Charter Review Commission - Regular Meeting

Excellent. Let's go ahead and kick this meeting off then. I'm gonna call it to order. And, Peter, can we get a roll call, please? Toyer?

Here.

Manny? Here. Gregerson? Chatters? Here.

O'Donnell? Here. Cass? Here. Decker?

Happy to be here.

Preston? Here. Dodd? Menke? Hey, Menke? McGee? Here.

Eslik? James?

Here. Galey? Here. One, two, three. Staying. 10 commissioners present.

Alright. Great. Thank you, Peter. Before we approve the agenda, one, I'm gonna ask that we move item two four, proposal number seven to the front of the stack as we have the assessor here to address, that amendment. And I'm gonna ask, treasurer Sullivan, do you do you need some time on this agenda tonight?

I'm only here just to answer questions. So

Okay. Okay. Alright. Perfect. So if I could get an approval of the agenda with that, change

So moved.

Chair Gannon, I I think that commissioner O'Donnell and I will both definitely have questions for treasurer Sullivan. Would you be in agreement to a friendly amendment to advance proposal 13 as well as I think it's 14 behind proposal seven in case there are questions for him so we can get him on his way if he needs to be this evening.

I love everything about us. We're gonna go seven, fourteen, and

Then 13. Thirteen and fourteen.

Yeah. I love a 14.

Fourteen's a new proposal. 13 is an old proposal. Okay. So we're gonna go 07:13, and fourteen, and that's a friendly amendment. Can I get a second on the original motion, please?

Second.

K. I have a motion and a second. Is there any discussion on the agenda? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. And any opposed? Alright. We have an agenda. Let's move forward then with public comment. We will ask for public comment first online. Is there anyone who wishes to provide public comment online? If you'd like

to give public comment, please raise your virtual hand. I see we have mister,

hold on. Where'd he go?

Last name, Richards. I will now unmute. You can unmute yourself, and you have up to three minutes.

Can you guys hear me?

We've got you. Yes. How are

you doing? This is Kamal. Richards here from Clark County. I'm here to urge you all to reject anything revolving around ranked choice voting. We had it proposed to our county back in 2022, and the voters voted it down unanimously. It was even voted down in the city of Vancouver. No matter which side of the aisle you're on, it is the most liberal area in our, county, and they voted it down. Ranked choice voting actually has been banned in 20 states here in the country. Okay? So that should give you some concern about how it works.

See? It also causes issues with those that have disabilities. Steve Hobbs has even spoken on this in his debate with question was Anderson. He shows the former Pierce County auditor. And, also, they try to say it's better for those that are minorities, which I don't know how that correlates, but not many, minorities get elected by the use of ranked choice voting. See? So I just wanted to let you guys know that I'll probably have more information later on if it continues to be a discussion. But I wanna let you know, do please reject any amendment that deals with ranked choice voting. Thank you.

Alright. Thank you, mister Richards. Anyone else, Peter? And, Peter, would you make sure we hit the timer?

Yep. Next one is last name Hess.

Hello. I'm Holly Hess. I live in Edmonds. I wanted to first express my support for proposals fifteen, sixteen, and 19, and anything campaign finance, reform related, increasing transparency, and getting big money out of politics. I love that.

I wanna say that I am disappointed that in the last session that the move to use RCV in the review commission elections was rejected, and the move to eliminate block voting for those elections was rejected mainly because block voting has been shown to be so discriminatory. It was outlawed federally in 1967. But for going forward, we still have the proposal 12 for using ranked choice voting in the nonpartisan general elections and in partisan primaries, and I wanna advocate for that. And I wanna urge the commission to look at the research around ranked choice voting as a whole and not rely on cherry picked one off examples where it did not work as intended. The idea of big money going into ranked choice voting, I don't know where that idea comes from.

I I'd be interested to know the, I guess, the sources for the idea that that RCV is just backed by big money. And in terms of so many states banning ranked choice voting, I'd urge all the commissioners to evaluate the motivation behind banning that method in other states. Thank you.

Thank you.

Great. Anyone else else online?

Yes. We have, last name Chase. You should be able to unmute yourself and speak. Thank

you very much. I'm sorry I'm in my car, so having a little bit of moment to check. Of course, I did pull over. No worries there. My name is Karen Chase, and I am a was on the from Edmonds in the on the commission last cycle, so I really appreciate all the hard work everyone's going in.

I know it is a difficult space to work in, and so I appreciate the folks stepping up. I am here to just lend my support for a couple of amendments that you're going to be considering tonight. One is to move elections to even year elections for the executive, etcetera, treasurer, sheriff, and county council to even number of years where most voters consistently turn out, which could as much as double the number of voters participating in elections for those critical important positions. Right now, the elections for prosecuting attorney and Superior Court judge in Sonoma County are already held in even years, and this amendment would align elections for all the other county level positions within those positions. And the other is just on office vacancy.

This one clarifies and strengthens residency requirements for city and elected officials to assure they maintain a continuous and demonstrable vested interest in Snohomish County with their residency. So I just wanted to call your attention and offer my support of those two. And I'm sorry I'm in my car. Can't look at the full agenda. I had a comment and a couple others. I am supporting the ranked choice voting and I really look forward to hearing your discussions this evening and making this available on Zoom so that it's more accessible to the public.

And that's all. Did you have more? Oh, okay. Anybody else, Peter?

There's nobody else with their hand up.

Okay. Is there anyone, live in person who wishes to provide comments at this time? Alright. Let's start. We'll go right to left. Whoever I don't if you wanna hit the podium over your phone. I think you had your hand up.

Right to left. It's my right.

My right, your left. Just

checking. Is this on as well?

Yes.

Evening, commissioners and treasurer Sullivan. My name is Mary Rollins. I live in Everett. I'm here on behalf of One Voice Snohomish County. This amendment is supported by three fifty Everett, Homes and Hope, Community Land Trust, NAACP Snohomish County, Snohomish County Indivisible, and Unidos of Snohomish County.

I'm speaking in support of the candidate political history transparency amendment. This commission is weighing a proposal to make county executive and county council races nonpartisan. One voice is not here to argue for or against that change, but we do want to talk about what it means for voters. When an office is designated nonpartisan, the party label comes off the ballot. That is the whole point.

But the candidate's actual history does not disappear. A person who ran for office multiple times on a party ticket received formal endorsements from party organizations, served in a party leadership role, and made large contributions to party committees still in that history still has that history following them. It's all on file with the state. Voters just have to look to know to look for it, know where to find it, and have time to do it. Most voters do not, and they should not have to.

This amendment requires the county to do that work for them. Each candidate for county executive or county council would file a disclosure statement at the time they file for office covering their political activity over the previous twelve years. This would appear in the official voters pamphlet in the same format for every candidate. This is not about disqualifying anyone. This amendment is clear.

Political history does not determine eligibility. A candidate's history or the absence of any history is information only. Voters decide what to make of it. What this amendment does is make sure voters have some starting point regardless of how an office is labeled on the ballot. The information already exists.

The county already publishes voters' pamphlets. This connects those two things in a way that serves the public. On behalf of three fifty Everett, Homes and Hope Community Land Trust, n double a c p Snohomish County, Snohomish County, Indivisible, and Unidos, Snohomish County, we ask this commission to advance this amendment. Voters who are informed make better decisions. This is the only argument we are here to make. Thank you.

Thank you.

Short people have to make adjustments. Good evening, everyone. My name is Nadine Shanti, and, I'm speaking on behalf of One Voice Snohomish County. This amendment is supported by three fifty Everett, the League of Women Voters of Snohomish County, NAACP Snohomish County, Snohomish County Indivisible, and Donitos Snohomish County. I'm here today to speak in support of the Clean Elections Campaign Finance Amendment.

Most people in this county have no idea who is spending money to elect their local officials. Under current rules, large outside expenditures can flow into county races with minimal transparency and no meaningful consequence for what happens afterward. An organization or an individual can spend significant money to help elect a county official and then appear before that official weeks later seeking a contract decision or a favorable vote. Nothing in the current county charter requires disclosure. Nothing requires recusal.

Nothing prevents that official from accepting money from the same political groups that funded the campaign. This amendment changes that at the charter level, which means voters, not future councils, control whether these protections remain in place. It does four things. First, it requires real time public disclosure of large independent expenditures in county elections, including who is behind them. Second, it requires elected officials to step aside from votes that directly benefit major campaign contributors.

Third, it establishes accountability standards for county contractors who spend money in county elections. Fourth, it authorizes the county to create a voluntary small donor matching program so candidates have a path to run without being dependent on large contributors. None of this is radical. Cities across Washington have adopted similar measures. The legal basis for disclosure requirements is well settled.

What is not yet settled is what's is whether Snohomish County will act. Voters deserve to know who is funding the campaigns of the people making decisions about their county. Their elected officials should be voting on the merits, not on donor relationships. This amendment draws that line at the charter level where it is hardest to undo. The organizations of One Voice ask this commission to advance this amendment to county voters. Thank you for your consideration.

Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Paula Townsell. I'm a member of the One Voice Snohomish County group, which is a nonpartisan community coalition. The amendment I'm speaking on is the one elected office at a time, which is supported by three fifty Everett, the NAACP of Snohomish County, Snohomish County Indivisible, and Oneidos of Washington, specifically the Snohomish County chapter. I'm here to speak on our shared support for the one office at a time amendment, the idea which is simple.

