Candidate filing closed last Friday and two of three races for Issaquah City Council will require a runoff in the Aug. 4 primary before heading into the general election.

Jennifer Sutton, who filed for Council Position Two currently occupied by outgoing councilor Nina Milligan, will be the only candidate to run unopposed in November.

But Council Positions Four and Six will see races of four and three people, respectively.

Council Position 4

Council Position Four, currently held by outgoing councilor Joshua Schaer, may prove to be the most hotly contested race with four challengers and no incumbent candidates. Steven Bishop, Tim Flood, Daniel Johnson and Bill Ramos are competing for the seat.

Bishop, an Issaquah Highlands resident and security and facilities manager for technology company ARRIS, is running on a budget-oriented platform and told the Reporter he wants to see city government run like a business. He pointed to the cost of the upcoming Dogwood Street Bridge replacement — funded with a more than $2.2 million federal grant and $563,600 from the city — as an example of what he said were inflated costs.

“Private industry could do that cheaper, so I don’t see why things should cost orders of magnitude more when it’s the government,” he said.

Flood is a business analyst for Rosetta Stone and a volunteer for several local organizations such as the Issaquah Citizen Corps, the Community Emergency Response Team and the Friends of Lake Sammamish State Park. He is also a resident of South Lake Sammamish, which Flood said has not had representation on the council since it was annexed into the city in 2006. Flood identified the development of pedestrian pathways and increased police presence in those neighborhoods as issues important to residents of south lake neighborhoods. But Flood’s most publicized campaign platforms early in the race are conservation, traffic and the slowing of development.

“You have to pace development with infrastructure improvement and I think right now we’re developing as if we have that traffic improvement already,” Flood said. “Today, the people of Issaquah are suffering through increases of traffic due to development.”

Johnson is an IT support specialist for Costco Wholesale and has said he will run a no-budget race in which he’ll accept no donations and reach out to voters face-to-face or through social media. Education advocacy is prominent in his campaign platform — he told the Reporter he’s a supporter of the recent teacher union protests for state funding of basic education — and he’s identified city infrastructure and environmentally sustainable construction as important issues in his campaign. He said he would like to see the Issaquah Senior Center developed a s a means of making the city “more open and accommodated to (its) senior citizens.” If elected, he will seek a spot on the council infrastructure committee, he said.

“I see myself as the underdog in this campaign,” he said. “I am the youngest candidate with the least amount of experience. However, I genuinely want to do something more for my community, and I want to remind people at [sic] this isn’t a career position, but a duty that anyone can take part in.”

Ramos may be the most familiar candidate to the current city council and city staff, having served on the Human Services Commission for the past seven years, as well as the Economic Vitality and Planning and Policy commissions. He has been planning to run for council for about a year, he said. He is the founder of Issaquah-based transportation and public transit consulting firm The Common Good LLC and, like other candidates, he also has his eye on traffic issues in the city.

“As … seen in the results of the recent citizen survey, a big concern of citizens is traffic,” he said. “There’s infrastructure that we need to have for the growth in the city’s plans.

“I’ve got a handle on the issues to where I can help Issaquah continue to grow.”

Council Position 6

“I’m thrilled for the public that this is a contested race,” Council President Paul Winterstein said. “It means there will be many conversations, many neighborhood meetings and many opportunities for the voters to talk about what’s important to them and learn more about the issues.”

Winterstein is the only incumbent seeking reelection in the 2015 race and he’ll face two challengers in the primary: Gregg Leinweber and Christopher Reh. A third potential challenger, Jennifer Regis, withdrew soon after filing for candidacy.

Listing his legislative accomplishments, Winterstein pointed out three years of balanced budgets, the enactment of the city’s “urban village” oriented Central Issaquah Plan and the passage of Costco’s development agreement with the city, obligating the wholesale corporation to help foot the bill on extensive road improvements as it massively expands its corporate headquarters in Pickering Place.

He also listed leadership accomplishments such as a revamping of the city council’s goal setting process, expanded council leadership practices and city participation in regional boards and commissions.

Winterstein said the updated transportation concurrency plan passed in January would offer solutions for growing transportation infrastructure for drivers, bicyclists and pedestrians alike. Winterstein was the sponsor of the city’s Walk and Roll Plan (originally the Bike and Pedestrian Master Plan) to grow non-motorized road networks.

Leinweber is a certified nursing assistant and home care provider for ResCare. After volunteering on Seattle City Councilor Kshama Sawant’s campaign for office and 15 Now, he wants to promote a $15 minimum wage in Issaquah.

“I want to make the middle class more prosperous and I think (a $15 minimum wage) will push our democracy up,” he said. “I think minimum wage advancements in the past have never been bad for the economy, they’ve only helped it grow.”

Leinweber is also an evangelist for the application of electronic democracy, better known as e-democracy, a political philosophy that advocates for the incorporation of the Internet into democratic practices such as voting, voter education and town hall meetings. He said he would like to see Issaquah become a testing ground for e-democracy in practice and a model for state government.

“This could be a real popular idea that could cross party lines,” he said.

Chris Reh, a management consultant for Slalom Consulting, harped on the frustration of being “stuck behind a line of dump trucks as they haul away large chunks of Cougar Mountain” as he described his frustration with traffic in Issaquah. As the filing deadline approached, his choices came down to moving, whining or trying to make a difference, he said.

“The last 3 to 4 years has seen a city that has not transitioned its thinking and approach from a small town to a growing thriving city,” he said. “Growth is being driven externally, and not managed. We see it in horrible traffic and ill conceived developments. That is not what I want for Issaquah.

“I believe that great cities do not occur by accident, they are the result of hard work, leaders with a vision and attention to detail on the execution of that vision.”

This story has been updated from its print version to include Paul Winterstein’s responses to the Reporter’s questions, which arrived after press deadline.