Mayor: City ‘Blindsided’ by District’s Last Second Pay Raises, Says Commissioners Threw “Monkey-Wrench” into Merger Plans

Sewer commissioner calls questions about transparency and shuttering of local business a “nothing burger”, says accelerated merger requires quid pro quo for commissioners to give up power early

“If people want to know what the consent agenda item says… the draft of what we're doing is… put out there… if Joe Smith wants to call the district and say, ‘Hey, I'd like to know what this means,’ or what they're more than welcome to look at that. So you're just trying to make something of nothing you're making a nothing burger,” - Sewer District Commissioner Dan Lorentzen, on how the public might otherwise obtain agenda information that the sewer district chose to omit from the December 28, 2023 Sewer District Meeting.

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LAKE STEVENS — Some two months after the Lake Stevens Sewer District commissioners shuttered a popular Lake Stevens small business while simultaneously handing out a last-second, unexplained  70% raise to district administrators, the City of Lake Stevens and the Lake Stevens Sewer District met for the first time since the calendar flipped to 2024 on the last Thursday in February. (See also: J425 explainer on City vs Sewer District).

Weighing over the meeting: J425’s reporting (commissioner Kevin Kosche repeatedly grumbled about some unnamed blogger and commissioner Dan Lorentzen referred to the external review of public information as a leak) on the district’s closing of Salon Michelle and the exclusive disclosure outlining the district’s legislative trickery that (at least temporarily) served to shortcut any public airing of their decision to elevate a former elected commissioner-turned-general manager’s salary to a cool quarter mil a year. 

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Commissioner Kevin Kosche upset with some unnamed blogger. I don’t know emoji goes here. Video/Edit by KTH/J425

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Would the district take the opportunity to pull back the curtain, perhaps even invalidating J425’s reporting by bringing forth evidence that they had, in fact, openly discussed the slate of pay raises prior to jamming the item on to an open, unsupported line item on a December 28 consent agenda? 

Would the district’s elected leaders take the opportunity to address the anger in the community from their publicly unexplained decision to kill a well-loved Lake Stevens business that provided six jobs and a view of the lake? 

Or would we see the classic signs of those caught in the act: hiding behind legalese, countering with ad hominem attacks, (deflect, deny, make counter accusations)?

Or perhaps: the ever-popular cliche of a petulant politician railing on media reports, attempting to delegitimize the provenance of the reporting – the usual trick of those who can’t confront the facts? 

Spoiler alert. That last paragraph is what happened. And yet the way things unfolded is still a bit amazing.