Barry Ladenburg became the newest SeaTac Council member when he was sworn in at the SeaTac Council Meeting on Dec. 9th.

Ladenburg will serve the rest of Councilman Joe Brennan's term. Mr. Brennan passed away on Oct. 14.

Brennan had served on the council since the city's incorporation in 1990.

Ladenburg's term goes until the November election, at which time he will have to decide whether or not to run for election.

The SeaTac City Council took applications and then interviewed over a dozen potential council members before choosing Ladenburg.

Ladenburg jumped right in, asking questions about nearly every topic that was brought before the council.

Councilman Chris Wythe said at the end of the meeting they hadn't expected him to ask any questions his first meeting. Wythe said he was pleasantly surprised by Ladenburg's involvement.

At the beginning of the meeting, resident Earl Gibson expressed concern over the choice, specifically Ladenburg's proximity to several other council members. The council members live near Angle Lake.

"This gives our great city of SeaTac, five out of seven council members, and a King County Council member, who live within 1,000 feet of each other," Gibson said.

"We probably don't need this fancy chamber anymore, most of our council members need only walk to each other's homes and decide the affairs of over 26,000 other citizens over tea and crumpets."

He added that the disproportionate representation probably wasn't anything new.

After lengthy discussion the council voted 5-1 to approve the rezone of property around the 154th Street light-rail station. Deputy Mayor Gene Fisher excused himself from the discussion and voting because of a conflict of interest. Councilwoman Terry Anderson voted against.

The concern was what the rezone to allow higher density development, such as town homes, apartments-condos and commercial, would do to the property taxes of the people living there now.

The rezone was done in two phases.

The first phase rezoned property that was not initially zoned as single family residential. The second phase was the rest of the land, most of which was zoned for single family.

Roger Kadeg, who lives within the area that was rezoned, spoke against the rezone. He said with the economy the way it is any development would be years away and that the only thing that would change is his and his neighbors' taxes.

"The suggested rezone will have an adverse impact on our property taxes - they will increase due to a perceived, but not necessarily real increase in value," Kadeg said. "This will constitute a real hardship for many in this already depressed economy.

"Those on fixed incomes, such as our family, will take a real hit."

Wythe said Kadeg was right that development is likely years in the future.

But government moves slowly and he said he didn't want to revisit the process.

"I feel that in the long run it will benefit all of the property owners in this area," Wythe said.