By Carolyn Bick
NORTHWEST ASIAN WEEKLY
Andy Song
Kent City Council candidates Andy Song and Sharn Shoker are vying to replace Brenda Fincher, who decided not to seek re-election this year for her Position 6 seat on the Kent City Council. The pair fielded questions from both moderators and the public on Oct. 1 in a town hall event called The Future of Kent: Candidate Town Hall.
Song is a therapist, current Kent School Board director, and small business owner. Former Gov. Jay Inslee also appointed Song to serve on the Governor’s Committee on Disability Issues and Employment from 2019-2022.
Sharn Shoker
Shoker is a lifelong Kent resident who currently serves on a number of boards, including the Kent School Foundation and the Randhawa Foundation, a Seattle-based nonprofit that works to support individuals and communities in both Punjab and Washington state through financial investments in education and health. She is also a volunteer teacher at the Khalsa Gurmat Center.
Low-income and affordable housing
Shoker and Sharn have different approaches to addressing the need for low-income housing and how they would support organizations that create low-income housing.
Song said that he thinks the city needs to partner with private and public developers, as well as increase funding, partnerships, and contracts with local nonprofits to expand supportive housing.
He also said that he thinks the council should look at private, equity-backed real estate owners, and a vacancy tax.
“I think what’s unfair is that there are many individuals who own multiple properties, when there are neighbors living right besides us who can’t even access housing,” Song said. He said that he discovered, in the course of his research, that there are between 500–600 unoccupied homes that have been vacant for more than six months.
“Through a vacancy tax … we would incentivize landowners and property owners who have multiple real estate portfolios by creating this vacancy tax where you either rent out these spaces or we’re going to tax you as if you were renting those spaces,” Song explained. “This way, we remove and redirect the tax burden off of the consumers, the small businesses, the business communities … and we create a more community-based and collaborative approach with land developers, with property owners.”
He pointed out that this vacancy issue also extends to commercial storefronts, and could be mitigated through a vacancy tax.
“The recent data shows that we’re about 17% vacant,” Song said. “When we’re able to utilize motivation and leverage and draw funds from private equity and large developers, then we can help expand housing.”
Shoker agreed that the city needed to work with private and nonprofit developers. Kent’s Comprehensive Plan, updated last year, set a goal of creating more than 10,000 housing units over the next 20 years. Shoker said that she would work with her fellow council members to ensure that some number of those would be affordable or low-income housing.
“I think when we think about affordable housing and low-income housing, we need to think about multigenerational families,” Shoker said. “We need to think about townhouses, duplexes, ADUs—giving people the freedom to choose housing that works for them.”
For example, Shoker said, she and her family live in a multigenerational household of 10 people, including Shoker’s grandmother. Living that way has allowed her to run for city council, she said, because she knows that her son is safe at home with his grandmother.
“Not saying it works for everyone, but it’s a model that people should be able to explore,” she said.
Empty properties
Shoker listed a number of commercial properties around Kent that are or will become vacant, including Fred Meyer stores, Bartell Drug storefronts, and Walgreens buildings. The city’s two Fred Meyer stores will close later this month, because the parent company, Kroger, decided they were not profitable enough. Walgreens closed its Kent store’s doors for the same reason, while Bartell Drug closed, due to parent company Rite Aid’s bankruptcy filing.
Shoker said that she wanted to have incentive programs for property owners to convert buildings to mixed-use structures, with retail sitting below housing. She suggested that these vacant buildings could house farmers markets, night markets, festivals, and more, until those buildings became the mixed-use structures she envisioned.
“And,” she continued, “when we think about the World Cup happening next year, maybe we can welcome new restaurants and pop-up shops to really fill up our city temporarily in all those empty spaces that we have.”
She also said that, regardless of what they are used for, the city should keep up with code enforcement so the properties did not become derelict.
Song once again highlighted the vacancy tax as a way to help prevent high rates of vacancies throughout the city. He also posited partnering with the Chamber of Commerce and the business communities to allow small, mom-and-pop-style shops that business owners run out of their homes or garages, or online to have a brick-and-mortar presence. He said that he could see this happening through some sort of rotating system or schedule.
Political leanings
Song said that he doesn’t lean one way or another politically. He said that he makes decisions “leaning towards people,” thanks to his experience working with disadvantaged and marginalized communities, as well as working in the hospital system.
“I saw that regardless of your political affiliation, your leaning or your philosophies, at the soul, people have health care needs,” Song said. “People need benefits. People need services. Regardless if you’re a Republican or if you’re a Democrat, health care does not discriminate.”
He said that he votes with his conscience, and that this includes voting with and against the majority of the Kent School Board on certain decisions. He also said that he has a number of endorsements from both conservative and liberal political figures.
“My approach to politics really is to stay somewhere in the middle, because that’s where I truly believe most of the American people are,” Song said. “People just want to be able to know that they can get their bills paid, their kids are going to get a good education, they’re going to be safe, they’re going to be able to go out and live a fulfilling life.”
