After being selected as Mayor, Brian Bennett and former Mayor Joan McGilton traded places...

...and Bennett ran the meeting. Photos by Scott Schaefer.

by Ralph Nichols

Brian Bennett is Burien’s new mayor, replacing City Councilwoman Joan McGilton who has served as mayor since 2004.

Bennett, who joined the city council in 2010 and became deputy mayor last year, was elected mayor on a 4-2 vote of his fellow council members Jan. 9.

He was nominated by Councilman Gerald Robison and was also supported by Councilwoman Rose Clark and McGilton.

Newly elected Councilman Bob Edgar, citing Councilwoman Lucy Krakowiak’s experience and leadership, nominated her for mayor.

Councilman Jack Block Jr. was absent.

Clark was then elected deputy mayor, a position she has held on seven other occasions, also by a 4-2 vote, after being nominated by McGilton.

She is “the longest serving deputy mayor in Burien’s history and it is an honor to nominate her,” McGilton said.

Edgar also nominated Krakowiak for deputy mayor, saying “citizens have confidence in her ability.”

A mayor serves a two-year term in that position; a deputy mayor serves for one year.

McGilton was first elected to the city council in 2002 after serving on the Burien Planning Commission from 1995 through 2000.

This is Clark’s eighth term as deputy mayor. First elected to the city council in 2000, then elected again in 2006 and 2010, she has served as deputy mayor under mayors Sally Nelson, Wing Woo and McGilton.

In taking office, Bennett thanked McGilton for her service to the city, noting she has been “the longest-serving mayor in Burien” and “has worked long and hard and made a substantial impact for where we are today as a city.”

He added that she is “recognized regionally for her environmental work.”

Washington Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jay Inslee will lead a stroll through Burien with local politicians and business leaders this coming Tuesday, Sept. 27th.

The walk will start at Burien City Hall at 11:30 a.m., then for the next hour Jay, along with Mayor Joan McGilton, Deputy Mayor Brian Bennett, Mauricio Ayon of Para Los Niños, and yes, even B-Town Blog Publisher/Editor Scott Schaefer, will walk and talk about issues important to Burien and its future, challenges the community has overcome, and ones still ahead.

The walk will proceed west on SW 152nd Street, and will end at 909 Coffee & Wine in Olde Burien at about 12:30 p.m.

The goal of the visit is “to listen and share ideas from hearing what is the most important issues from the community as a whole,” according to a press release.

Inslee will face State Attorney General Rob Mckenna, a Republican, for the Washington Governor’s race, to be decided on Nov. 6, 2012.

A reliable, well-placed source tipped us off Friday morning (June 3rd), to speculation that the City of Burien may be trying to ‘fast-track’ the annexation of the remaining part of North Highline (aka White Center) within the next 60 days, based on a letter sent to the King County Library Board and signed by Mayor Joan McGilton (full letter below).

The intention of the letter is to request that the KCLS board delay their decision on closing and consolidating both the White Center and Boulevard Park libraries (read our previous coverage here), and it includes language implying that the city “will resolve this question by the end of July.”

Here’s a direct quote from the letter (download it here, PDF file), dated May 27th:

Mayor Joan McGilton

“…for us and for all our residents, the Burien City Council on Monday agreed to consider the question of annexation within sixty (60) days. I cannot obligate the Council, but I believe it is highly likely the Council will resolve this question by the end of July. We ask your board to delay any action regarding library improvements in our community until that decision is made. As for timing, there are two possibilities:

1) The Council does not pursue annexation. In that case, we will work with you to find an acceptable option to move ahead immediately, beginning no later than August 1 this year. Or:

2) The Council decides to advance annexation. In this case, we would ask you table the question until after the residents of North Highline have a chance to vote on whether to join Burien.”

We’ve been following the city’s North Highline annexation interest fairly closely (read our extensive coverage here), yet this new document seems to imply that there’s a sudden rush to make a decision within 60 days.

Initial research indicates that one reason the City of Seattle decided not to pursue the remaining area of North Highline (they voted 8-1 against it in March) is that it may cost $10 million dollars more to manage the area annually than what the new tax base might generate in revenue.

Our source says that Mayor McGilton may bring this issue up for vote at the next council meeting, scheduled to start at 7 p.m. this upcoming Monday, June 6th.

“People who have concerns about what is going on need to come and speak up quickly at this next meeting,” said our source.

Residents in the “south” North Highline area approved annexation by Burien in a 2009 election, and officially became part of the city – North Burien – on April 1, 2010. This increased the population of Burien to 47,605, making it the state’s 21st largest city.

The City of Burien has previously said that they would not consider further annexation until 2012, and only after a careful financial analysis was completed. Far as we can tell, this analysis has not yet been finished.

Mayor McGilton sent the following letter to the King County Library Board as well as the King County Executives pretty much promising them that this will be decided by July, 2011:

Click image to download PDF of letter.

We’re curious to know what YOU think – please take our Poll, or leave a Comment below:

On Monday (Mar. 1st), Seattle Times columnist Jerry Large published a followup article that is basically a reaction to him being confronted by Burien Mayor Joan McGilton, Councilmember Kathy Keene and City Manager Mike Martin over Burien’s desire to annex the remaining portions of White Center.

The encounter came after Large published a column on Feb. 3rd extolling how White Center is “the right fit” for Seattle.

Councilmember Keene then sent us a copy of a letter she sent The Times, where she strongly refuted Large and claimed that Burien would be a better fit for White Center (read Keene’s letter here).

In Large’s latest column, he starts out by saying:

Burien is getting feisty.

The small city is not counting itself out as a home to the northern neighborhoods of North Highline.

