In the wake of Hurricane Ives

Redmond Mayor Rosemarie Ives is stepping down after 16 years. Really.

Four years ago, the longest-serving Eastside mayor with the tsunami personality threatened the same thing, but jumped back in. She was encouraged by Redmond voters' overwhelming rejection of a ballot measure to switch to a professional manager rather than an elected mayor. Ives swamped her challenger with 63 percent of the vote.

This year, Ives resisted running again. Those who would succeed her breathe a little easier now that they won't have to face the incredibly popular mayor who is like a force of nature.

Deborah Akerstrom, former editor of the defunct weekly Sammamish Valley News, remembers Ives storming up the Leary Way office's back stairs to confront her about an editorial.

"She was definitely fired up," said Akerstrom. "She really cared."

That's the consensus about the charismatic Ives from friends and foes alike. She will leave office with a commendable record of shrewdly preserving green space in the face of high development tensions.

Vying to succeed her are two current council members, Jim Robinson and John Marchione, and former member Holly Plackett, who left her seat four years ago to run for mayor. All three offer lower-key styles and promise more-collaborative relationships with the council.

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Redmond mayoral candidates answer questions about their candidacies and the author participates in a question-and-answer session at www.seattletimes.com/editorialsopinion/

Officials in Redmond and elsewhere, not to mention newspaper writers, knew when Ives was on the phone, she would be serving up layers of passion, persuasion and, yes, scolding stacked like the flapjacks at her monthly breakfasts at the Family Pancake House on Redmond Way.

Ives' gale force not only helped shape Redmond, the home of Microsoft, but also vigorously stirred her relationships with the council. In December, a majority of five council members (of seven) spurned her budget and substituted one they considered more frugal and sustainable. Though such tensions are common between councils and independently elected mayors, Ives took personally that the council didn't follow her budget vision.

"It is sickening to see the personal vindictiveness on the part of these five at the expense of the city of Redmond," Ives said last week. She described their budget as a leadership failure.

Leading the council revolt was Marchione, finance committee chairman. He and other council members say they put the mayor on notice months earlier they were embracing a "Priorities of Government" budgeting model. The mayor chose to ignore them.

Leaders in neighboring cities are curious to see if a new mayor will be less "turfy" than Ives and more willing to join forces on services, such as the new Bellevue-based centralized emergency-dispatch system for Northeast King County.

"Rosemarie is all for regionalism, as long as Redmond is at the center of the region," said Councilman Pat Vache.

Marchione, who has racked up endorsements from mayors of neighboring Kirkland, Bellevue and Duvall, promises a more-regional approach to city management. He'd also like to corral density to downtown and the Overlake area, abutting Bellevue.

If Marchione is elected, the Meydenbauer Center's outgoing finance director will claim the job his mother, Doreen Marchione, lost to Ives in 1991.

Robinson, a Boeing financial analyst and 16-year council veteran, stood by Mayor Ives in the budget battle. He's peeved at the majority of his colleagues who he says iced him and another Ives ally, Kim Allen, out of the budget loop.

A state auditor's office spokeswoman confirmed the city's annual audit will include a review of selected council audio recordings to discern whether city business was conducted improperly outside the public eye. The report is expected this summer.

Robinson promises more-open government and a shrewd review of the city's revenue stream to preserve Redmond's quality of life and services.

Plackett is brimming with ideas, too. Among her objectives is engaging citizens more in city policy discussions and attracting a university branch campus to Redmond. A longtime advocate for affordable housing, Plackett has left her job as a US Bank commercial banking team leader to concentrate on her campaign.

In the meantime, Ives has not yet endorsed in this race. But true to form, she is particular about what her Redmond needs.

"The city has capable managers," Ives said. "What the city needs is a visionary."

Come January, for the first time in a long time, it will be someone else's vision.

Kate Riley's column appears regularly on editorial pages of The Times. Her e-mail address is kriley@seattletimes.com