In some ways, those three words say it all. Yet, at the same time, they barely scratch the surface.
Over the past 12 months, the world has experienced historic elections, global unrest in places like the Middle East and Ukraine, groundbreaking advances in artificial intelligence — and let’s not forget, Taylor Swift wrapped up her record-setting world tour.
I always find myself reflective this time of year. It’s a chance to pause, take stock of the past and set our sights on the future.
Here in Edmonds, we’ve faced many challenges — some anticipated and others less so. I look forward to providing a detailed update on the state of our city this spring, but for now, I want to share some thoughts about who we are as a community.
I believe a community isn’t just where we live — it’s who we are. Edmonds has always been a special place.
It was once the edge of the frontier, built by people who gave up safety and comfort, and sometimes even their lives, to create something better. They didn’t survive by thinking “every person for themselves.” Instead, they believed in “all for the common cause,” using their heads, hearts and hands to build a future worth living for.
Today, we are the temporary stewards of this amazing city. We’ve been entrusted with the responsibility to shape its future, and that’s no small task. We face plenty of challenges, but I believe in our ability to solve them together — with courage, creativity and determination.
As we close out 2024 and prepare to celebrate 135 years as a city, I have two wishes for 2025:
For each of us personally: That we enjoy good health, happiness, great friendships, and are met with respect and empathy.
For our city: That we continue to work together to address our challenges and build an even stronger, more connected community.
Here’s to a new year filled with hope and possibilities. Thank you for being part of what makes Edmonds so special.
— By Mike Rosen, Mayor of Edmonds
Thank you Mr. Rosen for your thoughtful message and optimism. As an Edmonds “native” (born and raised here, then returned to finish raising my family here), I have such a deep love for this community as well as a keen awareness of the fragility of community. It does and will take all of us recognizing we each carry the responsibility for working together to nurture the health and well being of this special place so that it continues to thrive well after we have departed this earth. Appreciate your leadership. Wishing you and all of us in Edmonds happy holidays.
Thank you Mayor Rosen for your extraordinary leadership during this year of challenges. I am so appreciative of all of our city department directors, staff, city council & commissioners for all your continuing efforts to make and keep this city a wonderful place to call home.
I wish you all a holiday filled with health, happiness & immense gratitude! Thank you!
Thank you Mayor Rosen, for the incredibly hard work you’ve put in this year to put our beloved city on the right path. I know not everybody is happy all the time with the decisions made, but your dedication and open communication is deeply appreciated. Happy Holidays to you and yours.
Here’s to more public and private victories for Edmonds and those beyond as we work to enhance the lives of others.
Dear Mayor, I voted for you, had high hopes you’d live up to your promises, of right-sizing the city. Although I continue to wish you a successful term, I’m losing confidence. Here are handful of questions & concerns to consider in the New Year.
Your own survey shows, residents no. 1 priority is ‘housing affordability’. How does green lighting an additional avg. ~$1,000/yr on residents for Fire & EMS costs, without asking the tough questions, suggesting other options are ‘too hard’, align with the communities priority?
In response to, “the city can’t afford it”, if the residents are being asked to pay, then the city can ‘afford it’.
Residents are on the hook, we prefer representation.
Instruct the city to stop blaming inflation, it’s insulting. Anyone can calculate cumulative inflation and see budgets have far exceeded.
Ask yourself, who are you governing for?
Those above the median household income, first time homebuyers, renters, seniors, working class, special interest groups?
How will your decisions impact the affordability crisis?
Live up to your transparency motto. Please comment on the community concerns around SCF (RFA) owing an estimated $7M in transport fees to Edmonds taxpayers.
Wishing all of us the best!
-Nick
Mayor Rosen,
Thank you for doing an amazingly good job.
Low income housing is not the number one priority.
Health and safety come first in surveys.
James is incorrect, slide 8 of the Mayor’s 2024 community survey. ‘Housing affordability’ priority 1, also referenced on slide 3, link below.
