Meet Olympia City Council candidate Dontae Payne
Editor’s note: This is one in a series of interviews with candidates running for Olympia City Council. At the end of each interview, The Olympian asked every candidate two questions: what they pay in rent or mortgage, and if they could correctly state the median home sale price in Olympia, which is $430,000.
Dontae Payne grew up in Philadelphia. He joined the U.S. Army at age 23 and served two tours in Afghanistan, then re-enlisted at Joint Base Lewis McChord.
“There are a lot of people that say they joined the military because they wanted to serve their country,” Payne said in an interview with The Olympian. “And I do believe people when they say that. But you know, what I see it as is the military was a ticket to a life out of intergenerational poverty.”
Dontae Payne is running against Corey Gauny and Sarah DeStasio for Olympia City Council’s Position 6, which is being vacated by Renata Rollins. The field will be winnowed in the Aug. 3 primary.
Payne served in the Army during the latter days of the military’s Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy, which was repealed in 2011. Although he said he never felt directly discriminated against for his sexual orientation, Payne described the experience of seeing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell reversed as his “first real introduction into the world of politics.”
After leaving the military in 2016, he finished his undergraduate studies and got a master’s degree in public administration at The Evergreen State College. He worked as the South Puget Sound regional representative for Gov. Jay Inslee and more recently as a Deputy District Director for U.S. Rep. Marilyn Strickland.
He was the treasurer of the Thurston County Young Democrats and is a member of Thurston County Queer Democrats.
Payne said he was motivated to run by, among other things, the lack of representation of Black and brown people in city government. Important issues to him include affordable housing, homelessness, and addressing political violence at the state Capitol Campus.
While he supports the current “reimagining public safety” process, he also hears skepticism from people of color and says time will tell if it actually produces tangible results or is simply a “box-check or something that is performative.”
Payne said he would focus on making it easier for Black people to open businesses, especially in the cannabis industry.
“For years, Black and brown people have been jailed for doing something that now the government itself has sanctioned,” he said.
On police reform, Payne proposes body cameras and implicit bias training, as well as a comprehensive review of the police department hiring process to make sure that officers understand the history of systemic racism in the U.S. He didn’t call for any specific changes to the police guild contract.
Payne is against defunding the police, which he called “a convenient distraction from white supremacy.”
“Instead of talking about truly getting systemic racism out of our policing agencies, what we are talking about is the budget,” Payne said. “As far as I’m concerned, we cannot afford to have a reduction in officers in this community because there is still regular crime and things that have to be addressed by our police, and so they are a necessary part of society.”
Payne said that Olympia needs more affordable housing and he wants to work with developers to incentivize building it, but stopped short of calling for mandates.
Payne said he’d like to see more tiny home villages like the one at Plum Street to help address homelessness.
He also wants to see harsher penalties for drug dealing in the downtown core, citing stories he hears from downtown business owners. “The drug issue is something that they’re fed up with, and they would like to see a council member who would stand up and actually, you know, deal with it.”
Payne distinguished between drug use, which he believes should be treated like a disease, and drug dealing, which he believes should be prosecuted as a crime.
“I do think that we have a drug problem that’s sort of masked itself and hidden behind our homeless population,” Payne said. “I’m not talking about those who use drugs, because I do understand that that is someone who needs help to be rehabilitated, and drug addiction is a disease, but for those who are selling it and distributing it to those vulnerable people, our police officers in Olympia should be allowed to do their jobs and punish people to the fullest extent of the law for that behavior.”
How much do you pay in rent/mortgage?
Payne says his mortgage is $1,696.20 per month.
What’s the median home price in Olympia?
$400,000
This story was originally published June 3, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
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