MISSOULA — MISSOULA — There are two candidates in the running for Missoula's mayor in the Nov. 4, 2025, election: incumbent Andrea Davis and Shawn Knopp.
Davis is the incumbent mayor of Missoula. She has been in office for just over a year after Missoula’s former mayor passed away.
Davis has a background in affordable housing building, spending over 20 years in the industry, including working at a non-profit.
Davis says she is focused on “continuing the momentum” of her current priorities, housing, city services and responsive government.
Ballots need to be in the mail by next week to be on time for the election.
Below is a full transcript of reporter Zach Volheim's interview with Knopp.
MTN: “Well, Andrea, thank you so much for coming out here this morning with me. I'm going to jump right into it to start. Can you just give me a little bit of background about yourself? You know, where did you grow up? Did you go to school? What's your background professionally?”
DAVIS: “Thank you, Zach. I appreciate being here with you. So I am fortunate to be born and raised in Montana. I was raised in Kalispell, Montana. And that's where I grew up. I went to public school there. I graduated with my two-year degree from Flathead Valley Community College. And then I transferred here to Missoula to finish my education. And I did so at the University of Montana. So go Grizz. I'm an alumni there as well. And since I graduated from the university, I was fortunate to start an early career in affordable housing. And so I started with Homeward. I went to the Missoula Housing Authority for five years and came back to Homeward as their executive director for 15 years. So for over two decades, 22 years, I've been working in basically the nonprofit space of building homes that Montanans can afford and providing home buyer education and financial literacy skills. “And that related so much to my life, my personal life, because when I first got my position at Homeward, I was really excited about working for an organization that was dedicated to sustainable development, green building and coupling that with affordability. And I realized how important that was for my life, because we lived in good places in Kalispell. I was able to ride my bike and we had gardens and I knew my neighbors. And I just knew how important that was for me as a kid, and obviously, how it was a good foundation. And I really want that for other kids here in Missoula and for other families as well. And affordability is really essential for folks to be able to have stability in their lives. And so I've made my entire career dedicated to it.”
MTN: “Yeah, I feel like that's a good segue into my next question. When I was going to line this interview up, I asked if there was a good location to conduct this. And you said that right here, over on Scott Street, was a good one. I'm just curious if you could break down why you felt like this was a good location?” asked MTN.
Watch the full interview with Missoula mayor candidate Andrea Davis below:
DAVIS: “Yeah, thank you so much. So, the Scott Street Project, we call it the Scott Street Ravara Project. The city of Missoula acquired several acres over here in Missoula's Northside some years ago with the intention of working with the neighborhood and the private sector to build more homes that Missoulians can afford. Right now, under construction, are 89 homes that are on a community land trust. That community land trust, the ground, the land is held in trust, therefore making the homes more affordable just because when the homeowner purchases, they don't have to pay for the land, which ultimately is getting more and more expensive in a place like Missoula that is actually fairly limited land when it comes to rivers and railroads and interstates and bridges and all of the above. We need to find places like this. This was an industrial wasteland before the neighborhood and the city worked with the state to bring it to clean standards for residential development. And now this has an opportunity for a thriving neighborhood sector. So I mentioned before that my career before becoming mayor was dedicated to affordable housing solutions, both for renters and for homeowners. And so a community land trust is one important tool that can help us get folks into homeownership, a great alternative to renting, and it's a shared equity model, which, as we think more creatively around how folks can have more opportunities going forward, a shared equity model is really important. We're partnering with FrontStep. They are the community land trust here and it's the private sector through Ravara Development that's actually the developer that's that are building these homes. These are condominium and townhomes and the city of Missoula not only invested in acquisition of the land but also in infrastructure investment. And then in an economic development tool that we have, tax increment financing, we've invested in the workforce housing themselves, so the actual vertical construction. And these 89 homes will be on the market here shortly and the important part of that for us is these are homes available to Missoula's workforce and it will be into perpetuity because they are part of a community land trust. They'll actually be part of our affordable housing infrastructure for years to come."
MTN: “My next question for you is, why are you running and what is the top priority you're looking to address as you come into this next year if you're elected?”
DAVIS: “I'm running because I feel like we have great momentum. I've only been in office for two years because I finished an existing shortened term and I feel like we have excellent momentum. I want to keep serving as Missoula's mayor in order to create more home choice and affordability for people that are living and learning and and working here in Missoula. I want to be able to continue to address ways that our local government can continue to be responsive and transparent and accountable for the residents and folks here in Missoula in order to deliver better public service. We are the closest government to the people and I think we know ever more how important it is that we continue to be a responsive government for people's needs. And then secondly, I'm very interested in focusing on addressing cost-of-living issues and how we can continue to strengthen our economy here in Missoula, because the other side of the equation on housing affordability is wages. And this is an issue that's been a perennial challenge for Missoula, for Bozeman too, and actually pretty much every university town. You have a highly educated workforce in somewhere like Missoula. We have had lower wages for some time and I'm really interested in continuing on how do we build more, not only high wages, but really that middle-income sector as well. What we don't want to be is a barbell economy. We don't want to have a lot of low-wage service jobs coupled with super high-end, high-paid jobs, right? Who's in the middle and what is our ladder of opportunity? Because we invest in the Missoula Economic Partnership, that work not only can we support businesses individually through business development, but we also focus on sector-level development. And part of that is creating more housing choice and affordability for everyone. Zach, I just came from a presentation at Sunrise Rotary and I had somebody share with me that their church is looking to bring on a new priest, but they cannot attract somebody because the housing options in Missoula are not there for that salary level. So I just want to point out that it is not just service workers. It is not just, it is every end of the spectrum and it is something that I'm keenly interested in addressing because ultimately it is the very fabric and foundation of our community."
