Priorities – Elect Mason Thompson

Build on our substantial DEI efforts from the last three years because if we aren’t welcoming to everybody, we aren’t welcoming at all.
Improve housing access both in typology and quantity to better serve the diverse needs of our community. We need starter housing for our children to move into, as well as to downsize into in retirement, both as rentals and providing ownership opportunity.
Quality public spaces like pedestrianized Main Street and improved parks – with more housing, we need more places to play.
Public Safety that continues to be responsive, professional, and comprehensive no matter who you are or why you need help.

We need to continue to take meaningful action to ensure Bothell contributes less to climate change and more to the solution.
Transportation is the biggest single contributor to climate change (not to mention we all hate traffic.) I have and will continue to support policies that will allow people to drive fewer miles in the trips they take and enable those who choose to take fewer trips in their cars. Bothell’s new bike plan includes 35 miles of protected, separated infrastructure – because if kids aren’t safe riding to school, it’s a shoulder not a bike lane.
I’ve served on regional transit boards and have been a staunch advocate for getting Bus Rapid Transit into our community as committed to by ST3.
We have recently funded an electrification strategy, and are working to convert our fleet to electric as soon as possible.
Bothell joined King County-Cities Climate Collaboration (K4C) shortly after I became Mayor.

Ultimately, we should make decisions that are financially sustainable over the long term – our current development patterns shift a huge burden to future generations and drive upward pressure on taxes. Neither of those are acceptable.
We are looking at long term profit/loss as part of our ongoing Comprehensive Plan work for any new development because new development shouldn’t require subsidy from existing residents.
Take that information and use it to inform our Comprehensive Plan to bring expected revenues in line with expected expenses over the long term. We’ve hired a firm that has done a financial analysis of our land use and are in process with this now.
The status quo has left us in a place where either taxes continue to climb or we make cuts to important services. Neither is a good option, and we should focus on root causes to sustainably fund our priorities. Are you sick of requiring levies to fund basic government service like road maintenance and public safety? So am I, and that’s where we’re at right now.

Although Bothell is fully inside the growth boundary and building more focused growth areas, our transportation planning hasn’t changed. We need to continue the structural change that has begun to sustain our infrastructure maintenance and make it easier to get around Bothell.
To create a more climate friendly and less car resilient Bothell, we need to allow every neighborhood to change slowly

In the last three years, we’ve pedestrianized a block of Main Street, enabling community gatherings that didn’t exist earlier. We’re about to kick off a formal study of what this should look like permanently, with an eye toward even more community events and gathering spaces.
We’ve begun a new series of events called Summer Nights in Bothell with concerts, art, and cultural events. We are looking to expand that in its second year with the goal of building an event series that lasts from Memorial to Labor Day and turns Bothell into a party every Friday night.
We are about to embark on an updated Master Plan for Bothell Landing. My vision involves taking the most expensive elements of the current master plan out and replacing them with a splash pad/spray park, skate park, and a pump track. Downtown Bothell is a place where we should concentrate housing, and we need to provide places for people to play outside nearby.
As most of Snohomish County Bothell was developed pre-annexation into the city, their park system lags the King County section of Bothell. We need to acquire and develop parks, particularly around our population centers.