WENATCHEE — Highway 2 safety, housing affordability, homelessness and education were all subjects of discussion for District 12 state representative candidates Robert Amenn and Mike Steele at a Monday election forum.
The candidates, both registered as Republicans, agreed on many points but saw different things to highlight throughout the Q&A. The public session took place at Pybus Public Market and was sponsored by The Wenatchee World.
Steele, the third-term incumbent, highlighted his continuing priorities of economic development, job creation, community growth and sustainability.
He is a former member of the Chelan City Council and executive director of the Lake Chelan Chamber of Commerce. He lives in Chelan.
Amenn of Gold Bar agreed with Steele on most points and said that he would work to “empower people to solve their own problems.”
Amenn, originally from New York City, moved to Washington more than 20 years ago. He is a software developer and has worked for Microsoft and has been part of several startups over the years. He served on the Gold Bar City Council in 2003.
A new District 12
With the geographic change to District 12 making it one of the largest districts covering 9,000 square miles, Amenn said that empowering people to address the issues at home is more important than ever.
His approach to policy and law would focus on allowing local residents to fix their own problems because they best understand their communities and situations.
Steele said that despite the distict boundary change, the issues people are concerned about are universal, including their children’s education and public safety.
An ongoing challenge, Steele said, is trying to convince the state to provide funding for rural districts.
One example is Highway 2, an important corridor for Eastern Washington and in need of funding. But Olympia does not consider it important, according to Steele.
“And that’s very evident in the $17 billion revenue package we just passed, not a single project was geared toward Eastern Washington,” Steele said.
Amenn agreed that Highway 2 is an important issue to address, likely through funding maintenance and restoration.
He also said that the project is not getting the attention it deserves because other projects with more powerful people at the helm get the funding instead.
Affordable housing and homelessness
As to the issue of housing affordability, Amenn said the state’s land-use policy had become too restrictive for developers to acquire new land and build on it, especially land already owned by the government or land trusts.
“We don’t want to destroy our public lands,” he said. “But at the same time, if public lands are easy and efficiently in a city ... we should consider selling that land back to the private market so it can be developed.”
Steele said that the solution is in finding creative, public-private partnerships.
One example he provided was having local jurisdictions apply for remittances for building out sewers, gutters and curbs to make developers agree on lower unit prices as they have benefited from public funds.
On the issue of homelessness, both Amenn and Steele agreed the problem centered around mental health and addiction.
Amenn said the state needed “reasonable policies” and that the issue of homelessness also centers around the difficulty of finding an affordable home and the difficulty for developers to build a home due to the number of regulations.
Steele said the state does a poor job providing wraparound services everywhere, especially in rural communities.
Education, test scores and students’ mental health
Regarding declining test scores and poor health for students, Amenn said the state has instituted policies that cause more problems for students.
His goal would be to empower local communities, specifically parents, so that the “money follows the child” while in public school. Amenn said he was a strong believer in charter schools.
Steele agreed that it is important local school districts have the resources to do active assessments on students coming backing to school following the pandemic, both in learning and their mental health.
“Giving them the mental and behavioral health supports, that they’re going to need as they recover from this pandemic, is definitely part of the state’s role,” he said.”
The state also has a responsibility to ensure that children without “supportive frameworks” do not fall through the cracks, he said.
Biennial budget
The two candidates reiterated their priorities when the topic came around to the biennial budget to be discussed in the 2023 legislative session.
Amenn said his priorities would be securing funding to repair and maintain Highway 2, properly fund schools and improve the foster care system.
He said that the foster care system in the state does not adequately prepare children for adulthood. The goal would be to ensure any child who enters the system get out with a skill so they can get a job, he said.
Steele said that more than half of the general budget goes to education. The state needs to stop creating new programs and instead meet the obligations of programs that have already been created, he said.
He said specific programs that need attention and funding include Highway 2 maintenance, ensuring behavioral health services are funded in the district as well as the school construction assistance program (SCAP).
SCAP provides funding assistance for school districts that need to undertake construction projects but have difficulty securing local funding through bonds or levies.
Bipartisanship
Steele said that through his three terms in the Legislature he feels like a successful legislator despite the large makeup of Democrats in the House and Senate.
The key is working with people who want to tackle the issues honestly, he said.
“The majority of the votes we take on the House floor are 98 to zero, we all agree on most of these principles,” Steele said. “I have great friends on the other side of the aisle, and we enjoy this public policy process that we’re all honored to serve in.”
Amenn also said he believed in bipartisanship but stressed the importance of doing what benefited the people even if it took a little aggression on the Republican side.
“It’s important for us to be a little bit more aggressive about achieving ends that benefit all the citizens of the state and are not done just because it’s really difficult to get things done in a legislature,” he said.