No one should be able to hold a Snohomish County elected office and another elected office at the same time. Not a city council seat, not a school board seat, not a state legislative seat. One office, full attention, full accountability. Voters in this county elect a county executive and county council members to do a job. That job is full time.

When someone holds two elected positions at once, the people who elected them to each are getting only a fraction of what they voted for. And when a vote comes up that affects a district or a jurisdiction where that person also holds office, there's no clean way to separate out their interest. This is not a complicated ask. It's a basic standard that most people already assume is actually in place. The amendment is careful on one point.

It restricts holding, not running. Anyone may run for any office. The rule applies only at the moment they take an oath. If you hold a county seat and you win another race, you choose. That is clear, and it's a workable line. It also applies going forward. No current office holders required to step down under this amendment. It sets the standard for future officeholders. This commission has the authority to put this question to the county voters. The organizations behind One Voice are asking you to use it. Let the people of Snohomish County decide whether their elected officials should be required to serve them fully. Thank you for your time tonight.

Thank you. Hey, Peter. Can we make sure we reset the clock, please? No. It's just free running.

Still going.

You're advancing the minutes.

Yeah. I

think I'm last, and I'm gonna be short anyway.

Eric, go ahead.

Okay. Hey, folks. Me again, Eric Bidstrip, Snohomish County volunteer for Fair Vote Washington. I'm not gonna talk to you about ranked choice voting for a change tonight. I'm here tonight to speak about kind of an awkward and incomplete aspect of proposal number five that proposes making all county offices nonpartisan.

Like to call your attention to section 4.8 of the current county charter on filling vacancies. I read directly, an elective office shall become vacant upon the death, resignation, or recall of the official or if the official ceases being a resident of Snohomish County or is absent from the county for thirty consecutive days without being excused by the council. The council shall fill this vacancy from a list of three people submitted by the county central committee of the party for which the official in office immediately prior to the vacancy represented. In the event that the official in office immediately prior to the vacancy was a nonpartisan position, the vacancy shall be filled by the council. In short, Snohomish County currently has a process for which for partisan offices, partisan affiliation is maintained.

For any vacancies in a nonpartisan council, this would result in the four surviving council members, to decide how to fill the vacancies. I'd call attention to, in spite of some of the comments made by some of the commissioners here, the partisan leadings of the Charter Review Commission are abundantly obvious to anyone paying attention. It's well known that a lot of the motivation behind this proposal, I indeed, I believe words out of his mouth directly, is to groom a path for Nate Nearing to run for county executive next year without an associated GOP label. I'd raise for your awareness that I'm not sure you've thought through the implications of what the three one remaining Democratic majority would do in likely electing another Democrat to fulfill the vacancy and achieve a supermajority. I would also remind you that the current, charter allows a four to five majority of the councils to make changes to the charter directly without even necessarily going before voters.

Might wanna think this one through.

Thank you. Thank you, Eric. Who was next right to left for us?

I think that

was Okay. Perfect.

Good evening. Thank you all for being here and for your service. I really appreciate the time that all of you take in doing this. My name is Kristen Fetterswolp. I'm a Lake Stevens resident, and I wanted to commend the commission.

I find that a number of the proposals that are put forward to be something that'd be very helpful for the county and in, increasing the extent to which the Charter Commission, and therefore the Charter, represent a wider swath of Snohomish County. I'm not going to talk about all of the proposals I agree with because I agree with many of those that you have put forward, and thank you for putting them forward. For example, limiting donations for campaigns, calling for greater transparency in the county's finances and in political affiliations of candidates. I agree with all of these. And I echo the comments that many of the others before me have made in that regard.

I want to primarily speak to proposal number 21 related to requiring a supermajority vote of the county council to raise taxes. I believe a majority is a majority, so I don't think that this is necessary. And to the extent that I am a taxpayer who is, you know, squeezed by the rising cost of everything right now and having kids in college and job questionability. I understand the motivation behind this, but my concern is that it would potentially hamstring the county in finding funding sources for necessary functions. And I don't think that we should put this proposal 21 forward to voters because it is a complicated issue, and I would like to see the county council discuss it as a body, before it is a pro the proposal goes any further.

I don't think it's necessary to have a supermajority vote. Taxes are meant to fund our government, and they're in a painful but necessary part of how government functions. So that's a note for me on proposal 21. And thank you again for a number of really well thought out proposals that are going forward. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else? Alright. We'll move forward then, to can I get an approval of the March 25 and, assume separately? Can I get approval of the March 25 minutes, please? So

moved. Second.

We have a motion to approve the March 25 minutes and a second. Is there any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor?

Aye.

And any opposed? Motion passes. And how about an approval for the 04/01/2026 special meeting minutes? Moved. K. I have a motion to have a second. Do we second? Okay. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. And any opposed? Alright. Thank you very much. Okay. Let's move forward then on, we're gonna go to, it'll be proposal seven. Assessor, you have the floor. Give us a little briefing on what do you think about this one.

Thank you. Wendy Yelley, Snohomish County assessor. I was asked to come and talk just a little bit about proposal number seven and some background maybe to this particular proposal. In doing my research and I just want to also say that, I'm not in a position to give a legal opinion. So the opinion is coming from me as experience being in the assessor's office.

The things that I share, you may want to run across your legal adviser as well. So when I first received the proposal, I looked usually at the rules. I'm a rule follower. So I like to see what are the rules currently what are the requirements currently. And what I found is that I'm concerned that this would be in conflict with current state law.

Article seven of the Constitution, title is Revenue and Taxation. Section one under taxation, it says that all taxes shall be uniform upon the same class of property within the territorial limits of the authority levying in the tax and shall be levied and collected for public purposes only. So a couple of things here that would this particular proposal would conflict with. It says it's the uniformity clause. When it says the same class of property within territorial limits, we're talking about taxing district limits.

And taxing districts are a variety of entities. So you're talking about school districts, hospital districts, fire districts. You're also talking about cities, and you're talking about the state as a whole. Many of our taxing districts cross county boundaries. So the state as a whole, obviously, crosses many county boundaries.

We have school districts, North Shore School District, that crosses King County and Snohomish County boundaries. You have Snow Isle Library that crosses those boundaries. So if you are putting into place criteria in which you're going to value property differently from one county to another, it's not going to be uniform across the entity, which then would be in conflict with the constitutional requirement for uniformity for that taxation purpose. So that's the first concern that I would have. As you move down through the RCWs, Title 84 really gives a lot of specific direction to the assessors' offices across the state on how to apply the rules and how we're devalue property for taxation purposes.

It does include highest and best use. So if you're looking at RCW eighty four point four zero point zero three zero, basis evaluation assessment and appraisal, It talks about an assessment may not be determined by method that assumes a land usage or highest and best use not permitted, meaning you need to consider highest and best use when you're valuing the property. When you go to the WACC that further defines the RCW, it's WACC 4,580,730. And it talks about true and fair value, including highest and best use. So one of the main mandates for the assessor's office when it comes to valuation is we are to value property at 100% of market value.

What we are charged with doing is trying to determine what you could sell your property for as of January 1 of each year. There are several different things that we take into consideration when we're determining that particular value or that sales price, so to speak. And one of them is, again, the highest and best use versus the current use. In this particular, WACC, you're looking at, excuse me, article three, true inferior value, highest and best use. Unless specifically provided otherwise by statute, all property shall be valued on the basis of its highest and best use for assessment purposes.

Highest and best use is the most profitable, likely use to which a property can be put. It is the use which will yield the highest return on the owner's investment. Any reasonable use to which the property may be put may be taken into consideration. And if it is particularly adapted to some particular use, that fact may be taken into consideration. Uses that are within the realm of possibility but not reasonably probable of occurrence shall not be considered in valuing property at its highest and best use.

So there is a matter of opinion on what is the highest and best use of the property, but it's also going back to what is this property going to sell for. So as an example for Snohomish County and how we take this, we like the facts, we like the data, and we like information that can be supported. So we don't like to predict the future when we're valuing property in Snohomish County. Here's an example of how we would utilize this. If you have a piece of property that's acreage, you maybe have one house on that property, so one building site.

And there's been nothing done as far as it might be zoned to be multiple use. So it might be zoned to have the ability to build multiple lots within this property, but nothing's been done. So we have no evidence to show us how many lots, where those lots could be built, what sizes they're going to be, any of that information. We're going to value it at its current use as a building site and acreage. Once that property is applied for a plat, it's been approved, there's been analysis by the planning department for whichever jurisdiction that property lies, and it says, yes, you can build this amount of lots in these areas.

This is what it's going to look like. Once we have that evidence and we we believe that the property would reasonably sell with that evidence in consideration, that's when we would value it at its highest and best use, maybe not its current use at that point in time. So I hope that helps explain a little bit about how the process is utilized for Snohomish County. Another factor is that we do have oversight. So the Department of Revenue provides oversight to all the office assessor's offices across the state, primarily in, making sure that the state school levy, all the processes that we do in order to spread out that tax burden for that state school level are done equitably, uniformly across the state.

They have a revaluation manual that you can go out and check out online as well that dictates how we do our work. And included in that is the determinations for highest and best use. So that's another resource for you to take a look at when you're making the decision on this proposal. So there you go. Questions?

All right. What questions do we have? Go ahead.

