"Alleged Democrat" mayor of F.W., Jim Ferrell, shouldn't be presiding over Federal Way City Council Meetings, but the deputy mayor, as an actual member of the Council, should be. Whoever the mayor happens to be, whether it's Ferrell or successors, should only be seated at the dais in Council Meetings at the invitation of the Council, and since he or she wouldn't be presiding over the Council, it seems that the mayor would not be sitting at the center of the dais, but somewhere besides the center where the deputy mayor should sit.
The Council should run the meetings and set the agenda for the City; while the mayor enforces the Council's policies that are set in City ordinances. Ferrell is either usurping the Council's role in our fairly new government set-up in Federal Way, or the Council is willingly letting him do what he wants, regardless of the basic premise of the so-called strong mayor system, where duties are nonetheless divided, just like between the Executive and the Congress in the Federal government. Either way, mayoral assertiveness or Council laxity, how things are run now is not conducive to representative government in Federal Way, and a change next year in the mayoral seat, and 1 or 2 Council seats, would be refreshing, to say the least.
-- Mark Greene (F.W. Mayoral Exploratory Committee)
[Revised on 8/20/16.]
The Council should run the meetings and set the agenda for the City; while the mayor enforces the Council's policies that are set in City ordinances. Ferrell is either usurping the Council's role in our fairly new government set-up in Federal Way, or the Council is willingly letting him do what he wants, regardless of the basic premise of the so-called strong mayor system, where duties are nonetheless divided, just like between the Executive and the Congress in the Federal government. Either way, mayoral assertiveness or Council laxity, how things are run now is not conducive to representative government in Federal Way, and a change next year in the mayoral seat, and 1 or 2 Council seats, would be refreshing, to say the least.
-- Mark Greene (F.W. Mayoral Exploratory Committee)
[Revised on 8/20/16.]
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