LYNNWOOD—Former Lynnwood Parks, Recreation, and Cultural Arts Director Lynn Sordel contacted the Lynnwood City Council Tuesday, July 23, requesting they “mandate” Mayor Christine Frizzell to restart the recruitment process in order to fill the vacant Parks Director position he left after retiring back in March.
When Sordel retired, Mayor Frizzell transitioned Superintendent Joel Faber into the role of Interim Parks Director, shrugging off a succession plan Sordel drafted back in November—recommending Deputy Director Sarah Olsen be appointed instead.
Here is former Parks Director Sordel’s email to Lynnwood City Council submitted on July 23, in its entirety:
“Councilmember’s. I am deeply concerned about the future of the organization I managed for over 17 years. Mayor Frizzell has intentionally controlled the hiring of my replacement including the repeated lies related to my succession plan submitted last November. Supt. Faber and my entire team supported my recommendation to move deputy Olson into the Director position. It is also a fact that the Mayor’s executive team and another panel of employees recommended Ms. Olson for the position. When this became known, the Mayor and Julie knew they had a problem and counted on HR to advertise and attract dynamic outside candidates. That did not happen because I am so well connected to numerous Puget Sound departments, and it was widely known in those circles that I was mentoring Sarah to replace me.”
“HR informed the Mayor of the very weak outside candidate pool and the Mayor and Julie knew they had an even greater problem to overcome. This is why the Mayor delayed communication to you about the pending interview scheduled for you to meet the 4 candidates. Yes, HR had 4 candidates they felt were qualified. Mayor Frizzell lied about this as well.”
“In an effort to keep Sarah from interviewing with you (she would have blown away the competition) she placed Sup[erintendent] Faber in the Interim role. He was not ready for this and has a huge learning curve to be successful.”
“It is my hope, you will mandate the Mayor to restart the recruitment process to attract the best candidate for this very important position. Her use of the Interim position is wrong, and I believe she will continue to use this approach when other directors retire. You and this community deserve to attract the best candidates and her hiring practices over the past three years is suspect.”
“She put Julie in a job she was not qualified for. She would not have made the short list because she lacked any supervisory experience. When this occurred, it sent a message to the entire city team. She 100% circumvented the city’s hiring procedures and will continue to do. Even though i am retired, I still hear from my team and they are very concerned about the future. Deputy Olson knows she doesn’t have a future in the city, and, if and when she leaves, it will be another huge problem for the department. Please do whatever you can to ensure the most qualified candidate is selected to administer one of the best and most progressive departments in the city. Thank you for your consideration of my request. Best regards, Lynn.”
When former Lynnwood Parks & Recreation Director, Lynn Sordel, announced his retirement in November of 2023, he made it clear to council that he would deliver a comprehensive succession plan to be submitted to Mayor Christine Frizzell. But now the retired Lynnwood Parks & Recreation Director feels “disappointed” with Mayor Frizzell for neither following through on that plan, nor following its number one proposal regarding who would succeed as director in his place.
Sordel sat down with Mayor Frizzell in the middle of November to go over a drafted succession plan, that included a recommendation for who should fill his shoes as Director, as well as a proposed organizational chart which encompassed some suggested changes to the Department’s organizational structure. Each of these changes could be accomplished within the plan and with minimal impact to the city’s budget, he told the Lynnwood Times.
During that meeting with Frizzell, Sordel’ s number one-listed priority was to transition Sarah Olson, Parks & Recreation Deputy Director, to fill in his role as Director.
“I felt very strongly about this because Sarah had been my Deputy for over a decade, had gone back to school got her Master’s. I had given her opportunities to grow in her job, take on more responsibility, she took over our capital programs, she took over the healthy communities,” Sordel told the Lynnwood Times. “Sarah was, to me, someone that was ready for the job, had been working with the community, was received very well by the council, by the community, and had earned the opportunity to take my job.”
In lieu of Sordel’s recommendation, Mayor Frizzell transitioned Parks Superintendent Joel Faber into the role of interim Director while keeping Sarah Olson in her role as Deputy Director. Faber was promoted to Recreation Superintendent by Sordel 14 years earlier.
Before Sordel submitted his report to Mayor Frizzell, he reviewed it with staff in the Lynnwood Parks & Rec Department for their support, including Superintendent Eric Peterson and, now interim Director, Joel Faber. Sordel knew Faber was going to apply for the open Director position, which he encouraged while still recommending Olson for the position over him.
Sordel told the Lynnwood Times that he felt extremely disappointed that there was no follow up from the mayor because he spent a “lot of work on this” and it was “extremely important to” him and his team.
The City of Lynnwood has until August 12 to decide if it will transition Joel Faber into the role of Parks Director permanently or go with another option.
The Lynnwood Times reached out to the City of Lynnwood for a statement regarding Sordel’s email to council, as well as to ask if Mayor Frizzell plans to appoint Faber to Parks Director permanently but simply received the response: “The Mayor is going to move forward with the process that has been laid out,” from Nathan MacDonald, Manager of Communications and Public Affairs.
Author: Kienan Briscoe
5 Responses
Why is the Lynnwood Times taking such stock in the political games being played by a disgruntled ex employee. If Sordel was truly still in communication with his former department then he would know that Faber is excelling in his position.
Why on earth does this publication think it is acceptable to publish biased opinion pieces as fact?! Especially coming from the perspective of a disgruntled former employee who was grossly ineffective in his role. Lynn Sordel saying that he personally mentored Sarah is not the glowing endorsement he thinks it is. Clearly the retired director’s way of conducting himself and his department is not the direction that was right for the city. As shown here, Lynn Sordel thinks it’s acceptable to gossip and repeatedly publicly disparage his hardworking colleagues and direct reports who disagree with him. The more he comments, the more he reveals the truth behind his dysfunctional leadership style. Perhaps the mayor recognized the need to fix a toxic work environment the former director and his protege created. If Sarah doesn’t have a future with the city, she only has herself and Lynn to blame. Just because someone looks good on paper doesn’t mean they demonstrate the skills to work with others in a respectful, productive manner.
I sure hope the City Council doesn’t waste any more time on this personal political issue the former director keeps rehashing. A simple inquiry would show that while Ms. Olson did benefit from blatant favoritism from Mr. Sordel, she doesn’t have several critical qualities that Mr. Faber has – she doesn’t have the supervisory experience Mr. Faber does, as she only oversaw a fraction of the staff that he did. Ms. Olson also doesn’t have the respect of the employees as she plays the same silly games Mr. Sordel does. To note, many of the initiatives and programs Mr. Sordel attributes to Ms. Olson are now defunct anyway. Congratulations to Mr. Faber for overcoming the challenges of working with these two and letting his integrity speak for itself.
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Read between the lines!
This mayor keeps using her power to place people in charge that are not qualified and incompetent. I am sure it is because she can control them.
This started with Julie after their trip down the river in DC, then mayor did the same with the HR director. This is creepy and suspicious at a minimum.
Next up is the lowest qualified candidate for the park director job. I bet she bullies the city into making him permanent and not interim.
The NEXT mayor needs to clean house and replace these inappropriate appointments day one.