MAYORAL RACE UPDATE: Lewis has edge, will face Haugen in Nov. 3 general

As of Wednesday, Auburn Mayor Pete Lewis was garnering 48.6 percent and Councilmember Virginia Haugen 26 percent of the vote in the combined King and Pierce county election results of the Aug. 18 mayoral primary.

Locksmith Frank Lonergan and businesswoman Shelley Erickson were finishing a distant third and fourth.

Both of the top two finishers were pleased with the results. They will vie in the all-mail Nov. 3 general election.

“When you are getting about 50 percent of the vote, and the other three are splitting the rest, that’s not a bad idea,” Lewis said with a smile.

“We’re really, really excited about where the campaign is going right now, and it looks really, really good for us,” said Haugen, who is counting on picking up the support of Erickson’s and Lonergan’s voters. “We are getting tons of support from all the people that we want support from in Auburn.”

Both candidates talked about the group of people they have gathered around themselves to wage the fall campaign.

“I have a campaign committee that I work with that is about 15 to 16 people, and they come from all the parts of Auburn, from Lea Hill, West Hill, north side, south side, new Auburn, old Auburn and generation folks, people of all income brackets, and young as well as old,” Lewis said. “I’ve worked a long time to try to find ways to bring people together, so I did the exact same thing on my campaign committee as well. “

Councilmember Lynn Norman will direct Lewis’ campaign.

Haugen has her own, smaller core group of four, and they will be “working with hammers in hand” putting up signs and helping with the grunt work. Mark and Jena Silberling, owners of Left of Center Salon at 905-A Harvey Road, will direct her campaign.

“We are a strong group of people who intend to put me in the mayor’s seat,” Haugen said. “We have the people in place to take on administrative duties in the City of Auburn. We know who we will work most closely with, and we know that will have to go outside City Hall to bring in the kind of people that we need to really lead.

“We represent the common man in Auburn, and we know that we have always represented that bunch of people. We’re blue collar people, and we work for blue collar people, but we like to bring in the white collar guys, too,” Haugen said.

Lewis said the biggest challenge for both candidates in the campaign will be “knowledge.”

“What I see in Auburn is that the majority of people here didn’t live here even 15 years ago. The biggest single problem is lack of recognition of either one of us,” Lewis said.

But he noted that the differences between himself and his opponent could not be more pronounced. He cited a recent candidate forum, where he pledged to continue with downtown and other projects already in the development pipeline, and Haugen said she would stop them.

“It’s a clear distinction, and it’s very basic,” Lewis said. “We’re at a point, and it’s a pivotal point where the question is this: Do we as a community move forward or do we go back? I think that statement has been clearly stated by both candidates.

“Downtown redevelopment is only a part of economic development to bring in the businesses we need where we want them to go and out of the neighborhoods,” Lewis said. “A point in economic development is to make very sure property taxes by our citizens are kept down and stay down. It’s the only chance we have.

“My message is always going to be the same — we’re going to work in a positive manner together to accomplish all these tasks that so many have been involved in,” Lewis said.

Haugen said one of her top priorities as mayor would be to “revamp the city’s planning system.

“We know we can do that with the group of people I will be working with. We have to do some work on Parks and Recreation, because right now, with the economy the way it is, we will have to go in a bit different direction and offer a different kind of recreational program for kids who are very needy,” Haugen said.

Another issue will be finding money to pay for public infrastructure such as streets, water and sewer.

“We will also be looking at how our infrastructure can be put together with what we have to work with in Public Works,” Haugen said. “We know where we are in Public Works. We know that we have no money. We have to think about doing infrastructure with as little money as possible, and we will have to go to Christine Gregoire, governor of the state of Washington, and tell her that if she is going to walk up and down the streets of Auburn campaigning, then she’s going to have to come to Auburn and help us.”

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MAYORAL PRIMARY ELECTION RESULTS

As of 2:02 p.m., Aug. 25

King County

1. Pete Lewis, 4,166 votes, 47.79 percent

2. Virginia Haugen, 2,397, 27.49 percent

3. Frank Lonergan, 1,271, 14.58 percent

4. Shelley Erickson, 827, 9.49 percent

Write-in, 57. 0.65 percent

Note: 8,858 votes cast of 28,328 registered voters in Auburn

Pierce County

As of 12:53 p.m., Aug. 25