Letter to the editor: Council president’s code of conduct

Editor:

On 10/29/21 (three days prior to the election), Susan Paine, Edmonds City Council president, retweeted trash talk about three candidates running for City Council. The original tweet came from someone who goes by Edmonds Eats. Since My Edmonds News letters to the editor cannot show visuals, here is what she retweeted publicly through Twitter: “Know what’d be REALLY scary? Sleazeball Neil Tibbot, fake Janelle Cass, and unwell Kristiana Johnson making decisions about Edmonds the next 4 years. They’ve deliberately lied and skirted laws while trying to get our votes. Imagine what they’d do if they don’t need them.”

Is this how a city council president should behave? Doesn’t this go against the Code of Conduct Susan is presiding over? She should be removed from overseeing the rewriting of our City Code of Conduct and Code of Ethics as she clearly does not follow them.

As an Edmonds citizen, you should be extremely disappointed in Susan Paine. Shame on her for sharing this damaging tweet about candidates running. She needs to apologize to all involved. Myself, along with many other concerned Edmonds residents, hope this poor lack of judgment is made public. I believe it is the only way for Susan to stop these type of damaging actions, especially as council president. We deserve so much better from our elected leaders.

Kim Bayer-Augustavo
Edmonds

  1. I was politically involved in the past. No one got more threats and harassment than I did. Chen calling in to the council, Crank, the FB cr@p with Cass. Rise above it. We all need to 1) realize that there is no such thing as a non-partisan office anymore 2) get a thick skin and stay professional, and 3) get the kids out of adult-level politics. The last is why I have called for the Youth Committee to be dissolved. I saw some posts (thank God I don’t have FB) between youths and adults that crosses all the lines. It’s not the kid’s fault- it’s our fault. Alicia (who I like and is appreciated) said I just don’t like Youth voices, but I had to remind everyone that her and our city council rebuked and fired a based youth voice who used to be on the committee. This is exhibit A. Edmonds can’t handle having kids around in our politics yet. Encourage student-level politics. Roll them back in after we all (including me [I’m a troll but at least have self awareness] ) know how to be professionals.

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