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LYNNWOOD—In the race for Everett’s next mayor, incumbent Cassie Franklin and challenger Scott Murphy squared off in an exclusive Lynnwood Times interview, led by Lynnwood Times Senior Reporter Kienan Briscoe, ahead of the November 4 general election.

With Everett grappling with rapid growth, a $7.9 million budget deficit through 2026, surging homelessness, and rising youth violence, both candidates laid out their visions for a city projecting 65,000 new residents by 2044.

Mayor Cassie Franklin highlighted her eight-year record of steering Everett through the global pandemic and other crises with fiscal stability (slashing over $100 million in deficits via smart cuts and partnerships), enhanced public safety (crime down 20% with record police staffing), and aggressive housing efforts (3,000 affordable units built and shelters expanded 300%), urging voters to choose her for proven, results-oriented leadership that keeps Everett on a positive trajectory toward a safer, more vibrant future.

Challenger Scott Murphy leveraged his 35-year business acumen, CPA expertise, and nine-year City Council tenure to advocate for a strategic overhaul of Everett’s doubled homelessness, chronically understaffed police, and plummeting fund balance (from $55 million to $34 million), promising voters fiscal audits, youth prevention programs, childcare reforms, and business retention to steer Everett away from a financial cliff toward a thriving, opportunity-rich future.

Here’s a deep dive into their platforms, rebuttals, and why this race could redefine Everett’s future.

Policies and platform points

The mayor is the chief administrative officer for the city, in charge of staffing, responsible for its daily operations, and executes legislation passed by the council. To break the ice, and hear where each candidate stands on policy, and what their top priorities would be if elected to Mayor, each candidate was first asked to share how they are uniquely qualified for the position and what their top priorities would be if elected.

Seeing as Cassie Franklin is the incumbent and has served as Everett’s Mayor for the last eight years, we began with Murphy.

As far as qualifications, Murphy said he has a 35-year background in business, was a licensed CPA for 36 years, ran several successful companies and was CFO for a large company managing a budget of over $4 billion. Murphy also sat on the City Council for nine years where he chaired the City Council Budget Committee.

Regarding policies, Murphy noted tackling the homeless crises in Everett citing the recent Point in Time (PIT) count and its reporting that unsheltered individuals in Everett have shot up 95% since Franklin took office.

“So it’s almost doubled in the last seven years and that’s not acceptable. I believe we need a better strategic plan on homelessness,” said Murphy.

Murphy’s second policy is public safety stating the Everett Police Department has been “chronically understaffed” for the past eight years.

Lastly Murphy sited city finances as his last top priority saying the City of Everett is “in a pretty serious financial situation.” In his last year on council, in 2021, Murphy said he helped grow the City’s fund balance to $55 million – an all-time high but that’s now dropped to $34 million.

“It took 100 plus years to get to $55 million and in just four years we’re down to $34,” said Murphy. “The city’s headed toward a financial cliff and unfortunately and this administration has not been able to turn its finances around.”

Franklin rebutted by stating that, over the last eight years, she has guided the city through some of its biggest challenges including a global pandemic, tragedies, but also positive growth.

Separate to serving as Mayor, Franklin served on the Everett City Council for two years, has served as a CEO for a nonprofit and worked for nonprofits for years, helping organizations turn their “unhealthy budgets into healthy budgets.”

“I feel like my experience and my results with Everett speak for themselves,” said Franklin.

As far as priorities, Franklin echoed many of Murphy’s priorities, those being: fiscal stability and sustainability, public safety (which has been a priority since day one, she said), housing and homelessness, and positive/affordable growth.

Franklin dismissed Murphy’s claims that the structural budget deficit was something the city made within the last four years, claiming it was something she inherited and was inherited by her predecessor before her. It stems, she continued, from property taxes being capped at 1% while the cost of running the city has jumped up to 5%.

Despite this, Franklin has addressed over $100 million in the budget deficit making difficult cuts and difficult decisions, public-private partnerships, increasing grants, to protect, and expand, core city services.

Franklin also dismissed what Murphy said about the fund balance, stating the City of Everett has a policy to maintain 20% of its revenue for its fund balance – Everett has maintained 30%.

“It’s not a savings account, as Mr. Murphy alludes to, it’s to ensure we’re able to pay our bills on time and never borrow money like other cities do and we do that very successful. We’ve actually received over 34 years of awards in our financial management,” said Franklin. “But he’s correct. If we don’t do anything we will have a growing deficit in years to come, but we’ve addressed that every year with smart planning, and smart decisions. At some point we will have to have a conversation with the community, but I look forward to doing that just as we’ve done before.”

