End Of A Political Career -- Federal Way Mayor Says Her Role As Community Activist Is Over

FEDERAL WAY - Debbie Ertel is ending one marriage and beginning another.

After failing to win re-election last month, the Federal Way mayor says she'll end her long involvement with the city when her term draws to a close New Year's Eve.

"I don't intend to stay involved politically," she said one recent morning, sipping coffee at Coco's Family Restaurant.

It was in this eatery - the "unofficial city hall" - that Ertel and other local activists planned the drive that led to Federal Way's incorporation in 1989. Now, glancing out over the dining room, she says her days as a watchdog of development are over.

"There are a lot of personal things I've put on hold for a long time," says Ertel, 44. She ruminates about remodeling her home, taking college courses, resuming her hobby of photography. Still very private after two years in office, she doesn't mention that in February she'll wed Dick Burris, a member of Federal Way's planning commission.

Other local political figures say they find it hard to believe Ertel will just walk away - and it's easy to understand why. In the 17 years she has lived here, Ertel has been intimately involved in shaping the community.

She still remembers the gray November day in 1974 when she and her first husband drove up from Grants Pass, Ore., to move into their new home here. She was seven months pregnant. Pacific Highway South "was the most desolate sight I'd ever seen," she said - an ugly, dreary carpet of strip malls.

She was stunned to find the nearest doctor willing to take a new patient was in South Tacoma's Lakewood area. On New Year's Day, 1976, when whooping cough and tonsillitis choked off her 1-year-old daughter's breath, Ertel had to drive 15 miles north to Riverton General Hospital in Burien.

"It really made me angry that in this populated an area better medical care wasn't available," she said.

She turned her anger into political activism. Getting herself elected that year to the Federal Way Community Council, she formed a committee to bring in a hospital. It took 11 years and a legal battle (Auburn General Hospital filed suit claiming a new hospital wasn't needed), but in 1987 St. Francis Community Hospital opened its doors.

On the council, Ertel fought successfully against a 1988 county open-space bond issue that locals argued shortchanged South King County. She labored on failed Federal Way cityhood attempts in 1981 and '85.

Concerned that runaway development was overloading schools, roads and the environment, Ertel founded a group (DIRE - Development Impact Resistance Exercise) that filed environmental appeals, forcing county officials to enforce regulations the group said were being ignored, and winning concessions from developers to protect wetlands and streams and mitigate pressure on roads and schools.

EVEN FOES OFFER PRAISE

A plant manager at Rotary Offset Press, Inc., Ertel was in the forefront of a "slow-growth" majority swept into the City Council after Federal Way finally incorporated in 1989. She was elected mayor by her fellow City Council members. Now, as she prepares to leave office, even Ertel's bitterest opponents say she has been an able mayor.

"Generally speaking, she's worked more hours and more tirelessly than anyone on the council," said Councilman Joel Marks. He quickly added, "Of course, I sharply disagree with her philosophy of government."

"Her efforts and those of the council jump-started this city to a good start," said landscape architect and development booster Dale Roper, a former community council member long at odds with Ertel.

At the same time as they set up the basic structure of a government, and bought and improved park lands for the fledgling city, Ertel and the council majority adopted sweeping planning and zoning restrictions to control growth.

These restrictions increasingly piqued the ire of business owners and developers. Antagonisms peaked when Ertel and the council bought the Evergreen Airstrip for $12.5 million last year. This 83-acre site, the biggest remaining undeveloped chunk of land in the heart of the city, had been scheduled to become a business center. The council decided to make it the city's showpiece park. Council members said the city had finally said no to bulldozers and concrete. Marks, a minority of one on the council, sided with developers who argued the city paid too much, and, by blocking a business park, had given up thousands of potential jobs and a river of possible property-tax revenues.

Running a tough, negative City Council campaign, financial planner Ray Tomlinson hit city spending and the park issue hard. When the smoke cleared, he'd ousted Ertel by the knife-edge final margin of 131 votes, out of 15,717 votes cast.

Many observers say Ertel called little attention to her victories representing Federal Way in regional negotiations on such matters as water rights and regional transit planning.

Auburn Mayor Bob Roegner said, "Federal Way will be a big winner," in a package of mass-transit improvements Metro will place before voters next year.

NO MORE WATCHDOG ROLE

If she has left a legacy, Ertel said, it was establishing the city on a firm financial footing and halting "the downward spiral of the community's quality of life" - making environmental and neighborhood quality issues priorities for any new development or growth.

Ertel said she fears the new council will reopen the doors to unrestrained commercial development. If that happens, she said, someone else can be the watchdog. "I won't harp at someone else if there's nothing I can do about it."

If her decision is final, that's a shame, said state Rep. Jean Marie Brough, R-Federal Way. "I'd hate to lose that kind of commitment to the community because of an election defeat," she said.