PubliCola62%
Burien Council Fires Controversial City Manager; Mayor and Council Say They’ve Found Money for Universal School Meals After All 33%
By ericacbarnett54%
7/30/2026, 1:57:01 PM
Keywords: Burien, Universal School Meals
BS Summary: This article contains 19 faulty reasoning types, including Biased Writer Voice, Framing Effect, and Bandwagon, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 27.3% saturation with 220 hits. Analysis detected 1,071 faulty-reasoning hits from 805 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 36.7% and a BS Rank of 33% (16,979 of 25,288 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 67.10% of the article peer group.
1.
Burien City Manager Adolfo Bailon was fired by the Burien City Council earlier this week on a 4-1 vote, with Councilmember Kevin Schilling absent.
His last day will be August 27.
The firing followed a council vote more than three months ago to put Bailon on paid leave while an outside consultant, Kathleen Haggard (of the Haggard-Ganson law firm) conducted an investigation into his conduct as city attorney.
The council has discussed this investigation in executive session, but has not made any of the details public; PubliCola has requested a copy of the investigation report.
A short list of issues that have come up during Bailon’s tenure as city manager would take up many paragraphs, but they include: Shooting down efforts to stand up a homeless shelter on land owned by the city, threatening to sue a church that hosted an encampment; turning down $1 million in shelter funding from King County; berating council members over their views on homelessness, filing a complaint against one of those councilmembers over his tweets, demanding the removal of Burien’s police chief, and spending much of his time calling 911 on unsheltered people in the park outside his office.
Although the resolution passed this week cites the investigation findings, Bailon was officially fired without cause, allowing him to collect six months’ pay as severance, in addition to receiving his full salary during his nearly four-month leave.
During this time, the city of Burien has also been paying interim city manager Bob Larson to serve in Bailon’s stead.
We’ve asked the city for Bailon’s exact salary.
According to the Washington Citizens’ Commission on Salaries for Elected Officials, Bailon made $224,664 in 2024, up from $215,000 when he was hired in 2022.
Extrapolating from that two-year cost of living adjustment, Bailon’s. current salary is a little under $235,000, meaning he’ll receive around $117,000 in severance pay.
During the meeting, Schilling went on a brief tirade after Mayor Sarah Moore opened up public comment on Bailon’s firing, which the council had just officially announced (although Schilling telegraphed that it was happening earlier, before the council went into executive session.)
Opening public comment at 10pm, when "no one's here," was a "charade" and "ludicrous," Schilling said.
"This is pretty crazy, Mayor," Schilling said.
Then, referring to the one person who remained in council chambers and wanted to speak, Schilling said, "The only member of the public who's here is Quinten [Thompson], and Quinton's here because he gets driven home after the council meeting."
Thompson, who frequently attends Burien council meetings, uses a wheelchair and gets around via Access van.
Schilling complained that all the comments would be in favor of removing Bailon, then left.
Alex Andrade, the one vote in Bailon’s favor, called a point of order to tell a speaker that it was "improper" for him call the behavior that got Bailon fired "abusive."
Former city councilmember Cydney Moore, speaking during public comment, said it was "incredibly disrespectful and dismssive the way that the current, present audience member was referenced by somebody on council as though their presence is not absolutely intentional and not just passive because they are waiting for a ride.
That’s a member of our community who is very active and should be treated with … respect."
2.
After a public outcry, the Seattle City Council has backed down on a proposal to trade universal school meals for low-income grocery vouchers during the upcoming school year, announcing earlier this week that they have reached a deal with Mayor Katie Wilson to provide both immediate universal meals and the vouchers by using "underspend" from an unspecified city department.
The council faced backlash from supporters of universal school meals when they voted 6-3 for an amendment to the spending plan for the Families, Education, Preschool and Promise Levy, sponsored by Councilmembers Joy Hollingsworth and Dionne Foster, that delayed funding for universal meals until the 2027-2028 school year.
The amendment took $3 million that would have funded universal school meals starting this year and redistributed it across all six years of the levy to provide $500,000 for food subsidies for up to 5,000 low-income families, or about $100 per family per year.
The new spending plan keeps the food vouchers, which supporters say will provide meals for low-income kids on weekends and over holidays during the school year.
Funding for school meals would come from the levy beginning in the 2027-2028 school year under the plan announced this week.
The proposal doesn't address what the city will do if a state tax on income above $1 million is overturned by voters in November or subsequently by a court challenge; instead, it assumes the tax will begin funding school meals statewide in 2029.
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