Thank you, assessor Yeli, for trying to bring some clarity here. So I I wanna give an example of, like, a question that I would hear in the community. Mhmm. So someone has a a a parcel of land, and they've lived on it for, you know, twenty years. And now all of a sudden, there's densification that has occurred, and their land now has the potential to have an apartment building built on it. However, they have a house on it, not an apartment building. Does the assessor value that property on the basis of a potential apartment building that does not exist or the improvement that actually does exist being the current house. And I understand there is a difference between valuing the land based on what it's zoned for and the actual improvements that are on the land. Right.

So highest and best use really is reflective of the land versus the structure that's on it. We would not value an apartment complex that doesn't exist. So even though there's a potential for it to be built, we wouldn't we wouldn't place a value for that improvement that does not exist. So it would be the current use of the the building that's there, the physical use of the building that's there. When it comes to the density issue, again, it's like the new Platte example.

We wouldn't have need to have further evidence that the probability of this property being used for that future use potential is going to happen. And the reason why we're back to, what is it going to sell for on January 1? So property that has not been improved, that doesn't have any of the infrastructure for an apartment complex put on it, most likely is not going to sell for the same as a property that has infrastructure for that future development. So we want to make sure that we're valuing it appropriately and the tax burden isn't being indiscriminately dispersed unequitably. Thank you.

Patrick.

Thank you. Thank you for being here, speaking to this, providing some clarity here. In the city of Linwood, multifamily properties which are zoned multifamily are a higher square footage valuation than properties which are zoned what previously would have been an RS eight or an 8,000 square foot lot. So on a per square foot basis, a single family residence property value per square foot was significantly less than the same square foot of property if it were zoned multifamily. Is that true in your experience in the county as well?

It's I'm going back to what are the facts of that particular piece of property. So we're not making our decisions based on just what is zoned. It's what is feasibly possible for that property as well. Correct. So in my view I'd have to, again, look at your specific example.

But in my view, if you have a single family residence on that piece of property, if it's zoned commercial property and it's gonna sell as commercial property, and that's what the history has shown for those types of properties selling as commercial property, we would probably value it as commercial property. If that is not the facts that we have to base because we have to support the value that we come up with and why we've made those decisions. If that's not the facts and those types of properties have sold as single family residences, That's the history of it. That's what we would value it for until something changed.

Sorry. My question probably wasn't clear. My question was, in your experience as an assessor

Yep.

Across the county Mhmm. On a square foot basis, is multifamily property at a higher cost than single family similar to an 8,000 square foot single family residence.

Typically, I would say yes.

Yes. So by virtue of the state having passed a law making all property multifamily, that means that all property, the assessors would have to go in and consider all property on a square foot basis at that higher cost than it was previously as a single family residential 8,000 square foot property. So by virtue of actions Olympia has already taken, regardless of all of the rest of the conversation there, each of those properties is now going to be assessed at a multifamily rate unless unless there's something about the specific property that would mean you can't put a multifamily unit on it. So for example, if ingress egress egress was a problem and you couldn't put 30 units on it, then it could not be assessed for a multifamily. But your average house in an average neighborhood, eight or 9,000 square foot with a standard street, at least in Lynnwood, you could easily put a fourplex on that same piece of property.

And so, therefore, as a matter of fact, that property value will be going up, and the owners of the property would be assessed at the multifamily rate rather than at their previous single family rate. This is what we're trying to protect against for people who own and have owned property for a long time, particularly our seniors who can't afford taxes on what is now multifamily valued properties.

So I'll have to disagree with that. That's not the current practice. That's not the current interpretation of the law. So, again, we're our main mandate is to determine how that property is going to sell for. What is the sales price of that property as of January 1 based on the evidence that we have currently and the history that we have for the market?

I agree with you. You will look at what the potential sales price is. You will look at it and say it is zoned for potential. It could be a multifamily, could be built on it. There's nothing about the property itself that would prevent a multifamily from being built on it. Therefore, by law, you would have to say the best possible use for this is a multifamily, and you would assess accordingly at that higher price.

Again, I disagree. Okay. David.

To follow-up on that a little bit, if if you've been operated in a certain way and now there's new state law, couldn't that change? Because you say our current interpretation. So your interpretation could could get changed by what the state has just put down on us.

Certainly. If state law changes, we would need to reflect what that means to us and get the Department of Revenue's interpretation of that so it's being equitably administered across the state so that every county is doing it in same manner. So yes, I would agree with that. But the way that it's being described is, as far as the changes are concerned, it's back to it doesn't supersede We're having to value the property at 100% of market value. What is it gonna sell for? And the way that we

changed the rule on us already. Right?

The state may have changed what you can do with your property, but the state didn't change what that property is gonna sell for. And I have to what I'm being held accountable for is two different entities. First, the public. They have the ability, of course, to appeal any value that it plays, And it would go through multiple different levels of appeal potential for that. And so I have to prove to the public that that property would sell based on evidence that already exists. There's The that second factor is the Department of Revenue that provides oversight. We keep track of ratios, which is the sell price based on the assessed value. What is the ratio? And there's standards that we need to meet for that. It's typically between 90110%.

So somewhere within that range is where our property is supposed to fall. If you have a property that sells for less than that because we placed a value based on a future use or potential use that doesn't exist yet without evidence for that. We're going to fall outside of that ratio. That is impactful to us when it comes to the distribution of the state school levy burden by county. So it's a part of the calculation factor there. So there's there's a couple of oversights involved.

A lot of formulas. Yep. An example that happened this happened well over a decade ago, but someone in Edmonds had two and a half acres, and the county said, hey. You could make six lots out of that in Downtown Edmonds. And he said, okay. He goes to Evans, said, I'd like to do six lots. And Evans said, no. You can't out on this road. He went back to the county. It was okay. But that seems like the county was putting down on him. Here's your best use, and you need to do this. It caused him he had to it it was a hassle for him.

So when you say county, is that my office that you're talking about? Who are you talking about?

I believe so.

K. I wouldn't need to look at that particular instance, but if I were to be shown that particular instance, again, I would need to see the support for us going to that higher value and the evidence that the zoning well, not only the zoning, the planning department would approve such, division of that property into those multiple pieces. So there's more information that has to be involved and in place before that value would be increased. Thanks.

Tanan.

Thank you so much for coming and explaining your process. You're welcome. I really appreciate how you are currently doing it. Is there a way that we can codify that? I mean, let's say we had a shift in who our assessors are and then this methodology and your interpretation of how of the confining regulations that's out there. Then what you're saying is looking at the evidence. But is there something that we can do to kind of solidify what you're currently doing?

So maybe two answers to that. One is that I don't believe my methodology is unique to Snohomish County. I I think that it's common practice across the state. The assessors are a very tight group. Nobody loves your assessor like another assessor.

So we talk a lot and share share information a lot, share knowledge a lot. So I don't think it's a unique practice. As far as codifying, I'm I'm going back to what the state law is. I don't know that it could be codified at a county level. I think it has to because we have to be uniform in the methodology that we use, basically because of the constitutional issue that I was talking about in the beginning, and the administration of the state school levy that everybody pays across the state. So I don't know how you could codify it other than placing that in state law.

Any other questions? Demi.

Thank you. Commissioner Preston was good enough to pass out some just some clarifying information about that proposal, which I reviewed. And one of the questions I asked when this came up is, I wanna understand the intention of the community members who are bringing this forward. And their state this it's it's stated in this clarifying document that their concerns around increased and assessed value is connected to their concerns about property taxes. Would you be able to give us just kind of a a quick overview of the connection between assessed value and the property taxes that someone ends up paying?

For example, commissioner Decker Yep. Raised the issue of all of the properties may now be subject to multifamily housing. And if all properties are subject to something under the valuation model, then that just kind of spreads it around. It doesn't really change the ratios of how your property tax amount is determined. So maybe you could give us a little more information for the community to understand that connection.

That is correct. It's a little bit of a complicated answer, so I'll try to keep it, fairly simple. We are in a budget based state, so the amount to be collected is determined first. In a rate based state, there are several of them across the East Coast. A rate is voted in. The assessed value is determined. The assessed value times the rate equals the amount to be collected. K? That in that particular instance, the assessed value does make a big difference in the amount to be collected. In Washington State, being a budget base, the taxing districts determine the amount to be collected first.

It's based on what you vote for, and then it's based on certain restrictions that apply to how much those amounts could increase annually when it's a regular levy. So taxing districts gives the assessor's office the amount to be collected. The assessor's office has already determined the assessed value, but they take that total assessed value of the taxing district, we divide one by the other, and we come up with a rate. Okay? Total collected, assessed value, rate.

We take that rate, we multiply it times the individual property to determine what portion of the amount to be collected that individual property is responsible for. If we are valuing property similarly across the board, if the same rules apply to all the value across the board, if you change those rules and it still applies similarly across all the property values across the board, if the total assessed value goes up, the rate goes down because you're still going to collect the same amount of money. Assessed value goes down, the rate goes up, so you still can collect the same amount of money. So if you're making a change that applies equitably across the board, it's not going to make a difference in your tax dollars. It's just gonna make a difference in those two numbers because you're still collecting the same amount of money in the end.

Any other questions for Linda? Packer? Packer. How about Decker?

Answer to all. Follow-up question to that one. Sure. If I own a $250,000 property in Linwood and it was zoned single family and is now zoned multifamily and the lot down the street just sold for 500,000 because they can put a fourplex on it. My assessment's going to go up because it's already been proven three doors down. They can put a fourplex on it, same property, same value. My value goes up to $500,000. My tax rate goes up. But as you said, the yes. My amount of tax I pay will go up.

