EVERETT — A month after taking office as mayor, Ray Stephanson is assembling a new team of top administrators.
Stephanson is shuffling the responsibilities of several top positions and consolidating two posts — budget director and finance director — into one.
Larry Crawford will continue as chief administrative assistant, the mayor’s top policy aide and troubleshooter. Mayor Frank Anderson appointed Crawford to the post in 2002. Crawford, who served as executive director under Mayor Ed Hansen and has worked for the city for 23 years, will earn $120,000 a year.
"Larry has incredible institutional knowledge of the city," Stephanson said. "He’s an incredible problem-solver and has the tremendous respect of the staff."
Debra Bryant will become executive director. She will also continue her responsibilities as finance director and take over Travis Earl’s job as budget director. Her salary will be $113,000.
Bryant said she would be able to handle both positions, and would delegate some of the work to staff members.
"We’ve got to be very efficient," she said.
Earl resigned his position to devote more time to an investment firm he founded several years ago. "It’s been my goal for a while to focus on that," he said.
Earl said he had planned to resign as budget director even if Anderson won the election.
Stephanson centered his campaign around charges that the Anderson administration’s budget — which Earl prepared — was fiscally irresponsible. The mayor said he hoped to keep Earl in his administration as a budget official reporting to Bryant.
Stephanson appointed Deborah Wright, who managed his mayoral campaign, as executive director responsible for the Office of Neighborhoods and several community services, including the senior center, boards and commissions, Everett Transit, the library and animal control.
City Councilman Mark Olson called Wright’s appointment to the $103,000-a-year position a reward for her campaign work.
"The lack of governmental experience is disconcerting for a person being appointed to that high a level," he said. "She’s got multiple departments reporting to her, and she’s being thrust into a formal administrative role for the city."
Olson is considering whether to run for mayor against Stephanson in 2005.
"My desire in naming my staff was to have a mix of the private sector and the public sector," Stephanson said. He said the city will save about $60,000 with all the reshuffling.
He defended Wright’s appointment and pointed to her more than two decades of managerial experience at GTE — where she and Stephanson worked together — and at a health care company.
"Managing a team of people is about using people’s skills as well as possible, and that’s something I have experience in," Wright said.
Other appointments:
Shaw, McMullin and Wright will take over many of the responsibilities of Bob Cooper, who resigned his position as executive director on Nov. 12, and Paul Kaftanski, who left his post as executive administrator to become a program manager with Sound Transit.
The city now relies on contracted lobbyists in Olympia and Washington, D.C., to handle most of its legislative matters. But Stephanson wanted a full-time administrator, in large part to help the city retain Naval Station Everett in the next round of base closures. The city will probably still use the lobbyists for some services.
Reporter David Olson: 425-339-3452 or dolson@heraldnet.com
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