Freshmen council members in South County are learning the nuisances of city codes and how to best use council chamber microphones while adding fresh eyes to city issues.
These newly elected council members are taking a decidedly forward-looking perspective, pinpointing the work they will champion and setting out initiatives they plan to move forward in 2012.
For Benjamin Goodwin, newly elected member of the Lynnwood council, his first move will be to hone his listening skills as he learns the ropes.
“I want to hear citizens’ concerns,” he said. “I want to work with council and the administration to make this city what it should be: a place where people want to live and work in. The city has to run effectively so (residents) don’t have to worry about roads, maintenance and safety.”
Goodwin plans to keep an open mind, hearing constituent’s concerns on land use proposals and traffic in particular.
His colleague Sid Roberts wants to encourage the council, the administation and city staff to collaborate and move forward together.
“It’s about the will of the people, not our individual agendas,” Roberts said. “Going a thousand miles takes a single first step.”
Seaun Richards, a Mountlake Terrace Council freshman, wants to spend his energies in the area of economic development.
“It’s been an interesting month, very overwhelming,” Richards said. “I don’t want to just tackle topics I think are important. I want to continue to work on items that are working for Mountlake Terrace.”
It’s imperative to focus on economic development, Richards said. He intends to join in fully with ongoing efforts to build and maintain the city’s infrastructure.
Economic development is also in the spotlight for Frank Yamamoto, a new councilman in Edmonds.
To move that initiative forward he intends to use similar tools that he felt worked in structuring the city’s Economic Development Commission, which he chaired.
“Council has to work together through collaborative efforts early in the game,” he said. “We have to look at specific projects, put working groups together and get together with (city) staff. It’s about the group collaboration, not individual effort.”
Governmental transparency is another initiative Yamamoto will champion along with his newly elected colleague, Joan Bloom. Her direction is far-reaching, however, crossing all operations of the city beyond putting the city’s finance under the microscope.
Inroads have been made with the city’s new website. But she is hoping that a soon to be released organizational chart, available to the public, will clarify how departments are run and who is responsible for various city functions.
She also believes that this information will help crystallize the duties of responsibilities and oversight of city code creations and enforcement in particular.
Bloom will also keep the budget at the top of her agenda this year.
“We have to be able to sustain services,” she said. “If council chooses to go back to citizens with a levy, (council) has to clearly state we have done all we can do to ensure efficiency.”
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