It’s ‘housing affordability’, not ‘low income housing’.
https://www.edmondswa.gov/government/city_budget/community_survey
It seems to me that when you have a financial crisis that has been years in the making, and a highly inflationary environment, you must first deal with the immediate budget deficit, rather than embark on new spending to recreate an Edmonds FD that we have not had since 2009. Edmonds is a price taker, not a price maker. That means that Edmonds cannot dictate what the cost of external services will be. Instead, Edmonds can only shop the market for what is the best offer, and try to balance the budget in a realistic way. I think the Mayor and Council have done an admirable job, given the options available. It is too bad that Edmonds residents will have to pay increased taxes to fix the problem, but it still must be fixed, and soon. As for “housing affordability,” that will always be a problem for some…but the market sets prices, not the Mayor and CC. Without more revenue sources, the City can only try to tighten its financial belt and keep tax increases as reasonable as the situation will allow.
Hi Mayor Rosen, You’re a great guy. Thank you so much and thank you to your wife and daughter who I am sure are happy you will be home for the Holidays. At least I hope so! Thank you for taking the time to at least try to communicate with we citizens. I think some have forgotten what a luxury that is for a city. A Mayor who actually cares. A Mayor who is trying to listen and asking for help and answers. Pretty special guy you are. Anyway, we think you are in this home in Edmonds. Call us anytime…2 Am is fine haha. I am up watching a Hallmark movie. I have decided this is the best way to calm oneself and to learn how to be a better person. They are so damn nice its well it is what it is haha. Now Christmas Eve with Dan we are watching Die Hard (The Christmas one) HE says Celtics on Christmas Day. I said forget about it haha. He will tape it and make it real fast he said ha. So that is a compromise I can live with. See ya around Buddy. XO Deb.
There is going to be more spending and higher property taxes in future Edmonds no matter which way we go with Fire and Police. The only choice will be whether to pay up or move on. And, no matter which way we go, Edmonds is now and probably always will be one of the healthiest and safest places on earth to live. An affordable place to live? Not so much, unless you are pretty well off to begin with. Happy Holidays everyone and good luck Mayor Rosen, because you are going to need a lot of it I suspect.
What a disappointment this year has been for our community & we can only guess that it stems from your leadership. The small world charm is gone. When BMW cars & booths take over the lighting of our town Christmas tree, and kids singing carols are overtaken by loud musicians who aren’t are school children, there is something serously amiss.
Follow that by learning our small town Santa mailbox posted hard deadlines with orders to include a self addressed stamped envelope this year (how did other parents explain this to their kids?!!)…then the response never came?! This tradition was one we looked forward to every year – with creative responses from lovely volunteers – and today our daughter’s heart sank when it was the last day to hear if she was on the good list.. Then to have no reply at all even though we met the deadline (and the box was stuffed beyond capacity when we did)? How dare you disappoint our kids at Christmas. Small time charm is one thing to lose – but as you all know – the loss of innocenceand faith is profound & often cannot be recovered. This shouldn’t happen at the cost oof a person or a city’s reputation or revenue.
Perhaps this seems a big issue for you, but I doubt that Mayor Rosen is the cause of all changes that occur in Edmonds. The main issue for the Mayor and CC is the gaping hole in the budget and how to fix it. Many people have been laid off or furloughed, and taxes will have to rise for all. Those are the big picture issues that outweigh who sings, plays music, or lights Christmas trees. Seasonal celebrations are important for some, but certainly not a cause to denigrate the performance of the Mayor and CC.
Point of clarification: the tree lighting and the letters from Santa activities are not done by the City, but the Chamber of Commerce.
When the main issue is the gaping hole in the budget and the Mayor and Council solution to fix it is a massive increase in property taxation, I’d hardly call their response great and innovative performance of their duties toward the citizens; economically speaking. The negotiation with RFA over the true cost of fire service was basically a capitulation to all SCF claims and demands. The main answer to bad planning and stupid non-essential spending (Landmark and costly litigation of the “Missing Link” for example) of the past thirty plus years is to promote more property taxation to solve the mess dumped on the citizens, most of whom are too busy trying to pay the cost of living here to pay attention to what is really going on in our governance. About half of our city council are Democratic Party activists or at least advocates. The rest of the CM’s and the Mayor have been backed by the ECR, which is primarily made up of the old guard of past Edmonds Mayors, CM’s, and business movers and shakers who were also instrumental in creating this budget mess. Nelson and inflation is their handy scapegoat, but the truth is they are all also complicit in the problem of the budget being solved by higher property taxes for all to digest.
