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Mountlake Terrace City Council Mayor Pro Tem Bryan Wahl is running unopposed for reelection to the city council. The general election is Nov. 7.
Q: Why are you running for Mountlake Terrace City Council? What do you hope to accomplish?
I’m running to retain my seat on the Mountlake Terrace City Council because we must keep moving forward. Having been involved with establishing our city’s vision, it is important for the council to keep moving forward with a focused approach to implementing our plan and taking the necessary steps to achieve our vision. As your city councilmember, my priorities will continue to be setting policies that increase our jobs and economic vitality, deliver quality city services, and ensure fiscal responsibility.
- Fiscal Responsibility: Ensuring responsible and sustainable budgets that direct resources efficiently and effectively to achieve the city’s vision.
- Economic Vitality: Creating jobs and a strong economy by fostering a healthy business climate and adopting strategies that attract new businesses to our city.
- Quality Community Services: Delivering a variety of programs necessary to protect the community’s safety and security, deliver quality recreational programs and maintain the roads, water, sewer and parks that serve our community.
Q: What experiences would you bring to the council and how are they relevant to the position?
I am honored to serve as the Mountlake Terrace mayor pro tempore, as well as serving on the city’s vision committee, finance committee and boards/commissions interview committee. In addition, I represent the city on the Snohomish County Cities Executive Board; Snohomish County Tomorrow’s Steering Committee; Puget Sound Regional Council’s Executive Board and Growth Management Policy Board. Serving in these roles, I have helped address the challenges our communities face in managing growth, providing housing, ensuring diversity and equity, enhancing our quality of life and encouraging the jobs and amenities that come with growth.
Further, while serving on the city’s planning commission for 14 years, I listened and developed plans that reflect the vision our residents have for Mountlake Terrace. On the city council, I am implementing those plans and taking steps to realize our dreams. I will keep our city moving forward with a focused approach to implementing our plan and taking the necessary steps to achieve our vision.
Q: What is your vision for Mountlake Terrace?
Serving on the city’s vision committee, I am proud to have played a key role in developing the city’s vision to create a dynamic, engaged, innovative and welcoming city with a vibrant Town Center providing jobs, services, entertainment and activities, surrounded by safe, connected and sustainable neighborhoods with a variety of housing choices for all, pride in our network of parks and recreation programs that support active lifestyles, and celebrate arts, culture and diversity.
Q: In your opinion, what is Mountlake Terrace’s most pressing issue and what are your solutions for addressing it?
We are a small city with big dreams…in order for us to achieve our vision of a dynamic city with a vibrant Town Center surrounded by safe neighborhoods with parks and recreation programs that celebrate arts, culture and diversity, Mountlake Terrace will need the resources to pay for delivering quality city services. Therefore, it is critical for the city to maximize economic development opportunities. Mountlake Terrace needs to conduct a market analysis to determine trends, competition and identify potential businesses that could fill market niche and community needs and desires, and develop an economic profile to use in a multi-pronged outreach and marketing campaign to attract potential businesses to the city. We should evaluate potential tools to incentivize economic development, including regulatory environment, policies and process efficiencies.
Another factor for attracting economic development is ensuring potential investors there will be a sufficient customer base for their businesses. To ensure sufficient customers, the city needs to expand housing opportunities. We must adopt policies and best practices, and remove barriers to providing a variety of housing choices for all income levels. The city should examine zoning and land-use regulations to identify options for diversifying the housing stock and provide development incentives to encourage a diversity of housing types.
Q: How do you plan to encourage residents to become more civically engaged?
Mountlake Terrace is developing a full-scope communication plan that identifies key target audiences and utilizes multiple channels to inform and engage the community and stakeholders. The city will continue to inform and engage the community through multiple communication channels, including the newsletter, social media, website, text messaging, cable access, Coffee with the City, town/neighborhood halls, open houses, information kiosks and booths at events. The city should identify and engage, coordinate and partner with stakeholders and user groups. The city must strive to increase our reach by coordinating with the diversity, equity and inclusion commission to examine accessibility barriers (socio-economic, language, physical, geographic, transportation) and develop outreach programs. And the city is utilizing community navigators and Cops and Clergy programs to reach audiences who are not typically engaged with city programs.
Q: How do you plan to prepare Mountlake Terrace for the anticipated population growth with the arrival of Sound Transit’s Lynnwood Link light rail?
