Pacific council strikes last-minute deal to save city
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PACIFIC, Wash. -- The city of Pacific was set to lose its insurance when 2012 became 2013, but an 11th hour vote by the city council will keep the small town intact.
Months of bickering within the city council, battles with Mayor Cy Sun and a round of firings and resignations made the insurance company wary of sticking around. Eight lawsuits have also been filed -- totaling $11 million -- that could cripple the city.
A Wednesday night vote bought the town some much-needed time.
Council leaders found help with Lexington Insurance to draft a $5 million policy to protect the city from the lawsuits. The insurance will keep Pacific intact for a year, but the council still has work to do to get back the respect of voters.
Many residents put the blame squarely on Sun, who has been a lightning rod for controversy since taking office. Sun has fired city employees and locked out others, and his own police force arrested him for destroying city documents.
"It took one person, our mayor, less than 12 months to almost destroy a city that's 103-years old. That has to be some kind of a record," said Carol Aguilar.
If Wednesday's vote had failed or no company would come through, the council had contingency plans, including a planned vote for disincorporation or become annexed into Auburn. Those moves were tabled indefinitely.
Months of bickering within the city council, battles with Mayor Cy Sun and a round of firings and resignations made the insurance company wary of sticking around. Eight lawsuits have also been filed -- totaling $11 million -- that could cripple the city.
A Wednesday night vote bought the town some much-needed time.
Council leaders found help with Lexington Insurance to draft a $5 million policy to protect the city from the lawsuits. The insurance will keep Pacific intact for a year, but the council still has work to do to get back the respect of voters.
Many residents put the blame squarely on Sun, who has been a lightning rod for controversy since taking office. Sun has fired city employees and locked out others, and his own police force arrested him for destroying city documents.
"It took one person, our mayor, less than 12 months to almost destroy a city that's 103-years old. That has to be some kind of a record," said Carol Aguilar.
If Wednesday's vote had failed or no company would come through, the council had contingency plans, including a planned vote for disincorporation or become annexed into Auburn. Those moves were tabled indefinitely.
This is why communities have City Managers and not Strong Mayors. Just because you think you have the skill to manage a city or town doesn't mean that you actually know how to pull it off. If the man has evidence of corruption then he should contact the State Attorny General's office to take action. Seems simple enough.
In reading through the post, I can tell many still think that Cy Sun found corruption. Go look for yourself, the State Auditor found no improprieties (and you can bet Cy told them to look for specific issues), neither did the Sheriffs office.
I welcome anyone to look into Cy's allegations and in fact I would love for an independent audit reported directly to the media and citizens (not through me or the city). I have nothing to hide and nothing to fear.
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Cy Sun has lied to everyone from the begining and continues to do so now. That is why their are lawsuits.
 @Rich Hildreth Get over it. Losing to a write in candidate says volumes about your performance as Mayor.
I'm going to have to be extra careful driving through the town now, not go a mile over the speed limit and make sure to count out 3 seconds at each stop sign..... Pacific was notorious before about traffic infranctions. I bet it will go up because the town needs the revenue to pay for this mess they've put themselves through.... just sayin'.
 @The WA Mama There's a few of those towns around here. Lake Forest Park, Kirkland, Lynnwood are known as traffic bandit communities.
Whew. Saved by the bell. I was thinking there might have been some drama in Pacific. Glad that was avoided.
This city has been corrupt for quite some time to the point that the police department had to be under the control of the sheriffs department. It's sounds as if the eleventh hour proposal is a short term solution that will rear it's ugly head a year from now.
@Bubbabear64 Bubba, you do not have a clue as to what you are talking about. Pacific PD has never been under the control of the Sherris department
 @Rich Hildreth  @Bubbabear64 I have lived in South King County for several years and recall a time twenty years ago when the Pacific Police chief hired some volunteers (without authorizations) to go out on drug busts outside of the cities jurisdiction to seize property regardless of how valid the bust was or not. The complaint was reported by King County Police when they were under contract by the city of Federal Way. The Sheriff took over after the chief stepped down. The police department in Pacific acting out of their boundaries Rich isn't anything new in that town.Â
@Rich Hildreth Whatever Rich. Pacific's joke of a city government is as old as an Almost Live sketch and probably has been in at least one of them. It would make a great reality TV show. Nothing like a small town in an urban area run by crazed rednecks and hillbillies.
@Bubbabear64 @Rich Hildreth Actually when the Mayor had fired the chief he asked KCSO to loan him a Sgt. to serve as Acting chief ....
How much corruption can there really be in a Town the size of Pacific?
@usecommonsense When they join a drug task force and a police chief hires volunteers to help them on illegal drug raids to reap the rewards from drug sales. It happened back in the 90s.
Wasn't Sun elected as a write-in candidate? If so, city residents, who really is to blame for him being there? Since you are pointing fingers, maybe y'all should be considering the 3 pointing back at yourselves. You chose him to fix a problem then when he didn't, you started blaming him for all the problems. Shame on you.
Maybe they should remove all their government officials & start over.
It's amazing that people continue to blame Mayor Sun. For each of the positions of leadership that were opened up by Mayor Sun, he brought the council candidates to fill those spots, they refused every one of them. We elected someone to clean up the town but what we got was a city council thsat stonewalled everything he did. They have intentionally let our city get to where it is now in the hopes that they could get rid of Mayor Sun and fill his spot with another politician that doesn't care about the city or it's citizens. I hope when the council is up for re-election we all remember this and replace them everyone of them
@Unsalvageable The candidates still need to meet the requirements as in the City Code.Â
 @Unsalvageable I think you have it right. The Council was a big part of the problem, it is no surprise they are unwilling to be part of the solution.
Sun was voted in because the citizens were fed up with the corruption. Sun had good intentions, but went about his efforts to clean up the city governent the wrong way. The fact of the matter is if you get rid of Sun (probably a good idea) and put all the old cronies back into office (bad idea), you are going to be no better than when you started.
@Surveyor1 And Surveyor, I would like to ask you where the corruption was. He has lied to the voters all along.
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end this embarrassment of a "city"
He was voted in to clean up or clean out the corruption in the city government. If he hasn't done a good job, then vote him out (by recall if necessary). If he's done a good job, then vote him in again.
While I don't live in Pacific, and really could not care of the outcome, I find Mrs. Aguilar's statement to ignorant and self-serving. Â Truth is that the voters who placed Mayor Sun into the position are the one who almost destroyed the city. Â Perhaps this will be a lesson to those who voted for him.
They just need to give up. Why drag it out any longer?