ARLINGTON – City Administrator Kristin Banfield is taking a step back from the city’s top post to become interim assistant city administrator.
Doing so will mean taking a cut in pay from $98,000 a year, but Banfield has more important priorities – her husband, Bill, and Teeghan, to whom she gave birth almost a year ago.
“Family is way more important,” Banfield said Monday.
Mayor Margaret Larson said an interim city administrator could be hired as soon as Monday’s City Council meeting, if the council approves and the candidate is ready to begin. She has interviewed one candidate but declined to identify him until that meeting.
The council will then decide how to proceed with a search for a permanent administrator, Larson said. The council also would have to create an assistant administrator position, she said.
Banfield said having somebody else run the city will lighten her schedule.
“It’s something that I’ve been thinking about since I went on maternity leave a year ago,” Banfield said. “It’s a very difficult job. It takes full devotion, and so does being a mom.”
Banfield took over as city administrator in 2000, when her boss, Thom Myers, resigned in a dispute with then-Mayor Bob Kraski. Myers later took an interim city administrator position in Monroe, then was hired as city administrator of Oak Harbor. Kraski lost the mayoral election in 2003 to Larson and retired.
Banfield, now 31, had been assistant city administrator for about a year at the time. Some questioned whether she was qualified for the top job. She graduated in 1994 with a bachelor’s degree in public administration from the University of Southern California. Her previous experience had been as a policy analyst for Des Moines and working for a nonprofit group that fought the expansion of Sea-Tac airport.
Despite the questions about whether that was enough experience to run a city, Kraski supported her.
In 2001, he removed her interim status and made her full-time city administrator. The assistant spot was never filled.
That put Banfield in an awkward position, City Councilwoman Sally Lien said. Kraski had a strong personality and managed staff directly, Lien said.
“That’s not really any discredit to him, either, because he was the mayor,” Lien said. “But it was quite obvious that he actually was in charge.”
Lien described Banfield as popular with city staff. That worked well sometimes but not so well if authority had to be wielded, because that role had not been established for her at the outset, Lien said.
“A large problem was she did not have the strength and the attitude” to deal with staff issues, Lien said. “She had not hired these people. That’s certainly not any discredit to Kristin.”
Banfield’s time at the top was one of rapid growth for Arlington, and she had to lead staff through a number of large, politically sensitive projects.
Perhaps the biggest was the new police station, which broke ground last month next to city hall. The city also has mostly completed a massive overhaul of 67th Avenue NE, installing left-turn lanes, landscaped medians, new utilities and a section of the Centennial Trail.
“We’ve made a lot of progress, but there’s a lot of areas we still need to focus on,” Banfield said.
Lien said she supports Banfield and hopes that the change in jobs will keep her from burning out.
“We sure don’t want to lose her,” Lien said.
If Banfield wants to go back to school to continue her education some day, the city would probably find a way to make it work, Lien said.
“The potential there is enormous,” Lien said.
Reporter Scott Morris: 425-339-3292 or smorris@heraldnet.com.
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