|
City Council meeting reflections
Josh -
9/3/2008
As promised at the end of my City Council story, there was far too much “color” at the meeting to fit into the small hole we had saved for the story right before our press deadline late Tuesday night. So here's a few day-after reflections on the meeting.
Have you ever watched an episode of Family Feud during a thunderstorm, and the power suddenly goes out right after John O’Hurley looks up to the board with a booming, “Survey Says …”
That kind of describes how it felt from my third-row seat at the end of Tuesday night’s City Council meeting. One second city leaders were neck deep in a discussion about new staff positions and salary schedules created by Mayor Wendy Van Orman, and the next everyone had toweled off and headlights were floating out of the City Hall parking lot.
For the basic details, read the aforementioned story. For some extra details from one of the more bizarre meetings I have attended, keep reading.
I was covering City Council for the first time in a while as our editor and city reporter, Hope Brumbach, is on vacation this week. I knew going in that the major discussion would likely be an ordinance, 165B, that amended the 2008 budget to stay in line with the way that revenue and expenditures were fleshing out so far this year.
The ordinance was up for a first reading, which is government-speak for getting it into the record and, if the Council chooses, taking up discussion on the matter. No official action was going to come on the ordinance unless everyone decided to “suspend the rules” and move it along in the process.
There were parts of the budget amendment that were straightforward – the police department received a grant and used the grant money to purchase a vehicle. As Mayor Wendy Van Orman and Councilwoman Judi Owens explained over the course of the evening, this grant and expenditure needed to be reflected in the 2008 budget to make everything in the budget line up with what actually transpired when the city undergoes its annual audit.
But other portions of the budget amendment led to some more tense discussion among the Council and mayor. Van Orman said she had used the discretion given by the 2008 budget to change some position titles and adjust some pay. She also wants to promote Community Development Director Doug Smith to city administrator, saying he’s already performing administrator duties anyway.
The discussion never made it to the city administrator portion. Council members Odin Langford, Patrick Jenkins and Susan Schuler in particular questioned Van Orman’s decision to create the new positions (and the raises accompanying some of them), arguing the Council should be involved in approving any new positions. As Councilman Brian Sayrs put it following the meeting, there appears to be a bit of a “power struggle” between at least some of the Council and the mayor at present.
At about 10 a.m., Schuler raised her hand to speak. She said she had a headache and hoped to wrap up by 10, then addressing Van Orman said, “Let me get this straight, we’re going through this painful, arduous process because you made a decision on Jan. 22 to give people raises, and now you’re bringing it before us to get our blessing so that we don’t have audit problems?”
A moment later, it was pointed out that it actually already was 10 p.m., and under Council rules they should really move to extend the meeting for a set period of time for the discussion to continue, a move that requires a unanimous vote. Owens immediately moved that the meeting be extended 15 minutes, and Van Orman went straight to a vote. Langford and Schuler voted “no” to the extension, and people were heading to the exits like it was the seventh-inning stretch at another lost-cause Mariners game.
Councilman David Crump said after the meeting he was going to push for just five more minutes to wrap up the discussion, and he wished the motion could have been made to just extend the meeting and then a discussion could ensue about how long it should be extended before an actual vote was taken, but no such luck.
|
