The Herald has encouraged the voters of Marysville to educate them on the proposed change in city government here in Marysville. The petitioners of the change say that they are now going to educate us.
In a recent letter, a spokesperson for the group made statements that I feel we’re misleading. One such point made it sound like almost 50 percent of the cities have changed to the proposed form of counci-manager. Municipal Research &Service Center reports, “Of Washington’s 279 cities and towns, 225 (81 percent) operate under the Mayor-council form, 53 (18 percent) have adopted the council-manager form, and 1 (1 percent) operate under the commission form.”
There are at least three cities that changed their form of government from mayor-council to council-manager to later change it back to the original form of mayor-council. They are Ferndale, Goldendale and Spokane. Apparently they found that the change didn’t successfully solve their problems and in turn caused other tribulations.
I believe that this whole change of government petition is nothing less than a personal attack on the mayor. If you vote to change the form of government in Marysville, you will be giving up your ability to choose who your mayor will be, because the city council will decide that for you.
I would like encourage voters to check the “facts” that they will be given and to do their own investigation as to what this change would really mean to them.
I suggest people visit Municipal Research’s web page as one source of unbiased information at www.mrsc.org.
Marysville
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