Reporter staff

Michelle Binetti has filed as a candidate for Auburn City Council Position 6.

Binetti will challenge incumbent Rich Wagner.

Her candidacy, said the lifelong Auburn resident, is about offering Auburn fresh and needed leadership.

“I will bring fresh ideas and a different perspective to the Auburn City Council,” Binetti said. “As our streets deteriorate and traffic worsens, what we hear from City Hall is that nothing more can be done. Taxpayers have been increasingly saddled with subsidizing the golf course restaurant, the Auburn Avenue Theater and an excessively expensive jail.”

Only recently, Binetti continued, City Hall learned that King County had identified a potential waste transfer station site within Auburn’s city limits but opposed it only after the station’s potential neighbors protested.

“I believe we can do better, that we must do better. I was born and raised in Auburn and have watched it change and grow over the years. I know what Auburn could be, and if elected I will work to build the coalition to put our city back on the path to fulfilling its promise of becoming a better community for all of us. It is time for a change,” Binetti said.

Binetti, an Auburn High School graduate, attended Central Washington University. She is a health technician at Arthur Jacobsen Elementary School, a past PTA president and a softball coach. She has completed training as a member of the Citizens Emergency Response Team, member of the Sons of Italy and the Auburn Valley YMCA. She is active in her church and is a former Sunday school teacher.

Binetti and her husband have six sons. With five of her children grown, she said, she now has time to devote and a willingness to commit to being actively involved in the decision making for “the kind of future we want for our city.”