06/28/2009: "Council Clerk Moves On"

(CC Clerk Ann Larson shows farewell card from County Council)

“The County has been like a family to me. At times a slightly dysfunctional family . . .”

If the County Council thought they could take a good humored stab at their departing clerk, suggesting that accepted a job with newly elected State Senator Kevin Ranker was analogous to stepping off a cliff, they may not have expected an equally on-point repartee from her.

In her prepared remarks to the Council, she compared her previous research in South America working with primates : “Surprisingly, chasing monkeys in the rainforest and working for politicians was much more similar than I expected.”

She will now be working with a new politician at the state level. Larson said she plans to continue living on San Juan Island, and will commute to the mainland to run a new office Ranker plans to open, but will be in Olympia when the legislature is in session.

The Council has joked about Ranker’s Raid on their staff, but one sensed that while making light of it, they were not quite so happy about the matter as their joking indicated.

Staff member Lisa Brown has been appointed the Acting Council Clerk while interviews are conducted to find a replacement for Larson.