Mayoral Election Coverage 2017: An Interview with Shean Nasin
I’ve been thinking about the mayoral race for about a month. I’ve been mentally processing the issues that are the talking points of this election: housing, police presence, urban development, social services.
In a sense, Milltown is a series of problematic questions to be addressed; public policy puzzles to be worked out by adjusting the budget or changing laws.
This week I started to think about the future of Everett, Washington in a different way.
Another way to think of our city is as being a sort of blank canvas. There are lots of places that have the potential to be developed, created, or celebrated. What could we put here? What’s the craziest, most grandiose thing we could do to make our home a great place?
Instead of asking, “What could we change?” it may be worthwhile to instead ask, “What could we be?”
Shean Nasin is a substitute teacher in the Everett School District and a former business owner.
Nasin is a unique voice among the mayoral contenders. He joined the race on Friday, May 19th, the deadline for applying for candidacy. He has never held political office and doesn’t consider himself a politician. During our interview he emphasized that he doesn’t want endorsements.
Shean grew up in housing projects in Everett. He lost his home during the 2008 recession. He got his master’s degree in education with an emphasis in leadership and has since bought a new home in the Northwest Neighborhood.
His personal story, as he tells it, is one of upward mobility by virtue of grit and hustle, qualities he says he sees in his fellow citizens. He sees himself as a “servant leader” and is fond of saying “I am Everett. We are Everett.”
I met him at the newly-opened Narrative Coffee. Our meeting place seems symbolic of something: a new, young, and hip Everett that is emerging right across the street from the city’s Wall Street offices.
We sat by a brick wall. The espresso was good and there was a Sylvan Esso record spinning.
Shean wore a nice button down-shirt under a blazer. His hair was cropped close on the sides with a longer lock on top. He has a youthful face and an upbeat energy that’s in keeping with his part-time gig of coaching high school sports.
He asked to see our interview questions prior to our interview. As we sit down, he presented me his homework.
He handed me a pro forma document from The Sightline Institute, a nonprofit think tank that studies local zoning laws, housing, and transportation issues.
Shean explained what I’m looking at. Admittedly, it was hard for me to decipher the rows and columns of numbers attached to acronyms. He is a very fast talker.
The document compares building laws in Seattle and Everett. It lists monetary incentives available to developers based on what kind of housing they put into new buildings. For example, builders can get monetary breaks if they put in a certain percentage of rent-controlled units (say, apartments available at 60% of the market rate).
This was new information to me.
There are a few other takeaways from this pro forma. It illustrates that the average median income for Seattle is much higher than Everett. So builders can make more money in rent if they choose to invest in the Seattle market.
Also, taller buildings can house more tenants which again means more rent money. Right now buildings on Colby are capped by zoning laws at twelve stories. Buildings are tiered down going out from the downtown core in a “wedding cake.” This is to preserve views.
Shean brought all this up because he says these zoning laws need to change to give our city a competitive edge when courting developers.
Let’s build up, he said.
While he’s the only candidate to mention zoning laws, Shean’s not the only one talking about this. Upzoning Everett based on development recommendations has been in the news recently.
Shean Nasin wants to attract tech industry to Everett. He wants to build tall buildings that will contain tech worker offices and inclusionary housing. This IT crowd, attracted to a dense urban environment, will bring higher wages.
This became a theme of the conversation: raising the average median income (AMI) of Everett residents.
The Everett that Nasin described to me is a city on par with Seattle or Bellevue, a city that attracts MIT-level talent, a city that is preparing infrastructure for driverless vehicles.
He mentioned that, by most estimates, driverless vehicles will be the dominant mode of transportation within a decade. This is because it will be cheaper to order an Uber or Google car via app compared to owning a vehicle (factoring in gas, insurance, maintenance and other costs).
Access to cheap, efficient transportation will mean that low-income residents can live further back from transportation corridors.
People in rural Arlington will have equal access to cheap, efficient rides.
Thus, social programs and affordable housing need not be concentrated in Everett, which has 13% of the county’s population and 50-70% of the county’s welfare and supportive services. These services can be distributed throughout the county because they will be accessible.
“We’re going to be a 21st Century city," Nasin said. “And we’re going to start thinking about the 22nd Century.”
“Let’s be the first to do it,” is his refrain.
He mentioned the recent announcement that Paine Field will be offering commercial flights as soon as fall 2018. As mayor he would want to quickly ramp up the number of flights offered and add flights to the East Coast.
“We have 800,000 people in Snohomish County,” he said. “It’s time.”
He wants to get light rail here sooner than 2037 and do it for less than the estimated cost of $54 billion, if possible.
Shean said there are different options for getting better transportation up and down the I-5 corridor. The city could turn to private contractors. There are experimental busses that can travel in close proximity on existing highways using computerized technology. He said an experimental bus project would cost about $12 million/mile versus the proposed light rail’s $140 million/mile.
Nasin said that as mayor he would want to act as a “recruiter” in Silicon Valley and MIT. “Why not Everett?” he would ask. With Paine Field offering commercial flights, employees from Silicon Valley could fly to our city in about an hour and a half, skipping the traffic on 1-5 to/from the Sea Tac airport.
When he’s not out recruiting tech talent, he’ll be in the streets. As a former small business owner, he said he didn’t always feel supported or seen by the city administration. That could change.
Our interview was running overtime. He told me two stories toward the end of our conversation that, in my opinion, capture the ethos of Shean Nasin.
In the first story, he is teaching remedial math class to seniors at Cascade High School. It’s almost the end of the school year, and the kids don’t have much of a chance of getting their grades up in time to graduate. Shean talks to these youth about their life circumstances. He realizes in the course of the conversation that these kids growing up in low-income area of Everett may not have many opportunities to advance their careers or socioeconomic status.
As mayor Shean would want to change that.
In the second story, Shean is the baseball coach at Everett Community College. He recruits kids from Everett who are, “tough, hardnosed…gritty grinders.” They end up winning the state championship and now some of them play professional-level baseball.
He was the first to see their potential. He was the first to recruit their talent.
I asked him why he wants to run for mayor.
“I have grown up [here]. I am in the trenches everyday with our community, coaching and teaching all throughout the city. From kindergarteners to seniors, I see the struggles for them and their families…I believe in, and will bring opportunity for all the people of Everett…I understand what they need. I am Everett. We are Everett!”
What could we be? You decide.
Please consider casting your ballot in the primaries. All ballots must be dropped off or postmarked by August 1st
Richard Porter is a social worker and musician. He lives in North Everett and enjoys running on Marine View Drive, bicycling down tree-lined streets, and trying to coax vegetables out of his yard.
