Published: Friday, February 29, 2008
Senior-center members plan vote on board makeup
Eight file to run for four seats on board
By Chris Fyall
Enterprise reporter
Months in the offing, the South County Senior Center's board officer election is now set -- its look, its feel and its candidates.
It will be the first such vote in the center's 40 year history.
"I think there is a certain amount of pride in getting to move forward and have the vote," current executive director Hallie Olson said Feb. 25. "Things are moving in a good direction. There is more smiling and less frowning."
The election represents a hard fought victory for a center membership that has been in near-revolt since the board suddenly fired popular executive director Farrell Fleming. The board never explained Fleming's dismissal, which further infuriated the membership.
Eight people will stand for four officer positions in the March 12 election, officials said. Four of the candidates are current board members, and four are members who helped force the vote. Candidates had to file at the senior center by Feb. 22 in order to be eligible for office.
Every member who attends the March 12 election can vote.
A meet-the-candidates event is scheduled for 1-3 p.m., Wednesday, March 5, in the center's dining room at 220 Railroad Ave., on Edmonds' waterfront.
John Wagner, the board's president throughout the controversies of 2007, and one of the more polarizing figures during the ensuing struggle, is not running for re-election.
Rose Cantwell, who helped lead the membership's struggle for the vote, is running for president. She is a former government financial administrator who served for more than 20 years in the Assessor's Office in Indianapolis, Ind. Richard Marin, a former Edmonds City Councilman, Naval Reserve officer and a current senior center board member, is running against her.
If elected, Cantwell hopes to make further changes to the center's system of voting, she said. It would be better -- and more traditional -- if the membership elected all board members, and the board itself elected the officers, she said.
Marin hopes to return stability and civility to the center, he said in a statement announcing his candidacy.
Current vice president Mel Steinke and current secretary Mary Thomas will try and retain their seats. They will face Bob Brown and Gwen Saucedo, respectively.
Brown is a Spanish teacher at the center and serves on the center's Grassroots Advisory Council. A former Edmonds School District teacher, Brown was president of the Edmonds Education Association, and served for four years as a board member for the Washington Education Association.
Saucedo is former registered nurse.
Current treasurer Ron Ballough is not running for re-election. The board's second longest serving member, past president Steven Stout, is running against Madelon Hughes, a former tax agent, for the position.
Questions still linger
Fleming's firing continues to be an issue at the center, where board members still haven't offered any public explanation for his dismissal.
An Oct. 17 membership meeting prompted by rumors that the board had put Fleming on a short leash was heated. Fleming was not among the 150 members at the meeting, but the next morning, he was fired.
For months, he kept a low profile. After he was hired as the new executive director for Senior Services of Island County, however, he told the South Whidbey Island Record newspaper that he was fired because the "executive committee wanted to micromanage the organization. They created a mess."
Olson, the center's new executive director, was hired in January.
No additional details concerning Fleming's firing have come to light, but as part of a statement announcing his presidential candidacy, Marin said he loved Fleming, but did have concerns.
"I have discovered that there were some important things on the management side of his duties that were not being done to the satisfaction of the board," Marin said. "The dismissal was not abrupt and had absolutely nothing to do with personality. It was about issues that the Board of Directors is ultimately held accountable for to its members."
Cantwell said Fleming's firing sparked the membership's activism, but that the months-long struggle was about more than what members considered to be an unjust firing.
"We finally decided we couldn't just keep shrugging our shoulders and saying, 'Oh well,'" she said. "We just felt like the major problem was that (the board) has not been accountable to anyone for all these years."
Reporter Chris Fyall: 425-673-6525 or cfyall@heraldnet.com
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