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Thursday, December 17, 2009

McGinn Announces Mayor's Office Staff: Mark Matassa, Marco Lowe, Allison Burson, and More

Posted by on Thu, Dec 17, 2009 at 4:46 PM

Here they are:

Ethan Raup will serve as director of policy and external affairs. Raup previously served as director of the Office of Regional Policy and Planning and deputy chief of staff under former King County Executive Ron Sims.

Mark Matassa will serve as director of communications. He is a veteran journalist with extensive experience that includes working as state politics editor at the Los Angeles Times and then as political editor at The Seattle Times. Matassa also worked at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, first as city editor and then as assistant managing editor. He is a pioneer in on-line journalism, having founded Personal Reader, one of the very first personalized news aggregation websites.

Carl Marquardt will serve as legal counsel to the Mayor. Marquardt is currently an attorney in private practice and chair of the King County Neighborhood Legal Clinics Committee. He previously worked with McGinn as a partner at Seattle law firm Stokes Lawrence.

Allison Burson will serve as executive assistant to the Mayor. Burson previously worked with McGinn as program coordinator at the non-profit Great City Initiative.

Sol Villarreal will serve as community engagement coordinator. He worked on the Obama 2008 presidential campaign as a field organizer in Ohio. Villarreal most recently volunteered on the McGinn for Mayor campaign as volunteer coordinator.

Marco Lowe will serve as director of the Office of Intergovernmental Relations. Lowe is currently chief of staff for the New York City Department of Small Business Services. He previously served as director of community relations in the Nickels administration.

Linda Cannon will continue to serve as deputy director of the Office of Intergovernmental Relations. She works to acquire and reuse federal property for parks and homeless housing uses.

Craig Engelking will serve as state legislative director. Engelking currently serves as state legislative director for the Sierra Club's Cascade Chapter, where he has worked to advance Washington State’s efforts to support the expansion of mass-transit and reduce greenhouse gases.

Shauna Larsen, the City of Seattle's DC-based federal liaison, will continue in that role in the McGinn administration. Larsen previously served as city liaison to the state legislature.

We've previously reported other members of McGinn's key staff: The deputy mayors will be Phil Fujii, the community relations manager at Vulcan, and Darryl Smith, a Windermere realtor and former city council candidate. Julie McCoy, the managing director of the Mercury Group, which conducted strategy for McGinn's campaign, will be McGinn's chief of staff.

 

Comments (8) RSS

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Will in Seattle 1
Very cool.
Posted by Will in Seattle http://www.facebook.com/WillSeattle on December 17, 2009 at 5:17 PM
Simply Me 2
Are any of these gay people?
Posted by Simply Me on December 17, 2009 at 5:43 PM
3
I remember when Julie McCoy was still the Activities Coordinator on the Love Boat. She has come a long way, baby.
Posted by SaltyGawd on December 17, 2009 at 5:57 PM
4
#2 No
Posted by Bad Omens on December 17, 2009 at 6:51 PM
5
no gays but mcginn lets dominic suck him off adoringly every other day or so
Posted by fierceadvocate on December 17, 2009 at 9:58 PM
6
Ok, so far he's been real, it's not like he's raiding the staffs of Preston, Gates & Ellis.

BTW -- I used McGinn as an example candidate at my Republican 47th meeting last night...someone who can use populism to challenge the party hierarchy.
Posted by Seattle Slew on December 17, 2009 at 10:40 PM
Will in Seattle 7
@6 - Jesus hates you. He's a liberal.
Posted by Will in Seattle http://www.facebook.com/WillSeattle on December 17, 2009 at 10:55 PM
Enigma 8
I'm so excited for Sol in particular. He was a dynamo on the campaign and am really looking forward to working with him on the Cap. Hill Comm. Council.
Posted by Enigma http://approvereferendum71.org/ on December 18, 2009 at 8:38 AM

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