Shoker said that she likes the fact that the Kent City Council position is nonpartisan, because it gives the council the opportunity to work across party lines. She said that she is endorsed by Democrats in Kent’s legislative districts, as well as several Kent City council members.
“I also have the endorsement of [Kent City Councilmember] Bill Boyce, who, when he gave me his endorsement, said, ‘You know, Sharn, I know we’re not going to see eye-to-eye on everything, but I know that you’re somebody that I can work with on practical solutions,’” Shoker said. “And that is a compliment I hold so dearly, because that’s what I’m committed to. There’s way too much divisiveness going on right now, and that does not move us forward.”
Homelessness
Both Shoker and Song shared the same sentiments, when asked about how they would help to mitigate homelessness, and expand services and support for people experiencing homelessness, including young people.
Shoker said that she has worked directly with young people experiencing homelessness in foster care, and that she has found that listening to what they need and turning around to advocate for them at the state level has been effective. She also said that she wants to find “permanent solutions to homelessness,” which involves getting people out of homelessness and into permanent supportive housing.
“I want to explore all the options that are out there, and I think that there’s not one solution that really works,” Shoker said. She said that she would want to work with city partners and nonprofits that are already on the ground doing the work to address these issues, and ask a number of pertinent questions to help people go from homelessness to permanent housing.
“What do we do in the beginning when somebody in our city enters homelessness?
How do we identify them? What are their needs? What is the transition plan?
And then finally, how do we exit them out of homelessness?” Shoker said. “I really want to work with our city to expand our outreach program that connects people to shelter, mental health care, job opportunities, and I want to work with our regional partners where people can access daily essentials and really bring back some of that dignity, wellbeing, and belonging for everyone in Kent.”
Song agreed that a multi-layered approach that acknowledges that one size does not fit all is important. He also highlighted that, in looking at the costs associated with homelessness, “it’s really easy for us to get caught up in the conversations and dialogues related to the symptoms of what we’re seeing overtly present, which is homelessness encampments.”
“I would also like to shift the narrative on public camping vans. That is something I am actively campaigning on, and this comes from multiple different approaches,” Song explained. “One, the population that I serve and work with are people who are low-income, disadvantaged, people who are exiting and transitioning out of homelessness. Through just anecdotal data and looking at research from all across the board, we see that there’s not a one-size-fits-all.”
Song said that opening up homelessness solutions to include public camping vans, versus seeing them as a public nuisance or something to get people out of, doesn’t meet people where they might be at and doesn’t represent compassionate care or looking at solving homelessness through a transitional lens.
He said that he would like to pair public camping van options with increased funding to accessing services like detox programs and substance use centers, and housing alternatives like tiny homes and shelters.
“Some of the things that we miss in our systems currently is we don’t have shelter and housing options for single men with children, women with children, families,” Song said. “We need to look at the entire person, the entire family system and structure, and look at what’s going to be best for the City of Kent, and how do we leverage our existing partnerships, and also work within reason and common sense of funding opportunities to ensure that we’re going to help the most of our population that we can.”
ICE raids
Both candidates strongly supported protecting Kent residents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids.
Shoker’s answer was direct and blunt.
“No family should live in fear of separation. No family should be afraid when there’s a knock on the door, when they’re going to work, when kids are going to work, when we’re accessing health care,” Shoker said, before repeating: “No family should live in fear of separation, and I’ll leave it there.”
Song’s answer was a little more informational, but no less strongly opposed to ICE raids. He said that the city should work with state legislators and lawmakers to ensure there will be protections and equal rights for all.
Song shared that he comes from a mixed background. His mother was adopted, and while his grandfather is white, his grandmother is Mexican. He said that his diverse background allows him to understand a wide array of lived experiences.
“My perspective on the Kent School Board, one of the things that we’re seeing is a drop in enrollment and also a lack of community involvement for families because of the fear, because of the uncertainty of what the political climate might do in terms of their vulnerability because of their ethnicity, the way that they look, or their immigration status,” Song said. “So, yes, I fully support the City of Kent and the current initiatives that we have through our partnership with [Kent Police Department] Chief [Rafael] Padilla. I think he’s done an amazing job up until this point in making sure that there’s equal justice and social justice given to our immigrant and rural populations.”
Small business support
Song said that, as a small business owner himself, he knows that it’s important to hire locally and pay well, as well as support unions. Song also said that he understands the challenges that come with owning and running a business—including what it was like to navigate through the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
He said that, if elected, he wants to work more collaboratively with businesses to figure out how to “reduce limitations, restrictions, and red tape that prohibit or make it difficult for small businesses to be able to run and function, especially through the licensing processes or, say, endorsements.”
He highlighted that though a business license usually takes 10–15 days to obtain, “we’re also seeing, especially from our minority business owners, that that process may take longer because there’s a lot of redundancies in place.” He said that financial literacy was another important topic from which many small businesses could benefit, and touched on his 40 Under 40 award from the Puget Sound Business Journal for his sustainable business practices.
