By TERRYL ASLA
Herald correspondent
POULSBO — Poulsbo has a new city clerk, a new city prosecutor and a new deputy police chief.
The Poulsbo City Council confirmed Mayor Becky Erickson’s appointment of Rhiannon Fernandez as city clerk and Alexis Foster as city prosecutor, on Feb. 3.
Meanwhile, Sgt. Andy Pate is serving as interim deputy police chief, succeeding John Halsted, who asked to return to his former position as sergeant.
The agreement allowing Halsted to return to sergeant was signed on Feb. 1 by the city’s attorney and the police officers’ guild attorney, Police Chief Alan Townsend told the Herald.
“Filling the permanent deputy chief position will begin later,” Townsend wrote in an email.
“In fact, I would guess it will be about a year while I have Andy work on some projects he has already started and some other new ones. Then we will begin a process to recruit a new permanent deputy chief from outside of the department.”
Fernandez succeeds Kylie Purves, the city prosecutor who took on the additional role of city clerk in November after Nicole Stephens resigned.
Purves, who worked for Poulsbo since January 2014, resigned to become assistant city attorney of Bremerton.
Fernandez will receive an annual salary of $74,162. She begins work Feb. 8.
Fernandez is a certified municipal clerk and has 14 years of experience in the public sector. She worked her way up from a member of the support staff to the position of deputy city clerk of Port Orchard, a position she has held since 2012.
A graduate of Green River Community College, she has been active in Kitsap County 4-H and is secretary of the Harbor Soccer Club. She and her husband, Tommy, a Kitsap Transit coordinator, and their two sons live in Bremerton.
Foster, the new city prosecutor, will assume her duties March 1. Her annual salary will be $93,199.
Foster was deputy prosecuting attorney in the Kitsap County Prosecutor’s Office for 10 years. During that time, she worked in the criminal division and the civil division and was the public records officer for the Prosecutor’s Office.
Foster received her doctor of jurisprudence degree from Arizona State University. She has served as director of the Pacific Northwest region of the National Black Prosecutors Association, and as a commissioner for the Kitsap County Commission on Children and Youth, as well as various other boards and committees.
She and her husband, Jason, a U.S. law enforcement officer, have two sons and live in Stendahl Ridge in Poulsbo.
