In NPI’s hometown of Redmond, voters will decide three 2021 contests for city council

City coun­cils across our region make a lot of impor­tant deci­sions that affect our lives as res­i­dents of Cas­ca­dia, espe­cial­ly with respect to land use, devel­op­ment, trans­porta­tion, and pub­lic safe­ty. We entrust the essen­tial pub­lic ser­vices we rely on close to home to their stew­ard­ship and man­age­ment, so it’s impor­tant that we pay atten­tion to these crit­i­cal local races and make our voic­es heard.

In 2021’s local elec­tions, vot­ers in NPI’s home­town, Red­mond, will elect three at-large posi­tions on the sev­en-mem­ber city coun­cil: Coun­cil Posi­tions #2, #4, and #6. In August, vot­ers elim­i­nat­ed one can­di­date from the Posi­tion #4 race, the only con­test that had more than two can­di­dates, leav­ing two finalists.

Now that we’re in the gen­er­al elec­tion (which serves as the runoff round), vot­ers will make final selec­tions for all three posi­tions. Let’s take a look at each of this year’s races and meet the can­di­dates who are seek­ing vot­ers’ support.

Position #2: Steve Fields vs. Janet Richards

For Posi­tion #2, incum­bent Steve Fields is fac­ing off against Janet Richards.

Fields, the own­er of Down Pour Cof­fee in Bride Trails, was first elect­ed to the coun­cil in 2017 with 55% of the vote, unseat­ing incum­bent Byron Shutz. He also made unsuc­cess­ful bids for may­or in 2015 and 2019.

After tout­ing bipar­ti­san endorse­ments dur­ing the 2017 pri­ma­ry elec­tion, he has bol­stered his pro­gres­sive cre­den­tials for the 2021 elec­tion cycle.

He has gar­nered the endorse­ment of sev­er­al notable pro­gres­sive fig­ures from across the region, includ­ing Shukri Olow and Joe Nguyen.

Fields’ pri­or­i­ties include respon­si­ble gov­ern­ment, envi­ron­men­tal stew­ard­ship, care­ful growth man­age­ment, and sup­port for local businesses.

Janet Richards is Fields’ oppo­nent, sup­port­ed by May­or Angela Bir­ney, who Fields ran against for the city’s top posi­tion two years ago.

Richards has near­ly three decades of expe­ri­ence work­ing in busi­ness man­age­ment for Microsoft and as a consultant.

She is the only Black can­di­date in this year’s Red­mond elections.

After Coun­cil Pres­i­dent Pad­hye retires, the only remain­ing non-white mem­ber of the coun­cil will be Var­isha Khan unless Richards is elected.

As a vol­un­teer con­sul­tant, she led a task force to improve Seat­tle Chil­dren’s Hos­pi­tal’s secu­ri­ty poli­cies to be more equi­table. She cur­rent­ly vol­un­teers for the City of Red­mond as Human Resources Com­mis­sion­er, and also has a his­to­ry of work­ing with Red­mond’s police depart­ment on com­mu­ni­ty engagement.

Richards is backed by elect­ed offi­cials like Lake Wash­ing­ton School Board mem­ber Siri Blies­ner and for­mer may­or John Marchione.

Fields has raised $12,842.40 for his reelec­tion campaign.

Richards has raised $22,972.47 for her campaign.

Position #4: Melissa Stuart vs. Dennis Ellis

Cur­rent coun­cil pres­i­dent Tani­ka Pad­hye is leav­ing elect­ed office. Three can­di­dates filed to run for the open seat Pad­hye is vacat­ing: Melis­sa Stu­art, Den­nis Ellis, and Jack­son Fields. Stu­art and Ellis advanced through the Top Two elec­tion to the gen­er­al; Fields was elim­i­nat­ed from fur­ther consideration.

Melis­sa Stu­art char­ac­ter­izes her­self as a “non­prof­it leader with deep expe­ri­ence break­ing down bar­ri­ers for youth and families.”

A for­mer Peace Corps youth devel­op­ment vol­un­teer in Moldo­va, she has worked at a vari­ety of well-estab­lished non­prof­its serv­ing vul­ner­a­ble East­side youth, includ­ing the Boys and Girls Club and Youth East­side Services.

The main theme of her cam­paign is reduc­ing car­bon emis­sions. A res­i­dent of the Over­lake neigh­bor­hood, where Link light rail will serve in just two years, she sees the dense, mixed-use area as a blue­print for neigh­bor­hoods that are more walk­a­ble, less car-depen­dent, and more effi­cient for families

This is a time­ly per­spec­tive for the city, as ongo­ing rede­vel­op­ment in down­town Red­mond adds hotels, mixed-use apart­ment build­ings, and mod­ern offices to a once sleepy and spread-out sub­ur­ban city center.

While coun­cil posi­tions are offi­cial­ly non­par­ti­san, Stu­art has suc­cess­ful­ly court­ed local Demo­c­ra­t­ic and Demo­c­ra­t­ic-aligned organizations.

High­lights from her lengthy endorse­ment list include the 45th and 48th Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict Democ­rats, the Sier­ra Club, and Coun­cil Pres­i­dent Padhye.

Den­nis Ellis is a long­time Red­mond resident.

The Seat­tle native is an Air Force vet­er­an who also spent over twen­ty-five years work­ing in the con­struc­tion indus­try. He now works as an ana­lyst at Boeing.

