The second day of the  Edmonds City Council retreat Friday featured a presentation on responsibilities and communication between councilmembers. A team of former councilmembers from another city gave several examples of both positive and negative decision and communication scenarios.

On the decision front, it was pointed out that councilmembers should not feel pressured to make quick decisions until they have been presented all the facts and consider all the possibilities. They need to be careful to not to make snap judgments when presented with emotional appeals. Thorough research is always the preferred course of action.

One of the major concerns expressed by the council is how can they appropriately discuss issues as a large group without dragging out council meetings with excessive detail. The difficulty is that the only chance they have to meet outside of their regular council meetings is during committee meeting night and sometimes it would be better to have a larger group together than can be allowed during those meetings. A larger meeting creates potential for violation of the Public Meetings Act, if they make decisions at of the meeting without informing the public of such a meeting.

A compromise was proposed that regular council meetings will now be held on the first and third Tuesday of the month. The second Tuesday will remain Committee meeting night as in the past, but with the possibility of convening a “workgroup” session of the entire council if the need arose. But decisions would not be made unless an emergency came up.

The fourth meeting of each month then would be a workgroup session — a non-decision-making meeting but with the opportunity f0r the entire council to investigate issues without presentations being made before multiple committees if the issue involved, say, both finance and public safety or other multi-committee issues. Again, decisions would be  wake up delayed until the next regular council meeting unless there was an emergency.

The problem is to not let these workgroup sessions become decision-making sessions without giving the ublic proper notice. It requires a lot of self-restraint by Council members.

Another issue raised was the possibility of starting meetings at 6 p.m. rather than 7 p.m. so the meetings don’t go so late. This is, of course, offset by added difficulty for the public and participants to get there by 6 p.m. No decision was made, but be aware that the issue is being discussed.

After a quick break for lunch, the council heard a presentation from the 
Edmonds Center for the Arts. The presentation covered the history of the building, the history of its transformation into the ECA, a report on current operations and, finally, of the financial obstacles facing the organization. While the presentation was interesting, no one on the Council asked any hard questions or pushed for solutions on the economic perils. Perhaps those ideas are to come later.

The most heated presentation of the day followed with a discussion of the  17-member Economic Development Commission. There is strong disagreement on what the purpose of the EDC is. Councilmembers Plunkett and Buckshnis want to
limit the commission’s focus to those things that spur a growing economy and  don’t want to hear any suggestion that would involve new taxes or fees on existing residences or businesses. Others wanted to EDC to have the freedom to look at any issue that they feel is beneficial to the financial health of the city. Newly-elected councilmember Joan Bloom asked what the issue was, what had the EDC proposed that was causing such a ruckus? No councilmember responded and Edmonds Economic Development Director Stephen Clifton pointed out that the EDC makes no decisions but can only send recommendations to the council, which still has final say.

No final agreement was made but Council President Strom Peterson said that he felt the EDC was still valuable and will propose a compromise on its mission at an upcoming council meeting.

Councilmember Plunkett commented at the Jan. 23rd council meeting that he wants to do away with the volunteer Economic Development Commission. Councilmember Buckshnis hasn’t stated that she wants to abolish the ECD, but she has joined Mr. Plunkett in disparaging that valuable group.

The root cause for Plunkett’s and Buckshnis’ ECD concerns is their dislike for a proposal from that citizens’ group to invoice citizens a non-transport charge when they call 911 for EMS, and after an onsite examination EMS personnel conclude that no transport to a hospital is required. The charge will obviously be a lesser amount than for transport. There are other communities that have implemented this charge that is generally paid for by insurance companies. Charges for citizens who do not have insurance will be written off.

This non-transport charge has been deemed by the two council members to not be economic development. What is economic development? My view is that economic development is any action/activity, other than increasing taxes, that grows the city’s revenue. To suit their purposes, Mr. Plunkett and Ms. Buckshnis have defined the non-transport charge to be a tax. How ridiculous; they haven’t defined the transport fee to be a tax! I think that they should let us all know the names of their health insurance companies. Wouldn’t we all like to have health insurance companies who would pay taxes for us.

Mr. Plunkett has stated that he feels that the ECD has diluted their mission of economic development by spending their time to develop this non-transport proposal. Since the formation of the ECD in 2009, I have attended, as an observer, all but two or three of the commission’s monthly meetings. Regrettably, most council members, including Mr. Plunkett, have not attended a single meeting. Had he done so he would have known that the proposal took only a miniscule amount of the commission’s time. Virtually all of the work was done at home by commission member Darrol Haug.

So rather than criticizing the group, Mr. Plunkett and Ms. Buckshnis should be commending them for coming up with a viable source of revenue, at no cost to citizens, that no one else had conceived. I hope that at the council retreat this week city council will extend the ECD’s duration indefinitely, as is the case for other volunteer groups like the Hwy 99 Task Force and the Citizens Technical Advisory Committee. It’s reasonable to assume that there will always be a need for a focus on economic development.

