MILL CREEK, Wash., June 17, 2022 – On Tuesday, June 14, the Mill Creek City Council selected five finalists after an extensive search. One candidate has since withdrawn due to economic circumstances. The four remaining candidates to be interviewed on June 24 – 25 include Scott Mitnick, Jeff Niten, Andrea Snyder, and Martin Yamamoto, currently the Interim City Manager for the City of Mill Creek.
Beginning Friday, June 24, candidates will tour Mill Creek, followed by a private Meet & Greet with City staff. Then, from 5:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m., the community will have an opportunity to meet with the candidates during the City Manager Candidate Reception at Venture Church at 14616 35th Ave SE, Mill Creek. Attendees will have a chance to provide anonymous feedback, which will be shared with City Council, who will make the final hiring decision.
On Saturday, June 25, the Council will hold a Special Council Meeting in City Hall South Council Chambers and via Zoom. Candidates will be panel interviewed by Council during the open session of the meeting. City Council will recess into executive session for one-on-one interviews. Following the executive session, Council may or may not reconvene and take action.
The public is invited to both the City Manager Candidate Reception and the Special Council Meeting.
Scott Mitnick: Mr. Mitnick was most recently the City Manager for El Segundo, CA (population 16,575) for three years. Previously he was the County Administrator for Sutter County, CA (population 96,109) for two years and the City Manager for Thousand Oaks, CA (population 128,623) for eleven years. Mr. Mitnick states that his management style is participatory.
He utilizes his executive team as the primary mechanism for implementing the City Council’s direction and vision. Some of his most notable career achievements include; 1) Multiple major settlements and land use development agreements in El Segundo. 2) Establishing El Segundo’s first Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (DEI) Committee. 3) Successful Countywide evacuation during the February 2017 Oroville Dam failure incident. 4) Developing the first Sutter County Strategic Plan and Long-Term Financial Plan. 5) Completing the Thousand Oaks General Plan Update and Affordable Housing Opportunities Study. 6) Successful weathering of the Great Recession of 2007-2009. 7) Improved employee morale in each city/county managed. Mr. Mitnick has a bachelor’s degree in political science from California State University and a master’s degree in public administration from Syracuse University.
Jeff Niten: Mr. Niten has been the City Manager for Shelton, WA (population 10,467) since January 2019. Previously, he was the Community Development Director for Ridgefield, WA (population 8,751) for four years, and a Planner III and Project Manager for Clark County, WA (population 444,506) for seven years. His management style is to be highly collaborative. His greatest achievement in Shelton has been working with their local delegation to the State Legislature, the Legislature itself, and the Governor’s Office to address a “latecomer agreement” with Washington State Patrol. That agreement added additional costs to development that impacted the majority of the job producing land in the community and made development opportunities less financially attractive. Further, the impacted properties were within a Port District and a Federal Opportunity zone – both of which were intended to enhance economic development. The effort to address the latecomer agreement took several years, and the Governor signed the legislation following the 2021 session. Mr. Niten has a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Nevada and a master’s degree in public administration from the University of South Dakota.
Andrea Snyder: Ms. Snyder has been the Deputy City Administrator for Issaquah, WA (population 38,707) since 2019. Previously she was the Economic Development Manager for Burien, WA (population 51,477), the Economic Development Manager for Issaquah, WA for five years, and a Transportation Planner II for King County Metro Transit for three years. The key to Ms. Snyder’s management style is she treats everyone as peers. They are all part of the same team – they just have different roles to play. One of her most significant achievements occurred very early in her career as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Niger in West Africa. She served in a small rural village with high infant mortality rates, largely as the result of the village having only by two” wells”. The reality was the wells were simple holes in the ground and the water was completely unfiltered. The result was it was common for debris and animal matter to fall into the well and to contaminate the water supply. Many children became very sick after drinking the water and more than a few died. Ms. Snyder was able to raise money and design an apron around the well that made the water much more sanitary. As a result, fewer children got sick, and deaths were reduced. She has had many accomplishments since then, but none that resulted so directly in saving lives and dramatically improving quality of life for future generations. Ms. Snyder has a bachelor’s degree in legal studies from the University of Wisconsin and a master’s degree in public administration from the University of Washington.
Martin Yamamoto: Mr. Yamamoto has been the Deputy City Manager for Mill Creek, WA since 2021, and he is currently the Interim City Manager. Previously he worked for the City of Seattle, WA (population 741,251) for ten years, with the last seven as a Fiscal Manager. Mr. Yamamoto’s approach to management is participative where collaboration entails bi-lateral communication among teams and across departments. His biggest achievement has been accomplishing the first phase of Mill Creek’s rebuilding process. This effort entailed building an organizational strategy to incorporate both the Council’s and City’s operational priorities. Further, soon after his appointment to Interim City Manager, along with staffing and other plans, another key decision that he made was appointing Stan White to Acting Chief of Police. Mr. Yamamoto has a bachelor’s degree in business administration and a master’s degree in business administration from the Seattle University.
To learn more about each of these candidates, visit millcreekwa.gov/citymanager.
Author: Lynnwood Times Staff
