Mayoral candidates discuss hot topics at the Mayoral Candidate Forum

Published 1:30 am Wednesday, July 30, 2025

The League of Women Voters of the San Juans hosted a mayoral candidate forum for the Town of Friday Harbor mayor candidates July 15 at the Grange. The four; current mayor, Ray Jackson, Pam Hoke, Evan Perrollaz, and Emilio Santiago were all in attendance. Tanja Williamson has dropped out of the race and did not attend.

Affordable housing

One of the hot topics of the evening was affordable housing, with one of the first questions being “In your view, is the town committed to moving affordable housing forward? If yes, what concrete steps have been taken? And if no, what would you do differently?”

“I don’t think there’s been enough progress towards the development of affordable housing in this community,” Santiago answered. “I think that it’s very much on everybody’s radar how publicly relationships have been powered between our affordable housing and our town governance.”

Relationships need to be improved, along with the permit processing and application time, and a strict adherence and interpretation of the code, he added.

“I think the town is not communicating with their constituents in a way that is meaningful or that their their communication is being misunderstood,” Santiago said. “I’m very concerned. We all know that the town gets its money from sales tax, which means businesses need to have employees and employees need to have housing. I haven’t seen enough forward progress with regard to affordable housing with the last couple of years.”

Hoke answered next, saying, “This is one of the biggies. To me, addressing affordable housing issues is an ecosystem approach our community becomes stronger with effective and well-implemented affordable housing programs and well-implemented programs.”

What is currently happening, Hoke continued, is a peer breakdown in communication. “The community is tired of the discord, and we need to start creating the harmony through strategic negotiations and collaborative governance models,’ Hoke said, adding that she has experience in just that, through the Washington State University and the University of Washington. “Affordable housing must first begin with finding the zone of opportunity where all lenses are included the business owners, the land owners, the affordable housing where the residents are at, and included in decision…that is how we are going to create that resilient strength in our community.”

Perrollaz spoke on the Town’s Comprehensive Plan that governs the Town’s development. “There are certain factors at play. The reality, though, is there is a lot of money on this island, and there is a lot of desire for those people to put that money into affordable housing,” he added. “The way [the Town] is treat some of these projects needs to be improved. We have to improve our communication. We have to really develop, I think, as everybody said, relationships with the home trust and with the Town, and find a way to get those projects moving forward.”

There is also a tremendous amount of vacant land owned by people who do not live here and do not have intentions of doing very much with that land, Perrollaz said. “That’s where our affordable housing should be. We really have the infrastructure, we have the time, we have the desire, and we have the people here that want to do it. We have to figure out a way to make that happen.”

Jackson was unable to discuss some aspects of affordable housing due to legal issues.

“The Council has shown nothing but the utmost desire to promote affordable housing… They’ve gone as far as changing code, as far as rezoning commercial locations into multi-family dwellings so we can house as many people if we possibly can,” Jackson said. “ We lean towards doing maximum density, so we can get the most bang for a buck out of the land and properties. [Some of ] the factors that we’re dealing with are things that are outside of our scope.”

He reminded attendees of the cost, saying that the Town itself does not have the revenue for some projects, “But the things that we can do, I’d like to believe we have really done” A ccouple of council members were in the audience, and he addressed them, “I would think that they would agree that we have done the best that we can with what we had to push this forward. Understand, we are not the County. We are a square mile radius area with a bunch of homes to spot, I will say, a population of 20 little over 2700 and about 900 households. Those 900 households and businesses are responsible for the revenue that we receive through taxes.” Jackson said those factors need to be taken into account when talking about affordable housing.

HolliWalk

Hoke responded to questions regarding HolliWalk by discussing the importance of communication in the issue, and that as mayor, communication is a critical role.

“There was a breakdown of communication came HolliWalk. Specifically, there was a misunderstanding from the Town,” she said. “I believe that both entities mean well, and I do believe both entities …want to move forward on this,” Hoke told the crowd that she connected the Home Trust and the Town with the Washington Department of State of Commerce, which does offer free mediation. “Unfortunately, right now, we are all paying. The nonprofit is paying legal fees and the Town is paying legal fees. My plan is to avoid that for the next project we have facing us.”

Jackson reiterated that he couldn’t say much on the matter, but that the project is next door to his home.

“It breaks my heart that the people that I need to talk to, newly into this area, I’m unable to do it for fear that if I say the wrong thing,” Jackson said. “On behalf of a neighbor, hopefully, if anybody’s here that resides in HolliWalk, I can’t wait to meet you, sit down and talk with you, and welcome you into the neighborhood. It’s not that I’m being standoffish, but like I said, when I open my mouth, it costs people money, so I don’t want to do that.”

Santiago began by saying, “I’m curious as to the fact that Ray mentioned that he lives abutted to the HolliWalk property. My shock is that he has not recused himself from some of these conversations and leading some of insisting, actually on leading some of these meetings, the Town severely fumbled.” Many elements to the project and the fallout thereafter including allowing public comment, then restricting it, putting a Town Hall together, and then saying there’s no Town Hall, employees using their personal Facebook accounts to talk about Town business on Friday, Harbor, Rant and Rave has quite mind boggling to him, Santiago said. As someone who has had a career in government, he continued, “There are just some things that you don’t do. And there are real victims…There are people who are losing equity on properties that they could be owning.”

Perrollaz spoke next, saying with HolliWalk, the reality is it’s built, people live there, and it’s time to approve the project and move on. “This is a time for us to work on the Argyle property and to really open up lines of communication, fix some of the issues that have happened between both entities, and start building Argyle.”