Ron Wambolt
Edmonds

P.S. The following is another paper’s published response from Councilmember Plunkett: “I’ll leave it to Ron Wambolt to explain to the people of Edmonds as to why he wants to tax their 911 emergency phone calls. And I’ll focus on stopping Ron Wambolt or any one else from taxing 911 emergency phone calls.”

The EDC’s proposed charge is clearly only defined as a tax in Mr. Plunkett’s exclusive dictionary. His response immediately above is no more than a filibuster tactic.

The Edmonds City Council had day one of their two-day retreat today at the Brackett Room of City Hall. The retreat is meant to be an opportunity to discuss the larger-picture issues and help set direction for the Council’s actions for the coming year.

The session started with a discussion of whether to take actual minutes of executive sessions rather than just notes as is the current practice. City Attorney Jeff Taraday mentioned that one of the purposes of executive sessions was to keep private council members’ discussions on particular issues. He read the Revised Code of Washington where those reasons are outlined, primarily for addressing employee performance or relations issues or items where public disclosure of negotiations on contracts, real estate transactions or similar items might compromise the City’s negotiating position.

Taraday stated that taking actual minutes would require some public exposure, as they would require approval at an open meeting and there is also no guarantee that a court would hold such minutes to be exempt from public disclosure requests. He stated that many cities are now keeping no record of executive sessions to avoid such issues.

That, however, brings up the problem of how to keep track of what is decided in executive sessions. There were various perspectives put forward on what to do on the issue. Councilmember Joan Bloom made the point that ultimately the “right thing to do” was to release minutes or notes of what goes on in executive session, with the exception of perhaps personnel issues. There may be a need to delay disclosure; for example, when discussions involved negotiations or legal issues, then the right time would be after the negotiation or legal issue was resolved. But, at the appropriate time, all should be disclosed to the citizens, Bloom said.

Others thought not having things on the record was best for protecting the city from disgruntled litigation based upon executive session discussions. They treaded very lightly on the notion that these items be “non-disclosed” versus “secret.”

The ultimate decision was to try and work out the issues and make a decision on what to do some time during the first half of 2012.

Next, the council received a presentation on “Budgeting For Outcomes” for future financial budgets. The City of Redmond’s Finance Director was supposed to make the presentation but illness forced him to miss the meeting. On quick notice, Edmonds Finance Director Sean Hunstock picked up the ball and laid out the concept for the council. Basically, the concept is a variation of zero-based budgeting — rather than basing this year’s budget on last year’s actuals plus adjustments, each new budget starts from scratch based on what we need to provide to the citizens of Edmonds and how we most efficiently provide those things.

This system requires prioritizing government services and the getting proposals from the various departments, or groups of departments, on how best provide those services. Then you approve the services down the list of priorities until you use up all the available money.

The point is that special interests are not served to the exclusion of the overall priorities of the city. The hard part, of course, is determining the priorities in the first place and the developing a system to get the proposals to meet the priorities, then making the decisions.

This is not a process that a city can convert to overnight, but those cities that use the system feel it really allows them to better allocate resource to fit the needs of their constituents.

There will be more presentations and discussions on this topic in the future, and input from the public will be key in both deciding if this is a good system and if it is, developing the priorities.

Each of the various city departments then made presentations on their plans for the year, their challenges and their expected accomplishments. The presentations give the councilmembers a good look at how the departments are implementing their 2012 plans.

The final part of day one was a discussion of the city’s code and areas that need updating.

Day two of the retreat will start at 10 a.m. Friday, again in the Brackett Room. The public is invited to attend. The agenda includes:

1.            Discussion of the responsibilities of each in a Mayor/Council form of government

2.            Discussions of the Roles and Responsibilities of Council Committees

3.            Presentation on the Center for the Arts

4.            Discussion on the Role of the Economic Development Commission

5.            Introduction to Support 7 Citizen Volunteer Emergency Response

This is a unique opportunity for students to spend 15 days (approximate dates are July 23 – Aug. 6) staying with a family in Edmonds’ sister city Hekinan, with day trips to visit local sites and trips to Nagoya and Kyoto.

Deadline to apply is Feb. 28; pick up a packet at 700 Main Street or call 425-771-0231.

Based on an idea that Earling heard while he was door-belling during his recent election campaign, these twice-monthly events are designed to provide an opportunity for constituents to talk with the Mayor about city-related concerns. Meetings are on the second and fourth Fridays of every month from 8-9 a.m. in the Mayor’s office, third floor of City Hall, 121 5th Ave. N., and will be broken into four, 15-minute intervals.

To schedule time with Mayor Earling, call the Mayor’s office at 425-771-0247 or email carolyn.lafave@edmondswa.gov

The meeting will begin at 6:30 p.m. in the Council Chambers, Public Safety Complex, 250 5th Ave. N. The  council is scheduled to meet in executive session regarding a real estate matter for approximately two hours.  No action is anticipated  following the meeting, and executive sessions are not open to the public.

There is no regular City Council meeting Tuesday, because the council and mayor will be holding an executive retreat Thursday and Friday. The  public is invited to attend.

As part of the City’s ongoing watermain replacement project, construction activity will increase along 5th Avenue South  from Walnut Street to Elm Way, including additional trenching and temporary patching of the roadway. Upon completion of this work, all the temporary patching will be replaced with a permanent repair.

