LYNNWOOD—Former Lynnwood Parks and Recreation Director Lynn Sordel has emerged from retirement to once again serve the people of Lynnwood, this time as the City’s Interim Assistant City Administrator, replacing Julie Moore.
According to the job listing, the Lynnwood Assistant City Administrator is responsible for planning, organizing, and directing city operations, implementing policies, and providing leadership. This person directly supports the Mayor and City Council by managing daily operations, overseeing departments, and ensuring efficient delivery of services.
“This is a different role [from Parks Director] but with my experience, knowledge of the city, and how much I care about this city and the people who live here. My focus is simple, to just keep city services running smoothly, support the staff, and work closely with Mayor Hurst, and the council, to ensure some stability,” said Sordel. “I’m just doing my best every day to help Mayor Hurst. He’s off to a great start, I really enjoy working with him.”
Sordel announced his retirement from the City of Lynnwood in March 2024, after 18 years.
In January of this year, when incoming Lynnwood Mayor George Hurst stepped in and planned to take the city in a different direction from his predecessor, Hurst – in assembling a transition team – reached out to Sordel and asked if he would be willing to help.
“I was honored to be asked. The conversation was really simple. He knew I had worked for the city for many years, knew the operations of the city, and knew the importance of maintaining continuity. It was a good match and the fact that I knew the staff very well, and most of the council,” said Sordel.
Sordel added that the timing of Mayor Hurst reaching out was also perfect. If he had been asked during months of nicer weather, being retired and having plans to spend the summer with his wife and five grandchildren, it might have been a different story. Sordel’s wife, he continued, was supportive of the decision knowing it was an interim role, how much he cared about the City of Lynnwood, and how much he trusted, and respected, Mayor Hurst.
In Sordel’s first couple of months in his role, he coordinated the Hygiene Center (now owned by travel writer and philanthropist Rick Steves) roundtable to have a meaningful conversation on how to make it better. He has also been working with the mayor to get the City’s deficit in good shape and shared with the Lynnwood Times that the city is “in good shape for getting that done too.”
“Then of course there’s the day-to-day things. I’m handling everything from working with our federal lobbyists regarding important funding opportunities, our state legislators, and just those things that help the mayor so that he can do his work. There are multiple facets in this job and I enjoy that. It’s really been a meaningful two months for me, meeting people, meeting community members, helping to look at some of our organizational structure to be more effective and efficient, and handling certain things with council,” said Sordel.
When asked if there was any possibility Sordel could remain as the City’s Administrator indefinitely, he replied that his focus is just ensuring a smooth transition for Mayor Hurst and the Mayor and the Council will ultimately make the decision who to hire for the position.
“I am not putting my name in for the role. That’s not my focus. I’ll be here to help with the hiring of the permanent position, which should be decided in the next couple of months,” said Sordel.
The City of Lynnwood has already posted the opening and has received applications. The HR team plans to conduct interviews in the coming weeks.
Sordel plans to work closely with whoever is selected for the role, to help them transition smoothly into the role seamlessly. He plans to spend quality time with this person, and work closely with the mayor to ensure he has time to do that before he leaves.
“That’s a really important step to complete that process. To make sure that there’s a good understanding, answering questions, because the institutional knowledge I have, having been here 18 years, I know the ins and outs of the city,” said Sordel. “We have some more work to do, organizational, to make sure we are efficient moving into the next budget cycle. As we fix the 2026 deficit, which we have been working on very diligently, the 2027-2028 budget is right on the horizon. I plan to work with the Mayor and the team to prepare ourselves for that before I leave.”
When Sordel retired from the city in 2024, he had some disagreements with former Mayor Christine Frizzell on her handling of his succession plan, and recommendation for who should fill the vacant Parks Director position. Now, he said, he’s put those things behind him and the city is in good hands.
“I am very optimistic, very excited about the mayor’s vision, his ideas, his priorities. The focus now is looking forward and getting the city moving. This city has so much potential in so many areas and I think the team is starting to embrace those things, the Mayor coming in and pledging to work with the team, being open to ideas, that momentum that he’s building with the team and the community is something for the community to be excited about,” said Sordel. “The city has a lot of reasons to be optimistic.”
Mayor Hurst will be delivering his State of the City address on March 26, where he will speak about much of the work he has done, specifically, and hopes to continue doing over his term.
Sordel shared with the Lynnwood Times he believes residents of Lynnwood, after hearing this address, are likely to be proud and optimistic about what the city has in store under the Hurst administration.
Author: Kienan Briscoe