MTN: “I want to shift over to a hot topic, property taxes. Right. The city just raised them just over 3% for 2026 and I guess I'm curious to know why did you all raise taxes? You know, city council voted unanimously to approve your plan and you know, is there anything you might have been able to do or sacrifice to not have that increase?”
DAVIS: “We had a modest increase in the city's portion of people's property taxes this year. As you said, it was just a little over 3% which really matches generally the cost of inflation this year. And we did that because we are focused on keeping our service level acceptable and high quality for the community. So and by keeping our costs as low as possible. This cost-of-living lens that I've instituted at the city is something that our team, our staff have taken very seriously. I'm really proud of that because our directors got very creative. An example is we're standing here near the city of Missoula streets department division. Our public works division, for example streets, people I've been getting a lot of compliments about when people call and complain or are asked to get a pothole filled. We can generally get that pothole filled within the matter of hours. So we live in the northern climate with the heaving of roads because of temperatures potholes happen. Fixing potholes, fixing our streets, making sure that we can, our existing assets are taken care of are a really good use of tax dollars. The streets division has asked for new streets staff for years. And so instead of actually bringing on new employees through the road district, which is property taxes, we're utilizing the gas tax that is afforded to us through the state because that is a state program. So the gas tax that we will use instead of putting towards some capital projects will actually use to hire two new streets division workers. So sorry for the long explanation there, but that's one way that we're able to meet new and expanding service needs. It might not be to the scale that we actually need. I mean in a perfect world we'd hire six new street division workers but we're hiring two new positions for that and ultimately what we'll be able to do is we'll be able to take better care of our streets and that investment in the long term will be a better use of taxpayer dollars and again those two new employees are not being paid for through property taxes but they're being paid for through gas tax. That kind of creativity is what this cost-of-living lens has helped spur across the city. We're going to continue to find creative ways to meet existing and growing demand for our community while also working on the property tax equation, which is frustrating for all of us because the city of Missoula is operating just like the county and all of our peers across the state. We are operating with limited tools to meet the demands of today. So the state legislature knows this. We saw legislation in 2025 address this. The city of Missoula advocated strongly for property tax reform. We are not done. This is definitely a great step in the right direction, but ultimately, we need to be talking about how we have a more modern tax policy in this state to be addressing the needs that we have in 2025. Our existing tax structure in the state of Montana is designed for 1965 and that is not where we are. We're not in a community with billowing industrial smoke and TP burners that were located all over here. This was an industrial space. This was a window company. Over here we had TP burners. That was affordable at the time but a really pretty polluted environment and now of course we have what we have. We've got a much more clean environment. We have a place that people want to be in. You look around you can understand why and so we need to make sure that our tax system is modernized so we'll continue to advocate at the state legislature for that."
MTN: “Gotcha. And then off that, in the long term, I'm curious to know where you'd like to see Missoula in 20 years?”
DAVIS: “Oh my gosh. Where I would like to see Missoula in 20 years is that we have more vibrant neighborhoods that have places that people can walk to see their neighbors that there are more diverse home types for people of all ages and all abilities that the small neighborhood commercial like we're going to see over here at the Scott Street Ravara Project there is going to be neighborhood commercial here for people in the north side so folks are not reliant on their vehicle to have to drive miles to the grocery store or miles to get together at a local coffee shop that you'll be able to actually get the services that you need that our economy continues to diversify and that we have good paying jobs for folks that both graduate from high school and those that have pursued higher education alike but that ultimately we're a more connected and vibrant community and as we continue to address public health needs one of the public health needs that is very critical is the change in our climate the change in our climate impacts our health daily and the city is focused on doing what it can to continue to move us off of fossil fuels to create less garbage into the landfill to find ways that we can improve our air quality and also protect our very valuable water sources and so I envision Missoula being a place that we are a more even a more cleaner holistic and well-connected community in 20 years."
Watch the full interview with Missoula mayor candidate Shawn Knopp below:
MTN: “My last one I have for you is what's your elevator pitch for why someone should vote for you?” asked MTN.
DAVIS: “Thank you for asking that question. I hope to have voters' support in November because I believe that I am focused on issues that are at the heart of Missoula and what people are care about around their kitchen table. It's how do I afford to stay here and live here? How do I get a good job here? And how do I make sure that when I am walking around the can, I can I redo this?”
MTN: “It's still going so whatever you like.
DAVIS: “Ok, ok. I’m sorry I got myself all tongue-tied."
MTN: “No, you're fine.”
DAVIS: “Ok, take two on that. My elevator pitch for why folks should vote for me is because I believe we have really excellent momentum to achieve the priorities that Missoula is looking for. We're focused on housing choice and affordability. We're focused on growing a strong economy here locally and addressing cost-of-living issues and we're focused on making Missoula, the city of Missoula and the municipality a better working government for you. I feel like we've got excellent momentum the next four years are going to get us even further and so I ask for people's vote on November 4th."
MTN: “Well, Andrea, thank you so much."
DAVIS: “Thank you, I appreciate it very much."
Click here for additional information about the Nov. 4, 2025, election in Missoula.
