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Ryan Mello (Pierce County Executive, Washington, candidate 2024)
From Ballotpedia
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Ryan Mello (Democratic Party) ran for election to the Pierce County Executive in Washington. He was on the ballot in the general election on November 5, 2024.[source]
Mello completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2024. Click here to read the survey answers.
[1]Biography
Ryan Mello provided the following biographical information via Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey on October 7, 2024:
- Birth date: December 21, 1978
- Gender: Male
- Incumbent officeholder: No
- Campaign website
- Campaign Facebook
Elections
General election
General election for Pierce County Executive
Ryan Mello and Kelly Chambers ran in the general election for Pierce County Executive on November 5, 2024.
Candidate | ||
Ryan Mello (D)  | ||
| Kelly Chambers (R) | ||
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| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Nonpartisan primary election
Nonpartisan primary for Pierce County Executive
Ryan Mello and Kelly Chambers ran in the primary for Pierce County Executive on August 6, 2024.
Candidate | ||
| Ryan Mello (D) | ||
| Kelly Chambers (R) | ||
| ||||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Election results
Endorsements
Ballotpedia did not identify endorsements for Mello in this election.
Campaign themes
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Ryan Mello completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2024. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Mello's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
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I am currently serving as the Chair of the Pierce County Council. I have served in local elected office for the last 17 years (Metro Parks Tacoma Commission, Tacoma City Council and Pierce County Council) along with serving as the Executive Director of the Pierce Conservation District for a decade has prepared me well to lead Pierce County. I have served in both policy making and executive roles. I believe I have honed the skills of bringing diverse people together for common purposes, setting priorities and clear expectations, holding people accountable, communicating with the public and pushing aggressively to make the most impact possible. I am deeply connected to the community, currently serving on the Greater Tacoma Community Foundation Board of Directors, and previously served on the Board of Directors of the Tacoma Historical Society, Transportation Choices Coalition and Equal Rights Washington as a founding Board Member.
After graduating from the University of Puget Sound, I stayed in Tacoma to join the domestic Peace Corps, and did my service at the United Way of Pierce County. My assignment was to design programs that would instill an ethic of philanthropy and community service in young people. Through this experience I fell in love with Tacoma and Pierce County and the people and community-based organizations that make it so vibrant. All of these experiences have enabled me to understand how to fight to make Pierce County safer, healthier and more prosperous.
- Affordable housing investments and addressing the related homelessness crisis. I am striving to make Pierce County a better place to live for all. Stable housing is at the root of so many of our challenges and supporting housing at all income levels is key to addressing homelessness, economic stability and foundational to all of our mental health and well being. To meet current housing needs, the county needs to produce over 2,300 units per year of affordable housing. As Executive, I will implement the County’s Housing Action Strategy and set the county on the path to building and preserving housing units needed to stabilize our housing sector.
- An economy that works for everyone. To ensure our economy works for all, we must invest in building the skills of our workforce through community and technical education, higher education, paid apprenticeship programs and create more opportunities for young people. We need a transportation system that allows people to get to work efficiently and goods to get to market. We also need affordable, high quality and accessible childcare so that working people don't have to choose between paying for childcare and going to work.
- Improving public safety. It starts with making sure public safety and justice officials have the resources they need to keep violent offenders behind bars and invest in solutions to reduce recidivism. We need to strategically bring down our property crime rates. I will invest in community, drug, mental health, and veteran’s courts so that people are held accountable while also getting the resources and support they need to address root causes of crime and not re-offend. I will continue to support increased staffing levels for public safety agencies, including the Pierce County Sheriff, as well as competitive wages to attract and retain our valued deputies, prosecutors and others that make up the criminal justice system.
I am passionate about policies that move Pierce County forward for all. However, one area that personally interests me is the climate crisis. The County Executive has the opportunity to make an impact on the major sources of climate pollution including transportation, building electrification and how we grow and making our communities more resilient. In 2023, I worked with County Councilmember Robyn Denson, Puyallup Councilmember John Palmer, and Lakewood Mayor Jason Whalen to convene cities, towns and the county government for the Pierce County Climate Conversation. As County Executive, I will continue to lead to bring people together to advance solutions on our most pressing challenges as a region.
I believe that bold, competent, and experienced leadership is needed now more than ever and that the job of leading the second-largest county in Washington state is no place for on-the-job training. Much like we want experienced plumbers to fix out plumbing or experienced doctors to manage our healthcare, we need elected officials with the experience to serve in such serious roles as County Executive. As we rebuild our institutions and economy after the pandemic, we must do so from the middle-out, not the top-down, and advance protections for working families that will enable us to come out of this crisis stronger than when we entered it so that we can be more resilient in the future. That is why I want to take my record of bold, effective leadership and history of accomplishments for working people to the Office of the Pierce County Executive.
As an out gay man it has been a struggle to deal with many individuals’ homophobia and discrimination against the LGBTQ community. Witnessing first-hand, many attacks on me, my family and community have been a difficult struggle to navigate in public life. I have always strived to live my life out and demonstrate my ability to listen to people with different lived experiences and beliefs with the goal to bring people together. I have shown through my work ethic, empathy and experience how to tackle public policy areas that are of highest concern to our region - affordable housing and the cost of living, behavioral health access, building an economy that works for everyone and a safer and more efficient transportation system for all users.
I am supported by a broad coalition of firefighters, the Pierce County Prosecutors Association, laborers, teachers, healthcare workers, and more. I am proud to be endorsed by the Washington Education Association, Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates, Washington Federation of State Employees, Washington Conservation Action, Alliance for Gun Responsibility, the Puyallup Tribe, and many more. I am the only candidate endorsed by elected Democrats like U.S. Senator Patty Murray and House Speaker Laurie Jinkins, Republicans like Lakewood Mayor Jason Whalen and Independents like University Place Mayor Javier Figueroa and Fife Mayor Kim Roscoe.
To see a full list of supporters, please visit: ryanmello.com/endorsements-2024.
To see a full list of supporters, please visit: ryanmello.com/endorsements-2024.
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
See also
2024 Elections
External links
Footnotes
