For this round questions, we requested community stakeholders to submit questions for our Auburn City Council candidates. We felt these questions would show the different perspectives of what stakeholders in our city feel are important, and what they believe are the priorities for the City of Auburn.
When provided the questions the candidates did not know who submitted the questions (individually or as a whole.) This is the first time candidates will know who submitted the questions they responded to.
We sent out these questions to the current seven Auburn City Council Candidates. Each of these candidates will appear on the November 5th ballot. You can read the previous questions we posed to each of the candidates here.
Questions:
Auburn Symphony Orchestra:
“As Auburn continues to grow, what role do you think local arts organizations can play in this ever-changing community?”
Valley Professional Fire Fighters, IAFF Local 1352:
“With the increase of low income/affordable housing in Auburn, there is a steady increase in the number of EMS calls that the VRFA responds to. How do you propose the VRFA deal with the increase in emergency and non-emergency calls for service to this population?”
Green River College President, Dr. Suzanne Johnson:
“The Mayor’s Task Force addressing “strong education, strong careers, and strong communities” is focused on building a “leak-proof” K-12 to College to Career pathway for Auburn students. The vision of this task force is “to build a community where all residents can successfully participate in the workforce, achieve economic stability, raise a family, and be a part of the fabric of Algona, Auburn, and Pacific. We will build a regional education to career pipeline that is a community-wide effort uniting education, cities, the business community, community-based organizations, and citizens where 100% of businesses choose to remain in the Cities and 100% of prospective employers choose our cities.” What will you do to build the necessary relationships and structures between city government, business, K-12 and Higher-Ed to support the task force and meet this goal?”
Auburn Area Schools:
“What is your vision for helping connect students in the local workforce?”
Auburn Area Chamber of Commerce:
“What is your stance on a city-imposed B/O taxes and other related business only taxes?”
Auburn Spiritual Leaders:
“What does it mean to promote the life and dignity of every human person?”
Auburn Spiritual Leaders:
“Do you evaluate the treatment of the poor and vulnerable as the benchmark of how successful the city is?”
Auburn High School Key Club:
“How can we support and empower homeless youth out of homelessness and what do you see the role of students/youth is in accomplishing this goal?”
Auburn Food Bank:
“How will you support Auburn’s social safety net programs as a city council member?”
Auburn Food Bank:
“The city of Auburn provides 1% of its general fund dollars to human services programs. What is your position on the city’s use of that money?”
Auburn Area Chamber of Commerce:
“Define “Partnership” and give us an example of a partnership you think exemplifies your definition?”
Not all stakeholders we queried were able to participate or responded to our request.
Auburn City Council Candidate Responses
Chris Stearns (Position No. 1 candidate)
James Jeyaraj (Position No. 3 candidate)
Kenneth (Ken) Pearson (Position No. 3 candidate)
Ryan Burnett (Position No. 5 candidate)
Robyn Mulenga (Position No. 5 candidate)
Robert (Bob) Baggett (Position No. 7 candidate)– No responses provided
Vera Orlandic-Hodak (Position No. 7 candidate)
Each candidate’s answers are published as they were provided to the Auburn Examiner and have not been edited. If a candidate did not submit a response it is notated as such. If a candidate noted they were purposefully not answering a question we notated that the candidate declined to answer. We feel it is important to clarify this difference.
If you want to see other questions candidates have answered, you can check them out on our 2019 Candidate Questionnaires page.
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