by David Mendez

Of the five Democrats hoping to succeed Cindy Ryu in the State House of Representatives, more than half of the lineup are attorneys by day.

Edmonds City Councilmember Will Chen is pleased to say that he’s not among that crowd.

“Not only am I a first-eneration immigrant representing an underserved population, I’m the only CPA in the race,” Chen told The Osprey. “Olympia is full of good attorneys — we’re not lacking attorneys. So I think diversity, not only in terms of background but in terms of skill set, can bring that to the table.”

Chen is an accountant by trade (though now retired) who believes that he is better suited than his opponents to help solve the state’s ongoing budget crisis. He believes that the millionaire’s tax will survive legal scrutiny, but that it must not be state’s final shot at filling the funding gap.

“We need to face the reality that solely relying on property tax and sales tax is disproportionately impacting lower income and working families more than higher income families,” Chen said. “We need to, as a society, closely examine our tax structure.”

But, he added, the Legislature must pay attention to its expenses. “We cannot just keep looking at increasing tax revenue, but you also have to look at what’s the most optimal way to provide a service in the most efficient way,” Chen said.

As an example, he believes that Washington isn’t properly approaching its housing shortage and homelessness crisis. Rather than continuing to “throw money at it,” as he says, the model needs to change.

“If you just provide housing and not provide other services to help people turn around to change their unhealthy lifestyle, then it’s not helping. It’s very costly and it’s not helping the people we try to help,” Chen said. His vision is to “hold people accountable”: provide services to help people “turn around, get away from their unhealthy lifestyle” as well as job training to “find their passion.”

An immigrant from China, Chen moved to the U.S. for college, eventually opening a CPA firm just off of Highway 99. Chen joined the Edmonds City Council in 2021 and is proud of his ability to be pragmatic and practical in making decisions.

Edmonds was still feeling the economic shocks of the COVID pandemic as he settled into his seat, and the city’s historic downtown core was at a crossroads.

The ”streatery” concept, in which outdoor dining would take over parking spaces, was performing very well for the city’s downtown restaurants, he said. But that same concept was stinging retail businesses.

“I talked to some restaurants, talked to some retail, and what I come up with is a solution where I think it’s a win-win: businesses who want to maintain streateries will pay a fee to have that in place, and the city will collect the fee and run the Bank of America parking lot” to make it free to the public, Chen said.

In Dec. 2021, Edmonds approved a $4,000 fee for restaurants to continue outdoor dining spaces, with a plan to end streateries by May 2022.

The day after the fee was approved, Chen said, he found that some restaurants in downtown Edmonds had immediately pulled down their streateries.

“They were gone overnight, because they are not using it, so why pay for not using it? Their customers were happy; now they can pull up and drop off people going there. So everybody’s happy,” Chen said.

That was, and will continue to be, his goal — finding compromise, despite the modern charged political environment.

“People think compromise is backwards. I think sometimes we just need to find a solution that both sides can live with. And that’s what I intend to bring — that voice, my financial acumen — to the state.”