To the Editor:

I read in The Federal Way News today that a gentleman is gathering signatures so that the citizens of Federal Way can vote on changing the Federal Way city government to an elected strong mayor form of government rather than having a hired city manager.

It stated that this gentleman had a problem with the city that he would not elaborate on but he felt the change he was proposing would help avoid his type of problem.

I'm opposed to that change and I'd like to explain why.

The way I understand it, an elected Mayor would take over all the duties of our current city manager, the ceremonial duties of our current mayor and would join mayoral organizations.

The City Council would elect one of its members to be council president who would preside at council meetings. The elected Mayor would be the CEO of the city, supervising all department heads and presenting reports and recommendations to the council.

Presently when we need to hire a city manager, the city council starts a candidate search, usually by hiring a professional executive search firm.

They develop a list of criteria that any candidate must meet. The consultant and council do a thorough review of any candidate's qualifications through interviews and reference checks. It is very much like a corporation searches for a CEO. Because the search is usually nation wide, the successful candidate can bring experience from a variety of other places and a variety of previous duties and responsibilities. The council can fire the city manager if they are not doing their job.

An elected Mayor may be someone who has no experience running a city, a business or anything else that gives them the skills for the job.

The successful candidate may just be the person who gives the best speeches and makes the best impression with the voting public.

They are not subject to an interview or reference checks by the voter. There is very little guarantee that the voters will elect someone who will really be qualified to be the "CEO" of the city.

The elected Mayor cannot be fired without a recall election and these are very difficult to hold, so you are stuck with a bad Mayor until the next election.

As stated in the article, most cities with an elected Mayor hire an administrator to perform many of the duties usually performed by a City Manager. That is because an elected Mayor probably does not have that management skills and abilities. Why should a city pay for a full time elected Mayor and also pay for a full time assistant who really runs the city? A

City Manager can perform these duties and carry out the policies adopted by the City Council.

Many well qualified candidates for mayor would be reluctant to go through a political campaign that includes fund raising, speeches, promises, appearances and more.

A city manager can work for the city for many years as long as they do a good job. An elected mayor who is doing a great job can be replaced at election time simply because someone with more charisma runs against them, whether qualified or not.

Cities as large as Seattle or Tacoma can afford to hire vice-mayors and other staff to supervise department heads. Federal Way is not large enough to do that. The elected Mayor would be expected to supervise all managers and I'm not convinced that voters would elect a qualified person in which case the city would need to hire a high level deputy as an administrator.

An elected Mayor just like a City Manager does not set policy. That is done by the City Council. The Mayor or City Manager carries out the Council policies. The city staff can only perform their duties within the policies and guidelines that the Council establishes. Can you imagine a corporation that would have the stockholders elect the CEO and then the Board of Directors would have no ability to remove them for poor performance?

I hope that before anyone votes to make a change like this, everyone will make sure they are not trying to fix something this is not broken.

Donald E. Dennis

Federal Way