Your editorial board endorsements are troubling since no one from your board interviewed Mukilteo candidates. Your editor met candidates in joint meetings lasting about 10 minutes. You endorse the same council candidates as you did before the primary but give voters no information about their opponents. Two who were on the long range finance committee had only one official meeting during their two-year term and provided no reports.
Half the space you devote to Mayor Gregerson relates to Mukilteo contributing $10,000 to Snohomish Health District, about the same amount as her travel budget. Councilmember Cook attends Health District meetings and reports important matters to the Mayor and Council. Cook recommended Mukilteo contribute $1 per resident. The council approved half that for 2017 and will contribute the full $1 for 2018. The Mayor instructed her staff to send the check as directed by council.
The balance of your mayoral recommendation said she fixed problems state auditors found and that she showed poise and compassion for the Kamiak students that were murdered in July 2016. The council and many others showed poise and compassion. Not something that sets her apart from her opponent Dan Matthews.
During the last four years Gregerson had five finance directors, three police chiefs, two fire chiefs, two public works directors, two parks and recreation directors and two planning and community development directors receiving substantial salary increases. Why the highest turnover in Mukilteo history?
I do not need to provide more support for Dan Matthews than you did. Then surprisingly you did not endorse him. Dan Matthews is more than qualified. Anyone reading your comments can easily see his qualifications far exceed our mayor who has spent 75 percent of her adult life as a Mukilteo politician. Change is needed now.
Charlie Pancerzewski
Mukilteo
Editor’s note: The candidates for Mukilteo’s city council were interviewed prior to the August primary election, a meeting that lasted well over an hour. As the board is sticking with the endorsements it made for the primary, there was no need to meet a second time with city council candidates.
Likewise, the interview of the mayoral candidates was more than an hour long. The editorial notes both candidates’ strengths, but the board found Gregerson deserving of its endorsement.
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