessarily just jobs selling hamburgers at the local fast foot establishments, but jobs, you know -- Sultan as a whole, from my research and doing demographics -- Sultan has a median income of only about $27,000-28,000 per household. So getting jobs out here, we have a high unemployment rate in the Valley, but yet you look around us and you don't see, I think, a friendly environment for bringing in businesses, one, because the city in and of itself has been in chaos for so long, businesses don't want to deal with us. And there is going to be give and take with that. But economic development is something where we develop the restructure -- How can I word this right? We have to reinvent Sultan for the business community to come in.

We're limited, literally by our geographical setting. We don't have all that much area to grow in. We don't have all that much area to expand in. Not only is the river running through the middle of our town, we also have the railroad going through the middle of our town. We have flood plain issues on the south side of the river, so growth in that direction is almost a given not to happen . Growth east of town up on the three-lane area is limited by the geographical boundaries that we have as a town. I'm not sure what could happen even west of town. So our growth is going to have to be planned out. If it's not, it's going to end up being a sprawl like -- I don't want to say the community, 'cause they could get mad at me -- but just your typical strip mall runs --

To me, personally? Off the main drag of Highway 2, I think Monroe has done a phenomenal job in their neighborhood community aspect. You go down Lewis Street and you see the plant strips and you see the setbacks off the road and you see the subdivisions that are back there and you see the parks that are there, and everything's identified and spaced out. You know, there are going to be developments like the Fryelands. That's the trend. But yet, at the same time, because we have a main highway running through the middle of our town, it is going to be a difficult thing for development. And coming back to that, I think there should be -- you know, I know there's a lot of eggs being placed in the basket of a theme-driven conversion here in town -- that would be a good thing, but for people to come here, where are they gonna park? How is that going to take place? We've very small. And yet there has to be some sort of giving mechanism that puts all these things to work together to where we can plan, not for just the next five to ten or even twenty years, but for the next 50 years, because of the where we're situated and what we have to develop.

What one law? It's a strange question. Law maintains for us how we operate, and I think gives us all a clear sense of where the boundaries are. I'm not into abolishing laws. I mean, for me, I used to work with kids, teenagers, and you go to a school campus and it's amazing how kids on playgrounds, if there are fences around playgrounds, the kids play free. They have a great time. They're out running around. You take away fences from playgrounds and you see kids huddled toward the center of a playground because they don't know where the boundaries are. We need to know where the boundaries are. All of us need to operate within those boundaries and guidelines. That's a psychological profile. They thought that having fences around playgrounds was restricting to kids and they wanted to free them up. They took the fences down and they saw what happened. They put the fences back up.

I think we have plenty of laws. I think as far as passing them, that, to me, isn't the issue. I think enforcing what we have, is. There are plenty of laws on the books, from every extreme. I have my own RCWs back from 1996 with my 1997 supplement. I'm due to get a new set. But, yet, through all of these things they try to address every situation. There are plenty of laws that are out there. The key for us is to realize that the laws and should apply to everyone; not a select few, not a minority to be taken advantage of in that regard, but they apply to everybody. And it's for the good of the people, and not just for while we're here, but for the generations that follow us. We need to follow those that are there. Some may seem inconvenient, but yet they're designed for the purpose of what generations are to follow us.

Storm: It's all right. It's your fantasy.

Oh, yeah! "You're going to kill me! You're going to kill my business!" And that's the same thing that happened in downtown Seattle when they did that at the Westlake Mall. But you know what? Those are the prime pieces of business location now. People are afraid of the unknown. And you can't blame them with that. Sometimes self preservation is a phenomenal driving force. And yet, what we have here, we can't expand. It doesn't make financial sense to try and expand the freeway here. There is so much - it would literally choke off. It would begin to look almost like the Alaskan Viaduct in Seattle. It would just become a thruway and you wouldn't be able to get on or off no matter what. Nobody would even stop. We want to create a destination where people would want to come. We want to make a place that is not only attractive, but there's a sense of serenity. People from the Seattle area are screaming for a place that's peaceful. And we're within an hour's drive. And if you turn the middle of downtown into a four-lane, which I can't even imagine, with the railroad right there, unless we have the Sultan Viaduct.

You know, I've answered a lot of and most people have asked me, "Are you crazy? Why should I vote for you?" I've lived in Sultan 7 years. How long will I be here? I don't know. My son's in high school. He loves it. He's having a great time. He's in the marching band. He's in the drumline. He play soccer. They went to State last year. He was so pumped with that. My other kids, my two daughters, are home-schooled. One will probably be getting involved part-time within the high school this year. It has taken awhile for us to feel comfortable here in Sultan, but Sultan is home. This is where we are. If I am only willing to complain about what has happened and not willing to get involved, then I'm a hypocrite. And so I've come to the place where, if I want to make a difference, if I care about where I live, running for office, whether someone votes for me or not, is making a statement, not only to the community but to myself as well, because I want to make a difference here. I want to see Sultan become more than just the blip in the road or the complaining stop light on people's trek of highways here. So why should people vote for me? All I can say is I'm willing. I will try and do my best. Will I make everybody happy? Absolutely not, because I'm not that stupid to make that assumption. But I'm willing to get involved. I'm willing to make the difficult choices. I want to open things up so that everybody is familiar with what's going, what's happening so that we can all work together, as a community, for the betterment of our community, for Sultan's future.

I enjoy the outdoors, hunting and fishing. I also enjoy collecting the related hunting and fishing items from pre-1940, i.e., bamboo fishing rods, reels, wooden plugs, lures, pocket knives, old advertising, etc..