Last Wednesday’s debate between Issaquah mayoral candidates Mary Lou Pauly and Paul Winterstein marked the last in a series of candidate forums hosted by the Issaquah Highlands Council at Blakely Hall before the Nov. 7 election.

Both Pauly, who is currently the deputy council president of the Issaquah City Council, and Winterstein, who is a council member and past council president, stressed they wanted residents to understand the primary differences between the two of them.

‘Mayor’s magic wand’

The candidates started off the forum with a bit of a “Harry Potter” moment when moderator Nathan Perea handed Pauly and Winterstein each a turn with a toy magic wand that he dubbed “the mayor’s magic wand,” asking them what they would do during their first year in office as mayor.

“It’s my first wand,” Winterstein joked when handed the wand.

Winterstein began by referencing Mayor Fred Butler’s regional transportation summit, held nearly a year ago between city, county and state government leaders and transportation experts to discuss regional traffic problems. During the summit, “Mayor Butler did a great job of mentioning the Issaquah-Hobart Road three times because the intent was just that, to raise the visibility of that,” Winterstein said.

“Mayor Butler did that because of a conversation we had, I had,” Winterstein continued. “The regional area around us doesn’t know what’s happening in Issaquah. The biggest impact on us, when it comes to our quality of life, is the pass-through traffic.”

One of the key differences that Pauly and Winterstein have brought up at each candidate forum centers on regional traffic. While Winterstein has said that his first priority as mayor would be to unclog the Issaquah-Hobart Road, Pauly does not want to encourage traffic on such a regional thoroughfare because she believes this would bring more pass-through traffic to Issaquah streets.

Winterstein said that he brought up this summit because it was “a great example of what a mayor can do that a council person cannot,” and that this would be a power he would use as mayor “for the benefit of our city.”

“The mayor has ability to move and call and convene and bring people together that otherwise never would,” Winterstein said.

“Okay, this is kind of fun,” Pauly laughed as she took hold of the silver wand. Transitioning to the business at hand, she added, “Magic wands are always fun. But it doesn’t mean that we can just wave a wand and get exactly what we want.

“If I could wave my magic wand, what I would do in the first year is reconnect with you — find a way to bring government out to you and your community,” she said.

Pauly explained, “What kind of has broken my heart over the last few years is that I feel like the city is disconnected from you. I feel like we are doing one thing in City Hall and you might be asking us for something else outside.”

Pauly said that she has loved door-belling during her campaign because it has given her the chance to talk to thousands of neighbors around town whom she had never before met. She wants each and every one of these residents to have a say in their city’s policies.

“I want 19,000 of us making decisions and not just seven [council members],” she said.

Public safety

Pauly stated that safety is the top concern of residents she has talked to, and that chief among constituents’ safety concerns are issues of package theft from doorsteps, rampant speeding through Issaquah’s neighborhoods and a lack of police presence in town.

“You’re telling us that we’re not doing enough enforcement … Your feelings are right,” Pauly said, pointing out that the Issaquah Police Department has had “three to four” vacancies for years.

“Number-one as mayor is fill the vacancies,” Pauly said. She added that the second priority would be to get residents more information on crime and safety in town.

Winterstein said that “if you look at the numbers, relative to neighboring cities, we’re a pretty safe place,” but pointed out that “once you’re victimized by a crime, it doesn’t feel that way, it doesn’t matter what the numbers say.”

He pointed out that the council is the body to make decisions on hiring staff, and said that Issaquah Police Chief Scott Behrbaum told him that Issquah Police Department’s request for three more positions will only maintain the current level of police service in the coming year. According to Winterstein, Behrbaum said that if there was funding to hire even more positions than those three, the police chief’s first priority would be patrol, with traffic enforcement coming in second.

“All the towns in King County are short on the police that they want,” Winterstein said, adding that he is “in favor of adding even more” police positions.

In her rebuttal, Pauly said that she “really disagree[d] with Paul.” Pauly pointed to Eastside Fire and Rescue, an agency that she said “looked at policy, procedure and protocol” to increase service without having to hire more staff.

”As mayor, I want to look on the inside — policies, procedures and protocol,” she said.

Safe injection sites/community health engagement locations

Both Pauly and Winterstein voted in favor of the six-month moratorium on safe injection sites at the Oct. 16 council meeting.

“It scares a lot of people, and justifiably, because the drug business is dark,” Winterstein said, adding, “We do not want to do anything in any way to encourage or potentially foster any growth in that area.”

Winterstein said that he has talked to many people, including parents who lost children to heroin addictions and even people who are addicted to drugs, and has heard mixed reviews of how effective CHELs are at ending opioid addiction. He said that he is not yet sure if safe injection sites work, and that more research must be done.

“The good news is that there’s nothing coming to Issaquah … We’re not even considering that,” he stated. He suggested focusing on the heart of the drug problem with “education, prevention and treatment,” such as through the Issaquah School Foundation’s new Youth Opposed to Drug Abuse program.

Pauly said that she agreed with talking about education, prevention and treatment. She explained that she voted the way she did at the last council meeting because the time needs to be taken to properly analyze safe injection sites.

“I don’t think our community has had a conversation about it yet,” she said. “So I think we need a ban or a moratorium. We need to understand what this is, what it could do and whether or not this community says this is the right place for it.”

Pauly brought up the idea of putting CHEL-type operations in hospitals, noting that “we may see this through another format.”

In his rebuttal, Winterstein agreed that “the conversation has to happen.”

“There are some people in this room who feel very dearly about this … the Issaquah that I know is very good at having difficult conversations,” he said. “The council can’t do that, but I can facilitate it.”

City budget

Pauly’s biggest complaint about the city budget is that “the current process … is not transparent.”

“We give you a budget document that is horribly corporate — horribly huge, horribly complicated,” she said. She was firm that that last year’s budget is “not gonna be the budget that I present before council.”

Pauly wants residents to be able to “go into a budget document” and easily understand how much money is going to each area of expenditures.

“You should be able to understand perfectly how your city runs by looking at a budget document,” she said.

Winterstein said that financial reporting was one of his specialties and that he understood the city’s challenges.

“The council fully has all the authority in the world to make the budget what it wants to be,” he said.

He said that he was most proud of “raising the visibility and the understanding across the board about how we budget relative to … ongoing expenditures relative to ongoing revenues,” he said, explaining that one-time revenues would not be used for permanent expenditures such as hiring new positions.

Winterstein said he would like to see longer budgeting cycles than the current one-year cycles, noting that this is a “better [way] to use your public resources … to get the best return for your money. ”

In her rebuttal, Pauly said that she did not see a need to raise taxes and would “watch the utility rates really closely” in light of recent water bill issues in the South Cove/Greenwood Point area.

“This is the primary difference and I think you’re hearing it tonight,” she said. “I’m going to give you a budget you understand, not one I have to explain to you. I don’t need to be an accountant, I don’t need to be an expert and sit here and explain terms to you. You will see very clearly and very transparently what your government is doing.”

To view the entire forum, visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4fPJ63zrEQ&t=2761s. Ballots are due at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 7.