On April 14, the Auburn City Council appointed Lisa Stirgus to complete the eight months left of former councilmember Larry Brown’s term.

Stirgus will fill the position until the last council meeting in December after voters in the November election have chosen a councilmember to fill a full-four year term.

Brown resigned on Feb. 16 for medical reasons.

Seven Auburn residents made the final cut from an original field of 44, but one of them was not present in council chambers at Monday’s meeting. In addition to Stirgus, other finalists were Carmen Goers, Erica Tomas, Adib Altallal, and former councilmember John Holman.

Here’s how Stirgus introduced herself.

In 2018, Stirgus said, she and her husband, having decided to move from West Seattle, went looking for a house. Somewhere, they told their real estate agent, between Seattle and Lakewood so as to avoid the heavy traffic between State Route 167, Highway 18 and I-5. And so, they picked a little dot on the map that met their criteria and the real estate agent led them to what would become their Auburn home.

“Since then, my husband ended up randomly getting a job a mile down the street from our home, and got very involved in Auburn. I was working in Lakewood and very involved in Tacoma and Seattle. With that, I get to be a wife of someone who cares deeply about Auburn. And, fast forward, it was a city that is now home to us, and something that I care very deeply about.”

Since then, Stirgus said, she’s been the plus-one at all of the Auburn Chamber of Commerce events, listening to her husband talk about the progress and the issues with the Auburn Police Advisory Committee he’s served on for the past five years. Also, listening to him share with her the progress and the lack of progress with the Auburn Public Schools Foundation Board, of which he is a member. Most recently she has chaired the nonprofit Junior Achievement Board of Directors.

Though she’d never done anything political before, Stirgus said, in 2023 she applied opposite current councilmember and Deputy Mayor Cheryl Rakes to fill the council seat vacated by former councilmember and now State Rep. Chris Stearns.

“As a community member who drives up and down Peasley Canyon and wonders why it just keeps looking worse and worse. … And my daughter was feeling very deflated as a millennial, wondering, ‘What can we do to make a difference, mom?’ And I’m like, it starts in your home, it starts in your neighborhood, it starts in your city. So, I thought, it starts in our city, and the only way to make a difference is to show up and try to be an advocate to make your city better, Stirgus said.”

In addition to her daughter, Stirgus said she was strongly motivated to run for office by her hairdresser and friend who owns a small business in Auburn. She decided to apply when that friend was having serious issues with downtown troublemakers.

“I thought, gosh, this needs to be better, and community members like us who really care need to just stand up and try to help,” Stirgus said. “I lost by 309 votes to Cheryl Rakes. That was a huge learning experience for me, and I know it was an opportunity for me to learn how to advocate as a community member.”

“I have a wide variety of background, from being a teenage mom to getting payday loans and not being able to pay them off in time, to having a 454 credit score, to then being an executive in banking. I’ve lived a life that can relate with a lot of community members here in Auburn. I am a listener, and I’m a fast learner.”