Two candidates are challenging incumbent Elizabeth Albertson for her seat on the Kent City Council.<\/p>\n
Geoff Koepp and Barbara Phillips will be in the running against Albertson for Council Position No. 6 on the Aug. 18 primary ballot. The two candidates with the most votes will move on to the Nov. 3 general election.<\/p>\n
On June 5 Koepp and Phillips both filed with the King County Elections division. Albertson filed June 3.<\/p>\n
Council Position 6 is the only race with more than two candidates, and therefore the only Council race in the primary.<\/p>\n
Albertson, 47, is the executive director for Communities in Schools of Kent, a group that helps children stay in school and prepare for life after school. She defeated Russell Hansom with 58 percent of the vote in 2005 to earn a four-year term on the Council that expires the end of this year. She served two years on the city Land Use and Planning Board before joining the Council.<\/p>\n
Albertson chairs the Council\u2019s Planning and Economic Development Committee and is a member of the Council\u2019s Parks and Human Services Committee.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think with the unprecedented (economic) times we are facing, my experience counts in this race,\u201d Albertson said in a phone interview Monday. \u201cI\u2019ve spent four years learning how city government works and that helps me and I can help this city weather the storm.\u201d<\/p>\n
Koepp, 38, moved to Kent in 2000 from the Burien area and is making his first run for an elected office.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are a lot of things I can bring to Kent,\u201d Koepp said in a phone interview Monday. \u201cI love living in Kent and I want to make it better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Koepp works as a financial planner for Ameriprise Financial. He believes those work skills could benefit the Council as it looks at the city budget.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re heading into tough times and we need to be careful with what we do with our resources and manage what we have,\u201d Koepp said.<\/p>\n
Phillips, 52, moved to Kent 16 years ago from St. Louis. She is in her second year on the city\u2019s Land Use and Planning Board.<\/p>\n
Phillips said she decided to run for the Council to address her concerns about housing and crime. Her interests include the city\u2019s East Hill Weed and Seed program, a citizen-city organization aimed at reducing crime.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere have been a number of issues I would like to see handled differently and this is one way of handling that,\u201d Phillips said in a phone interview Tuesday. \u201cI listen to the concerns of residents and this is a way to focus on those concerns.\u201d<\/p>\n
Phillips works as a management program assistant for the Federal Aviation Administration in Renton. She made an unsuccessful run in the 1990s for the Kent School Board. She has not run for any other elected offices.<\/p>\n
The Council members are paid $13,752 per year for their part-time positions. Their positions are at-large.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Kent School Board<\/p>\n
With an open seat on the Kent School District Board of Directors up for election this year, three candidates have thrown their hats into the ring to take over for outgoing board member Sandy Collins, who announced earlier this year she is not seeking re-election.<\/p>\n
Taking her place will be either Tim Clark, Dale Smith or Dave Watson, all three of whom filed with the King County Department of Elections before the June 5 deadline.<\/p>\n
Clark, 63, is the best known of the candidates as he presently serves on the Kent City Council, where he is finishing out his 16th year. Clark is a former social studies teacher who retired from the Kent School District in 2000 and now teaches at Highline Community College. Clark said he has grandchildren presently enrolled in Kent.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s been my day job all my life,\u201d he said of the schools, adding that he could bring to the board \u201csignificant experience you wouldn\u2019t find in the average candidate.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clark also served as president of the Kent Education Association before he retired and said his experience in four terms on the city council has given him a perspective on planning for the future.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnlike an ordinary teacher running for the school board, I not only carry that experience … but I bring the bigger picture with that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Clark said his priority as a board member would be a \u201cprioritized restoration\u201d of the programs and positions cut during this year\u2019s budget session.<\/p>\n
Watson, 48, is also a teacher who has worked as a substitute in Kent and presently teaches English as a second language at Green River Community College. He is the parent of four students currently enrolled in the district.<\/p>\n
As a substitute, Watson said he has seen the district from the inside at many different schools, a perspective that would help inform his views on the board.<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe that I have an insight into the school that hardly anyone has,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Watson said he decided to run after several school-related issues affected his family, such as school boundaries, which have his high school-aged children going to a school eight miles from his home, while there are other closer by.<\/p>\n
Watson said his agenda would be having a board that is \u201cresponsive to the community\u201d and provides oversight over the administration.<\/p>\n
Watson and his wife are also involved in a legal complaint against the district regarding her termination from a position as a paraeducator.<\/p>\n
Smith, 48, is a geopolitical analyst at Boeing who said he has been \u201chighly involved\u201d in the schools for 14 years as his two children have made their way through the district. His wife is a teacher in Black Diamond in the Enumclaw district.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlong the way we\u2019ve become very concerned about the district\u2019s commitment to prepare all students,\u201d he said, adding that in particular he sees growing inequities between school communities based on economic differences and diversity.<\/p>\n
Smith is also the chair of the district\u2019s Alliance for Diversity and Equity and said he wanted the board to keep a focus on helping to eliminate the inequities that arise from the differing economic backgrounds at each school.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s bound to be differences when there\u2019s a such vast differences between the private resources between the schools,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Smith said he decided to run because he understands how to be a :change agent\u201d and because after years being vocal about the issues, he decided it was time to try and do something about it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI guess at some point you can raise the issues, but you have to take the next step and become part of the leadership,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The Kent School Board Director positions are open to any resident of the ward they hope to represent, but the entire district votes on election day.<\/p>\n
The Kent School Board are unpaid positions.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Two candidates are challenging incumbent Elizabeth Albertson for her seat on the Kent City Council. Geoff Koepp and Barbara Phillips will be in the running against Albertson for Council Position No. 6 on the Aug. 18 primary ballot. The two candidates with the most votes will move on to the Nov. 3 general election. On […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-16572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16572"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16572\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16572"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=16572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}