Today is a special day in City Hall. It’s the one morning of the year when we gather together City staff to thank them and celebrate accomplishments. We enjoy a breakfast together (cooked and funded by the City’s department directors), recognize milestones, and congratulate some special employees.
This year, the employees chose Donnelle Dayao in Public Works to receive the Teamwork/Customer Service Award. Donnelle is an engineer who has been with the City for four years, managing some of the most complicated capital projects in the City. She makes sure we follow all the federal and state rules to maintain our stormwater permit. That alone deserves a medal. In spite of the challenges, she always approaches everything with a smile and a practical, common sense nature that is hard to find.If this weren’t enough, Donnelle is also enrolled in the year-long Chamber Leadership Institute, as well as studying for her Professional Engineering exam.
Our Vision Award went to Julia Sauer in Animal Control. Julia started with us as a volunteer, and a year ago became our shelter assistant at Metro Animal Services.
Recently, Metro received a stray dog and happily adopted him to Gene, a gentleman who recently experienced some heavy personal losses, one of which was his beloved Boston Terrier. This dog matched him perfectly, and they were very happy together. Then, the original owner came forward, and according to Washington law, the adoption had to be rescinded, and the dog reunited with its original owner. Gene was understandably devastated. Julia spotted another Boston Terrier brought in fromanother jurisdiction. She contacted the people and eventually united the dog with Gene. The dog was trying to run on the floor to greet Gene as he came in. After a little discussion, the owner decided Gene was the right home for her dog and gifted her to him. There’s no question that this is just one example of how Julia fulfills our vision to set the standard of excellence.
While both of these are fairly new employees, we also celebrated milestones, honoring Jeff Miller for working here five years; Dan Gates and John Kaylor for working here 10 years; Kevin Babic for fifteen years; and Jason Temple, Gary Lucas and Matt Kurle for 20 years of service. Our longest employee has been here 38 years. Roughly half our employees have been here over 10 years.
Why do you need to know all this? Because these are the people that are dedicated and help build a community we all enjoy. Whether it’s driving down the street, washing our hands, or needing someone to help in an emergency, you are interacting with our employees in often unseen ways. And, you should know that this is a talented, dedicated, hardworking group of people who come to work each day so that you and I get excellent service. I’m glad that for all that, they got a breakfast and a little bit of recognition.
Mayor Dave Enslow
