With four of Woodland’s City Council seats contested this fall, a new group of challengers is speaking out about what they see as major failures by city leadership: a downtown full of empty buildings, communication gaps between the city and residents and an inefficient approach to Woodland’s ongoing growth.
The current council’s rejection of cannabis retail is fresh on the minds of challengers. Two candidates, Brittny Michaelson and Keith Bellisle, would vote to allow cannabis retail in Woodland. Aaron Brown and former councilor DeeAnna Holland say they’re open to hearing the community and weighing the facts.
Aaron Brown: “Grow by design, not by accident”
Aaron Brown, running for Position 1 against incumbent J.J. Burke, said he was driven to run by a simple but persistent question: “Why do Woodland residents have to leave town to have a good time?”
Brown, who works in the financial industry, moved to Woodland with his family six years ago and has since become a regular at council meetings. He said the city is stuck in a reactive posture while its population and housing footprint rapidly expand. Proactive planning around the city’s growth is vital, according to Brown.
“We’re at an inflection point,” Brown said. “Woodland is growing, but we’re not planning as if we are. There isn’t enough infrastructure, enough stuff for families to do, and not enough communication with the people who live here.”
He wants to see intentional growth that includes more parks, community centers and recreational programs. Revitalizing downtown, he said, is a key to that end.
“Woodland’s downtown is an untapped resource,” he said. “It’s beautiful, walkable, and has a vintage feel … But we need to understand what’s holding it back. I want a comprehensive study on every building: what’s empty, why, and how we get something in there.”
Brown believes Woodland residents should have the opportunity to vote on allowing cannabis retail businesses in the city. While he did not state his personal stance, he indicated his support for allowing the people to decide.
“My personal opinions around the subject of cannabis in the store itself are almost irrelevant,” he said. “Though (it’s) a very controversial subject at the root of it, people deserve a vote.”
Brittny Michaelson: “I’m just a neighbor who listens — and I’m tired of people being ignored”
Brittny Michaelson never planned to run for office. A stay-at-home mom raising her family, she said she was moved to action by a deep sense that the public voice was being shut out.
“I care about this community a lot,” she said. “And after seeing how many people were being ignored — online, in meetings — I felt like, you know what, if no one else is going to do it, I will.”
Michaelson is running for Position 2, challenging incumbent Carol Rounds. She says what pushed her to run was watching council seats go uncontested cycle after cycle, while residents’ concerns went unanswered. “This time, every incumbent has someone running against them — that’s a good thing,” she said. “Now they have to earn their seat.”
Her top concerns include infrastructure and transparency, especially around large developments she believes the city can’t support.
“We keep approving developments, and we don’t even have the roads or services to sustain them,” she said. “And there’s too much mystery around where the city’s money is going.”
Michaelson is an outspoken supporter of cannabis retail.
“I 110% support the cannabis shop,” she said. “I don’t use it myself. I don’t react well to it, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that the people in Woodland have been begging for it.”
“It is constantly brought up in [council] meetings and planning meetings, and they just are letting their religious views interfere with what the people want, which isn't right,” she said. “There needs to be a separation of church and state.”
Regarding downtown, Michaelson said she’d like to work with revitalization groups to incentivize more retail and cafe spaces, and less dead real estate.
“Downtown should be for the people,” she said. “We can’t just let prime space sit there and rot.”
Keith Bellisle: Fifth run, same message — fix downtown, promote reasonable development
Keith Bellisle is no stranger to city council races, as his challenge against Position 6 Jennifer De Luz is his fifth run for city council.
A longtime community fixture, he owns and operates Bellisle Events and Entertainment, a business centered on organizing fundraisers, weddings, and live music. He also serves as the interim director of the Woodland Chamber of Commerce, where he’s worked for the years to help connect and promote local businesses.
“I care about how Woodland operates,” he said. “I feel like there’s a lot … of improvements that maybe haven’t been looked at before.”
Bellisle has served as board president of Planters Days for the last six years, regularly updating the city on its progress and needs. Through his Chamber work and community organizing, he says he’s gained a strong understanding of Woodland’s systems and shortcomings.
