EVERETT — A group of people who believe city leaders are shutting out the public by holding regular council meetings during working hours are campaigning to let voters decide when the Everett City Council should meet.
Paul Donovan, one of the campaign organizers, said about 3,000 signatures are needed to get an initiative on the ballot that would re-establish all night meetings.
He doesn’t think collecting them would be much of a problem.
“What happened is beyond the pale,” Donovan said. “We cannot stand the old boys trying to run this place the way they want without any regard to the citizens.”
People are upset about a decision last week by the council to move most of its meetings to mornings, he said.
The move came without public notice or comment.
For decades, council meetings were held on Wednesday mornings.
In 2008, Councilman Drew Nielsen surprised the rest of the council with an ordinance changing the time of regular meetings to Wednesday nights. The majority of the council approved the change, without public comment or prior notice.
The idea was to get better attendance and participation at council meetings, where important city business is discussed and decisions are made. Some council members say there’s been no significant change in public participation since the switch; others say that’s because the council didn’t take on many hot-button topics in an election year.
People seem most unhappy about the way the decision was made, Donovan said.
“I think the fact that it was done without any deliberation — that’s the thing we’re upset about,” Donovan said. “It cries out to people’s sense of right and wrong.”
Donovan, who heads up the Northwest Neighborhood, said he’s heard from the leaders of at least seven other neighborhood associations who want to help him canvas neighborhoods for signatures.
The city charter allows people to pass a city law by initiative.
The soonest a special election could be held is April, said Garth Fell, elections manager for Snohomish County. His office would certify the signatures and run the election. Fell estimates the cost to Everett taxpayers for a special election at around $150,000.
The last time people tried to mount an initiative campaign it didn’t make the ballot, spokeswoman Kate Reardon said. In 2002 a group of citizens tried to stop the construction of the Everett Events Center on Hewitt Avenue, but the measure was deemed invalid.
The city spokeswoman didn’t know when citizens had last successfully gotten a measure on the ballot — if ever.
If the number of signatures equals 5 percent of the registered voters who voted in the last general election, then the City Council must enact the legislation as is or put it on the ballot of the next regular municipal election, according to the city charter.
If signatures equal 15 percent, the City Council must enact the legislation as is or put it on the ballot for a special election, which must be held within 45 days.
The organizers would have to gather at least 1,016 signatures to get the measure on the general election ballot, and 3,046 for a special election.
Those numbers are based on the number of registered Everett voters — 20,305 — who voted in the last general election.
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