Penny Jo Haney, center, answers a question posed by a panel as her opponents for the Centralia City Council District 1 seat, Cameron McGee, left, and Ron Greenwood, right, look on during a debate at the Centralia-Chehalis Chamber of Commerce luncheon on Monday, July 10, 2017. McGee and Greenwood are competing for a seat on the council after advancing in the primary election.
The two candidates running for the Centralia City Council District 1 seat both have close ties to the community they hope to represent.
Cameron McGee is a downtown business owner. He is challenging incumbent Ron Greenwood.
Greenwood said he first ran for city council in 2013 because he wanted to help people. Over the last four years, he said he has learned the ins and outs of the job, how the budget works and how it affects the issues.
“It’s a balancing act,” he said.
On one hand, the council does not want to tax the citizens too much, Greenwood said, but on the other it needs revenue to provide services to repair infrastructure, reduce flood damage and provide public safety, as well as help the homeless and spur economic development.
Greenwood, who works at the Olympic Club, said he wants to focus on creating an apprenticeship program to help students at Centralia College find careers in the area so they stay here. He added that it would also help companies find good employees and could encourage more businesses to come to Centralia.
He also wants to create a better renting environment in the city through a renting program to help increase the standard of living.
In April, after talking to some of his constituents, he called a workshop meeting of the city council to discuss the idea of requiring landlords to have business licenses through the city in order to hold landlords accountable if their properties are substandard or not up to code. It was ultimately shot down by the rest of the council because the state already has protections for renters.
“I want to help people and kind of give back to the community through leadership,” Greenwood said.
McGee said he decided to run for council because he wants the city to plan for the coming growth over the next 20 years.
“If we don’t plan for it, we’ll get an influx of people and not know what to do with them,” he said.
The traffic will get worse and the city’s resources will be strained if planning is not done to account for the people moving south from the Seattle area. But if the planning is done, Centralia can thrive and benefit from the growth.
McGee said he and his family are deeply tied to the well-being of the community. He has kids in school here and the success of his businesses, Calypso Window Washing and Cosmic Comics and Games, depend on the city thriving for the long term.
“So when the kids are my age the city is still thriving,” he said.
McGee said he believes the Centralia Station project will help the city increase revenue and get more people into the city. However, improved signage will need to be installed in order to get more people downtown, he said.
The general election is Tuesday, Nov. 7. Ballots must be post marked by election day or returned to a ballot drop box by 8 p.m. Ballots were mailed on Wednesday.
