On Monday MyEverettNews.com posted comments from Everett, Washington Mayor Cassie Franklin regarding an investigation being undertaken by order of the Everett City Council into the relationship between the Mayor and Deputy Mayor. You can read Mayor Frankln’s comments here.
MyEverettNews.com sent an email to the Everett City Council asking for the council to articulate the actual complaint against the Mayor, who filed that complaint and what prompted the call for an investigation and if there are political underpinnings to the unanimous vote for the investigation?
Today we received the following response from Everett City Council President Brenda Stonecipher via email:
In response to your questions, there was not a formal complaint filed against the Mayor, which renders most of your questions non-applicable. Here are my further statements:
Once the City Council became aware of the relationship between the Mayor and Deputy Mayor, we recognized that a relationship between an employee and their subordinate posed several potential conflicts that may require investigation, such as the potential use of taxpayer resources to further the relationship, preferential treatment of the subordinate with regard to work assignments or pay, violation of any city policies, etc.
The point of the investigation is to satisfy ourselves and our constituents that none of those conflicts has created a liability for the City.
Our outside counsel is handling the details of this investigation, using an experienced investigator who can conduct this work in an unbiased way.
The Council is not involved in the investigative work being performed, in fact, the other Councilmembers have neither met nor spoken with the investigator.
We hope and expect the investigation will find nothing, but in the interest of maintaining the public’s trust in government and determining that the City faces no liability related to the relationship, we believe it is in the public interest to do this work and, as such, it is a proper use of government funds.
I appreciate the Mayor’s willingness to cooperate with the investigation so we can conclude the work as quickly as possible.
I hope this is helpful.
Brenda
Brenda Stonecipher, President
Everett City Council, Position 6
2930 Wetmore Ave, 9th Floor
Everett, WA 98201
March 2, 2023
Everett Government