Mayor more than deserves living wage

I am extremely frustrated at the Thursday article regarding the mayor of our city. Your first article on this subject, as well as this one, does not report the complete facts and depicts Joe Marine as being selfish and greedy.

Members of the City Council think that they did the mayor a favor by increasing his pay and giving him benefits, when, indeed, what they have done is made a mockery of the fine job he is doing.

Money Magazine has just named Mukilteo one of the top 100 most livable and attractive cities in the country for the third time in a one-year period. In December, Business Week magazine named Mukilteo one of the best affordable suburbs of 2006. Earlier this year, Yahoo! News named the city one of the top 25 most affordable suburbs in 2007. This latest honor once again demonstrates that Mukilteo is a safe, attractive community with the kind of services and amenities that continue to attract attention. These kinds of accolades don’t happen on their own; it starts at the top with a good leader.

The statistics glaringly show that our mayor is underpaid and that his position should be full time, based on the demographics of our city. The mayor spends countless hours at City Hall and representing our area in many outside events. His own business is sacrificed daily because of his commitment to doing a good job for Mukilteo. How many people can support a family on the income that they are willing to pay?

I especially liked the closing statement from Pat Kessler. I wonder if she has ever taken a job, known what the pay was up front, done a fabulous job and wanted a raise for her efforts? In business, we call that re-evaluating the situation.

Eric Svenningsen

Mukilteo

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