Will Snohomish County get a seat in the 32nd District?

The 32nd Legislative District is a populous one. It includes parts of northwest Seattle, Shoreline, Mountlake Terrace, and Lynnwood, as well as all of Woodway, Esperance, and a southern sliver of Edmonds.

While Snohomish County has had representation in the 32nd in the past, most notably from the representative and senate terms of Maralyn Chase, the district has lately been dominated by King County cities, most notably Shoreline.

Two Edmonds City councilmembers, Will Chen and Jenna Nand, hope to bring Snohomish County back to the district.

Chen, 52, holds position 2 on the Edmonds council while Nand, 42, has seat 7 and is council president pro tem. Chen’s second term expires Dec. 31, 2029, while Nand’s expires Dec. 31, 2027.

They face four competitors for the Position 1 seat: Keith Scully, Danica Noble, Lisa Rezac, and Chris Bloomquist. All candidates are Democrats, except for Republican Rezac.

Two of the six candidates will advance from the Aug. 4 primary to the general election Nov. 3.

Here is a Q&A with Chen and Nand. Answers have been lightly edited.

Edmonds Beacon: Why did you decide you want to turn your attention away from Edmonds and focus on a possible House seat in the 32nd district?

Will Chen: I have two main motivations. Number one is that representation does matter. The 32nd District has been represented by King County representatives for a long time, and I think Snohomish County deserves a seat at the table. And the second motivation is, in terms of the issue that our community and our district faces, is a significant one: affordability.

Housing affordability is one of the things that is limiting our ability to function as a municipality: the 1% property tax cap that is limiting how much revenue cities can raise. That needs to be revisited, in my humble opinion, repealed and then replaced with something that will give us the ability to keep pace with rising costs. In the long run, as a state, we really need to get away from solely relying on property and sales tax.

Jenna Nand: I think that this is a golden opportunity to add geographic diversity to the 32nd Legislative District’s state delegation, since the state senator and representatives have resided in King County for many years.

This is despite the fact that, geographically, approximately one-third of the 32nd Legislative District is in Snohomish County. I think that it is a natural progression for me as a city councilmember to seek to represent Edmonds and a broader south Snohomish/north King County perspective in Olympia, which, in my opinion, is why I’ve received the sole endorsement of Snohomish County Executive Dave Somers.

The entire Puget Sound area needs a more balanced voice to ensure that we are equitably serving all members of our community. As someone who grew up by Highway 99 in southeast Edmonds and in Shoreline as a child, I am excited by the opportunity to bring my diverse perspective to the conversation about public safety, education funding, lowering tuition, cost-of-living solutions, affordable housing and land use, healthcare reforms, and building a better future for us all in the 32nd Legislative District.

Edmonds was a safe and welcoming community for us all when I was growing up here in the 1990s and 2000s, as was Shoreline when I was going to North City Elementary in the 1990s, and I want us to pragmatically face our future population and economic needs while not losing what made our area so beautiful, special, and desirable to the many people who moved here in the first place.

Beacon: Is there any one issue you might champion, besides housing affordability?

Chen: Everything costs more and has been outpacing wage increases, especially for seniors and younger families just starting out. It’s very difficult to stay in the community they are invested in. So I want to focus on tax restructuring. I think our state has a very, very regressive tax structure. We mainly focus on property and sales taxes.

Sales tax right now in Lynnwood and Edmonds is now 10.7 percent for everything that we purchase, except the items that are exempt, like food items. But for small businesses, the B&O (business and occupation) tax is based on revenue, which also gets pushed out to consumers. That puts an extra burden on lower-income people and people on fixed incomes. The percentage of their income spent on those necessities is higher than that of high-income people. So as a state, we really need to revisit our tax structure

Nand: I know that affordable housing is one of the top concerns of our constituents. In addition to the density mandates, I look forward to incentivizing the real estate market to create more affordable home equity options in our area so that the middle and working class can once again accumulate intergenerational wealth and have a basis of financial stability during economic downturns.

Feedback that we are hearing from constituents is that they want a variety of housing types integrated into their neighborhoods, but the housing must be livable and dignified for residents, preserve trees and green spaces, and be designed to withstand fire, extreme weather events, and natural disasters.

I do not support extreme policy proposals like “removing all zoning restrictions,” which would not be smart, effective, or doable in the 21st century.

Another priority for our overtaxed and underserved constituents is addressing the cost-of-living crisis in our region. We need to change the way that government is funded in Washington and shift our tax base from its present regressive funding mechanism to more progressive revenue sources.

However, this does not mean that we have to balloon our tax model or put a higher tax burden on our constituents. Rather, we can maintain our current levels of funding and service while ensuring that we are not placing an untenable burden on our middle- and working-class taxpayers who are already financially overextended. We must stop our valuable workers from being priced out of their communities.

Beacon: What has your term on Edmonds City Council taught you about local politics and working with those who may disagree with you on certain issues?

Chen: That's the beauty of our system; it doesn't matter if it's the city level or state level. We have a system where people with different opinions have a voice, and our democratic system allows those voices to surface. I'm very humbled that people who have reached out to me through email, through phone calls, stopping me at the grocery store, when I walk my dogs, when my neighbors stop and ask me questions – I really appreciate that. And what I learned is that listening and understanding concerns and issues has (helped me) incorporate those into my decision-making.

I’ve had a wonderful experience on the Edmonds City Council. My voting record shows that I'm an objective person. I focus on the issue at hand. Councilmembers, committee members, or state legislators – we all have different experiences. We all have different points of view on the issues, which is great. We can discuss them, and when it's time for me to make a decision, I base my decision on how that decision will impact the people I represent

I'm humble, I'm open-minded. I listen, and I learn. And  at times, if I make a difficult decision and if I need to change course, which is very rare, but if I do, I'm open and  I take input from the people that I represent and make the best decision for my community, for my district.

Nand: My term on Edmonds City Council has been valuable to me in giving me a primer on how to disagree respectfully and always seek common ground, even with my ideological opponents. Despite our differing views, I think that my colleagues on Edmonds City Council and I have similar goals for our community, which is to place the well-being of our 43,000-plus Edmonds residents at the center of everything we do.

Our fiduciary role as legislators is to provide oversight and accountability for our taxpayers and constituents. This is a necessarily adversarial role at times, but I have always prioritized professionalism in my dealings with my colleagues in Edmonds city government.

As the youngest councilmember elected in a generation and the first woman of color on Edmonds City Council, I’m very aware of the example I am setting to younger community members from historically underrepresented backgrounds who may wish to follow in my footsteps. I hope to be remembered as a positive influence.

This leadership opportunity has been transformational for me as a person. It has been the honor and privilege of a lifetime to serve on Edmonds City Council. I lost my father, Kamal Nand, my grandmother, Kamal Patti Shandil, and my bunnies, Arjun and Stormy Tiger, all during my term on Edmonds City Council, in addition to being diagnosed with breast cancer last year.

The love and support of my colleagues and the wider Edmonds community throughout these life-changing events will always have a special place in my heart.