EDMONDS – There will be a changing of the guard this year in Edmonds.
It won’t happen in the mayor’s office, where Gary Haakenson has been re-elected to a second term. It will happen in the presidency of the City Council, from which Dave Earling, who has served in the job for the past three years, will depart after giving up his Council seat to run for Snohomish County executive.
The issue with the Council presidency is one less of power than of responsibility, with the president’s jobs consisting of running Council meetings in the mayor’s absence; setting the agenda for Council meetings, which is often done anyway by consensus or need; assigning Council members to study committees, scheduling committee hearings and supervising the committee system, and supervising the Council staff support person.
The Council president receives $100 per month plus $25 per Council meeting in addition to the pay Council members receive – $600 a month plus $50 per meeting up to eight meetings. Members who were on the Council before the pay was increased receive $350 per month.
In the selection process, someone from the Council makes a nomination, the nomination is seconded and the Council members vote.
The Council president has often, but not always, been selected based on seniority. Earling has been the most senior member of the Council since John Nordquist left at the beginning of 2000, but at times others further down the seniority list have served in the position. For half of 1999 and all of 2000, Tom Miller occupied the Council president’s seat.
With Earling gone at the beginning of the year, the senior member will suddenly become Michael Plunkett, first elected in 1997. Plunkett served as Council president pro-tem, who fills in for the Council president in his or her absence, in 2001. Plunkett would like to see a system implemented in which whoever the senior Council member is automatically serve for a year, and then to have the job rotated every year based on seniority thereafter – “because I think the position should be institutionalized and depoliticized.”
Rotating the position would increase the each Council member’s knowledge of how the Council operates, Plunkett said. “I think the job should be something everyone experiences and everyone gets involved in,” he said.
He believes committee assignments should be rotated as well. The system would be customary rather than statutory, Plunkett said, noting that otherwise the Council members would not actually be voting on the position.
“I don’t have to be some great desire that I have to be Council president,” Plunkett added. “It’s somewhat incumbent on me to do it because I’m the senior member.”
Council member Dave Orvis, who having been elected in 1999 will become the next-most senior member, supports the idea of rotating the Council presidency and committee assignments.
“I think that’s the way to go,” he said. “That way we all can build our experience level and educate ourselves. It would produce better Council members,” he said.
Plunkett said he had no problem with Earling serving as Council president and that he believes he did a good job. But, he said, “I don’t think the same people should be Council president year after year after year.”
Plunkett said electing a Council president based on anything other than seniority “infers there is something about the Council presidency one member can do and another member can’t and I think that’s a false premise,” he said.
Council member Jeff Wilson, elected in 2001, disagreed.
“I tend to want to vote for a Council president based on who I respect and who I think is going to do the best job of representing the city as a whole,” he said. Some members have “leadership and communication skills” that suit them for the job, Wilson said. He said he was raised to believe that someone should advance “because of the hard work you do and not just because you happen to be there.”
The unwritten part of the job is talking to other Council members to build consensus on tough issues, Earling and Haakenson said. Earling served as Council president for six of his 12 years on the Council and Haakenson served in 1998 and half of 1999.
“The bigger the issues are, the harder the Council president has to work,” Haakenson said. “I think the Council president has to be a leader, has to build consensus and you are the spokesperson for the City Council.”
In times when a big issue is coming up, Earling said, “the Council president needs to work hard in those times because it’s important that they come to a good decision.”
Richard Marin, appointed in 2001 and third in line in seniority, said in an e-mail, “I look forward to taking a turn as Council president some time in the next few years. For now, though, I will not speculate or announce ahead of time who I will vote for.”
Council member Deanna Dawson, elected in 2001, and Council members-elect Peggy Pritchard Olson and Mauri Moore could not be reached for comment.
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