The comprehensive plan provides the goals and policies for how we want to grow and achieve our vision for what we want our city to be in 20 years. The comprehensive plan update process currently underway provides the opportunity to engage our community in planning for how we will accommodate 13,000 new residents, 2,700 new jobs and 7,600 new homes in our city. Mountlake Terrace must ensure housing is available for all income levels when planning for anticipated growth. We need to ensure everyone who lives and works in our community has the opportunity to afford a home near where they live, including our teachers, nurses, retail workers, firefighters and police.
Further, Mountlake Terrace must ensure provision of necessary public infrastructure to support anticipated growth. The goals and policies we set through the updated comprehensive plan will help us create a dynamic city with a vibrant town Center surrounded by safe neighborhoods with a variety of housing choices. We can ensure our residents have access to jobs, services, entertainment and activities with a network of parks and recreation programs that support active lifestyles and celebrate arts, culture and diversity.
Q: How will you work to promote equity both within city government and for Mountlake Terrace residents?
We are fortunate to live in a community that values diversity, equity and inclusion. We established the city’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Commission to celebrate and promote a diverse, equitable and inclusive culture; eliminate any form of actual or perceived discrimination; and help community members from all backgrounds thrive in the city. The commission provides recommendations that identify opportunities to address issues, promote programs and provide guidance to create a more accessible, safe, welcoming and inclusive government and community. It provides input to the city that ensures equitable access to city services for our diverse population and facilitates relationship building with under-served and underrepresented communities. And the commission serves as a resource by providing information, education and communication that celebrates a better understanding of our differences.
The city is conducting extensive training on diversity, equity and inclusion for all city staff, and strives to recruit employees to reflect the community’s diversity. Utilizing programs like Cops and Clergy, the city is working to build trust between law enforcement and diverse communities. As the city develops a diversity, equity and inclusion strategic plan, we will identify new opportunities and events to recognize and celebrate diversity and create a better sense of inclusion and belonging within the city. Further, Mountlake Terrace should identify key target audiences and utilize multiple communication channels to inform, engage and coordinate with other organizations to deliver services to underserved communities, families and individuals.
Q: Are Mountlake Terrace’s current levels of staffing for its police department adequate? If so, expand on your thoughts and – if not – how might the city pay for additional policing?
I am proud of our Mountlake Terrace Police Department for their exceptional work to protect our community by keeping our city safe and preventing crime through their continued visibility and proactive enforcement throughout our community. By building a culture of trust, dedication and service, they have earned the respect of our residents and deserve to be fully staffed to ensure our city continues to be a safe place to live. The current budgeted levels of staffing in our police department is adequate; the challenge we face, as most cities throughout the region, is recruiting and retaining police officers to fill the positions we have budgeted. The state needs to expand and fully fund state training programs to increase the number of officers available to serve our region’s law enforcement needs.
Q: What are the most pressing environmental issues the city currently faces and your proposals to address those?
Climate change is an urgent environmental, economic, and equity threat that must be addressed at many levels. In the Puget Sound region, the largest sources of greenhouse gases come from transportation and the built environment. In Mountlake Terrace, we need to continue efforts to update regulations and programs to incorporate environmental guidance and sustainable practices. The city has established practices and strategies to reduce resource consumption of city employees, business owners and residents. Through our communication and education efforts, the city is leveraging its own actions with encouragement and active engagement of the public, the private sector and its partners to achieve our sustainability goals.
The city will continue working to remove invasive species to promote use of native and drought resistant plants, and address culvert issues to improve fish access and ecosystems. We should continue to meet the qualifications for the Tree City USA and Urban Forestry programs. The city is designing street projects with multi-modal connections (e.g., trails, bikes, sidewalks and public transit) to ensure a wide variety of transportation options are available. Further, the city will continue to incorporate sustainable practices in our planning and development codes.
Q: Where can people contact you to learn more about your campaign?
Email: BryanWahl.MLTcitycouncil@gmail.com
Phone: 425-770-7706
Website: Facebook.com/MLTCouncilmemberWahl
Mailing address: PO Box 635, Mountlake Terrace, WA 98043
— By Cody Sexton
Mr Wahl.
How will you deal with the increased traffic on MLT’s streets which will be and are currently being adversely impacted by the new light rail and increased housing?
Thank you.
How do you plan to deal with the new homeless encampments and crime the light rail will bring as nobody pays for the free for all light rail .