Lynnwood Mayor's Rebuttal

Man, it just keeps getting better.

The timing of the release of the mayor's rebuttal could not have been more perfect, coming as it does hard on the heels of the council's stripping the mayor's only ally of the office of council president.

Realistically, it is impossible to arrive at any conclusion other than that the council has abused its authority twice now, egregiously and with relatively flagrant contempt for the will of the people.

First (and worst) in censuring, calling for the resignation of, and curtailing the authority of a popularly elected mayor. However much individual councilpersons personally dislike the mayor, as a citizen I view their actions as a direct attempt to undermine my vote and the democratic process generally. Whether they like the mayor or not is irrelevant to me, I voted for him. Whether the mayor acts like an ass to city employees is irrelevant to me, I voted for him.

Second, last night they took similarly punitive action against the mayor's only ally on council.

And after all this, we finally, finally hear the mayor's side of the story, and it becomes relatively clear that this taxpayer-funded witch hunt of an investigation was not merely inconclusive, but was an out-and-out sham, deliberately designed to portray the mayor in as unfavorable a light as possible.

In short, it seems to have been what I've thought it was all along: an exercise in good old fashioned character assassination by city employees and council in an effort to preclude the mayor from making necessary cuts to the career-bureaucrat mandarins amid a budgetary shortfall unlike anything the city has experienced thanks to the Great Recession. This benefits the bureaucracy since the mayor is now not able to make cuts (his ability to fire or lay people off was specifically removed), so their taxpayer-funded, steady-gig jobs and primo benefits plans are safe again. And it benefits council because they arrogate to themselves powers that rightly belong to the executive branch, and if this council has done nothing else, they've proven themselves over-the-top madly hungry for power.

Your government at work, people of Lynnwood. Lying to you, working to nullify your vote, and trying desperately to make sure you continue funding an overbloated bureaucracy with your tax dollars. And if you're out of work yourself? Well, tough shit, losers. Sucks to be you!

Basically their message to us is pretty clear: