Retired Marysville official back at work

Published 9:49 pm Sunday, November 23, 2008

MARYSVILLE — Paul Roberts isn’t working for Marysville anymore, but he’s still going to help the city with some big projects.

Roberts, who served as the city’s public works director for three years and briefly as assistant city administrator, has left the city and started his own government consulting firm. He also is an Everett city councilman.

Roberts, 56, left Marysville in August. In October, he was hired by the city to coordinate plans for a new city hall, raise funds for road projects and lobby for the city on other issues.

The contract with the city calls for him to be paid a flat rate of $6,000 per month from October 2008 through September 2009. Because the contract does not involve a purchase or sale, it does not by law require a competitive.

City administrator Mary Swenson said the job was not a make-work project for Roberts, and that his expertise on city issues will come in handy.

“We needed this and we were looking for somebody” before Roberts announced he was retiring, city administrator Mary Swenson said. “His assistance is going to be invaluable as far as dealing with the people in Olympia.”

Roberts said his company, Paul Roberts and Associates LLC, is “mostly just me and some people I work with depending on the topic and clients.”

He said he’s been doing work for cities on helping them organize to comply with new rules for storm-water management. He’s also been working with cities and others on the Puget Sound Partnership, a new plan for cleaning up the Sound.

“My background really is in land use and environmental issues,” Roberts said.

Before Marysville, he worked as a deputy executive director in land use for County Executive Aaron Reardon for about a year. Before that, he was the city of Everett’s planning director for 15 years, he said.

In his capacity as an Everett city councilman, Roberts also is chairman of the board of the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency, vice chairman of the state Aviation Planning Council and is a member of the board for Sound Transit.

“What I’m trying to do is balance all that out and still have a life,” he said.

In Marysville, Roberts brought stability to the public works department in a time of transition and helped mentor and train younger employees to move up in the ranks, Swenson said.

“He did an absolutely outstanding job for the city,” she said.

At the beginning of this year, top management promoted Roberts to assistant city administrator when they felt city engineer Kevin Nielsen was ready to move up to public works director. Roberts stayed on for about six months to help with that transition, Swenson said.

Officials originally planned to replace Roberts but now, because of the economic situation, they won’t, Swenson said. The same is true for some other positions, she said.

“Unless they’re extremely critical, they’re not being filled at this point,” Swenson said.

Reporter Bill Sheets: 425-339-3439 or sheets@heraldnet.com.