With one Astoria city councilor looking to land the role of mayor in the Nov.3 general election, two political newcomers are vying for the seat he’s leaving behind.
Andy Davis announced this month that he wouldn’t seek a second four-year term for his Ward 1 seat because he is moving out of the ward after his term ends in December. Last week, Davis announced he will instead become the fourth candidate in the running for the mayoral seat.
In their campaigns for Davis’ soon-to-be-vacant seat, Jim Forrester, the former owner of JP Plumbing, and Andy Kipp, a software engineer and housing activist, have focused their campaigns on issues they see with development in Astoria, but from different perspectives. The men also have very different opinions on a divisive tax proposal that will be on the ballot this November.
Forrester says he will take a “common sense approach” to the Ward 1 seat. He has long been involved in supporting the community. He’s coached sports, worked on key projects and, by his own telling, has donated behind the scenes to a number of community efforts and organizations. He brings years of experience working with city departments.
When Forrester owned JP Plumbing, the company held more than a dozen different city business licenses across Oregon and Washington state, doing jobs in cities like Aberdeen and Longview, Tillamook and Astoria.
“And I hate to say this — and I’ve said it for many years — my hometown is the hardest one that I’ve had to work in,” Forrester said.
In Astoria, even small projects like quick repairs or bathroom remodels might require scrutiny from various Astoria city departments, Forrester said. To him, this kind of work should be covered with over-the-counter type permitting. In other cities, it is. As a licensed plumber, he said he is already required to do his work to state standards.
“I don’t think it needs the scrutiny of (Astoria) Public Works that really doesn’t understand what we do inside the building,” he said, adding, “As a contractor, time is money and when there’s an issue with a customer, this process should be streamlined so that we can get in there, get out and get the repairs taken care of.”
Forrester feels Astoria’s government and city processes could be more supportive and user-friendly for business owners of all types, helping rather than hindering.
For Kipp, housing and how the city understands those needs and supports the development of housing are top priorities. Current leaders have acknowledged a need for a diversity of housing options, in particular workforce and lower-income housing.
“I’ve watched people in the community that I care about a lot sort of get squeezed out over time,” he said. “I really worry about the future of a community where the people who make up the essential fabric of it — people who are running our shops and businesses, working in our schools — if they are not able to survive and thrive, I really worry about the sustainability of that over the long run.”
Kipp has been involved with local housing debates for several years now. He and his wife moved to Astoria in 2019, the same year a homestay lodging ordinance went into effect. Kipp would later lead efforts to try to prevent the owners of a downtown fourplex from converting the units into vacation rentals. He and others who appealed an initial decision by the city argued the vacation rentals violated city rules.
“My friends were living in those buildings and they were the ones being forced to relocate, forced to move, so that those buildings could become short-term rentals,” Kipp said.
Kipp has since formed the Astoria Housing Alliance, a nonprofit focused on housing, and he was one of the chief petitioners for a citizen-led initiative that will also be on the ballot this November.
That initiative, if approved by voters, would create a tax on homes left purposefully vacant for a majority of the year. Revenue generated by the tax would go into a fund to support the development of housing in Astoria. Critics worry the tax will have unintended consequences and not lead to more housing. Proponents see the proposed tax as just one tool. They hope it could also incentivize people to offer up more housing as long-term rentals.
Forrester is one of the critics.
“I think it’s huge issue because there’s a lot of these residences just in my area where I live that are family-owned houses, (that have been) in the family for generations, that are going to be taxed,” he said, adding, “I’m against that because I think … there’s got to be a better way to fund that initiative than to tax a small portion of the population.”
He also wonders how the city will administer and staff a vacant homes tax program if the initiative passes. He sees it as a potential waste of taxpayer money.
Kipp disagrees.
“It will do a couple of things that are — if the voters approve it — that are really important,” he argued of the tax. “One, it will help make sure that the houses that we have are used for living in. Astoria does not have a tremendous amount of buildable land, so it’s really important that every home be used if possible.”
But he says the initiative is only one small part of a possible solution to Astoria’s housing problem as he sees it.
“We have really outdated zoning codes that make it really hard to build the types of housing we need,” he said, adding that he feels the city needs to incentivize development types like accessory dwelling units.
Like Forrester, Kipp says the city needs to streamline its permitting process. And he acknowledges the city faces many other issues including aging infrastructure with costly, unfunded maintenance needs.
Both men say they are ready to work with other councilors to achieve common goals.
“I think what is really great about Astoria is that everyone truly loves this community and wants to see it successful,” Kipp said. “So I think we’re all coming from the same place and that means that we can work together to solve some of these challenges.”
Forrester says his decades of leading JP Plumbing led to interactions with many different types of people.
“I’ve had to work with large contractors on huge projects like the school districts and the canneries … and all the projects we’ve done,” he said. “So you have to be open to criticism, but you also have to get in and get out and in a timely fashion. … You have to have a level head and common sense. … This is all, to me, about common sense: What’s best for the town, get along with each other and move forward.”