I'm Soneya Lund

If you vote for me for Yakima City Council, I promise to listen to you and propose data-driven ideas to create a safer, more prosperous Yakima for everyone.

Our Yakima is SAFE

North 1st Street is the gateway to our city, and it holds so much potential to be a welcoming entrance to all Yakima has to offer. By holding out-of-town business owners accountable, enforcing best practice laws at hotels, and supporting local organizations and businesses, we can transform this once-beautiful area into a safe, clean corridor that reflects what Yakima can become.

Protecting our streets

I want everyone who lives in our city to feel safe in their homes, playing at parks, and walking down their streets.

Growing up in Yakima and having lived here most of my life, I understand what it's like to not feel safe to move freely around the city. This city has amazing potential, however, there are a few core issues that need to be addressed.

To make a safe and secure Yakima, I propose starting from the inside. Communicating, interacting with, and building up our neighborhoods from within—really learning and understanding the issues they are facing at an intimate level is imperative. I will collaborate with our neighbors living in those communities to create real solutions that will work for them and, in return, Yakima as a whole.

My plan for a safer Yakima

Collaborating

Identifying community leaders within our troubled neighborhoods and providing them the support and structure they need to start making a difference from the inside out. Everyone in our community wants their friends, family, and neighbors to be and feel safe. By working closely with those who can have the most impact from within, we can start taking steps toward a safer future for all of us.

Enforcing

Introduce and provide the structure to maintain Best Practice Laws for hotels and other businesses throughout the city. Our city is one of the highest-ranking cities by population in the USA for prostitution, gang activity, and narcotic drug dealing—most of these illicit activities take place at under-regulated hotels and businesses around our community. By implementing Best Practice Laws, we can begin to have legal justification to help these businesses eliminate such acts that make our community less safe.

Connecting

Provide the space, time, and opportunity for our community members to connect with our police officers. This will include continuing programs like Coffee with a Cop, and working with the department to prioritize routine foot patrols through neighborhoods rather than driving. By taking these few low-cost, low-barrier steps we can come together to rely on and trust each other, leading to safer and more secure neighborhoods throughout our city.

Our Yakima is OUR HOME

We can't ignore the homeless or push them to other parts of the city. A better answer requires all of us taking ownership toward finding more permanent solutions, such as affordable housing and access to resources. By working together to reduce homelessness, we can make our city cleaner, safer, and more prosperous for all.

Bridging our homeless gap

I want everyone in my community to have equal access to resources, affordable housing and the care they need to provide a healthy life for themselves and their family.

My home has been a sanctuary for numerous homeless and home-insecure youth for several years, so I recognize the underlaying factors that can lead to chronic homelessness. Because of this experience, I also know that the majority of our homeless community do not choose this life for themselves or their family.

To help our homeless community, I intend to address the root causes of homelessness—adverse youth experiences, drug abuse and mental health, and affordable housing. We need to address the real reasons why our neighbors are experiencing homelessness and put in place actionable items that will help them lead a normal life.

My plan for a connected Yakima

Protecting

Assist local organizations that help youth impacted by homelessness or are facing housing insecurities. These organizations have a positive impact on children who have high adverse childhood experiences (ACE's), and one of the leading indicators in chronic homelessness is someone's ACE score. When we provide support to these organizations, we can have a direct impact on a youth's likelihood to become a healthy adult who gives back to our community.

Healing

Providing funding and support for community groups and organizations who provide treatment, outreach, and social support for victims of drug abuse and those with poor mental health. This includes working with local non-profits and other organizations to give our community members who are serious about turning their life around the safe space they need to do so. When we address the leading causes of homelessness as the illness and not the symptom, we can begin to have an actual impact on their lives and our community.

Building

Working with the community to provide alternative affordable housing options for individuals and families who face housing insecurity. Also, working toward providing more opportunity to rent or own housing for all of our community members. If we can provide our community members a stable home, we are helping them become more active and engaged in our city.

Our Yakima has OPPORTUNITY

Starting and running a business is an exciting venture that our local government should encourage and support. By reducing red tape and helping streamline government processes, I hope to make Yakima a great place to do business—bringing in economic development, jobs, and a better standard of living for everyone.

Focusing on small businesses

I want to energize and provide a solid foundation for small businesses to open in Yakima.

Being a small business owner myself, I am intimately familiar with how difficult and frustrating it is to start and operate a business as things currently stand. However, I also recognize how joyful and fulfilling it is to operate my own business and provide a service to our community.

To create opportunity in our beautiful city, I promise to help remove the hurdles set up decades ago that impact one's ability to own and operate their business. I also pledge to help create a more transparent, easy-to-follow permitting process so all entrepreneurs are given equal opportunity to build the business of their dreams.

My plan for a prosperous Yakima

Restructuring

Streamline our ability to provide permits and allow businesses to plant their roots here in our city. This includes creating a more structured and modernized approach to the permitting process, allowing entrepreneurs to know exactly what they need without any surprises halfway through the process.

Updating

Removing out-of-date permit constraints and ordinances that were enacted almost 100 years ago but are still in effect today. Yakima has some of the most restrictive business codes in the area, impairing the growth of our small businesses. By removing the more prohibitive and unreasonable ordinances, we can allow our small businesses room for the grow. Their success is our success.

Why I'm running for Yakima City Council

I am running for Yakima City Council because I believe the people of Yakima want an informed leader committed to responsible financial management and dedicated to the growth our community deserves.

Our community needs someone who can collaborate in a respectful manner with anyone, regardless of their affiliations. I am running because I have a proven track record of forming and maintaining relationships with people from all across the spectrum.

This community also deserves someone who truly considers this city their home and is willing to think about decisions that will have positive, long-term impacts. For me, this is it.

Yakima is my home and I am driven to run for City Council because I want to make this city a better place for you, your family, your friends, and your neighbors.

If you vote for me, I will work tirelessly to make Yakima a place we can be proud of; a place where our children choose to raise their families. It's OUR Yakima.

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