Tyler Hall

Lynnwood stands at a pivotal crossroads. Beyond the social, political, and environmental changes facing all cities, Lynnwood faces its own unique transition. As the intersection of two major freeways, Lynnwood has long been a gateway for travelers in southern Snohomish County. The arrival of the light rail has transformed our city the a modern transit hub.

This increased flow brings both benefits and opportunities, as well as new burdens. Inaction means more congested roads, strained infrastructure, and uncoordinated development that fails to serve the community.

As your councilmember, I will champion smart urban planning that guides Lynnwood toward healthy growth. I will foster attractive multimodal transportation options while securing funding for increased road maintenance. I will work to increase the supply of housing and retail options through public developments and small business incentives. Building on Lynnwood’s Comprehensive Plan, I will push for bold solutions that increase our city’s appeal, connectivity, and sustainability.

Walkable neighborhoods are catalysts for many important improvements of our city. Studies have shown that more residents walking is correlated to reduction in serious crimes, increase in small business survival, fostering communal social interactions, and a general improvement of public health. 

Walking has been humanity’s primary form of transportation for nearly all of our existence, yet Lynnwood, like much of America, has not prioritized walkable communities. Many of our streets lack sidewalks, and our existing sidewalks provide no protection from rumbling vehicle traffic. Walking to stores, restaurants, and transit infrastructure involves long unsheltered journeys between desolate parking lots and busy streets.

If elected, I will advocate for zoning changes to encourage walkable and accessible neighborhoods, including spot zoning for neighborhood cafes and corner grocery stores. I would also incentivize infill development to replace our oversized parking lots with green spaces and storefronts for local businesses. I will push for adding missing sidewalks to neighborhoods, and improving existing sidewalks to prioritize pedestrian safety.

Third places (social spaces beyond work and homes) are key components of interconnected communities and inclusive civic engagement. While the City of Lynnwood directly supports third places through its recreation center, senior center, and its parks, the city needs year-round options for all residents.

If elected, I will work to expand the reach of our public third places and create a broader spectrum of social settings within the city.  Additionally, I would incentivize private third places, by pushing for tax incentives for private businesses, clubs, and organizations that serve as inclusive and welcoming gathering spots. For commercial locations like bookstores, cafes, and other retail establishments, this could be a sales or property tax break for locations that encourage patrons to stay with no purchase necessary. 

While third places create opportunities to develop socially cohesive communities, the City of Lynnwood would also benefit from encouraging support networks within individual neighborhoods. As your councilmember, I will prioritize emergency preparedness groups that are city-supported but neighborhood run, encouraging individuals to develop relationships and support networks with their neighbors for times of extreme need. Additionally, I will seek to distribute city-sponsored social events into more areas within the city, to encourage community members to interact within their own neighborhood.

Lynnwood's tax system disproportionately burdens those with the least resources. Our reliance on regressive sales taxes has the highest impact on lower-income earners and small businesses.

As your councilmember, I seek to shift this sales tax to a business and occupation tax that only affects larger businesses above a certain threshold, protecting small businesses while creating a fairer revenue system.

Additionally, our current property taxes disproportionately benefit investors and corporate landowners by incentivizing empty lots and low-quality development. Because Lynnwood’s property tax charges landowners for the land as well as buildings and other improvements on the land, wealthy landowners can avoid higher taxes by leaving their land empty. The result of this tax structure is that our city center is disproportionately filled with empty parking lots and blighted buildings, despite having the highest land value. 

If elected, I will work with the county and state for a gradual shift to a pure land value tax, that would no longer tax improvements on land but only tax the value of the land. Such a system would encourage the development of land for its best use, which would further increase the property value. This would create a virtuous cycle to improve the quality of development in the city, naturally increasing municipal revenue for beneficial social services, through market forces instead of intrusive regulation. 

Just as the city must prepare for the changes that the light rail brings to Lynnwood, the city would be negligent if it did not prepare for our changing climate. Humanity has not done enough to prevent the worst effects of climate change, and we are already feeling its effects via extreme weather events. While mitigating the worst effects of climate change must remain a priority at all levels of government, adaptation to our new climate reality is imperative and is primarily a municipal problem. 

After the 2021 heat dome, many Lynnwood residents recognized the new need for air conditioning in the region, and accordingly purchased new AC units for their homes and businesses. We have not faced a similar heat event since 2021, and the electrical supply has not sufficiently increased to what will be our new peak load. As your council member, I will drive resiliency efforts to ensure our city can keep functioning and remain safe in extreme weather events.

I will also advocate for more disaster preparedness measures for the uncertain weather events that will likely hit Lynnwood as climate change intensifies. This will take the form of neighborhood-based emergency support networks, designated shelters through the third place program, and public education campaigns. As evidenced by the withholding of FEMA funds for communities impacted by last winter’s bomb cyclone event, Lynnwood must prepare to be increasingly self-sufficient in disaster response funding and operations. 

