Haugen, Lewis express differences at debate

Published 1:08 pm Friday, October 16, 2009

Mayor Pete Lewis believes the City should continue its involvement with economic development, City Councilmember Virginia Haugen does not.

Haugen wants a city administrator and already has somebody at City Hall in mind for the job. Lewis also wants a City administrator some day, but notes that it will be up to the Council, not the mayor, to fully vet that person and hire him or her.

Those were among the positions the two candidates for Auburn mayor outlined during the 75-minute mayoral debate Oct. 15 at the Auburn Avenue Theater, sponsored by the Auburn Reporter. Auburn Mountainview High School Debate Coach Deborah Rumbaugh moderated the debate, posing 20 questions supplied by Reporter staff and online readers.

A crowd estimated at 140 saw its share of points made and elbows thrown. Haugen also created a fair amount of unfavorable buzz by scowling, grinning unaccountably, fidgeting constantly and even removing a shoe.

Haugen, a fierce critic of downtown redevelopment plans, said that if she were elected she would concentrate on infrastructure basics such as effecting repairs to worn out water and sewer mains.

“I’m not talking about belt tightening but really cinching it in,” Haugen said.

Lewis said his priorities would include building up the business base so the City could lower its reliance on property taxes.

“We must find a way to bring income up from other sources, rather than raise property taxes and fees,” Lewis said.

Asked to define what the mayor’s role in economic development should be, Haugen said that the City shouldn’t be involved in it.

“I think that people in City government should not be involved in tearing down buildings and bringing in developers to rebuild things,” Haugen said. “Let’s work real hard with what we’ve got … I don’t believe that the City government should necessarily be involved in economic development, because we have people like the Chamber of Commerce for that.”

Lewis said the mayor is the chief spokesperson and salesperson for the city and he believes that role extends to economic development.

No part of boards

Asked whether the City should continue its participation on regional boards, committees and commissions, Haugen recalled how she had attended such meetings during her first stint on the City Council in 1994 and “it didn’t take me very long to figure out they weren’t giving us nothing.”

Lewis said that very morning he had stood on the banks of the Green River in Kent and picked up a $1.2 million check from King County for additional supersacks, sandbags, barriers and other gear to counter anticipated flooding of the Green River this fall and winter owing to the compromised holding capacity of the Howard Hanson Dam. Councilmembers serve on boards and committees and councils all over the region to ensure, he said, that the City finally gets back some of the money its residents have paid out.

“For too many generations, Auburn has been on the menu, and everyone else has taken home the cash. At every place we go together … we go with the intent of bringing back the best for Auburn in new parks, playgrounds, new equipment, roads, bridges … just the basics to help fix our levees. We helped create the King County Levee Authority that’s putting hundred of millions of dollars back into these levees,” Lewis said.

Value in boards

Lewis added that the City’s participation on such boards and committees also is helping to keep sewer and garbage rates down for Auburn residents.

“We are there every time to make sure they don’t rise,” Lewis said.

Haugen said that when she came on to the City Council in January 2008, the City didn’t even have an emergency management plan in place. No, said Lewis, the City has had an emergency management plan since the administration of former Mayor Chuck Booth. He said that an updated copy has been given to every single Council member since its formulation, including Haugen, and that she alone among all the Council members has not yet passed the annual required courses that they are obligated to take under the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s rules. Haugen said that as a council member she is not absolutely required to pass a test that she said, “doesn’t make a whole lot of sense anyway.”

Haugen said that the City can find plenty of people who “will simply write grant proposals and get us money so we don’t have to wander around Washington state and all over the country to meetings and meetings and meetings.”

Lewis said that corporate America and indeed any business will not come to Auburn simply because you ask it nicely. They have to be given facts, reasons and incentives, he said, and they will need a partnership with the City.

Haugen criticized the City for spending $6 million on downtown redevelopment instead of using that money to keep employees it laid off last spring.

“Yes, we can maybe get money to work on roads from the state of Washington and from the federal government, but when we go after stimulus money, shouldn’t we put it into keeping our employees working, keeping decent roads, not dumping that stimulus money into more and more downtown redevelopment that is not working?” asked Haugen.

Lewis argued that Haugen was wrong on the facts.

“If we could have applied stimulus money for employees, we would have done it in a heartbeat. It’s not available. If I could have applied for stimulus money for preservation of roads, I would have done so. Our council would have been first at the table. It wasn’t available and still is not,” Lewis said.

Asked to offer a few things that the city is doing right, Lewis pointed to an annual survey available online and at City Hall that says the City has the highest popularity that it’s ever had before. It shows, he said, that every measure used to assess government is up from prior years.

“Council and I were all shocked and amazed — we’re in a recession, times are not good, families are coming apart, people are out of work, yet the survey showed that people understood how much their City cared, how hard we were working, that we have changed the ethic by which we do business to be servants of the people, to do the best we can for the charge they have given us,” Lewis said.

Haugen praised Lewis for creating Clean Sweep, which she called, “a great way to bring volunteers together.” She pointed to the City’s Human Services Manager Michael Hursh in the audience and said he was doing “a great job.”

“I really appreciate your comment about the gentleman I chose to head our Human Services group, he’s done a marvelous job of reaching out to the community,” Lewis said.

King County mailed out ballots Oct. 14. The general election is Nov. 3.

Access Channel 21 is broadcasting the complete debate.