Shoker said that one of her ideas was to launch a Shop Kent First campaign that encourages Kent residents to spend their money within city limits to keep tax dollars in Kent.
“When we think about small businesses, I also want to look at our entire ecosystem of businesses here in Kent. We have manufacturers, we have distributors, farmers, aerospace, and all of them play a part,” Shoker said. “I think that when we talk about business, we need to talk about everybody together and how we can work together in this ecosystem, and bring people to the table, as well as our labor unions, as well as employers and jobs and employees to ensure that we have that balance.”
Traffic safety
Moderators highlighted that by September of last year, there were five pedestrian deaths and 42 accidents in Kent, and asked Shoker and Song what they would do to keep pedestrians and cyclists safe.
Shoker said that, while she was doorknocking, many people talked with her about how people driving cars use the neighborhoods as shortcuts to avoid traffic—but that they also speed, when they do this. She said she didn’t know where the city’s worst hotspots for unsafe traffic conditions were, but wanted to know.
She also said that Kent needed to ensure that its high-traffic areas, like senior centers and schools, had signs up in case of blind spots, and that more Kent streets were well-lit.
“I didn’t realize until I started door knocking in Kent, how many streets in Kent don’t have street lights—mine included,” Shoker said.
Song said that, in the course of his own door-knocking, he has also witnessed what it’s like to go through certain neighborhoods, where there are no speed bumps or raised sidewalks, and has also seen people cutting through neighborhoods in their cars.
“I think a lot of the focus also needs to be put back onto additional routes and looking at the highway congestion and the congestion from major thoroughways of Kent,” Song said. “When we reference a lot of those deaths and those accidents, they actually happened during school hours. Three of those from last year were because people were not patient enough to wait for school buses, and so, unfortunately, we did lose a couple of lives that were Kent School District students. … So, looking at the cause from a more geographical perspective of what’s causing this … how do we improve things like bus routes, public transportation.”
Song said that he thinks if the City can expand and remove the limitations for how people commute, then they can also work to address the number of traffic-related incidents, accidents, and deaths.
Audience questions
Song and Shoker also had an opportunity to address audience queries, after the moderators had finished asking candidates their prepared questions.
One audience member asked the candidates whether they supported the city using privately funded jails and whether they supported the city funding jails. The Maleng Regional Justice Center (RJC) is located in Kent, and the City contracts with the South Correctional Entity, or SCORE, a private jail.
Song said that this was a difficult question, because “we want to support our law enforcement, social justice, criminal justice, and [ensure] that we’re upholding the laws,” but also pointed out that jailing someone is expensive. Keeping someone jailed at SCORE, he said, costs about $200 per day. The City spends about $700,000–$800,000 on those costs, he said.
“And when we look at reinvesting those costs into preventative measures, prevention programs, increasing our contracts with our local law enforcement and putting in more determinants, then I think we could cut back on the utilization of private jails,” he said.
Shoker said that she didn’t know enough about the topic to comment, but was able to answer an audience member who asked about each candidate’s track record of public service in the community.
She said that her first experience with public service came at 17 years old, when she served on the Kent Cultural Communities Board. From there, she also volunteered for street cleanups and taught martial arts to a group of students for 10 years. She also said that she was invited to share her experience as a Sikh woman with principals in the Kent School District.
Being able to get that opportunity to be a part of the City of Kent and get those opportunities, really, really navigated how my life turned out,” Shoker said.
Song said that his first job as a 16-year-old was his first community service experience. He worked at a disability summer camp, and continued that work through his undergraduate and master’s degree programs. It was there that he decided to become a therapist, “because they were the voices that go often unheard and unseen in our society, and that’s what really reached out to me.”
He also highlighted his work on the Governor’s Disability Rights and Employment Committee, where he helped to implement different accessibility measures.
In response to another community member’s question regarding whether the candidates supported implementing post-overdose programs like Health 99 and the ORCA Center, Song said that he wasn’t familiar with those programs, but said that he does support post-overdose programs.
Song also said that he believes current legal systems are lacking in the way they loop the criminal justice system into substance use. He pointed out that when someone gets a drug charge, “a lot of the time, there’s compelled or forced treatment,” which has its own set pathway. This set pathway can often be difficult for most people who receive drug charges, because they are often on Medicaid, which is restrictive.
“What I think we can do here in the City of Kent to become innovative is to partner with them and to partner with other local nonprofits and raise funding so that we can open up things like detox centers, treatment centers, and also outpatient-related services so that we don’t have to have things that are just for post-overdose,” Song said. “But then taking the post-overdose and making it more of a preventative measure that’s implemented citywide, and not just located at a center.”
This involves things like NARCAN training and ensuring businesses, schools, and individual community members have access to the means to respond to a drug crisis.