Kent mayor maintains stance against vaccine mandate for city employees

Kent Mayor Dana Ralph said she has no plan to impose a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for city employees.

“I believe in the vaccine but I also believe in people’s ability to have a conversation with their doctors,” Ralph said during a Dec. 16 online town hall in response to a viewer’s question. “We will not be imposing a vaccine mandate.”

City officials are keeping watch on what happens with lawsuits at the state and federal levels.

“We continue to monitor litigation around vaccine mandates,” said city Chief Administrative Officer Derek Matheson in his written report to the City Council for its Jan. 4 meeting. “We expect the state will mandate vaccinations in public/private organizations with 100-plus employees if the U.S. Supreme Court upholds the federal mandate.”

Ralph said the city will keep its status quo about vaccines for more than 700 employees.

“We will not move forward with a mandate until we hear from the state or federal government,” Ralph said.

City officials announced in October 2021 that no mandate would be required for city employees after Gov. Jay Inslee said most state employees, health care workers, education and child care employees needed to be vaccinated no later than Oct. 18, 2021. The city of Seattle and King County implemented similar mandates. Employee groups decided to fight the mandates from the state, King County and Seattle.

During her town hall, Ralph praised the work of city employees during the pandemic, which began in March 2020. She said it was one of the city’s biggest accomplishments during 2021.

“Our biggest accomplishment was we made it through another year of the pandemic,” Ralph said. “We’ve had significant challenges and our community has stayed resilient and come back. …to something that has been an once in a lifetime challenge.”

The mayor pointed to completion of the $7 million Fourth and Willis roundabout project and the $40 million South 228th Street overpass above the Union Pacific Railroad crossing as two big accomplishments.

“I’m really proud of the fact that our city never stopped,” Ralph said. “Our world was changing and a scary place the last two years but we kept working. Public Works employees came to work everyday, kept our streets open and the water flowing.”

Accomplishments

Ralph said another accomplishment was putting aside $1.2 million in her 2022 budget to fund two new maintenance worker positions in operations to help clean up litter around town. The city will use $1 million from the city’s general fund and $250,000 from the the city drainage fund (because trash often is found in stormwater catch basins) to pay for the litter strike team.

The mayor said the city will pay King County ($200,000 in 2022) to hire homeless or formerly homeless people to remove graffiti in Kent.

“We used to have a couple of crews, but the pandemic changed that,” Ralph said. “We are working on getting the city cleaned up.”

Another highlight to 2021 for Ralph included the $3.2 million renovation of Lake Fenwick Park on the West Hill. The city installed a new playground as well as a futsal field for soccer. That field was named after Kent Police Officer Diego Moreno, who was killed in the line of duty in 2018 when hit by a fellow officer’s SUV during a vehicle pursuit after shots were fired at a nearby bar.

“I felt like it was a great way to honor him and keep his story going for generations to come,” Ralph said about Moreno, who was heavily involved in the community.

Why run for office?

An online town hall participant asked Ralph what made her run for office.

“It was a long path to get here,” said Ralph, who just began her second four-year term. “I didn’t run for office in high school, I was not set on being in government.”

Ralph said then-Mayor Jim White asked her about 18 years ago to be on the Land Use and Planning Board.

“I told him no, I didn’t know about that stuff,” Ralph said. “He told me I could learn.”

Ralph also was appointed to the Arts Commission around the same time.

“I loved making a difference in my community, making it a better place for my family,” Ralph said.

Voters elected Ralph to the City Council in 2011. She served six years on the council before running for mayor in 2017 and winning the election.

”It’s the best decision I have ever made,” Ralph said. “I could not be more honored to take care of the place that has taken care of me and my family for so many years and making sure everyone sees what I see in the potential of the city of Kent.”

Even with a population of nearly 138,000, Ralph said Kent maintains a certain feel.

“We still have small town feel, people are ready to help you,” she said.

Retail theft

Another resident asked Ralph about boarded-up doors at businesses due to break-ins and what can be done to stop that crime.

“We have seen an uptick in all types of crimes,” Ralph said. “My concern is a lack of accountability, it just seems to be OK. Police work with retail establishments to do our part, we are asking the rest of the criminal justice system to fill in. We know retail theft puts a huge burden on businesses. Around the country businesses have closed because of it, I do not want that in Kent.”

Ralph said one of the city’s priorities in the upcoming 2022 legislative session is to modify some of the police reform laws adopted last year.

“One of our top priorities is community safety,” Ralph said. “They passed police reform last session. We support reform but we have concerns with some of the legislation that makes it harder to keep our community safe. We need to reform the reform and allow officers to do what they need to do to keep our community safe.”

The mayor said city staff are working hard to get police staffing up.

“We had a fair number of officers that left the profession, but we are working hard to recruit to make sure staffing is at a level our community needs,” she said.