Ring Those Bells

Vancouver City Mayor Tim Leavitt and Councilors Bill Turlay, Bart Hansen, Jack Burkman and Larry Smith took turns Saturday afternoon ringing bells for The Salvation Army.

The men of the council were posted next to a red kettle outside of Nordstrom at Westfield Vancouver mall.

Here’s Leavitt and Burkman:

Here’s Leavitt, Hansen and Hansen’s son Lou. (And this isn’t the first lesson Bart has taught his son about community service.)

And here’s Turlay and Smith:

Burkman said he was recognized by several people who either know him through his work for the city or from his 28 years with Hewlett-Packard.

Leavitt said no one called him “One-Term Tim” or tried to get in a fight over the Columbia River Crossing. Some shoppers said, “Hello, Mr. Mayor” and a few people asked to take a picture with them.

I was going to joke about how OF COURSE Leavitt would stand outside Nordstrom over all other mall entrances, but he said a coordinator at Salvation Army suggested the location.

The Nordstrom kettle wasn’t the only one Leavitt manned. Last Friday he went to keep a fellow mayor company at a Safeway in Washougal.

The Camas student posing with them, according to Facebook, is Arianna Kretzschmar, who had to congratulate Mayor Sean Guard and make a donation to the Salvation Army red kettle because Washougal won the “Stuff the Bus” food drive this year. (Camas and Washougal have a long-running Stuff the Bus rivalry.)

Note that Leavitt changed scarves, wearing his Cougar colors to contrast Guard’s UW Santa hat.