PORT ANGELES — Port Angeles City Council candidates Navarra Carr and Mark Karjalainen laid out very different visions for how to address familiar problems in a forum.
Questions from the audience at the Port Angeles Business Association meeting on Tuesday focused on topics that have dominated several candidate forums and local discussions: housing, homelessness and drug use.
The candidates — both vying for the Position 6 seat on the council, which Carr has held since 2019 — laid out distinctly different visions for how to tackle the issues, with Karjalainen making his opposition to the direction of the current council a pillar of his candidacy.
A firefighter and paramedic for 25 years, Karjalainen said experience has given him intimate access to the lives of citizens and a unique perspective on their wants and needs.
“I have seen a serious decline in the health, safety and security of our citizens and businesses within our city due to well-intended but mistaken policies,” Karjalainen said.
“Although this is a nonpartisan race, I am unashamedly declaring myself both fiscally and socially conservative,” he said. “I believe there is more than enough room in the conversation for multiple ways to attack a problem.”
Carr — a law student and former nonprofit worker — at 31 is the youngest person currently serving on the council and the youngest person ever elected to the position.
“I was the first openly LGBTQ person elected to the Port Angeles City Council and I’m the only Port Angeles City Council member who rents rather than owns their own home,” Carr said. “I believe that my experiences and perspective add value to the policies we support on the council and provide representation to groups otherwise not represented in our local politics, and these voices will be lost if I’m not elected.”
Carr said the policies she’s supported while on the city council have helped make progress toward addressing the many issues facing the community.
On housing, Carr said she supported changes to zoning which allowed for denser housing, fewer setbacks and the construction of Accessory Dwelling Units, or ADUs, and those changes have worked to increase housing in the community.
“Last year, in the first eight months of the year, there were no new multifamily housing units in Port Angeles,” Carr said. “But in the same period this year, there have been six. It’s obvious that those policies are working.”
Karjalainen said the city should offer the same tax deferments it offers low-income multifamily housing construction to single-family homes.
“We shouldn’t rob Peter to pay Paul, and that’s what we’re doing,” Karjalainen said.
“We’re giving on the backs of people that are median income, attempting to build a life for their family, build a home here,” he said. “That they get no benefit from tax deferment or building permits where somebody that’s building specifically for low-income housing that they get all the benefit, I don’t think that’s fair.”
On the subject of drug use, Karjalainen said law enforcement need to be given more power to compel people into drug treatment programs. Emergency measures like the opioid overdose rescue drug Narcan don’t address the larger issue, he said.
“We don’t have enough paramedics to just respond and put Band-Aids on it. That’s what the Narcan does, it reverses a one-time overdose,” Karjalainen said. “But as a paramedic, I went and saw people multiple times where they have overdosed on fentanyl. That is a life-saving measure, but it does nothing to change the end result.”
Carr said she has supported a community paramedic program that has helped people stay in their homes and defended the city’s current approach to dealing with people with substance abuse issues.
“I think there really is room for a two-pronged approach. I was part of the first council in a long time to increase our police department,” Carr said. “We also need to help people when they want to receive help and respond compassionately when people are struggling.”
Karjalainen said the city needs to focus on treating the homeless population suffering from substance abuse and mental health issues and, he said, often both.
“That is what I think we need to focus on, not limiting (short-term rentals) for homelessness and giving tax breaks for people who are building multifamily housing. It is specifically targeting the problem not putting the $1.2 million Band-Aid on a broken arm,” Karjalainen said, referencing city and state funds that have been spent on homelessness.
People with mental health and substance abuse issues should be directed to mental health programs and other treatment, Karjalainen said, and job opportunity programs that help get them off the streets.
But while she agreed, Carr noted that none of those programs provided housing for people experiencing homelessness.
“I agree it would be great to get people into adequate mental health facilities,” Carr said. “Do we have any in-patient treatment facilities here? No, we don’t. We can’t just put people in places we don’t have.”
Carr said she hopes to continue the work she’s started on the city council to make Port Angeles a more resilient and thriving community.
“My leadership and experience on the council have led to policies that are changing Port Angeles for the better, and yet there’s still work to be done,” Carr said. “Over the next four years, I hope to continue to find creative solutions to addressing housing and homelessness.”
Karjalainen emphasized that he and many others want a change in the direction of city leadership, and he said he could provide that.
“My message is simple: I believe my opponent has had the past four years to prove her confirmation bias and willingness to enter into an echo chamber along with the majority of the current city council, and it doesn’t represent a large portion of the city of Port Angeles,” Karjalainen said.
“I have spoken with hundreds of citizens that agree that the council no longer speaks on their behalf and agree there is a need for a voice of opposition.”
Port Angeles City Council members do not represent a particular district or area of the city and are elected to serve four-year terms.
In addition to the Position 6 seat, Positions 5 and 7 are up for election this year. City Council races are non-partisan.
Election Day is Nov. 7, and ballots will be mailed to voters Oct. 18. Voter registration is available until 8 p.m. on Election Day, but online voter registration ends Oct. 30.
Online voter registration and additional election information is available at Washington’s election website, votewa.gov.
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Reporter Peter Segall can be reached at peter.segall@peninsuladailynews.com.