Franklin rejected Murphy’s claims about the PIT count, calling it “widely inaccurate” and that it’s next to impossible to count homeless individuals on the streets in January. What is a better way to count unhoused individuals, she added, is through shelters which is why, Franklin continued, she has expanded homeless shelters by 300%.

“My team has been working very aggressively to address homelessness successfully,” said Franklin. “But at least visible homelessness is down because they at least have a palette shelter to go to.”

Balancing the budget and financial responsibility

The City of Everett is facing a budget deficit of $7.9 million through 2026. Franklin, along with members of the Everett City Council has already begun deliberation on how to fill the gap including suspending street overlay projects, suspending contributions to its LEOFF fire and police pension funds, and pausing growth of city departments, among other things.

Each candidate was then asked how, if elected, they would continue working with council to finish off the budget cycle not only in compliance with state mandated budget requirements, but to expand revenue streams to meet Everett’s growth projections of 65,000 new residents by 2044.

Franklin echoed many of the points she made in her rebuttal of Murphy’s claims of fiscal management (leverage public-private partnerships, federal grants, etc.) adding that the City of Everett will need to expand its economic base. The City has already begun work on that, she said, issuing a record-breaking number of businesses licenses and build new housing developments – all of which will expand the city’s tax base.

She also plans to have an open and transparent conversation with Everett’s residents to ask where they would like to see the city invest its resources, and where they would like to see them cut, to ensure the city is doing the best for its people within its means.

“But without increasing our revenue the city will have to continue making cuts that will negatively impact community. It’s my hope is that we will get to a place where we find the right spot,” said Franklin. “We have continued to grow, and expand, public safety services so that we are, today, safer than when I took office but it comes at a cost so we’ve had to reduce other services.”

Murphy rebutted Franklin’s answer by saying Everett’s administrative rate has grown at a number “far in excess” of the city’s revenue growth which, he said, is how the city goes from a $4.5 million surplus in 2021 to a nearly $5 million deficit in 2025 – a $9 million swing.

“At the end of the day you have to match your expense growth with your revenue growth. The Mayor’s Office, in particular, is up 64%, the Communications department up 137%,” said Murphy.

Murphy also believes there is a need to go through the city’s operations and look at business improvement opportunities, which is something he has done in his background with a green belt in Lean Six Sigma.

Murphy agreed with Franklin that the city needs to look at economic development, which is a top priority of his platform.

While businesses have signed up for licensing, he said, a lot of big businesses have left including Fred Meyer and Walmart. He concluded that, while he wants to focus on attracting new businesses, he also wants to focus on business retention.

Franklin noted that her administration has even added new positions, including new School Resource Officers, for the highest per capita staffing of any comparable department in the state.

Youth violence and crime

Youth violence is an ongoing, and increasing issue in Everett with local law enforcement data indicating the city saw a 153% increase in annual juvenile arrests between 2021 and 2024. Candidates were then asked what they would do to help lead the city in this rising issue and its closely related increase in city-wide gang activity, beginning with Murphy.

“One of the things that I believe we need to do is create opportunities for young people in our community to have positive after school experiences, we need to have all of those quality of life amenities, work with the schools to make sure schools are safe, fully fund school resource officers, and fund programs like the Boys and Girls Club,” said Murphy. “We also need to make sure our Gang Task Force is fully staffed.”

Franklin again hammered in on her point that public safety is at the forefront of her campaign, addressed Murphy’s comments that it starts with staffing – with Police vacancies at a 10-year-low and police staffing is at an all-time high in the history of the department.

“Police staffing has been a struggle for agencies all across the country but especially in Washington State post pandemic,” said Franklin. “We have been very aggressive in hiring and I’m proud to say we only have 16 vacancies which is better than we’ve been in decades.”

When it comes to youth violence, Franklin amped up Everett’s Violent Crimes Unit and works in close relationships with schools to ensure law enforcement agencies take a “preventative” approach, not just “reactive” approach and ensuring youths have a positive relationship with the City and local law enforcement.

Franklin also noted that, through her work, the City has realized that preventing youth crime was better suited for the nonprofit sector so has expanded its nonprofit partnerships, as well as creating a Youth Advisory Board to address this very issue.

“Who better to advise us on how to address youth crime than youth themselves,” said Franklin.

Franklin returned to rebut some of Murphy’s claims that administrative spending has increased, noting that she’s actually reduced her staff level in the Mayor’s office from 12 to 5 since taking office, remaining firm on her decision to “pay them well” in order to retain them with competitive wages.

