‘Totally unacceptable’: Everett mayoral candidate Scott Murphy outraged as homelessness doubles in city
Nov 3, 2025, 4:30 PM | Updated: 5:28 pm
The margin of primary votes separating incumbent Everett mayor Cassie Franklin from challenger Scott Murphy was thin, as Murphy tallied only a 65-vote edge over Franklin.
The current leader in the polls, Murphy, addressed the city’s need for an expanded police workforce and its relation to the recent Fred Meyer closure, as well as the growing homeless population under Franklin’s leadership.
“One of the reasons I’m running is that for the last eight years under Mayor Franklin’s leadership, our police department has been chronically understaffed,” Murphy said on “The Jake and Spike Show” on KIRO Newsradio. “In the police department, we’ve had anywhere from 25 to 35 officer vacancies in our budget. I have been screaming from the rooftops for a year since I filed to run that this is one of the top issues in the city.”
Earlier this year, Kroger announced it was closing the Fred Meyer at 8530 Evergreen Way, along with other locations in places like Tacoma and Lake City. In a statement, a Fred Meyer spokesperson cited “a steady rise in theft and a challenging regulatory environment” as reasons for the closure.
“This ties into the Fred Meyer situation, because if we’d been fully staffed, we could have set up a retail theft task force, or something to really dive into this issue and help,” Murphy said. “I believe [the closure] was because of all the theft and crime. They were begging for help, and they didn’t get it.”
Murphy pivoted to the concerning rise of homeless individuals living throughout Everett, and compared the increase to when Franklin took command as mayor.
“I’m concerned about homelessness. If you look at the unsheltered homeless in Everett from 2018, when Cassie Franklin took office, to January 2025, the most recent point in time count showed homelessness in Everett is up 95%. It’s basically doubled in the last seven years,” Murphy said. “To me, that is totally unacceptable. We’ve spent millions of dollars over that period of time, and it’s getting worse.”
Watch the full discussion in the video above.
Listen to “The Jake and Spike Show” weekdays from noon to 3 p.m. on KIRO Newsradio 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.
