Pete Schave

Occupation: Retired

Relevant experience: Member of Aberdeen City Council for 18 years. Past council president. Union Gospel Mission Board member for the past 28 years and current president. Member of CCAP board for 8 years and current vice chair.

1. Homelessness in Aberdeen has been a divisive issue lately, especially over what the city should do with the homeless population on the Chehalis riverfront. How would you envision addressing the city’s homelessness issue if elected? What would be your priorities?

The issue of homelessness is not new. The issue of the City being responsible to provide a safe place for them is new. The Federal Court ruled that the City, has to provide a safe place for them to go before we can enforce our sit/lay and no camping ordinances. At this point it’s a done deal. The City will comply with the law. The divisiveness comes from the current mayor’s lack of communication with the council about this issue and his making decisions on this issue without communicating with the council. The lawsuits could have been prevented if we would have been able to get together with the parties from the camp and talked the issues through. The mayor was determined to close the camp. When we purchased the property I was led to believe by doing so we could get the campers off right away. This didn’t happen. The mayor decided to let them stay until social services could come in and reach out to help them. Then the court ruled and we were stuck.

It is unbelievable to me that a court would rule that campers could put their tents up on city sidewalks, in front of businesses and live there. But it is so.

Without a camp site ready to go, I would have worked to resolve the three main safety issues at the current site. First, put up a fence between the camp and the tracks. Second, improve access to the site. Third, worked with the campers to clean the sanitation issues. This would have been a lot less stressful on the City staff and the campers for less money.

2. Unlike larger Washington cities, Aberdeen seems to be aging and losing its younger population after high school. What are your ideas to attract businesses or get more energy going to develop the city and help it grow economically?

I have been a supporter of the Main Street program, the ARM program, and Our Aberdeen. There is a lot of new good energy coming from these groups. As mayor I would work with the Police Department to bring more police presence in the downtown. I would work with Public Works to run the street sweeper and water truck throughout downtown more often to encourage more downtown development.

I would like to talk to the council about doing an apprenticeship program through the unions with our city projects. This could be an encouragement to keeping our youth here. I support our Police Explorer program. Working with our youth, learning police skills.

3. The Gateway Center has been in the works for many years and might reach the point where it’s ready for construction soon. What are your plans for the project or do you have any ideas of how it would best be used?

The original plan was to leave the old Selmers building standing and use the ground floor for a visitors center, then create a parking area around the building for small traffic and a larger parking lot across the street for motorhomes and trailers. Now the plan is to build a new large building and the trailer and motorhome lot full of Tesla chargers. At this time I don’t have any plans, nor do I know how it would be used to pay for its operation and expenses.