He added, “I’m really fortunate. I have a home. I don’t wake up in the middle of the night worried about my housing insecurity. We know that people in this town are worried about that. We have people living in HolliWalk, and regardless of what’s happened between the Home Trust… and the town that is their home, They deserve to own it, and we need to make that happen now.”

Staff morale

Hoke answered the question regarding staff morale first. “A good leader, besides listening to everybody, motivates and makes sure that their natural skills and talents are seen so they’re emboldened to do what their natural skills and talents are meant for,” she said, discussing the collaborative governance model. “I do believe the town staff here has worked really hard. I do believe there could be more training on effective communication skills to be able to work together and be more balanced about it… I really hope that we can embolden and empower the staff to do their actual work.”

“The question is, how is the morale of town employees? For, I’m sorry to tell you, the majority of the conversations that I have had with employees have not indicated that things are peachy,” Santiago said. “It’s not a huge staff. Your organizational chart has 38 positions. I think five of them are vacant right now. I’m trying to talk to as many people as I can, present and former. I’ve actually been meeting with former staff members and people who have left over the last couple of years, very consistently. When I talk to council members, when I talk to employees, … what I keep hearing is, ‘These last two years are the worst I’ve ever experienced’.” The vacancies do not necessarily speak for themselves, he added, but the Town is not doing a great job at retaining talent. “I would love to see real relationships being built between the mayor and the staff. I would also love to see real relationships being made between the mayor and the council members.”

Perrollaz also noticed morale isn’t fantastic with town employees. “I work very closely with the Chief of EMS, and he just exhibited a master class on how to take care of your employees. They passed one of the quickest negotiations and bargaining sessions I’ve ever seen, and he put a lot of very careful and thoughtful research into wages, into doing comparison studies to make sure that his team is 100% supported.”

Perrollaz would, he said, if in the mayor’s position, do the exact same thing. “We need to make sure that our town employees are taken care of, that they’re proud of the work that they do. They’re everything. Because without town employees, this town really doesn’t function… Our employees of this town need to feel heard, and they need to be appreciated, and they need to be paid.”

Jackson mentioned that when he became mayor, there were issues with the town administration and employees. Jackson and the Town Administrator, Denice Kulseth, decided to check in with each of the departments frequently and speak with employees. “I wanted to know what was going on with them, what they needed, what they liked, what their problems were. I found out something really, really, really wild in all the years of those individuals have been working there. Not one single time had any administrator come down to sit down in there and talk to those individuals about what they needed,” Jackson said. “I can’t speak on what happened in the past, but I can tell you what happened in the future. Our door is open. It’s always been. We’ve always wanted to hear what’s going on with our workforce.”

Recusal

Recusal was a recurring theme, beginning with HolliWalk, but continuing with questions about the Friday Harbor House expansion proposal, Perrolllaz’s work with the Hospital District, and questioning if Hoke could represent all political views, given her work with Indivisible San Juan, a non-profit that has hosted multiple protests against the Trump administration.

To the question on the Friday Harbor House, Jackson responded that while it concerns him that veterans who have served for the country, potentially losing an incredibly safe space, he also believes property owners should be able to develop property in the way that they see fit, providing Town codes are followed.

Perrollaz added that “There’s a real scenario of bringing those entities together and figuring out a plan that’s going to work. The hotel is going to give, to give up a little bit. The Legion may have to give up a little bit, but there are some incredible wins waiting to be discovered in that project, and I believe that we can make that happen so that everybody benefits from a new project.”

In regard to recusing himself, Jackson, who is the Second Vice Commander of the Legion, said, “When we found out what was going on between the Friday Harbor House and the American Legion. I was asked by the American Legion if I would recuse myself from the dealings that they were having. I was going to do that anyway prior, because ethically, it just makes sense,” he said.

Santiago responded, asking why Jackson hasn’t recused himself from these conversations as a member of the Legion? “I worry about the ways in which we are conducting a nonpartisan government that is truly unbiased,” Santiago said.

Hoke said she believes there could be a collaborative governance model that would bring representatives of each demographic together.

Perrollaz was asked how he would deal with conflicts of interest, to which he responded, “I want to be really clear, I’m not an employee of the County. I am an employee of the San Juan County Public Hospital District Number One, … a junior taxing district.” The district pays a subsidy to Peace Health, and the hospital district manages EMS and the Village at the Harbor, the home care agency, Village at Home. “If there was anything that came up that was in direct conflict as mayor with the hospital district, I would, of course, recuse myself.”

Jackson responded that “I hear that word of recusal, so I wanted to put it out there again. The same thing applies and all the different instances that were brought up as far as me and my position as the mayor, I have recused when it was necessary. I’ve recused when they had their hearings for the HolliWalk project, when it was brought to my attention to do so. I recused when it came down to the Friday Harbor House. Look, guys, it makes common sense.”

Hoke was asked if she could represent all political views, to which she responded, “I grew up in both sides, in the red and blue, I call myself a purple pedestrian because I do see both sides of lenses, and I’m not afraid to have a difficult conversation. This is the transparency, honesty, and good governance that we need here. I want to have these, more of these conversations.”

She continued that she welcomes anybody who wants to speak with her, “because I made it clear I’m bluish purple for a reason. I always stand in my values. My dad even says this. He voted for Trump. He says,’ You stand in your values, Pam,’ He respects me and I respect him.”

Santiago reminded the crowd that the Office of Mayor is nonpartisan, as are the council positions, which means that there must be no endorsement from a political party.

To watch the forum in full, visit https://www.lwvsanjuans.org/.