Editor's note: this article has been corrected to state it was public commentors, not Winlock Mayor-elect Victoria Marincin herself, who claimed outgoing Winlock Mayor Brandon Svenson wanted to create the new city administrator position as a way to remain in power.
With the council chambers of the Winlock City Hall filled to capacity and more Winlock residents listening outside in the hallways, members of the Winlock City Council voted to table both the city’s proposed 2026 budget and a resolution that would have created a new city administrator position during the council’s Nov. 24 meeting.
Public opposition to approving both the budget and the new city administrator position was led by Winlock Mayor-elect Victoria Marincin, and many joined Marincin in speaking in both the meeting’s public comment period and the public hearing for the budget.
The public hearing was the second of two hearings the council was required to hold before holding a vote on the budget, with the first public hearing being held on Nov. 10, as previously reported by The Chronicle.
Marincin, who defeated incumbent Mayor Brandon Svenson in the November general election, wanted both the budget and creation of the city administrator tabled.
Public commentors claimed Svenson created the position for himself in order to keep working in the city’s government and subvert the authority she will wield next year as mayor.
Additionally, Marincin believed there were many things that still needed to be resolved in the draft budget besides the city administrator issue.
“Why, with multiple audit failures before us, are we still choosing to ignore the underlying compliance issues which created those failures in the first place?” Marincin asked. “... My goal is not to hinder transition. It is to ensure every dollar is lawful, every process is defensible and every employee knows exactly what the law requires of them. We cannot solve six years of audit failures by creating new positions without first fixing the compliance gaps that caused the failures.”
Multiple residents also spoke, with most echoing both Marincin’s sentiments and advocating to table the issues.
According to the Office of the Washington State Auditor’s website, both an accountability and financial statement audits were conducted for the City of Winlock in 2024, with both audits looking at the city’s financial data from Jan. 1, 2019, through Dec. 31, 2021.
The financial statements audit found city staff had “deficiencies in internal controls that represent a material weakness,” but attributed accounting errors found to turnover in the city’s clerk-treasurer position, where a third-party accountant was hired to file annual reports from 2019 through 2021.
“City management did not dedicate sufficient resources to establish adequate oversight procedures to compensate for new employees’ lack of experience and training,” the Nov. 27, 2024, financial statement audit report stated.
While the accountability audit did note “certain matters related to procurement” for public works and other purchases, auditors reported no major issues.
“In most of the areas we examined, city operations complied, in all material respects, with applicable state laws, regulations and its own policies, and provided adequate controls over safeguarding of public resources,” the Nov. 27, 2024, accountability audit report stated.
Prior to those two audits, the only other audit report listed in the last six years on the auditor’s website for the City of Winlock was a Financial Statements and Federal Single Audit Report from Sept. 26, 2019.
The audit, which looked at the city’s finances from Jan. 1, 2018, to Dec. 31, 2018, found city staff “did not have adequate internal controls in place to ensure compliance with federal Davis-Bacon Act (prevailing wage) requirements” when it came to two road construction projects funded by Federal Highway Administration grant money.
The Davis-Bacon Act mandates all workers and contractors on projects financed with $2,000 or more in federal funds be paid wages no less than wages established for the locality by the U.S. Department of Labor.
Auditors did review other aspects of the city’s finances as well.
“However, providing an opinion on compliance with those provisions was not an objective of our audit, and accordingly, we do not express such an opinion,” the report stated. “The results of our tests disclosed no instances of noncompliance or other matters that are required to be reported under Government Auditing Standards.”
Following the public hearing and further opposition expressed during the meeting’s public comment period, Svenson and the councilors addressed the allegations made by Marincin and her supporters.
“Folks came in here with the idea that Brandon was going to be the one for this position,” Winlock City Councilor Chuck Camps said. “This position is going to be open to any and everybody, and I hope we get somebody in there with experience.”
Camps stated he believed the city would benefit from having a city administrator in order to help run the city more smoothly in the future. He emphasized that, if created as a position, the city administrator would not have authority over the mayor or council business.
“The position still answers to the council and answers to the mayor,” Camps added.
According to outgoing Winlock City Councilor Jeramy Allman, Svenson had recently approached the city’s financial department to ask them to eliminate the newly proposed city administrator because “he wants to balance the budget a little more in the black.”
Allman also stated the city administrator position was proposed because with Winlock now the third largest city in Lewis County, city staff are preparing to transition the city’s government system to a seven-person council with an appointed mayor like in the Twin Cities.
“There’s a lot of work to move to that form of government, and it’s not easy. This is a step towards that,” Allman said.
Svenson took issue with what he believed to be the true reason so many came out to voice opposition at the Nov. 24 meeting — a Lewis County News Facebook post made by Lynnette Hoffman.
He described Hoffman as, “a great evil, I would consider, in our community. An agitator, a manipulator, someone that takes a newspaper and creates lies on purpose to manipulate and deceive the population ... It’s been going on for years. It happened to the previous administration, it’s happening to this one, and I guarantee, it will happen to the next administration.”
Svenson is not the only Winlock resident to take issue with Hoffman’s reporting for Lewis County News, as during the Nov. 24 meeting, Historic Sacred Heart Catholic Church parishioner Evaristo Gomez brought up parking issues the church was having during public comment.
In the Dec. 3 edition of Lewis County News, Hoffman stated, “the council knowingly allowed the removal of the Catholic Church’s on-street parking and issued warning tickets, forcing the church to ‘beg’ for Sunday parking permission, an issue they had discussed illegally for a year. The message is devastatingly clear: organizations seeking to help the community were not welcomed, but actively harassed.”
In a Dec. 3 post to the Winlock, WA Community Forum Facebook group, Gomez publicly addressed Hoffman’s statement.
“As a parishioner of the Eastern Catholic church in Winlock (Sacred Heart) and as someone who attended the city council meeting and spoke publicly, I do not accuse the city of harassment, nor have we been unwelcome. One of the council members stated that in order to receive the grant needed for the renewal of the street, one side of the road had to lose its street parking. Some engineer designed that. And as far as issuing warning tickets goes: A neighbor called it in when a few of our cars were parked in front of the church. We have a lot of people coming on Sundays. The council said that they would look into changing the signs to ‘no parking except on Sundays,’” Gomez said. “We pray for Winlock in our Liturgical services. Please also pray for this community!”
Svenson also addressed the allegation he created the city administrator position for himself and intended to start in the position as soon as he was no longer mayor.
“As far as me applying for this, I called Victoria this morning and said the only way I would apply for it is if I had the support of her and the new administration. Period, end of story,” Svenson said. “If people want me to be here to help and bring my knowledge from the last six years to help her, I would be more than welcome to do so in that capacity. I’d be happy to. But if I’m not wanted, don’t want to be here, I’m not interested in fighting anybody.”
Motions to approve the 2026 budget and create the city administrator position failed, while motions to table both were approved by a vote of 3-2 — tabling the issues to the next Winlock City Council meeting scheduled for Monday, Dec. 8, at 6 p.m.
