Mayor Katie Wilson announced Friday she is replacing Seattle City Light’s CEO and general manager Dawn Lindell in what is the new mayor’s most significant departmental shake-up yet.
Dennis McLerran, former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency administrator for the Pacific Northwest region, is her pick to be the acting leader, starting March 4. He would need to be confirmed by the Seattle City Council if asked to stay on as the department’s permanent CEO.
City Light’s current Chief Customer Officer Craig Smith will serve as interim CEO until McLerran starts.
The CEO of City Light is the highest paid in the city, with Lindell earning nearly $500,000 a year.
City Light’s next leader will take over the department at a pivotal moment in its more than 100-year history. With power consumption increasing due to the electrification of buildings and vehicles, as well as demand for more power to fuel new data centers, the utility must double its energy output in the coming decades. That will mean significantly scaling up carbon-neutral supplies via wind, solar and geothermal farms.
At the same time, City Light’s infrastructure is aging and requires enormous investment to prevent frequent power outages. For example, the department is in the early stages of a more than $3 billion program to replace nearly 1,000 miles of buried cables.
As a result, utility rates have been steadily rising in recent years.
The department has also struggled with personnel challenges. Last year, 40 employees were implicated in a broad investigation of drinking on the job and sexual harassment, resulting in five terminations.
McLerran most recently has worked as an environmental attorney for Cascadia Law Group, representing clients including the state’s largest private utility. He previously led EPA Region 10 — which covers Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, Washington and 271 native Tribes — and the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency.
“City Light is at an important moment — facing the need to successfully address multiple challenges and opportunities, not the least of which is providing reliable and affordable electricity into the future,” McLerran said in a release.
Lindell became CEO in 2024, with more than 20 years of energy utility experience.
She started amid negotiations on the next 50-year license for the utility’s Skagit River hydropower dams and as climate impacts, such as drought and wildfires, strained the utility’s operations and drove up costs.
Seattle City Light says it gets about 40% to 50% of its electricity from dams on the Skagit and its Boundary Dam on the Pend Oreille River. Much of the rest is purchased from the Bonneville Power Administration.
The license to operate the Skagit dams expired in April 2025 and City Light is now operating under annual licenses. City Light has been working with federal and state agencies and tribal nations on a long-term agreement that includes protections for endangered fish, cultural resources and power generation.
In December, Steve Edwards, chair of the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, put out a statement celebrating that a settlement agreement had been reached for a new Skagit hydropower license. The agreement has yet to be approved by Seattle City Council.
It is unclear what this shake-up will mean for the new license.
Edwards said Friday he hopes Wilson and the council will approve the agreement.
“I want to thank the amazing team at Seattle City Light for believing in and working toward the many changes we needed to make,” Lindell said in a release, noting the utility’s work on a settlement on the Skagit.
Wilson’s announcement was met with some frustration by representatives of frontline workers, who felt they should have been consulted in her decision.
“It’s surprising that nobody contacted the workforce or community to give input on this critical decision,” said Nicole Grant, governmental affairs and political director of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 46.
In addition to Lindell’s replacement, Wilson announced she’s retaining general manager of Seattle Public Utilities, Andrew Lee.
