Issaquah City Council Member Tola Marts announced Tuesday that he will be seeking a third term this fall for City Council Position 7.
Marts was first elected to the council in the fall of 2009, running on a platform of workforce housing and living wage jobs. Previously, Marts had been active in local, district and state PTA for many years.
Since being elected, Marts has focused on bringing workforce and affordable housing to Central Issaquah through the Central Issaquah Plan and other housing-focused initiatives, as well as pushing for increased economic development to bring in and retain major employers through development agreements and city investment in its Economic Development Department and Citizen Commission.
“We have made enormous strides in transportation and infrastructure planning in the city these past several years, but the residents of Issaquah still can’t find jobs in the city, and the workers who come in every morning can’t afford to live here,” Marts said in a press release.
During his two terms, Marts has championed governmental transparency by an ultimately successful two-year effort to put annual budget deliberations on camera, and spearheaded a three-year effort to resolve the status of the Klahanie unincorporated area, which ultimately was annexed to Sammamish, bringing direct representation to its residents.
Marts has been the chair of the Council Services and Safety Committee since 2015. He was chair of the Council Land and Shore Committee from 2010-2011 and served as council president in 2012.
“The traffic and environmental impact of matching housing to jobs is critical to responding to continued growth in Western Washington,” Marts said. “Families still flock to Issaquah for our great schools, and matchless environment and high quality of life. I would like another four years to help make sure that existing and future residents will have a city that will continue to function well after our current leadership is no longer running the city.”
Marts has worked to represent Issaquah’s interests outside the city, as well. He is the current chair of the Sound Cities Association Public Issues Committee, to which he has belonged for seven years. As a member of the committee, he helped shape the governance and regional equity elements of the Best Starts for Kids social services levy that passed last year.
He is also on the Sound Cities Association Board of Directors, the King County Growth Management Planning Commission and the county’s Next Generation E-911 Leadership Group, which is overseeing the conversion of the current E911 system to include a broader set of citizen access tools, including email and cellphone.
Marts received his mechanical engineering degree from the University of Minnesota in 1992, and moved to Washington in 2003 to build spacecraft in the private space industry. He has lived in the Timbercrest neighborhood on Squak Mountain since 2006 with his wife Tracy with their two children, one in college in California and one a sophomore at Issaquah High.
Marts works as an engineering manager at Intellectual Ventures Lab, where he designs medical and commercial technology for the world’s poorest people. He is a Received Episcopalian and a member of the Vestry at St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church in Issaquah.
Marts can be reached by email at tolamarts@gmail.com and by phone at 425-503-5110.
