City Hall showdown just latest in decades of drama

Powerful warring families, a mayor busted for photographing a nude teen, secret tape recordings, reversals of fortune, a court case featuring a Ziploc bag of horse manure.

Brier's 40-year political history plays like a soap opera.

" 'One Life to Live' — man, you sure live a life if you stay there very long," said Norma Wilds, a retired city clerk who played a role in the city's latest drama. "Or 'All My Council Members.' The ones you expect to be good people turn out to be the villains."

Wilds found herself in the news recently when the Brier City Council voted 5-0 to demand Mayor Gary Starks' resignation because of a high staff turnover attributed to his allegedly bad temper. Wilds quit last fall after 20 years of service; Starks fired her replacement last month, triggering a community uproar.

But colorful newspaper headlines are nothing new for this city of 6,400, which treasures its image as a semirural hideaway in a suburban sea. Despite its peaceful environs, with horses, llamas and peacocks on large, wooded properties, the city's politics are rarely idyllic.

There's little agreement why, of course.

"It's kind of a weird duck," City Councilman Carlton Gipson said. "Politics tends to get people more excited and involved because that's the only thing that is happening in Brier most of the time."

Some say the city's residents are especially involved with their government because they are so passionate about preserving their community's character.

Historically, Brier represents rebellion against politicians who might spoil its charms. Its 1965 incorporation was a communal nose-thumbing at Mountlake Terrace, which had planned to annex the area. Brier residents living on 20,000-square-foot properties were horrified because Mountlake Terrace was becoming a bastion of 7,200-square-foot lot sizes.

So it may not be surprising that development issues often spawn the biggest political upsets.

Mimi Opdyke came to power as a hero of the people, the leader of the anti-growth Brier Citizens Committee. She was among four committee members elected to the City Council in 1987. Two years later, voters promoted her to mayor.

Then Opdyke was toppled in 1991, the victim of a successful recall campaign.

In a parallel drama, recall co-leader Vernon Moore made headlines for placing a plastic bag filled with horse manure in front of Opdyke during a council meeting earlier that year. Then he sued Opdyke for alleged defamation, claiming she had publicly humiliated him in retaliation.

Brier's political character is shaped in part by the quirky nature of its residents, some observers say. The city's setting, with large tracts that afford an unusual degree of privacy, tends to attract a more independent populace that may be quicker to challenge authority, they suggest.

"There are a lot of wonderful people in Brier, but some of them are just plain selfish," said one city employee, who didn't want to be identified. "They're into themselves and what makes them happy. They care about their own personal space, their own self- esteem."

Others long ago gave up trying to figure it out.

"A former police chief, Dan Elfenson, used to say there was something in the drinking water of Brier," said Ed Walker, a former city councilman who routinely plays a starring role in local political dramas. "He really couldn't figure it out."

Walker's own view? City Council members elected during quiet periods — "times of citizen apathy" — are trusted at first. Then they do something "radically wrong," which forces residents to "take back their government again," he said.

"So they yo-yo back and forth."

Walker and his wife, former Mayor Sharon Walker, are part of the yo-yo phenomenon. Some of the city's more contentious chapters in the 1990s related to their feud with another powerful Brier couple — former Police Chief Jim Palmer and his wife, former Councilwoman Cathy Palmer.

In 1992, Ed Walker secretly audiotaped the police chief using angry language during a private conversation after a City Council vote. An investigation at the time by Edmonds police produced no proof of the illegal taping, but now Walker admits he did it.

When Sharon Walker took office in 1994, one of her first major acts was firing the chief.

Ed Walker also was a leader in the recall campaign against Opdyke. Now he's dedicated to bringing down another mayor — Starks — and his weaponry includes another tape recording. This one, which Walker says he made legally outside City Hall, captures Starks using vulgar language during a heated argument.

The city's most turbulent mayoral term began in January 1978, when Diana Johnson assumed office. It took three men and two women to complete her four-year term.

Johnson was gone by February, when she quit during an uproar over her firing of another police chief. His sin? Backing her opponent, former Mayor Dick Balser, in previous fall's election.

Recent Mayor Wayne Kaske said last month's City Council censure of Starks for his employee relations strongly reminded him of the Johnson brouhaha.

"The people just jumped up and down," Kaske recalled. "The City Council was after her scalp ... and tied her hands so she couldn't buy anything."

Ed Locke, a city councilman, was appointed as Johnson's replacement. He served until the November 1979 election, when he lost to Ed Phillips.

Phillips, a retired Air Force sergeant, had sued the city in 1978 for false arrest after he was cleared on a charge of asking teenage girls to pose nude for him.

He resigned as mayor in December 1980. Two days later, he was charged in Snohomish County Superior Court with taking nude pictures of a 13-year-old girl he had hired as a dishwasher for his Brier restaurant.

Police found 21 packets of Polaroid film in his car that included nude shots of 11 teens. Prosecutors alleged he also had persuaded one of his teenage employees to "prostitute herself" for one of his friends. Phillips eventually pleaded guilty to one charge related to the 13-year-old.

With Phillips gone, the City Council appointed Sadie Moore as mayor. She served until the November 1981 election, which Kaske won. Because Moore was an appointee, Kaske took office immediately and finished the final weeks of the term begun by Johnson.

Kaske, who has served as mayor several times over the decades, retired midterm in 2003. The council then appointed Starks.

Kaske is widely praised for creating a rare spell of political calm during his latest six years in power. He may run again this fall.

"One could wag their finger at me and say, 'See, if you hadn't left, Kaske, this wouldn't have happened,' " he said.

Seattle Times news researcher Gene Balk contributed to this report.

Diane Brooks: 425-745-7802 or dbrooks@seattletimes.com