“I’m well-connected and very passionate,” Bellisle said. “And I know how the systems work here in town, and of the challenges as well.”
Among those challenges is downtown, where empty storefronts and years of inaction frustrate Bellisle. He referenced recent comments from the mayor about buildings being held for tax shelter purposes, and while Bellisle said he wasn’t sure of the details, he didn’t like the result.
“I don’t know what the facts are with that, but I know we have too many empty buildings downtown and they have been empty for years,” he said. “It’s not helping our downtown. Downtown needs some help.”
Traffic is another issue at the top of his list, particularly the traffic caused by limited exit routes.
“If we need to get out of this town in an emergency … it’s very bottlenecked here with only a couple of ways to get out of town,” he said. “If there was a true emergency — dams breaking or something like that — we wouldn’t have enough time to react adequately.”
In the long term, Bellisle said Woodland needs a broader vision — one that looks past individual projects or surveys and focuses on being proactive. That includes how the city responds to new development proposals. Bellisle said he wants careful consideration — not blanket opposition.
“We can still have small town values,” he said. “But we can’t be oppositional to every proposal of development that comes across.”
This approach includes his position on cannabis retail. Bellisle has been outspoken in favor of allowing it and was critical of how past council votes have been handled.
“The code needs to be changed to permit a cannabis sales in the … C2 zone,” he said. “The reasoning for the votes in opposition have no merit, they’re all based on faith and conjecture… and really inaccurate information.”
Ultimately, Bellisle said Woodland needs a council that can plan considering the city’s long-term future.
“My highest priority is to find more effective ways… for the council to… be proactive rather than reactive,” he said. “Make decisions that aren’t just regular day-to-day ‘keep the city running,’ but something that helps move the city forward.”
DeeAnna Holland: A return to the dais after unfinished work — and frustration with inaction
After narrowly losing her seat in 2023 by 24 votes, former council member DeeAnna Holland took a break from city politics, though this wouldn’t last.
“People kept asking me to come back,” she said. “And I looked around and realized, nothing had moved forward.”
Holland, running for Position 3 against incumbent Melissa Doughty, said she’s deeply concerned about stalled projects like the city’s water reservoir replacement and the Civic Center, both of which she expected to be completed after her last term.
“I shouldn’t have to file public records requests just to figure out what’s going on,” she said. “This council doesn’t seem to talk about anything in meetings. That gives me anxiety.”
Holland, who runs a screen-printing business and volunteers in numerous civic roles, said Woodland’s downtown is full of “hopes and dreams” but little actual planning.
“There are buildings with no water,” she said. “Some would take over a million dollars just to bring up to code. People want downtown to be cute again — but who’s in charge of that plan? Is it the city? The chamber? Who’s going to fund it and manage it?”
One of Holland’s top concerns is the delayed Exit 21 improvement project. The interchange — Woodland’s main entry point — now faces a years-long delay due to state-required environmental assessments. Construction is not expected to begin until 2028 or 2029.
“That’s unacceptable,” Holland said. “I’ve sat through all the studies and meetings, and now they’re saying we have to wait until 2030? Why aren’t we talking to our legislators, pushing harder? This should’ve been done years ago.”
On cannabis retail, Holland expressed fatigue over what she said has become an endless debate.
“It’s been beaten to death,” she said. “There’s still a moratorium. That’s the law. You can’t just rezone and think that solves it.”
Would she support lifting the ban? Holland said she’s open to the conversation, but won’t come in with a firm position.
“You come in as Switzerland,” she said. “You listen, you weigh the facts, you vote.”
Holland also emphasized that Woodland can’t keep relying on residents to shoulder infrastructure costs.
“Tracy Coleman, our public works director, was banging out grants like a beast, and look at all the things we got accomplished in a short amount of time,” she said. “And guess what? She … works for La Center and she's doing the same thing there, cause that's how you get it (done). It cannot be on the backs of the citizens of that town. They cannot afford it.”
Editor's Note: This story will be further updated online.