But as you said, it's a levy across the city, so the city doesn't end up paying more. What ends up happening is somebody whose property is worth more than mine actually pays less. Because as I pay yes. We do. Believe me. As each individual pays an increased amount against that set levy, so if it's

There is there

is some Sorry.

Sure. Reality to that.

Whatever the levy is, and let's just say it's a a 50,000,000 check that the city has to write, if my property goes up from 250 to 500 and I pay more tax, somebody whose property is worth a million dollars is actually gonna pay less tax because that's the way it works. In this type of a system, when you increase the value of my property and I'm on the low end, I pay more taxes. People who have high earned properties, commercial properties, multifamily, they pay less. This is one of the reasons why the Master Builders Association really loves this model is because they're multifamily. Every time a single family property goes up in value, their multifamily get taxed at a lower rate because it's a net zero sum equation across all the properties.

So another example of that. So there is some merit to to that that information. Another example is our senior citizen exemption program. So here are properties where the value their taxable value is reduced in order to give them a relief for the the high amount of taxes that are paid. As certain properties values are reduced and not the population as a whole, that tax amount is shifted over to the properties that do not get the exemption.

So there is a shifting. You are correct. When different types of properties get valued at different amounts or different, with different considerations, there is a shifting that will happen, and usually, we see it through different types of exemption programs. So that is something to consider. I still will have to go back and disagree with it automatically being revalued at a higher rate because of a change. It would depend on what it's selling for. If they now can sell for more, then that's the way the state law has been written is that your ability to pay taxes is based on your ownership of that property.

It's very easy to see. Anna, totally in that city of Denver.

It's all tight. Okay. So here's where we're at on this proposal. We have, it's in second stage. So, the options on this one are to, make a motion that it goes to the next stage, which would be the legal review. That would need seven votes to do that. Wanna kinda get a feeling so we can keep this meeting going. There's some great discussion, but, let's see if if we've got enough votes to move it to the next level or not, and I'll entertain a motion.

So move move to take this to the next level so that we can get legal review. And, actually, our legal review can speak to what the assessor's comments are about the actual legality of this type of an action because I think we need that information.

Okay. We have a motion.

I'll second that.

And I have a second. Do we have any discussion on the motion? The motion is to move proposal seven to the next level, which would be legal review.

Sorry. My discussion already happened. Yeah. I know.

Any discussion?

So yeah. Thank you. So given we have a professional assessor here, this is in state law. That is where this is determined. I would rather not use our legal fees. We have a lot of things that we're going to need to get to. And we do have a limit as to how much we can spend on legal fees. I would rather not spend our legal fees digging into the legality of this. I also think it's a solution in search of a problem that doesn't exist. So thanks.

Others for discussion. Sean?

Can I ask the assessor a question, please? The language in here doesn't seem that harsh. And it says when determining the value of properties within Sonoma County, the county assessor or agent of the assessor shall only consider the existing use of the property, not the future potential use of the property. Where is it that what you're doing now would conflict with that?

So right now, we're required to consider highest and best use and 100 of market value. Current use typically is taking place when we have a agricultural exemption. We have a current use exemption program. So it's being valued as farmland versus what it could be sold for and not be as not being used as farmland. So there is implications in the language. Even though it seems like it's very simple. There is a different methodology used.

Further discussion?

Just a quick comment. I I think that what I'm understanding as the intention of the community members who brought this forward is some righteous anger about the cost of surviving in this space. And and I just wanna just support, that concern. Folks are rightfully concerned about their taxes and just how much it costs to live. Mhmm. However, I do not believe that this amendment achieves any effective cost reduction for folks who, are concerned who have those concerns. I share those concerns, and I want us to find solutions. I do not believe this amendment is a solution, so I will be voting no.

Okay. Any other discussion? Alright. Hearing none, I'll call for a roll call vote, please, Peter. Toyer? Yes.

Benny? Yeah. Chatters?

No. O'Donnell? Yes. Cass? Yes. Decker? Yes. Preston? Yes. McGee? No. Eslik?

No.

Yes.

Daley?

No. 1234567.

Okay. Motion passes. Assessor Linda, thank you for being a unicorn assessor and understanding that which no one understands. Thank you. Alright. Let's move forward then to proposal 13. Proposal regarding foundational government services of county treasurer Brian Sullivan.

Hi, mister chair. So you want me to speak to 13 again? This so this came about you know, I've been in I've been in office off and on for forty five years starting in 1985 on the Muckletoe City Council. And I've lived through three major catastrophic recessions and a dozen other minor recessions the most recent one being 2008 where we laid off at Snohomish County government 300 employees and as I said before it's very difficult to get into an elevator full of people with brand new pink slips and we went as deep as twelve years in seniority for our men and women who had given their lives and dedicated their well-being to the core services of St. Louis County.

So this really requires that the county council and county executive look at constitutional, foundational, state law and county ordinance to first determine what are the necessary services that are required by law before they add additional programs or other functions or expenditures to county government. So essentially it puts the bookends on developing the budget. And you know I'll leave you with this there's 3,250 counties in the country and there are about two dozen of them that have very similar ordinances, charter amendments, and or sometimes in the state of Ohio, a state law. So so I'll leave it at that, and I'm open for questions.

Any questions for Brian?

Yeah. I got one.

Done.

One one question I have that concerns me is is the where the sheriff and all them, when it comes to their budget, they put it in there, and that gets fully funded right off the bat. I just I'm afraid of outlandish requests and they thinking they're gonna know they're not gonna get cut before any discussion. I'm just afraid of something in that scenario happening. I mean, sheriff department comes in and says, I wanna put in 50 extra sheriffs. And so that he throws that budget in. Is at that point any questions gonna be allowed or deductions or discussion of reducing that budget asked? I'm just concerned of if it's saying here no questions asked, so we fully fund what their requests are.

Can I answer that, mister chair?

That's I'm I would love you to.

Yeah.

Look, 7580% of the county budget, as a reference, I served twelve years as a finance chair for the county council. And there were times we actually laid off deputies during difficult times. We try not to because, as I said earlier, it takes up to twenty four hours sometimes for nonemergency calls. This is a big county, and and so this is to try to do no harm to the courts, to the prosecutor, to the county clerk and and other core services, you know. So so the assessor is a great example where where we did one year did furloughs and layoffs and and we did it for all departments across the board but we fully funded, know, some I I I rather not say what programs but some programs that that are nice to haves not gotta haves and so so that is the angle I'm looking at.

There's there's no intent to harm the deputies in any way. I'm you'll find that I have a twelve year well, a long history including the Muckle Teal Police Department and the Everett Police Department supporting training the best training and and full employment. So this is, hopefully, bookends on the budget so we don't go backwards, in other words, in the future.

But but, Brian, how does it if I'm the sheriff and I do throw in, you know, 20 extra deputies that are those gonna get funded, or is there a process to say, you know what? You only need five.

Yeah. There you know, those processes will remain the same because but the, but the funding will considerations will be limited to a smaller core group of services. So so you might not get all 20. Right? Because you can't do it at the expense. If you do it at expense of the assessor on new construction or the expense of the treasurer on investments then in the long run like any other budgets you would lose millions and millions of dollars in future funding. So there is a balance that still has to be maintained.

So yep. Good, Rob.

Thanks, Brett. So, yeah, so I was looking at this in the proposed definitions in this document. It talks about foundational government services, including but not limited to, talks about public safety, prosecutor, law enforcement, etcetera. And the last bullet point is core administrative and financial functions necessary to deliver these services required by the state constitution, RCW, and Stoneridge County code. So it doesn't look like any of any organizations that meet this criteria would be able to just, you know, add on, you know, nice to haves to their department and immediately get funded. So that That's

that's that's what I wanted to do.

Yeah. I and I agree. That's a concern, but it looks like it's not.

Patrick, thank you. Having sat through five years of Linwood City Council budget process and two years of huge deficit and fighting over where we're gonna scratch pennies in order to make the budget balance, I am very much in favor of what you are suggesting here. I'm not sure how the mechanism works. I'm so if I could say if I could vote yes on this and then it worked the way that I have in my mind, that would be a win. But thinking about how budget deliberations happen at city level, and I'm sure at the county level as well, my question does go back to what is the mechanism to make this work?

I I really agree that, especially in current budgetary crisis times, I would much rather a city fund all of those essential services than build themselves a new city hall or even, as unpopular it is, before you put in a new rec center. Right? To me, those are nice to haves, and I wanna make sure the essential is funded before the nice to haves. I think government should be lean. I think it should be essential services required to keep the community safe.

When we talked about it in Lynnwood, we talked about public safety infrastructure and utilities are the three things that are required by law. Correct? Generally speaking, for a city? Generally speaking, those are three three things that are required. When I think how the budget process worked, each of the department heads for parks, for infrastructure, for court, yeah, court and public safety, they all brought their budgets forward, and they were all cumulatively exceeded the budget that was the money that the city had.

So, say it was a $50,000,000 budget, and they all come in at 52,000,000. Is your thought then that public safety would get funded as much as possible, roads would get funded as much as possible, and whatever the utilities would get funded as much as possible, and everybody else, so for example, parks, recreation, those types of things, would get funded less to ensure those essential services were fully funded. Is that what you're thinking? Is that the direction you're thinking here?

