Government

Mary Barber appointed to City Council vacancy

It took two executive sessions and two votes Tuesday, but after interviewing four candidates — all well qualified — the Gig Harbor City Council appointed Mary Barber to fill the seat that was vacated when Tracie Markley resigned to become mayor.

With Barber’s appointment, history was made. This is the first time in the town’s history that there is a female majority on the City Council, plus a lady mayor.

Mary Barber

Barber will join three newly elected members on the seven-person board — Roger Henderson, Brenda Lykins and Seth Storset. Jeni Woock won reelection. Robyn Denson and Le Rodenberg are in the middle of four-year terms. She will serve out Markley’s term through November 2023.

Eleven candidates filed for the vacancy: Barber, Dave Brereton, Katrin Dietz, Peter Fraser, Gary Glein, Mark Hoppen, Les McCallum, Bizhan Nasseh, Kerry Pool, Jackie Reaves and John Skansi. But by the time the Council convened to make its decision in a special session on Tuesday, everyone but Barber, Glein, Hoppen and McCallum had bowed out.

Each remaining candidate gave a five-minute summary of their qualifications and reasons for wanting to serve.

Glein is a longtime Gig Harbor resident. His uncle built what is now Eddon Boatyard. His sons attended Gig Harbor High School and he has been involved in many downtown projects, including coordinating the effort to build the pavilion in Skansie Brothers Park and serving as president of the Downtown Waterfront Alliance. Glein’s professional experience includes more than a decade as a vice president with Blue Cross and 11 years as president of Norcore Plastics.

Hoppen also has deep roots in Gig Harbor. His father is the “Ed” of Eddon Boat Company and Mark grew up in the brick house next door to the BoatShop. Hoppen served on the Council for two years before being hired as Gig Harbor’s city administrator by late mayor Gretchen Wilbert. Since then, he’s been city manager at Normandy Park, city administrator at Black Diamond and has served on numerous regional and state boards and commissions.

McCallum recently retired from a career that involved working extensively with policy-making boards and commissions, and he emphasized that this experience would be put to good use on the City Council. He was dean of student services for Pierce Community College and served as a national corporate relations associate for a systems company in Massachusetts.

Barber and her husband moved to Gig Harbor in 2014 from Anchorage, Alaska, where she had her own public relations company and did extensive volunteer work. Barber was born in Seattle and raised in Portland. Her husband, who was a member of the Alaska Air National Guard search and rescue program, has deep roots in the Gig Harbor area.

“So we both feel like we’re back home here in Gig Harbor,” she said during her interview.

Since arriving in Gig Harbor, Barber has continued her volunteer work. She joined the parks commission in 2020 and advocated for an adopt-a-park program, and devised a strategy to involve more businesses and organizations in Parks Appreciation Day. Recently, she has been involved in the parks commission’s update of the Parks, Recreation and Open Space (PROS) Plan.

“That’s a giant project that’s been fun and will be a guide for at least the next six years,” she said.

“I’m really interested in issues that have to do with Gig Harbor’s livability and walkability, and keeping this as a wonderful, vibrant little Northwest town,” she said. “I’d like for us to have wider sidewalks and to have trails that connect to each other. And I want the waterfront to grow as the hub of our city.”

Asked about her vision of the city in 10 years, Barber was quick to respond: “My ideal Gig Harbor looks maybe a bit like Brigadoon, but it’s full of wide sidewalks where people are walking and waving and chatting with each other. It’s a place where newcomers feel welcomed by those who’ve lived here for generations.

“There are groups of people at picnic tables enjoying a meal they just bought at a local business. They’re listening to live music, watching children play and all the activity happening on the water. When they’re done, they might head back to work, or pick up their kids at one of our amazing public schools and take them to an after-school activity like soccer practice at the Gig Harbor Sports Complex. In the evening, they bike the Cushman Trail to visit friends.”

Now that she’s a Council member, Barber wants to find ways to take the Council to the people.

“I want us to be more accessible and to use the tools that we have available to improve our communications,” she said. She’d like for the Council to “go out to different neighborhoods to have our meetings.”

Barber would also like for the city to conduct more online surveys, similar to what the Parks Commission did recently, to learn what’s important to the community.

She added that she was “very gratified” to see so many candidates for the Council vacancy and “to see so much interest in serving our community. The quality was amazing, and I look forward to working with every one of them.”

Barber recently wrote an article called “This I Believe” for the Strive Group’s quarterly magazine.

“Leaving the world a better place is something I’ve worked on all my life. I learned by example from wonderful parents who stressed the importance of giving back to others,” she wrote. “I believe that each one of us can make a difference. I believe in mankind’s desire to do good and make the world a better place.

“I believe in love; in the power of kindness, the power of listening and of hearing; in our desire to work together to make the world a better place, and to care for it for our children.

“I believe there is more than one way to do everything, that collaboration and compromise are the name of the game.

“I believe in God. I believe your god might be different from mine, but yours is just as wonderful a guiding light as mine.

“I believe it is my duty to help others.”