Interim city manager will resign in August

Mill Creek Public Works director and recently appointed interim city manager Tim Burns has tendered his resignation effective Aug. 15.

Burns told members of the City Council on Tuesday that he accepted an engineering position with the Navy, which he left just over a year ago for the public works position in Mill Creek.

“This has nothing to do with any problems I’ve had with the council or people that I work with,” he said. “It’s an opportunity for me to be closer to home an spend more time with my family. I have enjoyed working for the city and am honored the council appointed me to lead the city.”

Burns was appointed to the interim manager position in June, after former city manager Steve Nolen was asked to resign over conflicts with the council.

“Not only will we have to find a new interim city manager, now we have to find a new public works director as well,” Mayor Donna Michelson said.

After a 15-minute executive session, the council announced plans to work with the city’s search agent, Greg Prothman, to inquire about former interim city manager Mike Caldwell, who led the city just over two years ago during the search that resulted in Nolen’s hiring.

Caldwell also is Lynnwood’s former city manager and lives currently in Arizona.

As for the city’s search for a permanent manager, council members had difficulty agreeing on a salary range for the advertised position. Market range, according to Prothman, is between $110,000 and $135,000.

Mayor Pro-tem Terry Ryan said he was uncomfortable with those numbers, while council member Dale Hensley said the city didn’t advertise the position high enough in the last search.

“Perhaps if we’d offered more money we wouldn’t be where we are now,” he said. “I felt our former city manager was the best of the candidates we had to choose from, but we may have gotten better results if we hadn’t low-balled the salary.”

The council eventually agreed to advertise a salary range of $100,000 to $125,000.

“We can always come back and change it if we find we aren’t getting a good pool of candidates,” Michelson said. “Let’s at least get the process going.”

In other council business:

The council narrowly approved preannexation zoning designations for the 85-acre neighborhood known as Websters Pond/Stonehedge bordered by Seattle Hill Road and 35th Avenue Southeast.

Ryan and councilwoman Rosemary Bennetts voted against the motion, while Councilman Mike Todd, Michelson, Hensley and Councilman Mark Bond voted for the preannexation.

Bond said he would have voted against the motion, had Councilwoman Mary Kay Voss been at Tuesday’s meeting.

“She would have voted in favor of it,” Bond said. “I don’t think it would be fair to take her absence and use it to our advantage.”

Residents in favor of the annexation must now collect signatures from 60 percent of the neighborhood residents, and submit them to the city before the annexation process can move forward.