MOUNTLAKE TERRACE – “It was like somebody let me out of jail.”
Those were the words of Pat Cordova the week after being voted off of the Mountlake Terrace City Council, which she’s served on for 16 years.
Sure, Cordova wanted a fifth term on the council. But after five days at her second home on the Oregon coast, she says she had a chance to clear her head.
“I’m very competitive, and I wanted to win,” she said. “And that night I thought all the things that go through your head.
“You start feeling like you aren’t replaceable, and that’s wrong. Because I am.”
Voters certainly thought so.
Upstart Michelle Robles, who has served one year on the city’s planning commission, won with the widest margin of the three races for seats on the Mountlake Terrace City Council.
In the other races, incumbent Laura Sonmore kept her seat against political newcomer Eric Teegarden by a 424-vote margin, and challenger John Zambrano holds a one-vote edge over incumbent A.J. Housler in a race that will likely require a recount.
All three challengers were affiliated with the Concerned Citizens of Mountlake Terrace, a group that has grown in numbers and influence in the city over the past two years.
The group is mostly an e-mail list – its members don’t hold meetings and they don’t raise money – but it already helped place three people on the City Council in 2001, and could get two more this year if Zambrano holds on.
The Concerned Citizens group has been very critical of Cordova, especially over the last two years.
Tension over the past two years appears to be the one thing everyone can agree on. Cordova says there’s been a lack of professionalism on the City Council during that time.
Cordova said former Councilwoman Joyce Berry once sued her and former Councilwoman Candy Johns because of a vote the pair had made. Cordova and Johns eventually won the suit, after two years of litigation. All three continued to serve while the case was in the courts.
“It was very trying, yet in meetings, we respected each other and we worked as professionals,” Cordova said. “The last two years, that hasn’t been true. It’s been difficult for some of us.”
Cordova’s critics blame her.
Angela Amundson, one of the council’s most outspoken members and one of the three Concerned Citizens who won in 2001, said something changed when Cordova was appointed mayor in 2001 for the first time in her decade-and-a-half on the council.
“It’s kind of sad, in a way,” Amundson said. “I think people saw her true colors the last two years, and they didn’t like what they saw – especially people who were supporters of hers. I was one of them. It seemed like she just became a different person, and people didn’t like the person she’d become.”
Amundson said Cordova was unable to control City Council meetings, that she “had a habit of ignoring us, being rude to us, and telling us to shut up on the public record.”
Robles, too, said she was always a Cordova supporter but thinks the longtime councilwoman stopped listening to the public.
“Seems like last couple years, the community is not being well-informed,” Robles said. “That’s where Concerned Citizens came out of – frustration and anger about being uninformed. And we’ve been treated like it wasn’t important to inform us.”
Cordova said that with a Concerned Citizens majority already secured – the group supported Amundson, Doug Wittinger and Jerry Smith in 2001, and Robles and Zambrano this year – she’s concerned about city staff and the public.
“I really think they’re going to have four votes for whatever they want,” she said.
Her concern starts with city manager Connie Fessler, who has been criticized by the Concerned Citizens group.
Amundson, who said she can’t speak for six other people, said the city manager’s situation “is something that will make itself known in time.”
“I don’t think it should be me that would make the thumbs-up,” Amundson said. “I don’t think anybody wants to make a concerted statement about Connie Fessler at this time.”
For her part, Cordova expects to spend more time with her 10 children and 23 grandchildren. She’ll take more trips to her Seaside, Ore., home and she’s going to be involved in a project that aims to encourage minorities to get involved in city government.
“Boards and commissions should be a lot more diverse in the city and in south Snohomish County,” she said. “More people of color should be active.”
As for handing the city over, Cordova says she’ll be watching.
“I’ll be interested, but I won’t meddle,” she said. “I wish the city well.”
Victor Balta is a reporter for The Herald in Everett.
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