Over 100 attendees gathered in the backyard of a Lynnwood home Sunday to support George Hurst in his reelection campaign for a third term on the Lynnwood City Council. Hurst has occupied the council’s Position 6 seat since 2015.
While Hurst is running unopposed, he said he plans on actively campaigning to bring attention to important issues in Lynnwood. “Public safety is always a central concern for any city council, but public safety should not be limited to hiring more police officers,” he said. “We also need to make sure we address the substance abuse and mental health crisis in our region.”
Hurst focused on other issues as well. “The lack of available housing for all levels of income in Lynnwood must be addressed with careful modifications of our housing zones and codes,” he said. “And finally, we need to make sure our city is environmentally sustainable. This includes having electric vehicles as a priority for our city fleet, incentivizing the use of solar power and replacing our failing old-technology wastewater treatment plant that flows into Puget Sound.”
Hurst was joined by Lynnwood City Council candidates Nick Coelho and Robert Leutwyler as well as council hopefuls from Edmonds and Shoreline — Chris Eck and Annette Ademasu, respectively. “I appreciate not only the support of residents in Lynnwood but also of other like-minded candidates who want to make sure our region is a great place to work and live in,” Hurst remarked.
For more information about Hurst or his campaign, visit VoteforHurst.com or email Hurst4Lynnwood@outlook.com.
“The lack of available housing for all levels of income”
Tell me I am wrong, but should we be concerned if multimillionaires can’t find a mega mansion in Lynnwood? And as callus as it sounds, do we really want ghetto’s for the really poor in Lynnwood? Sounds like George is interested in a vision of Lynnwood I do not share. I like George, disagree with him.
Response is not too surprising or bad, but it comes off as not taking a really strong stance on anything and towing the line as to not anger anyone, which is understandable I guess.
In regards to housing and “careful modifications of our housing zones and codes,” the fact is that over 80 percent of Lynnwood is Single Family Zoned (most are minimum 8400 sq ft lot + other setbacks, I believe), or technically “duplex-zoned” if you factor in HB-1110. Regardless of your housing preferences, making it illegal to build effective, dense multi-family or mixed-use housing on the vast majority of the land is not exactly conducive to meeting housing targets while also championing “sustainability,” especially when the vast majority of people can’t reasonably rely on other modes of transport that are not cars.
Electric vehicles are cool and all, but they are still expensive cars which generate traffic and require lots of unproductive land to store when not in use. The most sustainable and efficient mode of transport is just less transport, but you can’t really have that when nothing is close by (often because of the NEED for cars) or well connected by transit, and everyone has to use the same congested roads every day. I appreciate that Community Transit will be upping their game once Light Rail is on, and we will have enhanced local transit in conjunction with a reliable commuter option down i5, but there is still much to be done.
The fact is that this area is in high-demand, and we can’t just sit on our laurels and not change at all. Even if some are unhappy, I am optimistically curious about how things will change, especially with the development of a true downtown or City Center.