Lynnwood Mayor Mike McKinnon said his job has deliberately been made difficult by two ambitious councilmen who are now running for mayor.

Councilmen Jim Smith and Don Gough say they’re simply doing the business of the city and believe McKinnon, a former councilman himself, has fallen down on the job.

The fourth candidate, newcomer Bill Vance, said he can bring a fresh approach to city government.

Two of the four will move on to the general election following the Sept. 20 primary. The Lynnwood mayor is paid $82,356 a year.

McKinnon, while serving for 12 years on the council before being elected mayor in 2001, often didn’t see eye-to-eye with Smith, now an 18-year council veteran, or Gough, a member for 10 years. Not much has changed.

“The last four years have just been a constant battle every single week,” McKinnon said. “Certain members of the council try to build themselves up by trying to knock me down. Two of those people think they’re the mayor, and therein lies the problem.”

McKinnon said examples include nitpicking over his proposed budgets, reducing his business meal expense allotment from $500 to $250 a year and refusing to pay city dues for membership in the National League of Cities, in which McKinnon is a committee member.

Gough said the council was making cuts across the board in response to declining revenues.

“We were cutting everything. This was the whole council,” he said.

“Anything I’ve been doing,” Smith said, “has been for the betterment of Lynnwood, and I think the record speaks for that. Mike’s paranoia doesn’t make it true.”

Smith has run for mayor twice before, in 1997 and 2001. He said he wants to put his experience on the council to use in the mayor’s office.

His election as president of the Washington Pilots Association and chairman of the board of the Snohomish Health District point to his leadership abilities, he said.

“If they know you, they’re not going to vote for you if you’re a turkey,” he said.

Smith said the departure of the city’s directors of finance, parks and public works and four assistants to the mayor over the past four years is evidence of McKinnon’s inability to manage.

“He’s lacking in effectiveness, lacking in leadership, in being able to get along with his staff,” Smith said.

McKinnon said employee morale is high, pointing to a new contract with the firefighters union as an example. “If council member Smith wants to take a poll of the employees,” McKinnon said, it would prove the mayor’s point.

Gough, a general practice attorney, ran for mayor once before, losing to McKinnon in 2001. He said he wants to be mayor because the city needs more long-term planning, and McKinnon isn’t getting it done.

Gough said while he has pushed for and achieved improvements in planning, it needs more integration.

“The mayor needs to be able to understand that and be able to weave things together,” he said. “We need a city financial plan to ensure that all the programs are funded at an adequate level and you can project into the future.”

McKinnon himself pointed out that the city has been running on deficits and reserve funds for the past eight years. He said his bringing in $3.5 million in federal transportation grants has helped.

McKinnon said the city already spends a lot of time planning, and that it can go too far.

“There is a concept called paralysis by analysis,” he said.

McKinnon said council overanalysis caused unnecessary delays in city projects such as approval of the City Center downtown redevelopment plan.

Vance said the mayor has to share some of that blame. A regional supervisor for Qwest, Vance said he has more personnel management experience than any of the other candidates.

“I’m not tied into the obvious infighting that’s taken place between the mayor and the council,” he said. “We’re underadministrated and overlegislated. We’ve got to try to reverse that a little bit.”