Everett Council moves to let more sunshine in on proceedings

Published 9:12 am Tuesday, February 23, 2010

EVERETT — Here’s how the Everett City Council elects its president.

Each fall, a councilman might suggest to a colleague he’s interested in leading the council.

If he gets a favorable reaction, he might approach his other fellows and try to gain their support in a behind-the-scenes political do-si-do.

Eventually, a vote is taken at a council meeting. The process isn’t codified. Sometimes it takes place before new council members are elected, sometimes after. Like most everything the council does, the annual selection of the council’s leader has developed through years of trial-and-error and tradition.

That’s about to change.

A public spat over the timing of council meetings has prompted the council to examine how it operates.

An open government committee put together by Council President Paul Roberts recently released a set of procedures for the full council and the public to consider. A date hasn’t been set to discuss the recommendations. That talk will happen at scheduled meeting so the public can weigh in.

A few changes already have been made. Roberts prompted city staff to move the council’s committee meetings to council chambers and publish the meeting times on the city Web site.

“I want our procedures to be clear and concise and open to the public,” he said.

He said he also wants to create a clear and efficient path for city staff and its administration to bring matters to the council for approval.

The three-page document includes suggestions that would make it easier for people to sit in on council business.

It also addresses how the council functions — for instance, how the president is elected or how a piece of legislation is` drafted.

“I’m going to be surprised if anybody thinks these are bad things,” said Councilman Drew Nielsen, who is serving on the open government committee. “They aren’t the way we’ve always done it. I don’t think that will get in the way.”

Everett is probably the only large city in the state with a council that hasn’t adopted a set of rules for how it conducts business, said Bob Meinig, a legal consultant for the Municipal Research and Services Center of Washington.

State law doesn’t require rules but doing so generally makes for more efficient government and less confusing meetings, he said.

On Jan. 6, a lack of procedures played a role in an embarrassing public spat. Two councilmen surprised the public and some of their colleagues by introducing a resolution to move three meetings a month to mornings. The previous year, another councilman had introduced a similar surprise resolution to move to all night meetings.

It was drafted weeks in advance with the help of city staff but wasn’t placed on the council’s agenda. That’s legal.

Here’s a suggestion made by the committee that might keep that from happening again: require legislation to be introduced at least a week in advance before any action is taken. An exception could be made for time-sensitive issues or emergencies.

Roberts, who has served since 2005, said he and his colleagues have always made an effort to make sure important issues get a thorough and public vetting. He pointed to the hospital expansion and commercial flights at Paine Field as examples.

Although most of the stuff that happens out of the public eye has addressed mundane stuff, the public should still have the right to be present, he said.

“For many years, we’ve done business this way ,and for the most part it’s worked,” Roberts said. “But now we are growing up.”

Debra Smith: 425-339-3197, dsmith@heraldnet.com.

Open government

An open government committee has put together a draft of resolutions for how the Everett City Council operates. A full copy is available online at cmg-northwest2.go-vip.net/heraldnet. Some ideas include:

n Setting a date for the election of council president.

n Establishing some basic rules of procedure for council meetings.

n Determining to what extent the city attorney would be involved in preparing legislation and whether that help would remain confidential.

n Only setting broad public policy in meetings when all council members are present.

n Holding council committee meetings in a single location that is easily accessible to the public.

n Posting committee meeting times and locations on the city’s Web site.

n Maintaining minutes at all committee meetings.