Mayor Rosen was not in the job when the current budget problems were created. Much of it certainly does have to do with past actions taken by previous Mayors and Council members. Our new Mayor is a problem solver and has the analytical approach to governance that Edmonds sorely needs. The Covid period led to an outpouring of relief funds from the Federal government, but this sense of financial flushness has now evaporated on the heels of the inflation of the last four years—a huge increase of over 25% in the general price level, even more in specific areas. Everybody feels that impact in their daily lives, and the City is no exception. Property tax hikes are the alternative to borrowing money from banks, and then servicing that debt without the revenues needed to retire it. Borrowing money temporarily ameliorates the pain of tax hikes, but at the same time, this leaves residents enjoying a base level of services that are not truly paid for. At some point, debt service becomes embedded in the budget and the tax hikes needed to restore balanced budgets will be too painful to face. Thus begins the “ kicking the can” process that we now face at the Federal level, with over $36 trillion in public debt. In my view, it is preferable to implement the proposed tax hikes.
With all due respect, Mr. Leindecker, what “problems” has Mayor Rosen solved? The Comp. Plan and FEIS were essentially just what the Nelson Administration and his department heads had conjured up for the city, so no real change from Nelson there. We ended up with an EIS that made virtually no accounting for impact on our Critical Natural Environmental assets which is the whole original point of EIS’s. Mayor Nelson and his frequent Council supporters were highly in favor of SFC annexation and what did we end up with Mayor Rosen and Council? We ended up with exactly what Nelson and friends would have done. How did Mr. Rosen get rid of troublesome Nelson appointees that he could have easily fired to bring in his own team. He gave them golden parachutes, one and all, and in case you didn’t know it that cost us more money we don’t have. I could go on, but the point is there is nothing he has done that anyone in town couldn’t have done if placed in the Mayoral position. It’s all just been smoke and mirrors and taking the easy way out with very little management expertise being shown by the Mayor or this highly biased City Council. Ms. Dotsch, being the glaring exception. Being likeable doesn’t make you good at your job.
Correction: SCF (South County Fire) above. I also appreciate Mr. Leindecker at least acknowledging that, “much of our present problems were caused by past Mayor’s and Councils. ” A little honesty in this town is quite refreshing and enabling for the taxpayers I think.
I will cut the Mayor some slack in his first year of office. That is the reasonable thing to do under the circumstances he inherited. Just examining the scope of our financial problems and making the hard decisions about layoffs and service cuts is tough enough. When you are out of money, you cannot dazzle voters with new projects and initiatives. It also takes guts to suggest tax increases when you will obviously incur the wrath of homeowners. Many officials would duck their responsibility to be perfectly frank about the financial crisis we are in. But the Mayor has been upfront and realistic about our financial choices. If the RFA and levy lift fails, Edmonds faces dire consequences that will impact property values and quality of life in our community. Let’s face reality, balance the budget, get on an even keel, and go forward with larger revenue streams so desirable enhancements can be considered in the future. You make better decisions when your back is no longer against the wall, and time running out.
Mr. Leiendecker, I admire your loyalty to someone who is obviously your friend and/or someone you greatly admire . You will have to excuse me if I don’t cut him any slack because his actions have done nothing but give us what we would have had anyway if Mr. Nelson would have won instead. I think you are confusing good management style with having a good personality which Mr. Rosen does have and at personal level I really like the guy myself. I will cut him no slack because he beat out someone who would have actually fired the Nelson team (all of them) within days of taking office; she would have stopped taking every word contract city attorney Taraday says as great legal truth, and she would have done an actual negotiation with SCF rather than a capitulation. She would have gotten us (the taxpayers) a better deal if it was humanly possible. I resent Mr. Rosen for allowing someone from the ECR to do a thinly veiled hit job on his female opponent just to get the job, especially when all he’s done so far is further the Nelson era agenda for what’s supposedly good for Edmonds. Yes taxes must go up; the question is could the amount of increase have been better contained and I think the answer is yes.
