The last three weeks in the life of the city of Burien have been full of both joy and sadness. Joy because we are moving forward with a new City Council and a new City Manager. Because of this there is a new feeling of openness and communication at City Hall.

Sadness because this new start has been marred by the frivolous accusation of unethical behavior against your new Mayor, Joan McGilton, and myself. All of this apparently at the hands of the losers of last November’s election.

I have been encouraged to share my side of the story to give you, the citizens of Burien, a chance to decide for yourself if there was unethical behavior on our part.

Sometime in October or November 2004, I was at Councilmember McGilton’s house to discuss some City business. As our discussion broke up she asked me if I knew the name of a drain field installer as she had a septic system problem in her yard.

We went out on her deck and she pointed down to the yard where there was a small pool of water. She told me she had been given an estimate of $23,000 to have a new drain field installed. It was apparent that it would be difficult to fix her septic system within the remaining area of her lot.

I looked over her fence and saw a new house being constructed by the neighbor below. I told her that I thought a better answer would be for her to approach her neighbor to see if she couldn’t hook up to sewer through the neighbor’s lot. This would be a permanent solution, not just a Band-Aid fix to her septic system.

She seemed shy about having this conversation with her neighbor. I asked her if I could talk to her neighbor for her. It turned out that the person building this house was Ron Halsen. I told Mr. Halsen that his neighbor up above had a septic system failure and asked if it would be possible to hook her up to his side sewer line.

He said he was aware that there was a problem next door because he had experienced a sewerage smell from time to time but that he just hadn’t had time to talk with the neighbor about it yet.

He said he would be hooking up his own house in the next few weeks and he could have his sub-contractor do it at that time. I asked what he thought the cost would be so I could tell Joan and she could make a decision.

Mr. Halsen said he would talk with his sub-contractor and get back to me. When I heard back from Mr. Halsen he said he would hook up Joan’s house if she would let him run his water line up the side of her property to the street above. His water service line would then be a little over 100 feet instead of running down his drive which he said was 400 feet plus.

I presented this to Joan and she felt that it was a good solution to her problem.

I then went to Water District 49 and talked to the manager and explained to him what Mr. Halsen was proposing. He said that he thought this would work and that he would ask Highline Water District for their permission to serve Mr. Halsen as he was out of their District.

The sewer hook-ups to Mr. Halsen’s house and to Joan’s were built. Additionally, Joan and Mr. Halsen agreed to give easements to Southwest Suburban Sewer so that eight to 10 other houses in their neighborhood can be economically served by sewer.

Mr. Halsen got back with Joan and said that he would need to buy six feet of her property and do a lot line adjustment to attach this to his lot. He said he needed to actually own property within WD 49 so they could serve him.

In this discussion, it was revealed that Highline Water District wanted $15,000 to hook up Mr. Halsen’s 10 feet of frontage to their system, whereas his cost of hooking up to WD 49 would be approximately $4,500.

It is obvious that Mr. Halsen has a cost incentive as well as a service incentive for wanting to be hooked up to WD 49. Who would blame him for wanting to save over $10,000 for the same service?

Aside from this economic and service motivation, what was actually done here? From my point of view, Joan is now permanently hooked up to sewer and eight or 10 of her neighbors will have the availability of sewer at some point in the future.

This is a positive result for the whole neighborhood.

Then, after the attorneys from both water districts and Mr. Halsen’s attorney reviewed this, what we all thought was the proper way for Mr. Halsen to achieve his lower cost water hook up turns out to be incorrect.

Water District 49 has told me that it is their understanding that Mr. Halsen will be disconnected from WD 49 and will connect to Highline Water District.

Additionally, Joan has told me that she will pay Mr. Halsen the full price for her sewer as there will now be no need for him to complete the purchase of a strip of her property. And life will go on.

I can understand why the Times/News ran a story based on a confidential memo — it’s news. However, I can not understand why anyone would give the paper the confidential memo in the first place. I certainly have no idea why this is of any concern to the city of Burien or to my fellow citizens.

This story only surfaced because political opponents wanted to discredit Joan before she became Mayor and to discredit me as her friend.

I welcome an impartial inquiry into this confusing affair. I publicly called for such an inquiry at our Jan. 9 meeting.

I look forward to having an impartial investigator see how former Mayor Noel Gibb has tried to create a controversy where none existed -- while not even having the courtesy to talk with me to find out the facts I have discussed here.

Editor’s note: The Burien City Council voted 4-1 on Jan. 9 to turn this matter over to an independent third party for investigation. Ms. McGilton and Mr. Shaw recused themselves from that discussion and vote.