Ryan Burnett is running for Auburn City Council Position No. 5. His opponent is Robyn Mulenga.
Auburn Symphony Orchestra:
“As Auburn continues to grow, what role do you think local arts organizations can play in this ever-changing community?”
The art community can help define our city’s personality. They hold the power to influence the perception of our city’s visitors. Think about Vashon and their slogan “Keep Vashon weird,” driven with help from it’s arts community. What do we want our city’s “identity” to be…?
Valley Professional Firefighters, 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?”
I am currently in talks with Valley to look for solutions to this. Presently, I do not have enough knowledge on this subject to comment.
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?”
I have already begun to partner with the Muckleshoot Tribe to help connect these efforts with jobs in the tribal entities such as the casino. As a chef in the casino, I can directly influence this by opening a pipeline between my kitchens in the casino and the educational programs we are talking about. I feel this is just the beginning as it will open other doors to solutions and opportunities.
Auburn Area Schools:
“What is your vision for helping connect students in the local workforce?”
We need to get the students inside these businesses as well as the business leaders involved in the students lives. It might be a good idea to have the industry leaders guide the development of curriculum designed to get the students ready to enter the workforce immediately, maybe even before graduating. Let’s face the reality that our next generation of workers are not aptly prepared to enter our workforce at a high enough productivity level and take action to get the curriculum right!
Auburn Area Chamber of Commerce:
“What is your stance on a city-imposed B/O taxes and other related business only taxes?”
I am strongly against imposing this B&O tax on our businesses. We talk about how to increase our city’s revenue, yet we want to take actions that will turn existing business owners away and create the perception among potential businesses in our community that we are an attractive city to own a business in. If the city were to come to a position that it needed to raise taxes, I believe it should go to a public vote, and that any tax imposed should not just be focussed on our businesses.
Auburn Spiritual Leaders:
“What does it mean to promote the life and dignity of every human person?”
To “promote” denotes action, so to me this means seeking and taking actions that have the goal of uplifting my fellow humans, regardless of situation and position.
Auburn Spiritual Leaders:
“Do you evaluate the treatment of the poor and vulnerable as the benchmark of how successful the city is?”
It is certainly a big indicator of its commitment to solutions, it’s economy and housing market. Are we treating them fairly and justly? Do we think about long term solutions when we are assisting them in their current situations? Do we understand that without basic core needs, self betterment and success are very difficult to achieve? All questions we need to ask ourselves while helping the Mayor to lead the city.
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?”
I think there are many people of all ages that want to help, but haven’t been quite sure how, myself included. This is one of the reasons I have decided to run for council, I want to connect myself with all of the resources necessary to assist our young ones in seeking self betterment. These resources must be coordinated in a way that has not been done in the past to be at their most effective. There are many reasons why we have homeless youth on our streets, and it will take a coordinated team effort to bring all of these services together to help them respect themselves and see success. I see myself as willing and able to take this initiative head on, work needs to be done to make this happen, and I am more than willing to put in the work for this cause. It truly breaks my heart to see our youth suffer. I think that our more fortunate youth can connect in ways that an older generation can not, so looking to get our local students involved on another level than what has been done previously could help increase the results of our efforts, it’s a great idea!
Auburn Food Bank:
“How will you support Auburn’s social safety net programs as a city council member?”
I would love to take a look at our processes here and look for ways to better them. In the restaurant business, we adopt systems to make sure our guests are almost never affected by simple human error (impossible to avoid completely). If we see an increase in demand for an item on our menu, we are forced to examine our process when we are unable to keep up with the demand in an efficient manner. If we do not examine our process, and we continue to do the same thing as in the past, and we know demand for this item is not likely to decrease due to increased guests at our restaurant, we stand to fail in regards to giving the guests what they want. That is a long way of saying that we need to look at how we can use our programs more efficiently to really make a difference, continuing to do the same things as we have done in the past will not lead us to the solutions we desire.
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?”
To me, I don’t see it as enough. We are calling this a homeless “crisis,” well let’s treat as if it were a crisis. Throw our resources at these issues and look outside of what we have been doing…it’s not working. What are the cities of the world doing to combat these major issues? How can we learn from the success stories, and then how can we do it better? If you want to find out for yourself, the World Economic Forum met earlier this year and discussed these topics. They were able to identify specific items that must be addressed, systematically, in order to remedy our current situation. The state of Washington, through Engrossed 2nd Substitute House Bill 1923, has also extended additional possible grants to cities that adopt at least two of the many strategies suggested that could help not only decrease our homeless population, but drive down the cost of homes in our economy. The law of supply and demand is driving our housing prices up. Auburn needs to work to overachieve when deciding to take on these strategies, again, asking “how can we do it better?”
Auburn Area Chamber of Commerce:
“Define “Partnership” and give us an example of a partnership you think exemplifies your definition?”
I think a great example of this is my fundraiser “Auburn Fight to Unite” while in initial discussions about this event, there were differing opinions about the venue, causing us to delay it. After conversation and eventual partnership between the Muckleshoot Tribe, the Auburn Food Bank, the Auburn Area Chamber of Commerce, and local business leaders in Auburn, we were able to locate a great venue to hold this event. Not all parties were willing in the beginning, but we were able to put aside our differing opinions to focus on a fact – we must to our parts to end childhood hunger – and that is exactly what we are going to begin to do, thanks to our partnership.
Check out other candidate responses to these questions here. Other election questionnaires can be found in our Vote 2019 section.