That that is that is the core of of the issue. And and but, you know, the the constitutional positions created, the prosecutor, of course, and the treasurer, the the the auditor, because those are all core functional services. And and, you know, when we laid off people in 2008, we didn't get them all back. So so and I think that was true with in 2008, we left the sheriff's deputies alone. We reinstated the eight positions later, but but the support positions never never really truly came back.

So so, you know, it's and it's somewhat, you know, it has to be somewhat subjective. I mean, this is based on the Sonoma County model, which is not an extreme model, but it allows the public, you know, to really enter the fight. And and and there potentially are consequences to future political actions or county council or executive actions if they don't, you know, you know, meet the public's demand by charter. So so, yes, it's not perfect. The Ohio model, of course, is the other extreme where the assessor, the treasurer, the auditor, the prosecutor, and the sheriff can veto the council budget until and and send it back to them until they're satisfied.

So which is too extreme. So and there's there's a lot of models in between, but I think you'll find when this goes to the county prosecutor's office that this is probably the best, best model to move forward under our state constitution. So I hope that answers your question.

I appreciate that. I'm gonna, go ahead and ask for the appetite of, creating the motion to creating or not having a motion to move this forward.

I've actually just got one question to Brian quickly. Brian, you know, the thing that concerns me, well, being a sponsor of this one here, is that this takes away some of the the discretionary ability of the council people. Have you talked with the council or the executive, and where would they stand on this?

Well, so I've talked to all the council members. And as you can imagine, there's a very broad broad opinion. I mean, not to speak in a partisan fashion, but I think the concern, which was kind of brought up earlier, that maybe that would blow the budget up for public safety and would limit the ability to fund other necessary services that would occur. And, you know, as someone who's been doing municipal budgets for almost forty five years, at the end at the end of day, you know, no one's you know, no one wants to short the treasurer or the assessor or the auditor or the sheriff's department. They'll still have to find balance.

It just means that they wanna go out and start a a new program. Like, under, the American Recovery Act, we started three new programs in Snohomish County. We hired quite a few employees, and now they are permanent employees, and they are now permanent programs. We are headed towards potentially 11% cuts at Snohomish County. That hurts the core services.

So, really, what this is saying to the council and to the county executive is you have to consider all these core services first, what we're mandated to do before you create something new. It's the gotta haves, not the nice to haves. And and so I you know, there's different angles to look at this, But but that you know, all my intentions, of course, are are honorable in the sense that I don't wanna get in that elevator and face 300 laid off employees again because we are headed towards potentially future catastrophic events when it comes to our budget. We went nine years without raising a 1% tax, you know, which contributed to the 2008 problem. So the county the county executive, has been silent on the issue, but, but I don't think they like it.

K. So for further discussion, can I, get a motion or not get a motion?

Move the legal proposal 13 forward, the legal review.

Yes. Second. I have a motion and a second. Any further discussion on motion? We'll do a vote on this. All those in favor?

Aye. Aye.

And any opposed? Alright. Motion passes. Good job, Ryan. Let's go to, proposal number 14. This is gonna be a new proposal. We're gonna adhere to the timelines on this. So the intro to the new proposal, you're gonna get three minutes, and then, comments after that are gonna be, just two minutes. We do have a clock over there. Please police yourself. And, with that being said, I'll open the floor to either commissioner Chatters or O'Donnell who wishes to interrupt.

Alright. Well, this one this one is a a little bit complex, so I I am gonna ask treasurer Sullivan to chime in and give us a a more precise overview. But, in in layman terms, what this really says is that we have a stabilization fund in the county, and backstop. This is what ensures our long term, financial solvency. And this this proposal is an effort to codify in the charter protections of our long term solvency requiring extraordinary circumstances for us to tap into the stabilization fund as well as regular contributions to it.

So this is really a protective measure for the people of Snohomish County to ensure that no matter how the winds of our budget flows, which as we have heard from the treasurer, we are we are headed towards some potentially turbulent times, that we are protected in the long run, that the people can count on our county government operating and continuing to be solvent, for the foreseeable future. Treasurer Sullivan, would you mind jumping in to provide a a bit more of a precise overview?

Well, just real quickly, you know, when I was in the state legislature, I worked really hard with the governor's office to create the state rainy day fund. You probably noticed it in the news recently when, the legislature wanted to tap it. And, of course, the the present governor and and the state treasurer, of course, came out against and prevailed because they really want that fund to be available for catastrophic events. You know, sometimes when we run into budget problems, it's we see a slow train coming. And so we don't but we don't deal with the budget problems till the train, you know, gets to us.

And and so, you know, a catastrophic event is not a slow train, in other words. So when I made it to the county council, I worked diligently to create a rainy day fund, which for the first six years had $0 in it. And then I think one year I got $10,000 in it. And then I was able to come up with an amended ordinance that required that during the good budget years, that excess monies, onetime monies that the the, you know, various definitions of dollars that come into the county would go to a county stabilization fund. This is also based on the idea or what happened with OSO.

As you recall, during that event in 2014, where we lost many, many lives, the Saumj County spent $22,000,000 in six weeks. Six weeks, we had had we not been reimbursed eventually by the state and the and the federal government by up to 70%, Salmage County would have been bankrupt. And so the idea behind this is catastrophic events as it relates to Oso type events or catastrophic financial events like 2008. And so it takes under the ordinance that I developed, it takes four people or a super majority to vote on on the ordinance to expend the dollars. Right?

That is, you know, that's so it it requires a vigorous vigorous debate and and a vigorous public debate. And but I was informed, you know, as sometimes we are in government, that it only takes three votes to change the ordinance where it requires four votes. So so, you know, if three if three members of the county council deem it a catastrophic event and it's subjective to them, you know, they could easily change that ordinance. So the idea is to move this fund under the charter so it always requires a supermajority. And I just think it's a good supermajority is a trigger for this type of funding.

On top of it, the $14,000,000 we now have in place, 14,500,000.0, produces $400,000 a year in revenue from our investments directly to the general fund. And it's also been pointed out by Moody's that the reason why Saumas County has a AAA rating, which brings down our bond costs and saves the taxpayers' money, is because of this catastrophic event fund. So it's wildly a win win. My only concern is in the future, if this stays outside the charter, that a future political event could cause the county to spend this one time money and then face another catastrophic event like we did on Oso in 2014 with literally $0.

Okay. Great. I'm gonna open the floor to anybody with a con to this proposal. Con thoughts. Con thoughts. Air con. Conair. So okay. Can I get a motion then? So move. Alright. I have a motion in a second. Is there any further discussion on this, proposal moving to the next stage? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. And any opposed? Alright. Great. Hey, Brian. I appreciate your time tonight. See you

too for

He's at yeah. Thank you. Thank you,

mister chair. I'm I'm in the second most beautiful city, Lake Chelan, right now. So

Oh, wow.

I have to go speak at another event. So thank you for putting up with me.

Their lake's a little bit bigger, but mine's better. I I totally agree. Yeah. Great. Let's go ahead and keep moving forward. On the agenda, we have the next, proposal 10, and that is gonna be commissioner Decker, can you take three minutes to intro that, please?

I can. We discussed this, I think, two weeks ago as well. The officers are required to be residents of the jurisdiction which they are offices in, so, you know, county officers must live in the county. However, currently, the deputies to those offices are not required to be residents. If an executive were then to have to step out of office for any of a number of different reasons, we would then have a deputy step into that office who was not a resident of the particular jurisdiction, the county in this case.

It seems that the will of the voters is and has been that their elected officials be from the jurisdiction. And if we're going to have deputies who step into those roles, I think they should also be from the jurisdiction so that if they are, promoted to the executive position of some sort, they also are from the county in line with what the voters have expressed as their will. Okay? Comments.

There are no comments.

Verification. You have a list of them here. And I just the absence of prosecutor, prosecutor, the co parent animal altogether.

Peter? We can add it. We can add it.

Think that was in the original list, but we can add any other things you'd like to that.

So so are you saying it's the next in line? So if I'm the sheriff and my deputy sheriff has to live in the county?

That'd be the under that and that's the one thing I will say about this that I talked to, Debbie about is we need to be very clear in the language. When it comes to the sheriff's department, it's not a deputy sheriff because that's a lot of them We're referring to the undersheriff. Correct. And when I if this moves forward, I'll make sure that language is defined.

Perfect. But but that's what

we're saying. It's the next line down. Correct. Okay. Can I get a motion on that? So moved. Second. K. I have a motion and a second. Is there any discussion? Yes. Go ahead.

So if it under sheriff, is that what it's called? If the under sheriff does not live in district, maybe before they're moved to sheriff, they would have to move in to be in district.

I would be comfortable with the language stating that at the time they assume office, they were resident of.

Okay. Yeah. I like that better.

K. Like, yeah, we can add that in.

Okay. Any other discussion?

I'm I'm curious, and and this isn't for or against. I'm, are there situations that we're seeing currently or that we've seen in the past where a deputy has assumed the position of their superior and, and that person did not live in the jurisdiction?

Yeah. I'm not familiar enough with with oh, go ahead. I'm not familiar enough with county council succession plans and such to be able to speak to it, but I think Peter is.

Yes. So this did happen once when, county executive Aaron Reardon resigned. Charter states the deputy county executive is to become executive. The deputy county executive did not live in the county, so then that's why the county council had to appoint at the time sheriff John Lubbock to and it from what I understand, it kinda threw things into a fiasco. So that, yes, that has has happened before. Okay. Thank you.