The additional work is planned for the week of Feb. 6, and the construction is expected to continue intermittently over the month of February. It’s possible the work could extend into early March to account for any possible delays due to inclement weather or unforeseen site conditions.

Daily updates of the affected areas in the corridor will be posted on the City of Edmonds website, www.edmondswa.gov and concurrently via Twitter @edmondspw.

Construction activity will focus on connecting the newly installed water lines into the City’s existing system and replacement of individual water services for numerous businesses and homes along this corridor. Construction will affect street parking from 7am to 5pm along this corridor and cause some traffic delays. The project is scheduled to conclude the week of Feb. 27.

Thursday, Feb. 2
10 a.m. – Call to order
Introduction/brief preview of retreat agenda
10:15 a.m. – Audience comments
10:30 a.m. – Executive sessions and the consequences of minutes/notes.
11:15 a.m. – Break
11:30 a.m. – Working lunch
Budgeting by Priorities presentation.
1 p.m. – Break
1:15 p.m. – Department updates and priorities for 2012
1. Finance
2. Public Works
3. Police
4. Economic Development:
- Updates on Westgate/Five Corners Special District Studies
- Highway 99 Transit Oriented Development
- CTAC Update
5. Parks, Recreation, and Cultural Services Update and 2012 Priorities
6. Human Resources Update
2:45 p.m. – Break
3 p.m. – Code Rewrites
- Building Codes
- Discrepancies in City Codes – How do we correct these?
4 p.m. – Port of Edmonds – Update on Harbor Square Master Planning Process.
5 p.m. – Adjourn

Friday, Feb. 3
9:30 a.m – Call to order
- Audience Comments
10 a.m. – Presentation on roles and responsibilities in a Mayor/Council form of government.
Noon – Lunch
1 p.m. – Committees: Roles and Responsibilities
- Expectations
- Mission Statements
- Clarify the Public Safety/Human Resources Committee
- Community Outreach, Tree Board
- Ethics
2:30 p.m. – Break
2:45 p.m. – Edmonds Center for the Arts/Public Facilities District and the role of the City.
3:15 p.m. – Economic Development Commission
4:30 p.m. – Introduction to Support 7 Citizen Volunteer Emergency Response.
5:15 p.m. – Adjourn

Thanks to City Stormwater Engineer Program Manager Jerry Shuster and Recycling Coordinator Steve Fisher, the city secured a stormwater education grant to purchase 4,000 collection bags. Then Shuster convinced the firm of Custom Bioplastics to donate 10 dog waste bag dispensers to the City of Edmonds, for a savings of $600, Buckshnis said

Dispensers have already been placed at the following “test” locations: Sunset Avenue and the Mini Park near the restrooms at the Washington State Ferry holding lanes.  They will be installed at these locations next week: City Park, Yost Park, Pine Ridge Park and the Interurban trail near Lake Ballinger. More dispensers will be added, so ideas for future locations should be directed to Parks and Recreation Department Director Carrie Hite or Manager Rich Lindsay at 425-771-0230.

“So please dog owners, scoop the poop!” Buckshnis said. “Picking up after your dog not only makes all dog owners look responsible, but it helps keep our streams and creeks clean and – by extension our lovely Puget Sound.”

Two and a half years ago, the City Council created the Citizens Economic Development Commission (CEDC) with a sunset date of Dec. 31, 2010. Having found the work of the CEDC useful but unfinished, the council extended its life for another year. At the end of 2011, finding itself with inadequate time to consider whether to end or continue the commission, the council voted to extend its life for another 90 days. Now the council will again consider whether to extend the operations of this volunteer citizen group — for one more year or several years — or whether to let it expire.

As we review the CEDC’s accomplishments, we note that we worked with the city to assure a high level of citizen involvement in planning for the future of Five Corners and Westgate. We recommended, and the City Council approved, development of a citywide strategic plan and participated in the selection of the firm that is providing professional planning assistance. We worked with the city to develop and expand the sale of the city’s excess fiber optic capacity at a price that benefits both local business and the city’s coffers. Finally, we are working on several fronts to identify opportunities to increase tourism, and much remains to be done in this area. We think these are significant accomplishments for a volunteer citizens group that operates at no cost to the city other than providing a room for monthly meetings.

If the CEDC’s life is extended, we see the work for the coming year(s) might include keeping the citizenry informed about the progress of the strategic planning process and opportunities for giving input, participating along with the council and the Edmonds Planning Board in oversight of the process, working on challenges to increase tourism to our fair city in many areas, continuing to work on sales of the city’s excess fiber optic capacity, and more. Certainly the tremendous need to improve the city’s economic well-being continues to be of paramount importance.

We are interested in knowing what the Edmonds public thinks about the future of this commission. Should it sunset or continue and why? Are there other possibilities for raising city revenues that the commission should explore in the coming year? Should there be changes made to the way commissioners are selected or operate? What do you think? Please let us know. Stephen Clifton, the city’s director for economic development, has offered to receive your input by phone or email if you wish to give it directly. He can be reached at Clifton@ci.edmonds.wa.us.