Recently, as I was driving through the delightful city of SeaTac, my eyes were assaulted by a rainbow of signs.

All the red and yellow, black and white took me back to my Sunday School days. Many of the signs had names on them, with the exception of one: Proposition 1.

While talking to some of my acquaintances, I found that few had a real understanding of this issue, despite the fact that it had been tried twice before.

Many had looked at the literature associated with Prop 1, both on-line and "on-sign", but were still confused. 40 years in the business of politics has taught me that there is always a certain amount of ... hyperbole ... associated with election issues. The more the emotion, the more the hyperbole.

The unemotional facts of this proposition are that you have a choice between:

The current form of government in which 7 elected city council members hire a professional City Manager to run the day-to-day operations of the city. The City Manager operates under the direction of, and is accountable to, the City Council. The City Manager can be terminated at any time by a majority of the Council.

Or

A new form of government in which an elected Mayor would run the operations of the city, would have veto power over (and under no obligation to implement the policies of) the City Council, and would remain in this position for a four-year term (absent a recall election)
I first took a look at the pro-Prop 1 literature.

The 30-point banner read "SeaTac Overspends Millions Every Year". I asked myself how a city with a $60 M budget could possibly overspend by millions without an FBI investigation. They seem to forget that SeaTac is one of the most fiscally sound cities in the area with reserves that far exceed those recommended by the state.

There were also references to the State Auditors report. Only one of the items had a number associated with it (reference a performance bond). The rest were procedural issues (one of which actually saved the city money), or referred to expense reimbursement. Of these, the total could be dozens of dollars, but certainly not millions.

Another theme in the pro-Prop 1 literature was the fact that the City Manager did not live in the city and thus did not have an interest in the well-being of SeaTac.

This is not a compelling issue due to the fact that many of us do not work in the city in which we live, yet we still work hard to meet the needs of our employer. An interesting factoid, when we hired our last City Manager, there was not even an applicant for the position from the city. Do we not fill the position simply because we have no applicants for SeaTac? Or even worse, do we fill the position with a less qualified person simply because of where they live?

The No on Prop 1 information was pretty basic, but of interest was the youtube video that described the same process that Bainbridge Island went through when eliminating the elected mayor form of government. Very informative, very factual.

In Summary, it comes down to a choice between a council and professional City Manager running the city or an elected Mayor doing it all.

Four thoughts:
1) You can set the required qualifications for a City Manager
2) Seven heads are better than one
3) A professional is better than an amateur
4) I've always had a distaste for dictators.

Terry Anderson
SeaTac City Councilwoman