Jennifer McDaniel: Former Washougal City Council Member Seeks Camas Seat

Camas, WA — Jennifer McDaniel, who is running for Camas City Council, Ward 3, Position 2, recently answered several Lacamas Magazine questions about her candidacy.

McDaniel served on the Washougal City Council for nine years until 2017 when she and her family moved to Camas. She has served on various boards and committees for several years, and is a strong advocate of public service.

“These are your neighbors and friends who are doing the best they can in these public positions,” said McDaniel. “They’re doing this to better their community. Families have really struggled to educate their children and maintain their incomes. There’s a lot of anger around that. We’re all concerned.”

What are the Top 3 reasons McDaniel is running:

Reason 1: “A lot been happening in Camas over the past few years, and I’m concerned about it, and as a former Washougal City Council person I’d like to see our community heal. There will be a lot of change with three new city council members, a new mayor and a new city administrator. What does Camas need to heal from? We need to heal from mistrust from the pool bond, the write-in candidate who didn’t finish his term. People need confidence in their city leaders again. That’s restored through communication. Involve everyone in the communication process. Everything had to shut down and people got information but it was virtual. It’s not the same as talking in person to someone in charge, which is always the best way to communicate. Be honest and collaborative. Engage Camas is the online website that talks about all the projects for people to volunteer for committees. We need to support all of our events downtown because that brings people together. People crave seeing each other.”

Reason 2: “Parks, trails, open spaces. It’s a high priority for me. It’s good for our health, it’s good for our soul. We need to keep improving them and develop the more recent ones we’ve acquired, especially north of the lake. I want to make sure we have enough to maintain those facilities. We need to keep things clean. We need permanent restrooms, and I know there’s a park plan to develop that.

Reason 3: “Downtown Camas is our gem. I know there are many infrastructure issues that need to be addressed. They need to be a higher priority. DCA has issues with lack of electrical outlets to get power to vendors for major events. We need proper ADA access to sidewalks. I’d also like to see parking problems solved. There’s always a parking issue. A solution is to work with the milll’s parking area and see if we can purchase the parking lot across the street from Grains of Wrath. This is something in the future but we need to have those discussions. Parking is getting worse.”

Leadership 

“I served on Washougal City Council for nine years. It was wonderful. I got elected before their downtown revitalization. I was involved in getting that off the ground. I made sure we had sidewalk improvements. Our relationship for economic development was an important partnership. We worked with the Port of Camas-Washougal and the City of Camas to attract businesses to our community. Any businesses brought in through the port have helped our economic development.” 

What is Public Service?

“It’s basically doing what you can for your community, getting involved in non-profits and wards and communities. It’s about putting your community first, always. It should always be Camas first in everything we’re doing and always will be. Serving the public is a civic duty to me. I started when my children were small. I decided to get involved in Meals On Wheels. I was the liaison to the school district from the city. I served as the Washougal Schools Foundation president.”

Misconceptions About City Council

“They don’t see all the work that’s involved in working on council. We serve on multiple boards. They don’t see all the research that goes into studying these issues. A lot of times we meet with staff on off hours. We work hard to get the information we need to be able to make informed decisions. The effort put into the knowledge of the issues is huge.” 

McDaniel said she would reach out to other small cities to see how they manage things. 

“We learn from each other. It’s important to maintain those relationships with community leaders all over Clark County.”

To learn more about her candidacy, visit https://mcdanielforcamas.com