If Joshua Freed is ever elected as Washington’s governor, he will donate his salary to organizations fighting homelessness.

“I’m running for governor because so many in our state are being left behind,” Freed told The Saul Spady Show on KTTH. “You can see the evidence all around us. The top three issues certainly are dealing with: The drug epidemic that is before us; bringing government accountability and transparency to Olympia; as well as prioritizing our spending. Olympia has plenty of money but the wrong priorities. And we can focus on priorities without a new state income tax.”

The former Bothell mayor is officially running as a Republican candidate for governor of the state of Washington.

“Our governor was out of the state for the last four  months,” Freed said. “He was trying to run for president, spending millions of our tax dollars to go run on a political ploy of his own, rather than focus on the desperate needs in our state.”

I-27 leader calls out King Co. Prosecutor Dan Satterberg

“I want to have a public-private partnership to truly address the situation that is before us,” he said. “Right now the government is too involved with people-on-people treatment and they are not having success … today we don’t even have on-demand treatment. So if somebody wants to get help from heroin addiction … there is[sic] not enough beds to be able to take people.”

Freed has previously garnered headlines for his work on I-27, which aimed to ban safe injection sites in King County. It was challenged in court and ultimately knocked down for going beyond the scope of the initiative process (it improperly interfered with the county’s budgetary authority).

There are three other Republicans stepping up for the job — State Senator Phil Fortunato; Republic Chief of Police Loren Culp; and Maple Valley program manager Anton Sakharov. The primary is on Aug. 4, 2020.

Listen to the Saul Spady Show weekday afternoons from 6-9 a.m. on KTTH 770 AM (or HD Radio 97.3 FM HD-Channel 3). Subscribe to the podcast here.