How could Federal Way be ranked the ninth most stressful city in the state? There must be 300 other cities in the state.

We have the tranquil Hylebos wetlands, beautiful views of Puget Sound and Mount Rainier. Our high schools keep turning out great athletic teams for us to cheer for. While we have some challenges, Federal Way is a pretty good place to live.

I know  the election was stressful for many voters trying to keep track of which special interest group was attacking which candidate. You kind of needed a scorecard, or a target list. But really, what could be the problem?

According to a study by Credit Donkey, five key factors were considered in naming the most stressful cities. They were: likelihood of being a victim of a violent crime, average commute time, average hours worked per week, percentage of divorces and percentage of household income spent on housing.

I still don’t believe it! I joined 200 other residents at a community meeting and the police chief assured me we live in a safe community. Although I did feel a little confused, which may have caused some stress, when the mayor said he was going to ask for more police officers anyway. If we’re safe already, why do we need more police?

What about commute time? The study says we have an average of just under 30 minutes commute to work each way. Wow! That’s outrageous! Let me figure my commute. I leave my house and drive to the Starbucks, Gents barbershop, Mail Copy and More and the Mirror office at the top of the hill. I admit when it reaches five minutes of road time my language does get a little salty. Thirty minutes would certainly stress anyone out. And think of the people who  commute to Seattle or Tacoma.

Apparently, we work 37.7 hours a week and that also contributes to our stress. Well, of course it does. We have stuff to do, such as take kids to school, meet friends for drinks, snow ski, water ski and hike on Mt. Rainier. Working more than 20 hours a week gets in the way.

The study goes on to say spending 25.9 percent of our income on housing is stressing us out as well. That’s easy, we should all get pay raises, shouldn’t we? Well, some should. As many of our readers have pointed out, I’m already overpaid, but there are people in town who have “real jobs” and maybe they should get a raise.

The items in the survey didn’t sound all that stressful, so I started to think about all the other things that might give us stress.

A Performing Arts and Conference Center for $32 million, and South King Fire and Rescue wants $45 million for stations and trucks and cars, all kinds of stuff. The Federal Way school district needs more money and we have people in our city who don’t have food or a place to live.

And Weyerhaeuser is moving. Who will pick up their share of the tax burden?

My stress raises more as I think of the poor city staff person who sits at the downtown park all day with almost no company. I bet he gets lonely. And who is going to pick up all those Lego Movie signs scattered around town?

That’s really stressing me out.

But then I look at the names above us on the stress list. Bremerton is the most stressful. It should be; they have to take the ferries to go anywhere. The City of Destiny, Tacoma, is at No. 4, but they could move up if it gets any harder for traffic to get past the Tacoma Dome.

Renton is No. 6 and while they’re “ahead of the curve,” once you hit the Interstate 405 straight away it gets pretty slow. And Auburn is right in front of us at No. 8. That’s not my fault, they’ve had three mayors since me.

Actually, when I think about it, it really isn’t all that stressful to live here and we do have a lot to be be thankful for. And some day Sound Transit will have a train that will allow our residents to head north or south or stay right here and watch commuters disembark for the jobs in our downtown.

With the elections over, I’m going to stop worrying about stress, or maybe I’ll just stop reading stories about it.

Bob Roegner is a former mayor of Auburn: bjroegner@comcast.net.