Former Pasco mayor spent nearly three decades serving the city. He died at 80

Former Pasco mayor E.A. “Duke” Snider who worked for the city for nearly 30 years died Sunday at age 80.

The Tacoma-native graduated from Pasco High School in 1958, then went to work as a Pasco patrol officer in the early 1960s.

That kicked off his long and respected career in several city roles.

“One thing I like about small town politics is that you’re accessible 24 hours, seven days a week, unless you leave town,” he told the Herald for a story about his retirement in 1991. “For any decision you make that’s controversial, you can figure you’ll make half the people mad.”

The number of people he made mad didn’t appear to be enough to stop being repeatedly elected.

He spent 16 years on city council before his retirement, serving three of those years as mayor. During that time he took a solid stand against the generalization that all politicians were corrupt.

“Most politicians are well intentioned and honest as the day is long,” Snider said at the time. “If you are corrupt, a state audit will get you in a heartbeat.”

He also was an advocate for a robust police force to fight the rising crime rate associated with drugs in the late 1980s, and spoke in favor of a levy to increase funding in 1987, according to a Herald story.

Before he was on the Pasco City Council, he spent his first six years in town as a police officer, then became a building inspector before serving on the city planning commission for three years.

Snider, whose given name was Ellwyn, went by the nickname Duke coined by his barber after the Dodgers baseball player Edwin Donald “Duke” Snider.

He garnered the nickname while he was a police officer and the name stuck.

Mueller Tri-Cities Funeral Home is handling his funeral arrangements.

This story was originally published August 4, 2020 at 12:54 PM.