Update: Carter drops out of one city council race and files for another

Attorney Michael Claxton joins race to replace Wallis on council; he says the city needs to 'pop'

This story has been updated to reflect breaking news this afternoon.

Josh Carter on Friday withdrew from the race for a Longview Council seat to replace incumbent MaryAlice Wallis and shortly afterward filed for a different seat.

Carter Friday refiled to oppose Oliver Black and Chris Bryant in the race for council position 6, now held by Angie Wean.

Both Wean and Wallis are stepping down when their four-year terms expire in December.

Carter’s switcheroo means the race for council position 6 will be subject to the August 5 “top two” primary election.

Carter said he knows and respects both candidates for position 5, retired doctor and PeaceHealth administrator P.J. Peterson and attorney Michael Paxton. He didn’t want to compete against them and eliminate the chance that one of them could become the next council member.

Carter said he does not know and has nothing against the two candidates he will now challenge for position 6, investment advisor Chris Bryant and teacher Oliver Black.

He acknowledged that his last-minute switch may make voters think he is impulsive or squirrelly. Ultimately, his decision has nothing to do with the issues before the city, he said.

The seats of council members Keith Young, Kalei LaFave and Erik Halvorson are not up for re-election until 2027.

Michael Claxton, an estate and business attorney who plans to retire at the end of June, filed for position 5 on Thursday.

“Longview has great bones,” Claxton said in a phone interview Thursday, speaking of the city’s parks, buildings, urban forest and other municipal infrastructure. “It is a city that provides for most of our needs on a scale that does not overwhelm … and where kids can be kids. If we take care of our bones, good things are going to happen. Let’s make the city pop.”

Claxton, 64, is a native of Indiana who earned his law degree at Oregon’s Willamette University and has practiced in Longview for 30 years as a shareholder in the Walstead Mertsching law firm.

Today (May 9) is the last day for would-be candidates to file for elected office.

As early Friday afternoon, only one of three Longview council races up for election is year would subjected to the August 5 primary unless additional candidates file for the other two those seats today. A primary is only held when three or more candidates file for the same office to whittle the number of contestants down to two, who then square off in the November General Election.

Mayor/Councilman Spencer Boudreau is the only council incumbent seeking re-election this year. The seats of council members Keith Young, Kalei LaFave and Erik Halvorson are not up for re-election until 2027.

The Claxton, like all the other city council contestants except Boudreau, criticizes the council majority’s decision to fire City Manger Kris Swanson in March last year and its year-long, recently tabled attempt to remove fluoride from city drinking water.

“The fluoride thing was an example of the city council at its worst,” he said.

“The science (in support of fluoridation) is clear cut” and the vast majority of written and oral testimony supported continued use of the naturally occurring mineral, Claxton noted. “It’s clear that they were not listening or getting the answer they wanted to hear.”

On the other hand, the previous council’s decision to create Hope Village in 2022 “was the City Council at its best,” Claxton said.

He said the council responded to public demands to clean up the squalor and crime associated with uncontrolled homeless camps at Lake Sacajawea Park, City Hall and a vacant city lot on Alabama Street. The supervised pallet home community has found permanent housing for 110 chronically homeless people since the city opened it in December 2022.

Hope Village’s operational costs are about $1.5 million a year, a cost the city will have to start bearing in July when state support for it runs out. Claxton supports the council’s new attempt to make it self sustaining, “but that may be a heavy lift.”

”I agree with (Councilwoman ) Ruth Kendall that there is a cost to not doing anything” to help the chronically homeless, Claxton said. “Hope Village needs to survive in some shape. Our community is better for it.”

If elected, Claxton would have to work with at least three members of the council’s conservative majority who voted to sack Swanson and who, to Claxton, have failed to do business in a transparent manner.

“At the end of the day it is like negotiating solutions,” he said of his approach. “It is defining a problem and agreeing that there is a problem and then (identifying ) the potential solutions and (developing) a roadmap that the council can commit to and convincing the community about the importance of what we are trying to do.”

He admires Councilwoman Wallis, he said, because of her integrity and “grace under fire” during her two four-year terms in office.

Claxton served 18 years as the legal counsel for the Kelso-Longview Chamber of Commerce. He’s a board member of the Red Canoe Credit Union and the Lower Columbia College Foundation and the serves on the vestry of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church. He was Southwest Washington YMCA board president when the board considered — but then abandoned in the face of public pressure — merging with a Portland-area YMCA during a 2014-era financial crunch.

He’s a big supporter of the city’s “complete streets” efforts to improve safety and the appearance of the city roadways. But he’s concerned the city’s aging trees are not being replaced quickly enough, reporting that falling limbs from city-owned trees have twice damaged his Old West Side neighbor’s cars.

Claxton, who says he does the budgeting for his law firm, is critical of the council majority for declining to raise property taxes 1% last fall — the amount allowed by law.

“There are three things to keep in mind when budgeting: Adjust for inflation. Adjust for inflation. Adjust for inflation. Not taking the 1% is not doing our citizens any favors whatsoever” because the city continues to fall behind the cost of doing business.

The city needs to maintain and build off the legacy of its founder, lumber Baron R.A. Long, who built the city’s public library and R.A. Long High School and whose vision left the city with “good bones,” Claxton said.

“We really need to start thinking about returning the love that R.A Long showed to us.”