9 hope to fill vacant Washougal council seat

The nine applicants for the vacant Washougal City Council seat include the chef and co-owner of a downtown Washougal cafe and two previous candidates.

Alexandra “Alex” Yost, co-owner of OurBar, recently served on the Washougal Citizens Advisory Committee, which recommended to council that it place a measure on the Nov. 6, 2018 ballot to have voters decide whether to change Washougal’s form of government from mayor-council to council-manager. Yost is also a co-founder and volunteer with Washougal Round Table, a citizens group involved in short term projects that bring long term change.

Former Washougal mayoral write-in candidate Paul Godin, and Adam Philbin, a 2017 city council candidate, have applied to succeed Joyce Lindsay in Council Position 4. In addition to Godin, a Farmers Insurance owner-agent and substitute teacher in the Washougal School District; and Philbin, the security and risk manager for the Shriners Hospital for Children, in Portland, and former emergency medical technician in Bellevue, Washington; the other applicants include Donald Lowe Jr., a former continuous improvement manager at Insitu and Lockheed Martin; and coach of the Washington Timbers Football Club; and Gregor Theis, a senior credit risk analyst with Advantis Credit Union.

Janice Killion, a retired public agency attorney for the county of Napa and the city of Santa Rosa, both in California, and a member of the Clark County Clean Water Commission, is also an applicant for the vacant City Council position, along with Karen Susac, an attorney and former adjunct faculty member for the University of Washington; Paul Russell, a former aviation ramp agent in Renton, Washington, and Portland, Oregon; and Kimberly Wongwai, a retiree with more than 30 years experience in the healthcare industry.

Interviews for Council Position 4 will take place at 6 p.m., Thursday, May 31, during a special City Council meeting, at City Hall, 1701 “C” St. The appointee would be expected to serve as the Position 4 council member until the results of the November 2019 general election have been certified.

Lindsay’s resignation, announced March 12, will go into effect May 31. She plans to move closer to her family in the Bellingham area.

Godin, Philbin and Lowe Jr. recently interviewed for the Council Position 7 vacancy to succeed Dan Coursey. The City Council appointed Ernie Suggs to that position.

Susac had applied for that vacancy but was not available for the April 23 interview by council, due to a family emergency.

One of the finalists for Council Position 7, Janice Ferguson, did not apply this time around.

“I decided to focus on my work with the Washougal Arts and Culture Alliance (WACA) and Parks Board,” Ferguson said. “WACA has several big projects that the board is working on. We will be promoting the festival in August and celebrating several new art installations this summer.”