And I would add that with the advent of remote work, it's more likely to occur now than it would have in the past where you would be relatively close to your office so that you could work there. I mean, some of these deputies I know in Lynnwood, all of our office staff was only in there occasionally, lived quite some distances away. Any other discussion?

Go ahead.

But it's not just the sheriff's office. It's all these other offices listed. So that's just

I just called it the sheriff's office because that's something we need to go in and fix.

Yeah. Like, Brian Sullivan would have to live in district, and then his His deputy would.

Yes. He does he does already. This would make his deputy next in line succession required to be. Juneau.

Does this affect any of the current deputies serving right now?

My understanding in speaking with legal about legislation that's passed is that it's always forward looking. So I don't know that we'd have to get in the next step, we'd have legal opinion about whether this would be retroactive to people. But with the discussion about when they assume office, they must be in the jurisdiction, then it wouldn't matter if they lived outside at this point. It would only be that when they assumed office, they would have to move, and they would have to take up residence of some sort within the jurisdiction.

Any other discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye.

Aye.

And any opposed? Okay. Proposal 10 moves forward. Let's go to proposal 12. We don't have commissioner Dodd here. Who wishes to jump in to, address proposal 12? Anyone? Can I do I'll

just note on this? I went back in the recording of the last meeting. I just think we forgot to vote on this one because we discussed both of the ranked choice ones and only voted on one. So

Okay. There were two vote on. Correct?

We voted on number six, and it was my understanding. We've talked about number 12. We just never voted on

it. Yeah. Correct. Okay.

Because we we voted

on 12.

We got rid of

We voted on six, which was the the amendment for ranked choice for charter commission. This is 12. This is ranked choice for all county positions.

Okay.

So this is new? We talked about it last time.

We just didn't we just didn't vote on.

Yeah. Okay. Can I get a motion on this one?

So moved. And and because commissioner Dodd isn't is not present, I I wouldn't mind just making the public familiar with what the ask is. Yeah.

One second. I've got a motion. Can I get a second?

Second.

Okay. Go ahead, Gavin.

So this Peter is absolutely correct. We did discuss this at the last meeting, where we also had auditor fell in to give us information about how ranked choice voting works. We took up the matter with regard to the this commission position in ten years, and that was what we voted on at that time. However, commissioner Dodd has also raised a proposed amendment to apply the ranked choice voting framework to nonpartisan offices countywide. So it is the same question, that was put forward for the charter review commission positions but expanded to nonpartisan offices for the county.

Oh, I'm sorry. Am I misreading? I I it it for all county offices. Thank thank you for clarifying. So that was that is the ask. That is the basis of the proposal. We did hear quite a bit of data from auditor Fell last time about how this could, in practicality, like the mechanics of it. So I I won't go into that because I I think we have discussed that as a commission at this time.

Okay. Any other discussion, Janelle?

And it I know I'm hoping everybody had a chance to read. It looks like we had a number of emails from the public regarding this issue. Mhmm. And it seemed like the majority was opposed just in the written comments.

Okay. Other discussion?

Verification from county, what their offices is not immediate. City. Citizens.

Would agree. Okay. We're not man we're not doing city charters. Not yet. Anybody? No other discussion. I'll call for the vote. All those in favor?

Aye.

And any opposed?

No. Nay.

Okay. Motion does not pass. Alright. Let's move to proposal 15, which is a proposal related to disclosure of candidate political history. Commissioner Chatters.

Thank you. This this commission has, previously discussed a proposed amendment that would convert the county executive and the county council positions to nonpartisan offices. And so this amendment does not, weigh in on, that one way or another. The the community members who brought this forward, they're not taking a position on that particular amendment. However, the implications of that amendment is what this particular proposed amendment is, is designed to treat.

So if the positions are made nonpartisan, what that does is it removes a huge dataset from the voter, which is partisan affiliation. And so just got there have been many discussions about this in the community. One of the questions that has come up and among community members is stepping outside of the binary of republican democrat. What if someone, were part of a political affiliation with a communist party or, you know, another another stump something outside of that binary. And what the community has said is we need to know that.

We need to know that information. We want folks to act in a nonpartisan way in the execution of their work as an elected official, but we do need to know these material connections to these political parties because these political parties have specifically articulated public policy platforms, and we need to know what our candidates have aligned themselves with in terms of those public policy platforms. They are running for a public policy position, so it is materially relevant, when they have associated or affiliated with a political party that has articulated a public policy platform. So this amendment, this proposed amendment is designed to ensure that regardless of the partisan or nonpartisan labeling of the elected positions, that the voters' right to the information about political affiliation of each of the candidates is preserved and protected. And even further, the transparency is now required, in the election, pamphlet, in the voters' pamphlet that folks get.

We are required to be given this information about the political affiliation history of the candidates, so we can look at those public policy platforms of those organizations and determine if that is in alignment with the will of the person who is is choosing to vote.

Excellent. Comments.

Would there be a mechanism in place, if there was an omission in there? Somebody was served on this and served on that ten, fifteen years ago, and then the election comes and goes, and the wrong guy won, and now what?

So this actually does address that. It it outlines a year a twelve year span because, of course, folks folks change. So we wanna know recent. And so it outlines specifically a twelve year history to capture what the community has deemed as recent, and it also directs the auditor, to vet that information. There is a candidate disclosure that is required where the candidate must swear to what they're disclosing being true and correct, and then the auditor is also required to vet that to determine if there is a falsity there.

And there is, of course, a process for the public to question whether or not something is accurate before it gets printed into the voters' pamphlet. So the idea here is to make that information, transparent, to ensure that there's a process to to, vet it, to validate it, and then to publish it to the voters so they can make better informed decisions regardless of the partisan or nonpartisan label of any elected position.

Other comments, Patrick. Just a quick comment.

I'm not certain you can force somebody to divulge that information under oath if they choose not to. Even as a candidate, there's so many controls around First Amendment. So I'd be curious about the concept of me being able to force you to tell me tell me your entire political history, or you can't run for office.

Yeah. I'm I'm not sure. Robin, you have a comment? I I did. I didn't know if, commissioner Chatters wanted to speak to that his comment.

So this actually does address that as well. It it addresses the fact that we are asking a person to disclose their actions with regard to political affiliation. So that's not like a priest confessional where we're sitting folks down and demanding that they pour their heart out. We're asking for concrete data around, have you been endorsed by this political party? Have you received or given donations above a certain threshold, which I believe they set a $500 threshold?

So the the intent is to gather information that is available out in the public sphere without putting the public through an unnecessary exercise of each individual having to data mine all of these different systems to try to locate this information for themselves. So it it is it is just to concentrate this information into a single place where the voters can easily access it through the voter data. And I would also add that it is noted that candidates are compelled to disclose certain things already. They are they are compelled to disclose material information already. This just further defines the material information that they would be compelled to disclose.

Sorry. Direct follow-up just while we're or do you wanna go real quick? Yeah. Real quick. Yes. Candidates are required to divulge financial information, and that's for the reasons for that are obvious. I I I think a problem with this would be if I saw a candidate that I didn't like, I would offer them $500, a thousand dollars contribution to their campaign. And then they later figured out that, oh, he was actually, for example, communist party, and it could be used as a poison pill against candidates that otherwise were not really affiliated and never really lobbied or been interested in that. But they accepted the donation, and then that's poison pill for them. So I could definitely see misuse here. Robin.

Thanks, Brett. So, yeah, in in response to the the last comment, anyone running for political office is responsible for any campaign contributions they accept. And I've seen candidates get offered money and reject it because it was against their beliefs or what they wanted their campaign to be about. So so be a responsible candidate. I think everybody should okay.

Right? And and you just need to and maybe this would make people dig in a little bit deeper and make sure that any contributions they're accepting, reflect their values, and and how they're going to behave in office. You know? Don't take contributions from, organizations that people may come back and accuse you of wanting to like, you took money from them, so now you're making this decision. And that would get rid of that. You could people right now already reject some money for that reason. What I wanted to say originally was I like that this calls out this is only for county executive and county council, which work on policy issues. This is not sheriff. This is not the assessor, etcetera. Yeah.

And I really like that because as Commissioner Chatters mentioned, the political parties have a platform. They say, we care about this, this, this, this, this. And it's fair to say when you go to select which candidate you vote for and you look to see what letter they have next to their name that that person is kind of overall going to, in general, reflect your values if you share these values and they have that letter next to their name. It's going to help you make those decisions. I also received a ton of phone calls in the fall from voters who are angry at people running for nonpartisan offices.

Because they're nonpartisan, it does not say what party they belong to. They literally thought that people were lying, that these candidates were lying to the public by not saying which party they're affiliated with. And I had explained to them, this is a nonpartisan position. This is not a thing that anybody discloses, certainly not city council level and school board. And so there's already a confusion. People already they want to know this information. And I think it's fair that it's in the voter pamphlet as what is your history, just like what is your education history? We already asked that. We already ask you know, other elected offices and various other questions. I mean, I think it's reasonable.

And this is just this doesn't mean you're going to conduct yourself as a Republican or as a Democrat. But if you have no history, you could say independent. Everybody's supposed to operate in a nonpartisan fashion, but it doesn't mean that you've all that you've never been involved, with partisan politics. So thanks. Okay.

Chair Galey, can I also clarify that this this can't?

