2025 Election Features: Rich Ryan for Everett Mayor

We are continuing our series featuring candidates running in the 2025 election for Everett city council and mayor. We are asking each candidate to share their thoughts on four hot topics that affect Everett residents and want to help the public get informed and involved in the election before they are opening their pamphlets for the primaries in a few months.

Rich Ryan is running for the position of mayor. For more information please visit his website: https://richryan.org/.

Rich is running against incumbent Cassie Franklin, Dr. Janice Greene and Scott Murphy in the August 5th primary.

1. Public Safety & Police Staffing: What specific steps would you take to improve public safety in Everett? How do you plan to address the 20+ open positions on the police force and ensure the department is adequately staffed?

Everett deserves a public safety system that’s proactive, community-centered, and fully staffed but also transparent and accountable. Right now, we’re short more than 20 officers. That gap puts pressure on our entire city.

To close it, we need a two-part strategy: First, we need to make Everett competitive again in terms of recruitment and retention not just with pay, but by creating a department culture that officers want to be part of. That means strong leadership, ongoing training, and a commitment to community policing.

Second, we need to relieve pressure on officers by building up the non-police supports that help keep our community safe. That includes mental health response teams, addiction and crisis outreach, and safe public spaces. You can’t arrest your way to public safety but you can invest your way there. The police should not have to respond to situations they are not equipped to handle.

2. Homelessness Crisis: What policies or initiatives do you believe the city should implement to improve housing stability and address root causes of homelessness?

This crisis didn’t come from nowhere, it came from policy decisions, rising rents, and decades of underinvestment in public housing and mental health care. So let’s get real: solving homelessness means addressing the root causes.

We need immediate, practical solutions like expanding shelter capacity but also long-term commitments like housing that is affordable, tenant protections, and access to mental health and addiction services.

I’ll prioritize partnerships with nonprofits, tribal organizations, and service providers who already do this work and I’ll push the city to stop criminalizing survival and start coordinating a real housing-first approach.

3. City Budget & Revenue: Given Everett’s budget deficit, what alternative revenue sources would you explore to increase city funding without relying on property tax hikes for residents?

Everett’s budget crisis is real but we can’t keep solving it by passing the bill to working families. We need structural fixes and new revenue tools that don’t rely on raising property taxes.

That means pushing for a more progressive tax system at the state level and exploring local options like vacancy taxes on corporate landlords. We should also lean into our vibrant arts and events scene expanding spring and summer programming that brings in revenue for the city and supports small businesses. Trickle-up economics works: when local businesses thrive, the whole city gets stronger.

I’ll also lead by example. I’ve proposed cutting the mayor’s salary by a quarter and tying it to no more than twice the median Everett salary. The mayor shouldn’t be making $209,000 a year while families are struggling to pay rent. This is public service, not a luxury vacation. If we’re asking departments to tighten their belts, leadership should go first.

4. Bright Spots & Future Vision

What excites me most about Everett’s future is the chance to finally center the people who’ve been pushed through the cracks. I'm fighting for working families, renters, artists, immigrants, low-wage workers, and young people who’ve never seen themselves represented at City Hall. I’m running to fight for the voiceless not because they don’t speak, but because they’ve been ignored.

There’s real power in this city. It’s in our neighborhoods, in our union halls, on our ballfields, and in our community centers. I believe Everett’s best days are ahead of us, if we’re willing to build a city where everyone is heard, everyone has a place, and no one is treated like an afterthought.