Following the November election, both mayors of Maple Valley and Covington were once again reelected to serve another two years.

Maple Valley Mayor Sean P. Kelly and Covington Mayor Jeff Wagner have both seen successes during their time as mayor and they are looking ahead to another successful two-year term.

Sean P. Kelly — Maple Valley Mayor

Sean P. Kelly has been mayor for Maple Valley since 2015.

He said he wanted to become mayor to form relationships with the community partnerships.

“(I wanted to) strengthen our community partnerships with the Maple Valley Fire and Life Safety fire commissioners, the Tahoma School District board of directors and our water and sewer district commissioners,” he said.

According to Kelly, the council and the partnerships with the community have really paid off over the years. He said he thinks they all work really well together.

One of the main focuses Kelly said he and the council have is to focus on what they can do.

“The thing we’re focusing on is we don’t use the word ‘no,’ we use the word ‘How are we going to make it happen?’,” He said.

He said this has been a focus because as a whole, the council members need each other to move forward on projects, no matter how hard they may seem.

Kelly said he makes sure fellow council members are able to get the projects they want to do within the community done.

“My big thing for me at the chair (on council) is to make sure I support the council members on whatever project they’re working on and make sure they get recognized for them,” Kelly said.

For example, Kelly said the new Tahoma High School was former council member Bill Allison’s project. Kelly said he made sure to support Allison while the project was in the works and made sure he was the one who gave the big speeches at events pertaining to the new school.

While looking back on projects, Kelly said he and the city accomplished a lot in the last two years.

“When you see the projects completed and see how much collaboration and partnerships we had to do to get these projects done, that’s what makes it fun,” he said. “The council took a big step forward, with the revenues forecasting we allocated just over $10 million to the parks department for the Lake Wilderness park, rebuilding the boat house and building Summit Park.”

Looking to Kelly’s next term as mayor, he said the one thing he would like to change or to work on would be to have better public outreach.

“I kind of wanted to do more outreach to the citizens, to do more open house type events and I think we’re going to work on that (and) talk about that at the council retreat on the 27th (of January),” Kelly said.

He said he wants the community members to know they can talk to him or any of the council members for whatever questions they might have. He also said he wants the community to be more involved with the city as well.

His favorite part about being mayor is seeing projects get done and seeing citizens using the completed projects, he said.

Kelly also said he wants to make sure Maple Valley stays one of the safest cities.

“We want to continue to be one of the safest cities in the state. We have an outstanding partnership with the sheriff’s office and Maple Valley Fire and Life Safety,” he said. “The main goal is to just try really hard the next several years to get our citizens engaged in the public process.”

Jeff Wagner—Mayor of Covington

Jeff Wagner said he has been on the city council for Covington since 2004 and is happy to call himself mayor now.

“I just enjoy leading our council and facilitating the meetings, I wanted to continue to be a regional spokesperson for our city,” he said.

Looking at the last two years of his time as mayor, Wagner said he thinks the city went through some big topics of discussion and also got a lot done.

For example, the council worked on the Lakepointe Development and discussed safe injection sites. He also said the council and other city employees came up with a lot of park plans to move forward with the master plan for the Jenkins Creek Park project.

He said Covington has seen an increase in population, a lot of which are very young.

“I have seen a growth of population. The biggest portion of our population is under 18 years of age and that is a key factor to me. Making sure we have parks and recreation for all of our youth and for adults as well. Making sure we have a great city to live work and play,” he said.

Wagner said he sees the population growing and the city becoming a South King County destination. With the new Lakepointe Development, the city is creating traffic patterns and bringing more people to Covington, he said.

As far as making improvements, Wagner said he wants to increase the communication with the public.

He wants the public to know what’s going on within the city and wants to make sure they are getting enough information. Wagner said he would like to hear from the public more.

“I love meeting with people. Costco and Fred Meyer, those are the biggest meeting places I go to,” he said.

Along with communicating with the citizens, Wagner said he would also like to be in better communication with businesses within the area as well.

“I sit on the Chamber of Commerce Covington board of directors, and I want to continue to be more involved with the businesses, to help the businesses to thrive and survive,” he said.

Wagner said he would also like to see a steady revenue stream for transportation and to try to fix roads within his next term as mayor.

He said he thinks the council is working hard to make these changes.

“I really think the direction that our council is moving forward with our parks and economic development, it’s going to continue to make our city a great place to live,” he said.

Overall, Wagner is looking forward to his next term as mayor and said he favorite part of his job is seeing the smile on kids’ faces when they participate in sports around the area and when they use the parks.

“I have three little girls and when we get out to the parks, seeing their smiles and all the kids that are around them, that’s pretty good,” he said.

“I just look forward to continuing on the city council and working with a great group. Our council is a very good group of individuals, and we have a great city staff that looks out for what’s best for our city,” Wagner said.