Hold on. I've got someone else who has a a comment. Go ahead, Janelle.

So, a lot of this information is already available on the PDC. So maybe one suggestion would be that there's a QR code or links from the voters' pamphlet that goes directly to the PDC. So it is more accessible to people to do research, because it's very easy to put a search, and you can pop in somebody's name. So I think recreating that here at the county level in our voters' pamphlet just seems redundant. I think people are going to be flooded with more information.

I also think that people can change in 12. I think people can hit an issue that absolutely changes their heart and their stance about things, and this doesn't reflect it. But where our democracy can hinge on is our press doing their job. When I run for office, you know, you sit down with the Herald or the Seattle Times, you're asked a lot of questions. You have debates with the people that you're on the ballot with, so that you can express those ideas and how you feel about those at that time, and back it up with why you have that stance.

And that's how you present to the voters. You know, the other thing I looked at, because I'm an engineer, is I don't think people are as partisan as you think. I pulled all the data for PCO positions in Snohomish County. 75% of those positions are vacant. And that, like you said, it goes back to that binary choice.

So, you know, if somebody makes a decision ten years ago to donate to a party, but maybe they're different now, I don't think that that's a cross that they have to bear before the voters at that time. I think you've got organizations like League of Women Voters who help voters look at things. You're asked to fill out Ballotpedia. You're asked to fill out so much information. I think it's burdensome to a lot of candidates, quite frankly. So I won't be supporting moving this forward.

Okay. Any other first comments? Go ahead, Gurup.

Yeah. Thank you. Point of information. I want to go back to commission well, point of information starting here. This information is not available in the PDC.

Second point of information, commissioner Decker, his question was around donations just in two general candidates. This deals with formal party connections, formal party endorsements, contributions to official parties. This is not dealing with someone who is giving a donation to a candidate who perhaps they don't know. I would delve into I would encourage commissioners to delve into the language of this, and I think that some clarity will be shed on some of those types of questions because they are valid questions. We we do need to be sensitive to those types of things, but the language in this amendment would not allow for the situation that commissioner Decker described.

Okay. Got it.

Just one quick comment. This here, I'm not gonna support this proposal just to the fact to me, you got you're you're putting more divisiveness in between the two parties. So, I mean, we're trying to get to a goal where the parties work together with each other, and I think we're just keep pushing this more decisiveness. I to me, personally, I'd like to see the entire country go away from political parties.

Okay. Any other discussion? Carol. Thank you. You've been quiet tonight.

Do I need to mic my phone or not?

I can hear

you. You

know, we are only we hope to only put a few on the ballot, and I think this is a good amendment. I don't think there's anything wrong with it, but I think that the social media out there has got everything anybody ever wants to know about a party. So I would not be this is not a top priority for me, so I'll be voting no on it. Okay. Thank you, Chatterson.

Any other comments? Real quick.

Yeah. I just wanted to comment on I love I love the QR code idea. I I think it's fantastic. I think for older voters who maybe don't even have a smartphone, and and don't even know what to do with that little square, that's gonna be confusing. So, you know? And and a lot of it really is older voters. They don't know how to go to the PDC and looks like it's confusing, and they just want an answer. And so, and and I think that we could certainly play with the language of, is it twelve years? Is it eight years? Is it six years? How long is that does that affiliation go back? But I will be supporting this because I think it's it's a great idea.

David, go ahead.

In the voter pamphlet, typically, people put who their endorsements are and party affiliation there. So that's right there for the public already.

Okay. With that, I'm gonna call for the vote. We already have a motion. We already have a second.

Do we have we have a motion and second? Have we Sorry.

Please Have Yes.

You made a motion and second? Correct.

Someone who Can

you remind

me who it was? Commissioner Chatters made the motion, and commissioner, McGee made the second.

And I'll also note that commissioner Dodd joined us online. You can't see her because her camera

is off, but I see her.

Oh, Dodd is online?

Okay.

Okay. With that, all those in favor? Aye. And all those opposed? No.

Let's roll call that. Toyer?

No. Fanny? No. Chatters? Yes. O'Donnell? No. Cass? No. Decker? No. Preston? Dodd?

Yes. McGee?

Yes.

Eslik? No. James? No. Kaylee? No. Three yeses.

Okay. Proposal does not pass. Let's go to proposal 16, proposal related to campaign finance transparency, commissioner Chatters. And please, let's, let's adhere to the times where get home and tuck in the little ones some point.

I'm gonna read my statement on this rather than going ad hoc to try to adhere to that time a little bit better. Perfect. Okay. This proposed charter amendment, was brought to us by One Voice Snohomish County, which is a community collective of multiple, community organizations, really, it's something, that we all care about, which is trust in our democracy. Right now, big outside spending can create the appearance of a pay to play for politics that erodes public confidence.

This amendment would give Snohomish County voters stronger transparency tools and lasting protections written directly into the county charter, so they cannot be easily rolled back. The proposal requires anyone spending more than a thousand dollars to influence a county election to report it within twenty four hours. Those reports would be available in a public online database that any voter can search. That means we'll know in real time who is spending money to influence our local races. It also closes the door on conflict of interest If an elected official receives significant campaign support from a person or company, that official could not vote on decisions giving that supporter a specific financial or regulatory benefit.

When necessary exceptions occur for quorum, the conflict must still be disclosed publicly, ensuring full transparency. For County contracts, this amendment creates a twelve month cooling off period. Contractors who make large political contributions could not instantly turn around and win any major public contracts. That's how we would strengthen fairness and accountability in public spending. And further, it authorizes a voluntary public financing system similar to the Democracy Voucher Program, which helps ordinary citizens participate in funding campaigns rather than all that only being open to large donors.

So in short, this measure makes Snohomish County elections cleaner, fairer, more open, and it builds confidence that our government serves all the voters, not just the well connected few.

So initial questions. What's the fiscal impact? Because you're creating a new database. You are also creating some sort of fund to hand out to voters so they could have some money to to spread around? What's the what's the fiscal impact?

So I think that would have to be studied, but I wanna circle us back to when we discussed the issue of nonpartisan elections. And commissioner James so astutely told us, which I am in full agreement with, that we should not make budgetary impact the primary concern. We should make representation of the people the primary concern. And so I would ask that this commission advance this proposal, and we can continue to study fiscal impact as we go. But, again, the government's purpose is representation of the people. So that should be the priority, and this helps, ensure that that's happening.

Great. So with that, is there a motion out there so that we can further discussion? So moved. Second. Okay. I have a motion and a second. Let's, continue discussion on this. Thoughts, Patrick?

Three minutes on the clock, please. I I I am all in favor of of the transparency here. In fact, I had some real problems in the city of Lynnwood where we are seeing massive phone, funds coming in from outside of Lynnwood affecting the campaign. And those were voters really didn't see that. They could have gone to the PDC, but navigating the PDC website, etcetera, etcetera.

But my question is this. If if I have if I if I know something's coming before the county council and I like the way the laws currently are and I don't want them to change, couldn't I simply donate a thousand dollars to everybody on the council and thereby mean they all had to recuse themselves or not even everybody? I just donate a thousand bucks to three of the members of the council. You can no longer get a majority, and so you basically deadlock the council on the issue, and I've guaranteed there's no change for that legislative series. Be it simply cost me $3,000. That's cheap to deadlock the council on an issue like this. Or am I the only one that thinks in these ways?

It's Yeah. I I think I think commissioner deck. I I do

think

so.

Amanda's hand there. Hold hold on. Hold on.

Hold on. Amanda's hand is up as well.

David. Good. Who else is? David, you got it.

Could you give us an example of that? What would be a case that

hurt I I think, for example, if there is a large political action committee that likes to see huge multi families go up and they know there's a question around zoning or laws that could potentially affect multi family, I just donate to the three people that I think are opposed to the change. Whatever doesn't favor me, I I donate to them. So they have to recuse themselves, and then the council can't take any action on it, and it stays exactly as the law currently is written, and I basically deadlock them. Now I I get to the council that the members can re can decline the donation. But in today's election, you really need to unless it's unless it's really blatant, you're gonna accept those donations because you need the funds just to get into office so you can do the good that will that you want to.

So saying, yeah, I would just turn down any anything from anybody that I think may have some something in mind here doesn't really work, and I really think this could be abused. Okay. Amanda.

Thanks. And sorry for being late. My son is sick, and it took him a while to get settled. But I was gonna say you can refuse donations, and I would argue that I expect my elected officials that I vote for to refuse donations from things they don't agree with. I know a lot of people who have done that, even in small races. So I think also it's not about if if it's a code change, I don't think it would be affected by this if they took money from a developer. It would be if the developer was gonna be awarded a county contract. Commissioner Chatters, please correct me if I'm wrong. So I I get that fear, but I don't think that's at risk with this specific amendment.

That is correct, commissioner Dodd.

Okay. Any other discussion on that? Let me ask you this. Would this also include political parties and expenditures to expenditure firms that are political party backed when we're talking nonpartisan positions?

I'm not sure I understand your your question.

So for example, you're in a nonpartisan race, and we'll just call it the x y party, donates you $500. And part of the requirement is you use the x y fund for your signs and your mailers, would that should they not also be included in that?

Are you are you asking if that political party is then coming forward to secure a county contract?

No. What they what a party would be influencing a nonpartisan position.