Municipal governments, like the City of Lynnwood, are well suited to implement meaningful decarbonization policies to mitigate climate change. In the traditional division of power between the federal government, states, and local governments, environmental regulation has generally been a local power. The success of federal environmental regulation of 50-60 years ago has stymied the role of local governments in regulating environmental harms. However, smaller governments act as laboratories for new regulations, and allow opportunities to create new and novel approaches to combat outsized environmental harms. For more on this topic, I wrote an article published in the San Diego Journal of Climate & Energy Law, which you can download a copy of here:  Anticommandeering Climate Action.

One of the largest sources of atmospheric carbon remains the transportation sector. A major portion of decarbonizing the transportation sector includes a reduction in fossil fuel powered vehicle use. I will continue the city’s push for more multimodal transportation options, by advocating for an investment in permanent bike, pedestrian, and transit infrastructure. Permanent infrastructure (i.e. investments beyond paint on roads and signs on sticks) improves the safety and attractiveness of these transportation options, which yields a virtuous cycle of increased use to further increase safety and attractiveness. 

Beyond climate impacts, residential fossil fuel use creates additional health and local environmental hazards, with the highest impacts on children. I will advocate for a reduction of fossil fuel infrastructure in new construction, permitting support for modernization of older homes, and an increased use of efficient electric appliances.

I, like every candidate, want neighborhoods that feel safe. Just as it would be negligent to ignore the effects of expansion of light rail and the effects of climate change, Lynnwood cannot ignore the federal government’s erosion of the constitutional rights to due process of law and to equal protection under the law. These threats to our foundational rights and the lawless actions by federal enforcement agents are creating an atmosphere of terror within our neighborhoods across the country. 

Things that once were part of the background of everyday life–like a helicopter circling overhead, a Navy jet flying by, or police officers responding to legitimate threats–now flood peaceful neighborhoods and innocent households with fear. The unconstitutional denial of due process for the sake of immigration enforcement creates a slippery slope to allow federal agents to kidnap any person the federal administration deems as “undesirable.” This administration’s hostility toward LGBTQIA+ individuals, women’s rights, science, and members of a particular political party, create an atmosphere of terror and erasure that only exists under totalitarian regimes. 

Lynnwood must stand against this lawlessness to protect the diversity that makes this city a vibrant pluralistic community. I will work with state and county resources to fight for the rights of life and liberty for all persons in Lynnwood. We must stand in defiance to the federal mandates which wholly abandon a key tenant of this nation: e pluribus unum – out of many one. As a community, we are alway stronger when we work together than when we work against each other. As your council member, I will ensure that all within Lynnwood have equitable access to resources and that all are included in civic participation. I will do all within my power to protect Lynnwood from unlawful commandeering by the federal government.

Our current housing affordability crisis is the result of many factors, and the potential solutions are similarly vast. A significant cause is the supply of new housing.  On the council, I will champion efforts to encourage the construction of new housing at all opportunities.

Within this new supply, Lynnwood needs a spectrum of housing options. Generally, Lynnwood's housing provides only disjointed single family homes or dense apartments, creating a gulf between those options where the jump to home ownership is cost prohibitive for many. If elected, I will push for a continuum of home ownership options, from condominiums, townhomes, duplexes, bungalow courts, as well as single family homes.  Within these options, I will also push for intentional efforts to establish and incentivize cohousing communities (within each type of neighborhood), where people can live somewhere that is more like a cooperative village than a disjointed neighborhood. 

Part of the root cause of our housing crisis (especially the supply-side issues) is our reliance on for-profit home builders, where we seem to hope that a profit-driven industry will benevolently rescue us from our housing supply crisis. If elected, I will push for a larger role of the Housing Authority of Snohomish County (HASCO) instead of waiting on market forces and the will of profit-driven corporations to solve this major social crisis. Lynnwood already has a significant amount of properties managed by HASCO (second only behind Everett), and increasing this relationship for affordable housing, market-rate options, and cohousing developments throughout Lynnwood is likely necessary to solve our housing crisis.

Our system of criminal justice is critical to the survivability of our civil society. Our criminal laws act as a codification of the actions that are most socially harmful, and I will advocate for its application toward the actors that cause the highest social harm. I will push for Lynnwood police and our criminal prosecutors to be able effectively implement the goals of our criminal justice system to deter criminal behavior, isolate and rehabilitate dangerous actors, and provide retribution and restitution to deter vigilante actions. These purposes are often missing in the enforcement of violent and exploitative crimes by powerful entities, and I will push to ensure the law protects all individuals in Lynnwood regardless of the perpetrator’s wealth, power, or corporate shielding.

I will also advocate for opportunities to encourage non-confrontational interactions between the people of Lynnwood and their police department. I want every person to feel confident that their police department exists to protect their safety against bad actors in the community. Additionally, I will encourage the use and funding of rehabilitation programs to ensure that individuals are able to fully contribute to the community upon their return.

The expansion of the light rail into Lynnwood has increased our city’s visibility to the worst effects of the mental health and addiction crises facing our nation. Lynnwood’s reaction to these challenges must be one of compassion and support. I will prioritize measures that rehabilitate individuals rather than criminalize and minimize the dignity of the individuals facing these challenges. I will support direct funding for rehabilitation efforts provided by the city, and I will support funding toward community groups to provide ongoing support. 

I will support coordination with local nonprofits, the Housing Authority of Snohomish County, and local labor leaders to provide paths of hope and meaning toward these persons.