Kent council candidate doesn’t want Kent to become Seattle

It’s an exciting primary season with plenty of candidates who have decided to step up because they’re unhappy with the direction their cities are going. For Kent council candidate Zandria Michaud, it’s as much about correcting the course of her as city as it is preventing it from becoming like its neighbor, Seattle.

Michaud served in the Army for five years as a broadcast journalist and public affairs specialist, and served at the Kent Community Parks and Recreation Commission as well. She’s now running for position seven on the council and joined the Jason Rantz Show on KTTH to discuss her motivation.

“As I’ve been going around and meeting Kent residents one of their main concerns is crime and I can definitely relate to that because it is happening here in my own neighborhood,” she said.

“People don’t feel safe going out and there’s been shootings in my neighborhood. So what I’m doing is pushing the police department to increase community policing measures. I’ve been regularly advocating for police officers to be in public spaces out of their patrol vehicles, walking around and actively engaging people and doing proactive policing.”

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Michaud sees prolific offenders becoming a growing issue, and worries that unless criminals are prosecuted properly, these patterns will only continue. An incident in front of her house brought this issue home.

“There was an attempted carjacking and the individuals involved in that were actually also involved in a Costco purse snatching and a fatality accident here in Kent, where the driver and one of the passengers crashed the car, got out of the car and left a 13 year-old in the back, and that 13 year-old ended up dying,” she said.

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“Those were all involved in the same issues and because they’re not being properly punished they can just go and re-commit crime. So we have to put pressure on the prosecutor.”

Looking at Seattle as a warning

For Michaud, much of this is obviously inextricably linked with homelessness, an issue she focuses on with an eye to what’s transpiring in Seattle.

“What I’m suggesting for Kent is first of all we need to have a clear strategy and really put that forward because the people of Kent do not want to turn into Seattle,” she said. “We need to ensure that the people have access to addiction and mental health treatment and jobs and home placement. And we also need to make sure that the trash that is left behind is cleaned up quickly.”

“I’m thinking that we could have a three-department team that includes a police officer, a social worker, and then probably a public works person to go out and interact with the homeless communities to help kind of take care of the situation … The Kent residents and the council are really concerned and that is in the forefront of their mind–that they don’t want to make the same mistakes as Seattle.”

To learn more about Michaud’s campaign, head to www.zandriaforkent.com

Listen to the Jason Rantz Show weekday afternoons from 3-6 p.m. on KTTH 770 AM (or HD Radio 97.3 FM HD-Channel 3). Subscribe to the podcast here.

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