SHORELINE — Shoreline resident George Daher has filed a referendum with the city of Shoreline to repeal a city council resolution that limits public comment time at meetings and how council members address the public outside of meetings.
He also filed an initiative with the city that would reinstall the city’s Hearing Examiner’s right to subpoena. The referendum and initiative were filed May 6.
The city has 10 days to respond to the filing to determine if the two measures are appropriate for the referendum and initiative process. If the measures are found appropriate by the city, Daher would have 90 days to get 15 percent of the registered voters who voted in the last general election to sign the petitions for the initiative or the referendum to make to the next general election ballot — the September primary.
“I filed the referendum because what the council has effectively done is silence dissenting opinion,” Daher said, referring to a council decision April 28 to limit public comment opportunities at meetings and to require council members represent council decisions over their own personal views when representing the council at official meetings or events.
“The city wants to be able to lobby other government agencies without having these alternative opinions surfacing,” Daher said. “The city is trying to remove any doubt of their position and they don’t want any council member appearing or testifying or going to any meetings with an opinion that is outside what was voted on.”
Daher said he filed the initiative to reinstall the Hearing Examiner’s right to subpoena, which was taken away in 2001 when the city did a major revamp of its hearing processes.
Daher said removing the hearing examiner’s right to subpoena affected a case that Shoreline residents Tim and Patty Crawford have against the city of Shoreline and Aegis Assisted Living of Shoreline, a senior living facility that has been built near what environmentalists call an arm of Thornton Creek.
“In the Crawford’s case, they wanted to bring in expert biologists that work for the state of Washington, but they found out that state employees could not appear on behalf of the Crawfords unless they are subpoenaed. But the city took that right of subpoena away from the Hearing Examiner,” Daher said.
City attorney Ian Sievers said removal of the Hearing Examiner’s power to subpoena was a part of a larger revision of the city’s 1995 regulatory rules and had nothing to do with the Crawford’s case.
Sievers said Tuesday the two measures Daher filed will most likely be rejected because they address policy decisions and not city ordinances, and thus the power to overturn them by initiative or referendum does not apply.
“The two statutes for both council rule-making and hearing examiner rules, under our ordinance, have no initiative or referendum power,” he said. “The ability to file referendums or initiatives only applies to ordinances, so (Daher’s measures are) not appropriate because they challenge powers given by the state Legislature to the city council.”
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