The Federal Way City Council welcomed the newly elected members and several changes on Tuesday, Jan. 4.

Councilmembers Erica Norton, Hoang Tran, Jack Walsh and Jack Dovey were sworn into their positions at the Tuesday evening meeting.

The council elected Linda Kochmar as council president.

Later in the meeting, the council discussed adding a deputy mayor to the council, in addition to the council president role.

“What I would like to do is start an experiment,” Kochmar said, explaining the need for both deputy mayor and council president. “This is a grand experiment … to see how teamwork would work.”

The heavy work load, multitude of decisions to be made and several new council members creates a need to disperse the responsibilities, she said.

“I believe that this will work extremely well and I would like to see how it would work,” Kochmar said.

Susan Honda, former council president, was elected as the deputy mayor and sworn into the role on Tuesday night.

Photos courtesy of the City of Federal Way Left, Susan Honda is sworn in as deputy mayor on Jan. 4. Right, Linda Kochmar is sworn in as Federal Way City Council president.