Welcome to the election column from The Stranger that looks at the biggest policy issue dividing each pair of candidates fighting for a seat on the Seattle City Council.

In District 1, it was funding homeless service policies. In District 2, it was the candidates' approach to police accountability. District 3, it was progressive taxation. District 4 was zoning. District 5 was the criminalization of homelessness. Today...

District 6: It's Dan Strauss, the chief policy adviser to Council Member Sally Bagshaw and former Ballard paperboy, vs. Heidi Wills, the ex-city councilmember who went down in a Strippergate shame spiral but who's raring to sink her teeth back into city politics.

What’s the biggest issue that divides Strauss and Wills?

Strauss says: Campaign contributions.

In a statement to The Stranger, Strauss wrote:

The contrast between us is demonstrated through our support and contributions. I am running a grassroots campaign and I have the most organizational endorsements. I have maintained the highest number of overall donors and in-district donors and have an average donation of $80, while my opponent's average donation is $107. I have received $91.24 in independent expenditure support, while my opponent has received $111,901.74.

My opponent is out-fundraising me with support from the same people who funded her last campaign: developers, downtown special interests, and the biggest businesses. I have returned checks that I think have strings attached - because I am accountable to the people of District 6, not special interests.

Wills says: Nothing.

Wills did not respond to multiple requests for comment from The Stranger.

We say: Homeless sweeps.

Homelessness has Ballard up in arms. Last year, homelessness quadrupled in the neighborhood. The city even introduced a "park concierge" this summer in the Ballard Commons to make sure everything is hunky-dory (aka, there are no homeless people camping in the park). Current City Council Member Mike O'Brien, though affable and progressive, won himself little favor amongst his constituents for his championing of homelessness issues. Whoever helms District 6 next will be faced with similar challenges as Seattle's homeless population continues to grow. Will they steer clear of O'Brien's approaches? Will they let public outrage dictate how they legislate?

Wills supports sweeping homeless encampments. At a recent debate, she called them “the only tool the city has to help people find the services that they need."

This, additionally, was her vague answer to Real Change News when she was asked twice about her position on sweeps:

I think that the people living in tents in parks and in open spaces without hygienic facilities is really problematic, and I think that we need to ensure that there’s a place, of course, for people to go.

Strauss, on the other hand, is against sweeps. He said in that same debate that he was against them unless there's a public-health reason for clearing an encampment. If not, the Navigation Team, the team that conducts the homeless sweeps, is "wasting money," Strauss said.

"Unless there’s a public safety or public health reason," he added, "we’re just using our dollars inefficiently because we don’t have a place for people to go."

According to a recent report by Erica C. Barnett, the Navigation Team is infective and "only about 8 percent of people the Navigation Team contacts when they’re removing encampments—128 out of 1,583—actually end up in shelter."