For the fourth time in little more than a year, Sarah Fox is making a bid for Vancouver City Council.
Her journey began in January 2018, when she was a finalist for a vacancy created when Scott Campbell was elected post-mortem. Councilor Laurie Lebowsky was appointed to the position. Fox then ran against Lebowsky in 2018 for the seat and lost by about three percentage points.
Then another vacancy opened up on council, thanks to Alishia Topper’s election to Clark County treasurer. Fox applied for this vacancy as well but wasn’t selected as a finalist.
Now, she’s filed to run for Council Position 6. The seat is held by Councilor Bill Turlay, who has not yet filed for re-election. Diana Perez, who also sought appointment this year, filed for Turlay’s seat earlier this month.
Fox said she’s bolstered in her drive to serve by the community.
“I had so many people coming up and asking me if I was going to run again,” Fox said of the 2018 election. “It’s those people I would be representing on the council.”
Fox works as an urban planner for the city of Camas. She also serves as chair of the Clark County Historic Preservation Commission and president of the southwest section of the American Planning Association Washington Chapter.
In the last year, Fox’s platform hasn’t changed much. She wants to find ways to support small businesses from a policy-level and wants to champion the veterans community and those groups that are working to improve Vancouver.
“We are a group of people who can be really excited to help in our community,” Fox said. She served in the U.S. Army during the Gulf War. “We’re just kind of built that way, to serve others.”
Fox said the city is making development decisions that could help foster growth. Encouraging Night Market Vancouver and the farmers market, for example, creates small businesses incubators that help owners grow from a popup shop to a brick-and-mortar business, she said.
Fox said she doesn’t consider herself a one-issue candidate, saying there isn’t just one issue that needs to be fixed. Vancouver will need to consider growth, affordable housing and homelessness, and infrastructure to name a few, in the coming years. Fox said the council needs to take a balanced approach.
“We need to take a team approach, and we do have that community,” Fox added.