On the issues, he is more con­ser­v­a­tive but not doc­tri­naire. He had staked out a strong posi­tion against “allow­ing the fail­ure of the jus­tice sys­tem to pros­e­cute crime” or any oth­er form of crim­i­nal jus­tice reform. His web­site does­n’t men­tion the cli­mate cri­sis at all, which is espe­cial­ly dis­ap­point­ing in the wake of the record-shat­ter­ing June heat wave that killed hun­dreds across Cascadia.

Ellis sug­gests he is open to cre­ative solu­tions to major issues. On hous­ing, he is open to des­ig­nat­ing small­er parcels and rezon­ing sin­gle-fam­i­ly neigh­bor­hoods to allow town­homes to cre­ate own­er­ship oppor­tu­ni­ties for young families.

He also argues that his expe­ri­ence as a small busi­ness own­er could be help­ful as busi­ness­es face the twin chal­lenges of the post-pan­dem­ic recov­ery and the influx of large cor­po­rate invest­ment into downtown.

Stu­art has raised $21,399.01 for her campaign.

Ellis has raised $12,011.75 for his.

Position #6: Jeralee Anderson vs. Tara Van Niman

The field is sim­i­lar­ly split for Coun­cil Posi­tion 6. Incum­bent Jeralee Ander­son is being chal­lenged by Tara Van Niman.

Van Niman is a career project man­ag­er at AT&T and first-time who is well-con­nect­ed in the Red­mond polit­i­cal scene.

She is active on com­mit­tees that pro­mote school fund­ing levies and has advo­cat­ed for school fund­ing reform in the wake of McCleary in Olympia.

Van Niman has also worked on local cam­paigns, like Man­ka Dhin­gra’s his­toric 2017 spe­cial elec­tion cam­paign for the Wash­ing­ton State Senate.

She has a long list of endorsers: May­or Bir­ney, Sen­a­tor Dhin­gra, for­mer May­or Mar­chione and many oth­ers are behind her.

Jeralee Ander­son, the cur­rent coun­cil vice pres­i­dent, has a doc­tor­ate from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton in con­struc­tion engi­neer­ing and sustainability.

She runs her own non­prof­it, Green­roads Inter­na­tion­al, that col­lab­o­rates to devel­op green trans­porta­tion projects worldwide.

A dec­o­rat­ed pro­fes­sion­al, she has received recog­ni­tion from the Oba­ma Admin­is­tra­tion, the State Depart­ment, and indus­try publications.

Her pri­or­i­ties for a sec­ond term include cli­mate action, eco­nom­ic jus­tice, com­mu­ni­ty health pro­grams, and sus­tain­able infrastructure.

Dur­ing her time on the coun­cil, she has been very involved on var­i­ous region­al plan­ning boards, includ­ing as rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Asso­ci­a­tion of Wash­ing­ton Cities on the State Pub­lic Works Board.

Ander­son has her own long list of endorsers, includ­ing State Sen­a­tor Pat­ty Kud­er­er (the oth­er state sen­a­tor rep­re­sent­ing Red­mond), and three Belle­vue City Coun­cilmem­bers: Jan­ice Zahn, Jere­my Barks­dale, and John Stokes.

“I choose not to pur­sue endorse­ments or con­tri­bu­tions from cur­rent Red­mond elect­ed offi­cials,” Ander­son says in a note on her web­site. “I do not offer my endorse­ment or con­tri­bu­tions in Red­mond elec­tions either. I have enjoyed col­lab­o­rat­ing with all of my Coun­cil col­leagues in this past term. I wel­come the oppor­tu­ni­ty to work with any new­ly elect­ed offi­cials in 2022–2025.”

Ander­son has raised $16,075.86 for her reelec­tion campaign.

Van Niman has raised $23,604.86 for her campaign.

One week left until Election Day

With the excep­tion of large cities like Seat­tle (where orga­ni­za­tions like NPI have been com­mis­sion­ing elec­toral pub­lic opin­ion research!), there isn’t usu­al­ly polling avail­able to sug­gest how can­di­dates are doing in local elec­tions, so it’s hard to know where these six can­di­dates stand. Their fundrais­ing met­rics give us some idea of their cam­paign’s capac­i­ty for reach­ing vot­ers, but do not tell us whether their cam­paigns are res­onat­ing in the com­mu­ni­ty in the not.

Local elec­tion years gen­er­al­ly see less than fifty per­cent turnout, even though the deci­sions that get made this year will influ­ence how our cities are governed.

Watch­ers of Red­mond city pol­i­tics are no stranger to close races.

In 2019, Coun­cilmem­ber Var­isha Khan defeat­ed Hank Myers by a mere six­ty-six votes out of 14,659 cast after a recount. That year, there were also recounts for close city coun­cil elec­tions in Both­ell and Mer­cer Island.

Every vote tru­ly does mat­ter! So give some thought to who you’d like to rep­re­sent you and get your bal­lots in by next Tues­day, Novem­ber 2nd.

Bal­lots can be returned to drop box­es at Red­mond City Hall on NE 83rd or the Red­mond Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­ter next to Mary­moor Park. You can also return a bal­lot through the Red­mond Post Office, but it must car­ry a post­mark of Novem­ber 2nd or ear­li­er. If you’re return­ing to a drop box, be sure you get there by 8 PM.