The Mayor is the chief executive officer of the City with responsibilities for appointing executive department heads, directing and controlling all subordinate officers and agencies, preparing and executing the City budget, ensuring that the laws of the City are enforced, and maintaining the peace and order in the City. The legal roles and responsibilities of the Mayor are prescribed by the City Charter, state statutes, and municipal ordinances. A candidate for the position must be a citizen of the United States, a qualified elector of the State of Washington, and a registered voter of the City of Seattle at the time of filing his/her declaration of candidacy.
Seattle was incorporated by an act of the Territorial Legislature on December 2, 1869, and the City's first mayor, Henry A. Atkins, was appointed by the Legislature pending the first City election scheduled for July 1870. The City Charter, granted by the Legislature, set the Mayor's term of office at one year. Under this first Charter, the Mayor served as ex-officio President of the Common Council. A Charter amendment in 1875 gave the Mayor a vote on Council, but that provision was amended in 1886 to provide for a tie-breaking vote only.
The City's first Freeholders' Charter (1890) completely separated the Executive and Legislative branches and changed the term of office for the Mayor to two years. Through the first decade of the 20th century, elected offices in Seattle were partisan. A Charter Amendment passed by the voters on March 8, 1910, established non-partisan nominations and elections for all City elective offices. A new Freeholders Charter in 1946 changed the term of the Mayor to four years.
The Advisory Committee was created by City Council Resolution 13527 in April 1943 and originally consisted of the Mayor, City Council President, Chair of the City Council's Streets and Sewers Committee, chair of the Board of Public Works, the City Engineer, chair of the City Planning Commission, and president of the Park Board. Soon thereafter, the size of the Committee was increased by adding three additional City Council members. The Committee's task was to provide for the preparation of plans for a comprehensive series of public works projects and improvements to be undertaken following World War II. Two overriding purposes were to be served by this planning. First, labor shortages and the inability to obtain certain materials during the War meant that civic improvements had to be deferred, thus creating an inventory of much needed work, especially on the City's infrastructure. Second, was the realization that returning military personnel would need work immediately to bridge the gap to normal employment and it was going to take some time for American factories to be reconditioned from war production to peace-time production. The Committee's final report lists 318 identified projects comprising 11 million worker-hours and an estimated cost of nearly 52 million dollars. The report includes project sheets for each recommendation organized by City agency or function. They include project name, a priority rating, estimated costs, the status of planning for the project, a justification for the proposed project, and various maps and charts related to agency projects.
Records are open to the public.
[Item and date], Post-War Public Works and Improvements Advisory Committee Final Report, Record Series 5210-02 Box [number], Folder [number]. Seattle Municipal Archives.