So now, “feisty” Burien has struck back, and the columnist has printed our cityfolk’s claims, stating that “Burien knows what it wants” – read his full column here.

We wonder what will happen next in this political opinion-shaping chess match…stay tuned.

by Ralph Nichols

City councilwoman Joan McGilton was elected to a third consecutive two-year term as mayor of Burien at the council’s first meeting of the year Monday night, Jan. 4.

Councilwoman Rose Clark was elected deputy mayor, a position she has held twice before.

McGilton was elected on a 5-1 vote with new Councilman Jack Block Jr. casting the lone dissenting vote. Block offered no reason for opposing McGilton’s election.

Clark was elected on a 6-0 vote.

No other nominations were made for either office. Councilwoman Lucy Krakowiak was absent during the voting, but arrived at the meeting a short time later.

The meeting marked Block’s returned to the council after a two-year absence. In 2007, he chose not to seek re-election to his Burien council seat to make what proved to be an unsuccessful bid instead for Port of Seattle commissioner.

This was the first council meeting for political newcomer Brian Bennett, who ran unopposed last fall to replace retiring Councilwoman Sally Nelson – the last member of the original Burien council still serving at that time.

Mayor Nickels was observing improvements to the 1st Ave. South corridor when an Alaska Airlines jet mistook the top of his gigantic head for Sea-Tac airport’s new third runway.

While there were no injuries to passengers on Flight 401, the Boeing 757-500 was declared a total loss.

Burien mayor Joan McGilton, who witnessed the mishap, said the city of Burien will pick up Nickels’ medical bills.

When asked where the funds will come from to pay for the medical treatment, McGilton said

“Oh hell…we’ll just shorten the duration of our amber lights and start shooting more pictures!”

Meanwhile, numerous eyewitnesses to the incident have filed a class action lawsuit against both Nickels and his giant skull.

“It’s too ding dang noisy,” shouted resident Harriet Cooper over the ding dang noise, “and the Port is refusing to insulate my house against Mayor Gigantor’s hy-uge cranium! WTF?”

First, a snippet from Seattle Councilmember Richard Conlin as quoted on another Seattle-based blog:

“…unless Burien is prepared to make significant change in its proposal…” 

Mayor Joan’s reaction to Mr. Conlin’s statement:

“Burien has consistently acknowledged the role Seattle has in the proposed annexation of the North Highline Area. Seattle chooses to not negotiate directly with Burien.  The City of Seattle’s Position Statement filed with the Washington State Boundary Review Board for King County filed on August 18, 2008 clearly misinterprets Burien actions to move forward with annexation.

In the best interests of all parties, Burien chooses to withdraw its current request so that the Boundary Review Board can focus on the merits of annexation rather than on the procedural and legal issues.

Burien wishes to take the “high road” and have our neighbors to the north ask the probing questions so that when this comes to a vote, they are truly informed of the actions that are in their best interest as a community.”

We’ll have a full report from tonight’s Annexation Open House, which will surely provide more quotes and controversy in this ongoing political chess match of words, so please check back later or subscribe to our RSS feed for up-to-date news.

Since a lot of our readers have eschewed traditional media for online media, you may not have seen it.

So, as a favor to all BTB readers, here is Mayor Joan’s piece in its entirety, as it appeared in today’s edition:

Recent criticisms of earmarks that the Washington congressional delegation has secured are more than unfortunate — they are unfair. They mask the many positive results that our members of Congress deliver for us. Their efforts in the other Washington help communities throughout our state address many needs of our residents and businesses.

In our case, the city of Burien — with just 31,410 people — is working hard to recover from the loss of taxes caused by Sea-Tac Airport’s new third runway. Since airports are required to buy homes in runway flight paths because of noise and safety concerns, this removes properties from the tax rolls.

Additionally, our city — along with every other local jurisdiction in this state — suffers the effects of tax-cutting initiatives. With less money coming in, cities have less to spend on critical responsibilities such as public safety, streets, economic development, parks and environmental protection.

While our congressional delegation cannot secure funding for the hundreds of requests received, members always carefully weigh the merits of each and try to advance the most worthy ones. Fortunately for Burien and other communities, our delegation often succeeds in helping us, and we sincerely appreciate that.

Thanks to a few modest earmarks secured by Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell and the rest of our delegation, Burien obtained funding for critical infrastructure for our Town Square project. In turn, that helped attract more than $100 million in private investment.

Without that help our bold vision of new downtown shops, housing, City Hall, regional library and a wonderful new park, and the hundreds of jobs associated with Burien’s “extreme makeover” would still be just a dream.

Other vital projects progressing thanks to congressional assistance include a new Metro transit center and a future transit-oriented development project in downtown Burien, plus improvements to the hazardous state Route 518/509 interchange in Burien and the widening of eastbound state Route 518 near the airport.

Furthermore, federal funding to save salmon has come to Puget Sound only because our delegation secures it every year, as this is never included in the current administration’s budget. Congressional assistance enabled Burien and our regional, state and federal partners to improve a portion of our city’s shoreline for salmon habitat, and we hope to restore our whole shoreline soon.

By getting projects ready to go, we have been able to work with our delegation to get the federal government to pitch in a bit. While we expect to continue to need their help, especially with our effort to revitalize the area next to the airport, eventually these investments will help us build up our local revenues and rely less on federal assistance.

We cannot imagine our city’s future had we not received the congressional assistance that led to our downtown redevelopment. If executive branch officials in D.C. were the only ones to decide how to spend federal funds, our lovely city — along with many others — would probably not see a dime of our residents’ taxes returned to help the community.

Joan McGilton is mayor of Burien.

SOURCE:

• Seattle P-I