Two “Faces” of Sharon

Background in Business Complements Role in Politics for Sedro-Woolley’s Mayor Dillon

by Dyas A. Lawson

Sharon Dillon, mayor of Sedro-Woolley, may be one of the best examples of “synergy” around.

That popular buzzword refers to combined effects of two or more agents, if the combined effect is greater than the sum of the effects. In Dillon’s case, it’s right on.

Bearer of two public “faces,” Dillon has long been intimately involved in the family’s auto-parts business, Valley Auto Supply, Inc. She and her husband Jim and their younger son Ron own the business, which Sharon and Jim purchased from Jim’s parents, Bev and Carroll Dillon, 11 years ago. (The couple’s older son Jim is a history professor at Walla Walla Community College.)

Along with the main store at 220 W. Ferry St. in Sedro-Woolley, the Dillons have a store in Darrington and another in Concrete, along with a three-year-old auto-care center in Concrete. The Concrete parts store has been in the family for 20 years come September; the Darrington store was purchased in 1994.

With that long, broad background in business, Sharon Dillon is well able both to recognize and use in her relatively new mayoral position the skills she’s learned as a business owner and operator.

Foremost among those, she says, is the ability to deal with employees and work with people. Knowing already how to manage workers, recognize and capitalize on their strengths and adjust personnel to best take advantage of their abilities has made it easier for her to examine city personnel assignments and rearrange them to improve efficiency and service.

“You learn in business that customer service is very important, and I’m trying to improve Sedro-Woolley’s customer service and have our city workers remember that the citizens are our customers and we need to treat them with the respect and intelligence that customers deserve,” Dillon explains in a refreshing take on government.

Employees ‘superior’

“We’re actually very fortunate here; all our employees are superior and do that to a large extent anyway. They’re phenomenal; each has a different element to bring to the table and they work wonderfully together,” she adds of the city hall workers.

Dillon’s first term as mayor ends Dec. 31, 2003. Though thoroughly into the swing of things now, she anticipates running for one more term at most — unless something happens to change her plans and she ends up with only one term. “I believe in term limits and two is enough,” she avers. “And life can always change your plans.”

Among city-government skills, the first that comes to mind is the ubiquitous, and usually dreaded, budgeting. As a businessperson accustomed to dealing with finite budgets, Dillon says this has come more easily to her than it might to someone with no business background — even though she’s dealing with a $14.4 million budget with Sedro-Woolley’s coffers and, laughing, she jokes that Valley Auto Supply “finally cracked the million mark a couple of years ago. It seems like quite a jump, but in the scheme of life it’s all relative.”

With a cheeky grin, she continues, “At home, I deal with one zero; at the shop, with two zeros; and here (at city hall). we use four zeros.”

In the store, she learned to set priorities, make decisions based on those and discern where to make cuts. That’s enabled her to do the same thing with city budgets, especially now since the passage of I-695 meant a loss of $200,000 to Sedro-Woolley’s treasury and an economic downturn lost it another $100,000 in sales taxes. “We’ve had to learn to improvise,” Dillon says.

Among the things she’s implemented are streamlined garbage collecting that frees up employees to work in other departments, a new garbage truck and trash containers that will reduce the city’s Labor and Industries costs substantially, and a planning-department move to catalog each property parcel in town and all the improvements and land-related things that have been done to them.

 

Vision equals savings

Dillon admits that the new garbage truck approach looks, on paper, as if it cost money. But business background and a certain amount of vision enable her to look down the road and realize that those costs will not only be recouped by lower injury-related L&I costs, but the intangible benefits of having healthier employees. She puts her “vision” down largely to being “an ordinary person, not a career politician.”

Right now, Dillon explains, anyone wanting information on a particular land parcel must go through several sets of files: one for building-permit information, another for subdivisions and so on. Once the new database is up and running, all that information will be available at the touch of a key.

“That will improve our customer service by 200 percent and cut our staff time in half,” Dillon explains excitedly.

As Dillon talks, her hand rises occasionally and she smiles and waves at friends and acquaintances who come to the city hall window in front of her second-story office — the essence of a small-town mayor’s job, knowing her constituency. She’s a vibrant, animated woman who speaks with passion about the things she cares about, and one of those is Sedro-Woolley.

Another is partnering — a political buzzword these days that refers to smaller political entities forming partnerships with larger ones, such as small towns partnering with counties or state agencies or even the feds to get more beneficial work done. Dillon praises both the concept and its results, which include improvements done with Skagit County on Cook Road and others done with state departments.

“Skagit County was so professional,” she enthuses. “They did such a good job on Cook Road. It’s a tremendous asset to us now. Partnering gives everyone a win-win situation.”

 

Great helpers help

Dillon lauds the managers, her family and workers at Valley for their competence and willingness to step in and take up the slack her lessened presence created. She spends more time in the mayor’s office than at Valley these days, but doesn’t fret about what’s being done at the family business because of these trusted, often long-term employees.

While she enjoys the challenges of making the gears of city government mesh, Dillon says her greatest pleasure is meeting and talking to people. Though she doesn’t often think of herself as “mayor” yet — she still thinks of herself as “just plain Sharon” — others do. They’re sometimes astonished at her willingness to visit with them and pitch in to get things done. Even if that means serving coffee or answering the phone.

The biggest challenge in her job? Getting people to talk to her.

“We’re trying to put together a Community Action Plan,” she explains. “Getting people just to talk to me — to tell me what they want — has been really hard.

“I have ideas and I have plans, but is what I want what the citizens of Sedro-Woolley want? It’s their plan, and my views may not be theirs. I’m flattered that they have confidence in me to do what’s right and best, but I want to have people’s input. Differences of opinion are just that; it’s not a personal thing if people disagree, and I want people’s opinions.”

If this attitude makes Dillon a good team player, that makes her happy. “That’s what I’m trying to build in this city — a good team. We started out with good people to begin with, so the only place we can go is up.”