You should really respect the will of the voters…many residents do not share your opinion or appraisals of the Mayor’s and CC’s performance. Let’s just agree to disagree and see what the elected Mayor and his CC can achieve over a reasonable period of time. Mr. Rosen is an accomplished professional and doesn’t need to work for the relatively slim wages annd hassles accompanying the job of Mayor. Neither do CC members. Mike ran on the desire to improve the community and heal its finances. People in Edmonds have properties worth millions. Therefore, $1000 tax increases must be kept in perspective as relative to the value of these properties. . Those who object to tax increases, for the sake of objecting, should consider what bankruptcy is as an alternative. I do support Mayor Rosen, as I would support any elected official who wants to donate the time and energy in the pursuit of community betterment. At my age (81), I have no interest in currying political favor with anyone, if that is your point. As a recent former resident of Seattle, I can see what happens when certain people get control of budgets and implement policies that are detrimental to the welfare of tax payers.
Mr. Leiendecker:
I am responding to your remarks made about Clinton Wright’s Dec 27th comments, because I totally agree with what Clinton said.
We probably all agree that our elected officials are not well paid, but that doesn’t mean that it’s ok for them to perform their jobs poorly.
The average price of a home in Edmonds is currently $895,700. Many of the owners of those homes would not have been able to buy them had that been the purchase price when they were buying. You infer that a $1,000 tax increase is reasonable when compared to current home values. Perhaps you are not aware that the City of Edmonds taxes on the average home are now about $900. A $1,000 increase would therefore be an increase of more that 100%.
An additional comment. When Mr. Rosen ran in the election I did not know him. That concerned me because I had been a close follower for a couple of decades of happenings in Edmonds. I soon learned that many of my friends and acquaintances knew Mr. Rosen and were recommending his election, so I voted for him. Many of us now realize that we made a mistake as Mr. Rosen has “bitten off more than he can chew”. In retrospect, Diane Buckshnis would have been a much better choice and had she been elected our city would now be in much better shape.
And I welcome the opportunity to hear from all these happy and content voters who think Mayor Rosen and this Council have done a wonderful job for the past year. Especially since we are at exactly where we would have been had Mayor Nelson been re-elected. I notice folks like you who want to believe in the Edmonds myth, instead of the Edmonds reality (because you moved here from some place that had gone to Hell), always end up attacking the person making accusations, rather than trying to counter the accusations being made. I realize it’s much easer to for you to portray me as a no respect for elected authority, crackpot, fool , than it is to defend your position but here goes. Just how are we better off now than when under Nelson? Did the Mayor and Council act immediately to end the $100,000 Landmark giveaway? Is Perrenvile Creek now unplugged and not blocking salmon returns? Is our CARA protected from possible injection of PFAS? Has the Pruitt lawsuit been settled? Did we save any tax money on Fire Protection in the SFC, “negotiation?” I don’t know about all your alleged happy as a clam voters out there, but I’m voting NO on more taxes in the interest of hanging on to what I’ve got.
Correction: SCF above (it’s hell to get old and keep making the same mistakes over and over). Also, in fairness, Mayor Rosen did immediately announce that the Landmark purchase was tabled at least temporarily but the Council did not act in time for the city not to lose the $100,000 deal holding fee to the seller. As far as I know this hot property is still on the market or has been pulled from the market.
The current Edmonds Mayor salary is just over $156,000; an amount Mr. Liendecker refers to as, “the relatively slim wages.” I just ask how many of you happy and contented voters out there agree that this is a relatively “slim wage?” If it’s such a token amount, maybe Mayor Rosen will just endorse it back to the city because he doesn’t really need it in the process of doing all his high minded good for the city? I’d of happily done the job of perpetuating the Nelson agenda for half that price. No wonder we are broke with thinking like this being pitched as sound management expertise.