January - Introduction

Is the Snohomish County promise still real? Why This is Worth Your Time: Clear, local context on the decisions shaping everyday life in Snohomish County. 

Nearly 40 people are moving to Snohomish County every single day. On paper, that looks like a boom. But, at the kitchen table, it feels different. Most of us don’t judge our community’s success by growth charts or economic headlines. We judge it by something simpler: is life getting easier or harder for me and for the people I care about?

This letter is the first in a series where I’ll try to answer that question honestly—using local facts, real conversations, and a focus on the decisions happening right here in Snohomish County.

For a long time, Snohomish County carried a clear promise—that if you work hard and contribute positively to this community, you can build a secure future here. If you wanted to have kids, that promise applied to them, too. Today, more and more of my neighbors are questioning whether that promise still holds. From Little League baseball practices to retirement communities to union halls, I get asked hard questions – not just about the future, but about the basics of life here in Snohomish County.

Local news is shrinking, and national noise is getting louder. It’s becoming impossible to cut through the chatter to understand what is actually happening in our own backyards. This newsletter is my attempt to fix that –by offering clear, local context on the decisions shaping our lives.

Our region is growing fast. But growth without affordability and opportunity doesn’t strengthen a community - it strains it. And that strain is starting to show.

Through my day job as one of your County Councilmembers, I speak to hundreds of Snohomish County residents every month. The concerns I hear are consistent, and they impact people at every age, income level and geographic location.

Over the last decade, our area has become less affordable and less accessible, and our communities are growing disconnected. There’s still hope for the future, but it is colored with uncertainty. And the warning signs that I’m seeing tell me we need to refocus, and quickly.

As of 2023, Washington has become the 5^th most expensive state to live in the United States.

Growth Without Opportunity Isn’t Success

Snohomish County has been one of the fastest-growing counties in the country over the past decade – and we’re projected to welcome about 300,000 new residents over the next 20 years.

A healthy county needs to plan for growth. Housing, infrastructure, public safety, and family-supporting jobs need to keep pace. Too often, they haven’t. Instead of planning ahead, we’ve been reacting—and families are paying the price.

I’ve been part of county leadership for a while now, and I’ve seen up close how a lot of these decisions get made. I’ve supported ideas that I thought would help and I’ve pushed back when they didn’t sit right with me. I’ve come to realize that our current system rewards short-term headlines over long-term results. We have lost sight of the essentials. We need to stop chasing 'wins' and start doing the work to make growth manageable for the families already living here.

At our house, this isn’t an abstract debate. We’ve got four young kids, my wife teaches in our public schools, and our family budget gets tested every time the grocery receipt prints… and keeps printing. When the policies we enact miss the mark, families across our community feel the impacts in the school drop-off line, the childcare juggle, and the quiet kitchen-table math after the kids are finally asleep.

The Cost of Losing Stability

Where I live, and where you live, fewer people are starting families. Those who do are having fewer children and waiting longer. Some say that’s just a generational shift. I don’t think it’s that simple.

The people I grew up with here mostly fall into two groups: those who left to build a life elsewhere, and those who stayed but are still trying to get financially stable enough to settle down.

This isn’t a failure of ambition or values. It’s a failure of our housing and economic systems to support the next generation.

When families can’t put down roots and young people can’t see a future here, it has real consequences.

Who will teach our kids? 

Who will nurse our sick patients? 

Who will staff our fire stations when we call for help?

These are not rhetorical questions, they are real concerns about our future.

A County With Enormous Potential—If We Choose to Act

Snohomish County has the talent, the industries, and the heart to make this work. What we are missing is a unified strategy.

I’m starting this conversation because I believe we can do better—but only if we’re honest about where we are and intentional about where we need to go, and how we’re going to get there.

Each month, I’ll use this space to share data in plain language, local context, and the questions I believe we should be asking about Snohomish County’s future—not to offer slogans, but to surface the realities we need to face honestly.

This isn’t a one-way conversation. I want to hear what you’re seeing, what you’re concerned about, and what kind of future you want for Snohomish County—so we can shape it together.

Next issue: a hard look at why housing has become so unaffordable in Snohomish County, what our current plans get wrong, and what it will take to restore a real path to homeownership.