Lynnwood City Council down to one candidate for its vacant seat

LYNNWOOD — Just one candidate remains in the Lynnwood City Council’s search to fill its vacant seat.

At a work session Monday, Assistant City Administrator Julie Moore told the council that Nazanin Lashgari and Chelsea Wright are no longer interested in the vacancy. On Tuesday, Forrest Baum told The Daily Herald in an email he is withdrawing from consideration.

“Out of a diverse group including 6 well-qualified women, only two white men remained, and I would not be comfortable being chosen in this scenario,” Baum said. “I do have excellent skills, including outreach with diverse communities, but in many ways, Lashgari and Wright are more experienced. This doesn’t sit well with me, and I’m following their lead.”

Lashgari decided to withdraw on Saturday, she said in an email to the Herald on Tuesday.

“Over the past few weeks, it has become increasingly clear that this process has been more about the process of elimination than a true evaluation of the candidates qualifications and their ability to serve the city,” Lashgari said. “The lack of transparency, clear criteria, and a fair selection system is disheartening.”

Now, only Robert Leutwyler remains to fill the seat. On Tuesday, the city announced the council will hold a special business meeting Wednesday to appoint a member to fill the vacancy.

The council must appoint someone by April 5. If it doesn’t meet the deadline, the Snohomish County Council will take over the selection process, according to state law.

The process began with 19 candidates in January after former Vice President Julieta Altamirano-Crosby resigned to serve as a commissioner for the Snohomish County Public Utility District. Each council member ranked the candidates on a scale of 1 to 19. The council selected the eight candidates with the highest number of points to interview Feb. 18.

Since then, the council has appointed two candidates to the position. On Feb. 20, the city appointed Rebecca Thornton to fill the vacant seat. One hour before she was set to be sworn in, Thornton withdrew from consideration. On March 10, the city appointed Jessica Roberts to the position. On March 13, she withdrew from consideration after the Lynnwood Times published an article revealing Roberts previously posted explicit material on online platforms, including OnlyFans and Reddit.

“I want to recognize that last week an extremely disturbing situation unfolded that caused deep impacts to our community,” Mayor Christine Frizzell said Monday. “After the council’s confirmation to fill the council vacancy position on Monday, highly troubling information came to light about that candidate. Immediately we began to receive phone calls, emails and social media messages, hearing from our local community. We also heard from folks nationally and internationally.”

There have only been three council vacancies in the past decade, Frizzell said, so there’s not a “fool-proof process.”

During the voting process to appoint both Thornton and Roberts, the council was split between the eventual appointee and Leutwyler. Both times, the vote became unanimous after an executive session. Frizzell said she’s received questions about why she hasn’t broken those ties.

“While I am authorized to break tie votes under some conditions early on in the process of filling the council vacancy, I told council that this was their decision and that I would not use my authority to vote on a candidate that would become their colleague,” Frizzell said.

At Monday’s meeting, before Baum’s announcement, some council members advocated for interviewing more people on the council’s original list of 19 candidates.

“I believe this entire process we should’ve brought up more candidates,” council Vice President Josh Binda said. “I want to stand by that in this case because I feel like we had advertised that we’d have eight candidates and now we’ve had six at this point drop out. I think we would easily have six more candidates on our list that would be willing to come and interview.”

Others said the council should not change its selection process because of the upcoming deadline.

“We have two excellent, viable candidates, and I’d like to see the council move forward with selecting one of those two to fill this position,” council member Patrick Decker said. “That would be what is fair. They rose to the top in the voting process, they rose to the top in the interviewing process, they have demonstrated passion and, frankly, they have stuck with us through all of the rigmarole that’s occurred here.”

Jenna Peterson: 425-339-3486; jenna.peterson@heraldnet.com; X: @jennarpetersonn.