“I’m proud to be able to continue the quality services that we provide with reduces staffing resources,” said Franklin.

Housing and affordability

Housing (rental and ownership) are very expensive in the region, especially with seniors and those who are low income, disproportionately impacted by property tax increases. Each candidate was then asked, excluding changing housing and zoning codes, they would make Everett better and more affordable for seniors and low-income individuals, beginning with Franklin.

“We are fiercely pro housing and will continue to implement what we’ve just passed in our comprehensive plan, we’re working on bringing in a mobile home overlay to help to make sure we can protect the affordability that already exists there,” said Franklin. “Protecting the naturally occurring affordable housing that we already have is a key part to this.”

Franklin added that leverage nonprofit partnerships are also an option, such as Housing Hope, the Everett Housing Authority, or the Housing Consortium, to make sure the city is building to ensure that as its building, affordable units continue to be built, as well as providing financial incentives to developers.

“I think what our seniors and low-income folks also want is a walkable, live able, community so it’s making sure we are building, and developing, in transit-oriented areas, that we are protecting, and expanding, resources like the Carl Gibson Center,” said Franklin. “Those types of amenities are extremely important for our senior population.”

Franklin also mentioned inclusionary zoning which she said can be harmful city-wide, but used strategically can ensure seniors, or marginalized members of society, can remain in areas subject to gentrification.

Since Franklin took office, the City of Everett has built 3,000 new affordable units with 5,000 in the pipeline.

Murphy, while proud of the work the City of Everett has done in its housing approach, said the city has not kept up with supply.

Murphy chalks it up to permitting which he said comes down to staffing and training.

“In terms of other affordability issues, I’m big on working families. I have an initiative I want to roll out during my first term as Mayor and it has to do with childcare access and affordability,” said Murphy. “Childcare affordability has become a huge issue in the community.”

Murphy is also working on a program called Everett Promise which would allow graduating high school seniors who would otherwise not be able to afford to make a leap to a Community College or a vocational school.

“That will really be a help for working families who are struggling,” said Murphy.

Closing comments and remarks

In closing our interview, both candidates were granted the opportunity to address voters and say why they deserve their vote.

Franklin said she decided to run for Everett Mayor because she believes in the city and its potential.

“My vision is to continue to build a safer, stronger, more vibrant Everett where every person feels secure and safe,” said Franklin. “Everett should be the best city in the Pacific Northwest, to raise a family, to pursue an education, build a career, retire, and enjoy a great qualify of life.”

Since Franklin took office in 2018, she continued, she has guided through the city through “extraordinary times” – storms, tragedies, global pandemics, and so much more.

“We are on such a positive trajectory. My opponent has said that Everett is on the wrong track. I simply don’t believe that’s true. Everet is becoming stronger and more vibrant every day. Crime is down 20%. Especially with the chaos on the federal level, we need experienced leadership that gets results and that’s what I’ve done for the last 8 years, that’s exactly what I’ve delivered and what I’ll continue to deliver,” said Franklin.

Franklin rejected Murphy’s claims that permitting is stagnant, saying the City is delivering permitting at “record speed,” which is why she’s been endorsed by local trade unions and the Affordable Housing Council. You can read more about Franklin’s platform on her website at: MayorCassieFranklin.com

Murphy, on the other hand, said he is running for Mayor because he loves Everett and wants to make sure the city is on a positive track moving forward.

“We have a lot going for us. We have a beautiful waterfront, we beautiful schools, we have beautiful parks, WSU Everett, the Navy, a lot of vibrant culture and art,” said Murphy. “But we have issues that need to be resolved, issues that have gotten worse over the last eight years.”

Murphy stood by his remarks that homelessness has doubled under Franklin’s leadership. Murphy also said, while he’s happy to see police staffing returning, he wants to continue filling those 16 vacancies.

“Regarding city finances, the city is on a really serious collision course. We’re headed towards a cliff. We have to come up with a series of strategies that will put the city on a more positive path financially,” said Murphy. “Otherwise we’re going to have a difficult time delivering for our community.”

Murphy echoed Franklin’s closing remarks in that he wants to have a safe, and thriving city, with economic opportunities for all and qualify of life amenities that are second to none.

Murphy also urged voters to visit his website at electscottmurphy.com to learn more about his platform.

This has been a recap of a remote interview held with both candidates. To see the recording of that video in full visit lynnwoodtimes.com or visit our various social media channels.

Author: Kienan Briscoe