Whitney running for mayor of Grand Coulee

Cameron Whitney, mayoral candidate in Grand Coulee, is hoping to boost the curb appeal of the town.

Having travelled to Grand Coulee throughout his life, Whitney settled here with his partner Tracey Wright, who is running for city council in Grand Coulee, both of them moving here to get out of the rat race of their corporate backgrounds, Whitney said.

"We wanted to live a slower pace, so we started to downsize our lifestyles," Whitney told The Star in an email, saying he didn't have time to interview in person. "So we started traveling and looking for places we would like to relax to spend time with our friends and family. We are excited to say we found what we were looking for, a fixer upper house in a beautiful vacation location."

Whitney said they started noticing problems with the town which helped him decide to run for mayor, and that his past work experience would qualify him to solve problems in the town.

"I was hired for many years by some of America's largest property management companies," he said. "My duty was to revitalize communities in jeopardy due to drug, maintenance, employee, and financially oriented issues."

The Star was unable to reach Whitney before deadline for clarification on which companies specifically he worked for, although he did say he worked in communities across America.

Whitney said his and Wright's eyes were opened when they were sent a notice from the city to remove a motorhome. "We didn't own a motorhome," he said. "On the notice that we received I noticed it also said NO to renting out our non-existent motorhome to tourists. Knowing the importance of tourist dollars to small tourist towns like this one, this didn't make ANY sense!"

Driving around town, Whitney said, "we realized our city has been deteriorating and starting to become a ghetto, with empty businesses, rundown restaurants, and dysfunctional addicts living in slum rentals that are robbing us and our neighborhoods and driving down property values."

"I quickly found out this was due to lackadaisical mayor's, a council that only have themselves in mind, mismanagement, and very little enforcement," he continued. "One of the mayor's most important jobs is the safety and health of our neighborhoods, and fair and impartial enforcement. Enforcement that has not been happening."

Whitney believes the problems come from a lack of code enforcement and "poor city management." He notes negative experiences with elected and appointed officials currently in office and says he will not be voting for any of the incumbents in the upcoming election.

"We have enough challenges, and the last thing we need is our politicians being part of the problem," Whitney said.

Noting that he and Wright both have a love of real estate and architecture, one of Whitney's key issues is addressing the presence of "slumlords" in the town, a problem which has far reaching effects on the community, he says.

"Many of the challenges that we have with the safety in our neighborhoods are due to slumlords renting to dysfunctional drug addicts that steal from us," Whitney said. "These landlord's should be held responsible 'locally' for whom they are bringing into our small community, and this can be done through better regulations on rentals in our city. Many of these properties and rentals are owned by out-of-area, out-of-state investors, and, believe it or not, some are even locals. We need to stop allowing these investors and local landlords from running down our neighborhoods and reducing our home values."

Whitney wants these rentals shut down until the properties are repaired, saying these buildings in the community feed into the unhealthy lifestyles of drug addicts and enables them to stay here.

"If they don't have the ability to rent these cheap slum rental properties in our city, there's a good chance they will move to another city or hopefully try rehab for housing," Whitney said. "We are a small city and we don't have the infrastructure to deal with dysfunctional addicts, like the large cities do."

Concerning vacation rentals, Whitney said, "I am highly educated and experienced in this field and know the challenges that our city will have to deal with and the requirements that rentals should have to keep our neighborhoods clean, safe and free of the infamous party houses."

Whitney's ambitions go further than just rental regulations.

"I have a bold vision for the city and its future!" he said. "Besides working to clean up our neighborhoods, I intend to work on bringing in new business opportunities and jobs to our city. I would like to also see us work on a better transit system for our entire local community."

"A large part of our community is low income, and I want to start by helping them first," he said. "I believe this will kick start changes. So each month I will purchase the supplies needed to give some of our homes in our community a colorful facelift."

"I would like to thank all of those who have already started the process of cleaning, repairing and painting your homes and businesses!" he said. "It is small steps like these that help the curb appeal of our community. You help tourists feel safer when they drive in and see a cute town with colorful houses and businesses. We have so many amazing community members in our community, and this is just one of the reasons we can work together to make our city the tourist destination people will come [to] as guests and leave as friends and then bring their tourist dollars back year after year."

"I believe that our city needs a strong, bold leader that is willing to put in the extra time our city needs to move into a new brighter future," he said, encouraging people to contact him at ShareGrandCoulee@gmail.com or to find Mayor 2B Cameron Whitney on Facebook.

"Let's get better by working together," he said.