Developing Columbia Park, affordable housing at issue as 4 face off in Kennewick race

Kennewick Councilman Bill McKay has three challengers in the August primary election as he runs to serve a second term on the council.

They include a city planning commissioner, a Realtor interested in affordable housing and a school social worker.

The top two vote-getters will move on to the Nov. 2 general election.

Deadline for online voter registration is July 26, and the in-person registration deadline is Aug. 3.

City Planning Commissioner Ken Short is bringing the most money to the election campaign.

He has raised $9,230, with the largest donation from the public action committee of the Plumbers and Steamfitters Local Union 598, according to the Washington state Public Disclosure Commission.

He also has received $1,000 from Councilman Chuck Torelli.

The donation illustrates the split on the council. On some contentious issues the council divides in a 4-3 vote, with McKay in the minority and Torelli in the majority.

With three other council seats up for election in November, city residents have a chance to either retain the current balance of power or shift it.

McKay has raised $1,600, including $1,000 from the Washington Association of Realtors.

Bryan Meehan-Verhei, a small business owner with a realty team, has raised $300. Social worker Uby Creek expects to raise less than $5,000 and is not required to list donations.

Bill McKay

McKay is running as a businessman and fiscal conservative, saying in the Benton County voters’ guide that he has worked to make sure that taxes are held to a minimum and that every tax dollar is spent responsibly.

As a small business owner, former loan officer and a developer, he has pushed for the city’s planning and public works regulation to be evaluated and streamlined so small businesses can grow without being over regulated, he said.

He says he’s the only Kennewick council member to invest his own money into a brick-and-mortar business in Kennewick.

“As a result, my experience of going through the commercial building permit process several times, is very valuable to being on city council,” he said.

All candidates at the virtual candidate forum of the League of Women Voters of Benton and Franklin counties said they support city ownership of Columbia River shoreline now under U.S. Army Corps ownership with long-term leases to Kennewick, as well as Richland and Pasco.

McKay said with city control of the land he’d like to see a water park built by a private company by the river in Columbia Park the end of Edison Street.

On other issues, he wants the city to make negotiating labor union contracts in public.

And he says the city should continue to oppose illegal immigration in the interest of public safety.

He has supported rezoning the top of Thompson Hill to high density to allow a boutique hotel and restaurant to be built there.

Concerns have been raised that the zoning change would also allow high density housing on the hill by the current or a future developer.

McKay says that the developer is willing to sign an agreement limiting the number of residents to 360, rather than the 1,100 residents that opponents of the project say would be possible.

Ken Short

The last few years the Kennewick City Council has been bogged down by “petty infighting and toxic partisanship,” Short says on his campaign website.

While he welcomes disagreement, strife on the council and with its regional partners harms the city’s ability to attract new industries and jobs, he said.

Short wants to invest in city parks, waterfronts and downtown, saying they would help attract and retain a talented workforce.

Taking over Columbia Park from the Army Corps would help turn it into a more valuable space for residents and serve as an asset for tourism and for attracting new workers.

“It makes sense to me that the folks who swim, fish and bike there would have more say to as to the type of developments and opportunities we’d like to put at Columbia Park,” he said at the League of Women Voters forum.

A graduate of Kamiakin High, he wants to make sure his preschool-age son grows up in a city as safe as it was when he was a child.

He earned a master of business administration in finance from Seattle University and then returned to the Tri-Cities to work at the Hanford nuclear reservation.

He previously served as a legislative assistant in the Washington state Senate, learning how important it is for government to be accessible and transparent, he said on his campaign website.

Bryan Meehan-Verhei

Realtor Verhei would make affordable housing a priority as a councilman.

“Kennewick is growing and we area at a point where we can either make sure that we invest in the infrastructure as well as the needs of the city to direct smart, healthy growth or we can let growth happen to us and that won’t necessarily be clean,” he said.

Common-sense zoning would allow for tiny-home communities and multifamily housing, he said.

The city also needs to eliminate overly costly and procedural barriers for new construction to create incentive for new development in Kennewick at a lower cost, he says on his campaign site.

He would support investment in public transit and a walkable community with improved pedestrian access to businesses and recreation.

He says there is a dire need for improved mental health care in the Tri-Cities, rather than leaving police to deal with an issue after it becomes an emergency.

Police need to have the tools and support to divert residents with mental illness from being arrest to finding opportunities for help for treatment of substance abuse.

He serves on the board of Blue Mountain Heart to Heart and said at the League of Women Voters forum that the needle exchange program in Kennewick is a success.

As those addicted to drugs have exchanged used needles to get a new needle, they are not leaving needles on the ground for children to find. It also provides an opportunity to talk to people and get them into treatment programs, he said.

Uby Creek

Creek, who works with Communities in Schools to support students, also ran for city council in 2019 but did not advance past the primary.

She served on the former mayor’s diversity committee before it was disbanded, is on the 3 Rivers Foundation Community Board and has volunteered for many other programs.

She would bring a different perspective to the currently all-male council as a bilingual woman, she said in the Benton County voters’ guide.

In her job she sees the need for affordable housing in the city, including to provide stability for students to keep them from being shuffled from school to school, she said at the League of Women Voters candidate forum.

She also is concerned about mental health and wellness in the community and supports the plan to start the Two Rivers Behavior Health Recovery Center to help people recover from substance abuse.

The site could be located at the Trios Women’s and Children’s Hospital after Trios consolidates services to the Southridge area.

She favors city ownership of Columbia Park, saying at the candidate forum that Kennewick should have riverfront park area that is as inviting as riverfront parks in Pasco and Kennewick.

This story was originally published July 26, 2021 at 10:57 AM.