From Stark
David Stalheim, former Whatcom County Planning Director and sometime Politics Blog commenter, has filed his candidacy for Whatcom County Executive, setting up a four-way scramble that also includes State Sen. Doug Ericksen, former Lynden mayor Jack Louws, and Tom Anderson, former general manager of Whatcom PUD.
Incumbent County Executive Pete Kremen is stepping down and seeking a seat on the County Council.
Stalheim left the county job about a year ago to accept a job as block grant program manager for the City of Bellingham.
UPDATE: Stalheim, 52, told me he won’t be taking leave from his city job, and will have to confine his campaigning to evenings, weekends and lunch hours.
He also says he thinks he has a good shot at being elected, based on his experience running the planning department here and elsewhere.
“I’m not doing this to be a politician,” Stalheim said. “I’m doing this to run the government efficiently and effectively.”
He said he has been considering entering this race for some time. It was not a last-minute decision.
Mayor Pike,
Sorry to take so long to respond, but was raising and lowering my flag on Flag Day.
Re your comment you did not have any role in hiring Mr. Stalheim. Funny, the City’s press release announced the hiring of Mr. Stalheim on May 20, 2010. Five days later, the City’s press release announced former Planning Director Tim Stewart accepted a position in Mercer Island.
If Mr. Stewart hired Mr. Stalheim without consulting with you (highly unlikely), that is a massive oversight on your part.
On the other hand, if you were totally unaware of Mr. Stewart’s imminent departure, you were clueless, hard to believe giving your “networking” with other City leaders across the State.
No, I think the reality is you knew of Mr. Stewart’s departure and were supportive of Mr. Stalheim’s hiring given the constant squabbles you had with Mr. Stalheim’s former boss, County Executive Kremen. Otherwise, why would you engage (twice) in a political blog to defend a staff member that is now standing before the electorate? Do you wish to run two campaigns, yours while assisting Mr. Stalheim? Or is that Mr. Stalheim does not have the strength to answer these questions himself?
Mayor Pike, in the upcoming debates, please do not take the microphone out of Mr. Stalheim’s hands. Allow him to answer on his own, like a qualified candidate would.
Though it might be disappointing to one who hopes to discredit their political opponents, temporal sequences aren’t all instances of cause and effect. Some lines are parallel. Not all intersect.
Mr. ‘Hamster,
Believe what you will, but Tim Stewart’s departure was in no way connected to the hiring of Dave Stalheim. Tim did ask me if I’d have heartburn if he was hired, at the point he was one of three finalists. I replied that Tim should hire whoever was most qualified for the position. I did observe that what I had seen of Dave suggested he had guts and integrity, which are great attributes, but not the core competencies of the job he was interviewing for.
Lots of folks read a lot into his hiring and Tim’s departure, certain that Stalheim would be the next Planning Director. A couple of Councilmembers even suggested they’d like to see that, at that time. However, I guess those folks were wrong.
Dave is plenty capable of speaking for himself, andI’m sure he won’t disappoint in the months ahead. I only entered the fray because you suggested he was a mayoral hire; I happened to know that was untrue. Believe what you will.
And I responded twice because you repeated the misinformation, so I tried to be clearer the second time around. At this point, if you want to continue believing your version, I’ll probably jsut let it ride.
Mayor Pike,
Thanks for the response. Wow. You concluded Mr. Stalheim lacked the “core competencies of the job he was interviewing for”. Yet, you allowed the hire to occur. How many other hires received this type of “quality control”?
Nice use of a WTA bus, Mr. Mayor. Please clean off the tires before returning it to the shop.
Bellinghamster, wow. It seems your zeal to score some sort of blogument victory here has impaired your reading comprehension. Take a deep breath, relax, and read the Mayor’s last reply to you here. maybe reading out loud will help. That reply pretty clearly states that the Mayor identified two character traits that Mr. Stalheim has, but that these traits were not among the core competencies required for the posted position. While, whoever you are, you appear to “just want some answers”, you also seem too blinkered by whatever bias and predisposed view you have to recognize the actual answers provided by those you have decided are disagreeable to you. As a fellow voter, I expect better of you.