I I I'm not sure that I am understanding your question. My understanding of this framework is that it is meant to protect the public from those who would fund a campaign and then who would be coming to that body of the elected officials and asking them to determine either contracts that they would have a financial interest in or some form of policy decision that would be a direct regulatory benefit to them. So as far as, I guess I would need a specific example of what regulatory benefit a political party would ask for as well as what public contract a political party would seek. So I think it this is designed to only touch those entities that are seeking those material benefits from decisions that are made by elected officials.

Okay. I do wanna ask, Ben, our attorney, to weigh in on First Amendment issues with this, with this proposal. Or I don't let me focus you on First Amendment if there's something else. Right.

On this specific proposal, I don't see that there are necessarily specific issues pertaining to either First Amendment or other things. It's not necessarily limiting finance, which is is one of the issues that comes up. It's still allowing people to do so. The the transparency piece is simply asking for that transparency and accountability. So I I don't see that there is an issue, with regard to

Okay.

Any federal rights or even state constitutional rights. Okay. David.

Can you clarify, commissioner Chatters, can you clarify this section that says including small donor matching and democracy voucher programs? What's a democracy voucher program?

So there is a similar program that currently operates in the city of Seattle. That is a voucher program, and that is kind of one of the most interesting parts of this proposal. I think that there is room for refinement as the analysis process goes along. But really, what that program is designed to do is it is designed to allow folks who maybe don't have the ability to donate politically to engage in the process of supporting candidates that they feel are worthy. I mean, I come up from a family that isn't we've we don't have folks who elected to office.

We don't give political donations. That's just not part of what my family's culture was. We typically didn't have the money to spare for those things. So for families like the ones that I come from, it gives them an opportunity to be able to help further a candidate with a small dollar donation that's publicly supported.

Good.

And so who would who would publicly support that? Would money where would other this matching money? Is that what you're talking about?

Well, so, again, I think that there is additional room for analysis and refinement of that piece as this process would move forward

with this voucher program something different then? Something separate?

Well, it's it's the same concept, a voucher or a small dollar match. I guess terminology is different.

Yeah. Don.

That was my same question.

Was gonna say where's the where's the funds come from? Okay. Any quick discussion?

Yeah. Yeah. Quick note. So I I coincidentally spoke with somebody who lives in North Seattle last week. And I brought up this voucher program. And I said, you know, I would love to bring that to the charter, but I know there's no way. Like, it's going to be expensive, the taxpayers are not going to want it. He said, it costs the taxpayers of Seattle about $6 per year to fund this for more transparency and, opening the door for candidates who couldn't otherwise, you know, raise a bunch of money to run against other folks. So, anyway, just to to address the whole dollar amount, I think we could do this pretty cheaply.

Okay. Go ahead, Patrick. You goes yeah. I'm a hold you to, like, fifteen seconds.

I am in favor of the transparency. I'm not in favor of the key recusal because I think that opens a can of worms we're gonna regret. Okay. Janelle.

I just wanna say I really appreciate the concept of bringing the transparency and connecting the dots between donations and possible contracts.

I kind

of felt like this could have been two different proposals, because it kind of boxes us in to I'd like to see maybe the transparency piece and then the funding piece separate. And then my question would be and I do think the twenty four hours posting is a little bit too quick. But I could see where we may be using existing PDC data and then tying that back to if we have publicly available contract information, so then you can start to connect those dots more easily by the public if there is some influence between who's made donations and what are the elected officials doing. And then my question would be, would this apply to unions as well that make donations?

My answer to that would be the same answer to commissioner Gailey's question about political organizations, which is, are those unions coming to the body question asking for some kind of material benefit, and and what would that what what would that look like? So and, again, I think that there is opportunity to refine as we go along. This is really the first phase, to determine whether something should receive additional consideration. There is the assumption that these proposals will continue to be evolved and refined as we go through further steps of the process. So I think those types of questions could be better clarified, but my understanding is the intention is to ensure that, there's transparency around folks who are directly responsible for funding the campaigns of who ends up in an office and then who subsequently enjoys material benefits from the policy or contract decisions made by those who end up in those elected offices.

Okay. With that, I'm gonna call for the vote, and this just needs five to four. Yep. Go ahead and let's do roll call. Toyer?

No. Fanny? No. Chatters? Yes. O'Donnell? No. Cass? No. Decker? No. Preston?

Yes.

Dodd?

Yes.

McGee? Yes. Eslick? No. James? No. Daley? No. Four yes votes.

What what what was the count?

Four yes votes.

Four? Okay. Alright. Let's move to proposal 17 related to county elected officials holding dual offices. Commissioner Charter or Chatters.

Alright. This one will be very quick. This actually is similar to the proposal brought forward by commissioner Preston, last time we met, but it's slightly different, so I think it deserves to be brought forward on its own. This is a one office at a time amendment proposal to section 4.3 of the Snohomish County charter. It would prohibit any person from holding a Snohomish County elected office while simultaneously serving in another elected position.

The this is meant to be a decision point. So you can run for multiple offices. You can hold an office and run for a different office. That is not where things become a problem. It's once you take an oath of office, the public is asking you to choose which office in which you will serve, and this amendment is just designed to ensure that, that public has that protection against any potential either conflicts of interest between the two offices or just an inability to despite the best efforts and intentions of, a person to fairly serve those who have elected them into, that position.

Amanda's hand is up.

Amanda, go ahead.

I apologize if this was in the agenda, but, is there a carve out for the Charter Review Commission looking at everyone here who serves in two elected offices?

This

proposal does not articulate a carve out, but I think that there's an opportunity to integrate this proposal with commissioner Preston's proposal as well as evolve some of the language, refine it a bit to ensure that those types of those types of scenarios because that's kind of an outlier scenario amongst our elected positions, to ensure that those are addressed appropriately in any amendment.

Great. Can I get a motion on this? So moved. Second. Okay. I have a motion and a second. Let's continue discussion then. Other thoughts? Go ahead.

So is there a way to merge my original proposal with this one? And another question with the carve out of the charter, what about carve out for, like, PCOs? Because that's an elected office also.

Yeah. We can totally do that. If that's the if that's the will of the commission, we can merge the two.

Okay. So I have a motion to, pass proposal 17. Is there an amend or go ahead with further discussion, Patrick.

Yep. Just comment. Then can we table this one and have that brought back with those additions to it under the understanding that this if, in fact, that didn't go forward, this could then be brought back to us at a later time.

I I think what how I'd rather do it for being clean and so we don't have to do it later on, can we get an amendment that combines them?

I move.

Although although at that point, we need seven votes for the whole thing to go forward. If

I may Go ahead. Can we advance this for further consideration if the commission chooses to? And then at that point, then we'll send it to Peter, and we'll ask him to work on integrating the two and refining the language and bringing it back to us.

That's the desire of this great body. I love everything about it. Okay. So with that, all those in favor?

Aye. And

any opposed? Okay. Most, proposal passes. Proposal 17. We're on to proposal 18 related to the creation of the county office of energy and sustainability. Thank

you, chair. The intent of this is simple. It's to ensure that Snohomish County always maintains a strong, consistent commitment to environmental stewardship, climate action, and sustainability, regardless of of how political winds may shift. Right now, the office exists by policy, which means future administrations could scale it back. But by placing it in the charter, that continuity would be protected, and any major change would require a vote of the people.

The office's mission would be to advance healthy, safe, and resilient future, environmental factors for all county residents. It would coordinate countywide efforts to cut our greenhouse gas emissions, promote renewable energy and energy efficiency, support climate adaptation, and protect our air, water, watersheds, natural resources. It would also work to make sure that the benefits of clean energy and sustainability reach all of our communities equitably. So in practical terms, this office would continue to collaborate with departments, tribes, business businesses, educators, and community groups, and leverage grants and partnerships to accelerate progress. It would be led by a qualified director as it is currently.

It would be supported by staff with the tools and authority needed to do to do the work effectively as it is currently. So in short, this is really about, protecting and codifying in the charter the need to have a position with oversight over ecological stewardship, sustainability, and accountability. So I I hear the fiscal impact question coming. This office already exists. This is a measure to ensure that the people retain this oversight as environmental issues really touch all policy areas, that our county government deals with.

Great. Do I have a motion on this? So moved.

Second.

Okay. I have a motion and a second. Discussion

Janelle? This this something that we could combine with, treasurer Sullivan's proposal as fundamental or foundational services?

If I can answer that, Chair. I don't feel that that would be an appropriate step to integrate the two. However, it would possibly be impacted by treasurer Sullivan's proposal to prioritize funding based on, mandates, based on mandates by ordinance, charter, or statute.

K. Other discussion? Don?

I think we're just duplicating multiple offices that we already have. I think between the state and the county already, I think we've got a duplication of these departments already. So I'm just concerned of we add more staffing to this. It's gonna prolong more decision making.

K. Other first round comments, Karen. Alright.

I will agree with, commissioner Vinny that it's already there. And because we are only gonna put through a few of these, this would not be a choice of mine to put through.

Yeah. Okay. Other first round comments?

None. Oh, I'm good.

What's that? Oh, Rob? Rob, sorry. I Sorry. I'm just gonna echo what Carolyn just said. That's all. Okay. Any other comments? Any other discussion? Alright. With that, I'll call for the vote. All those in favor? We need five. So all those in favor?

Aye. And

all those opposed? No. Can I think that's a, no?

Can we do a roll call on that, please?

You wanna do a Please. Could Let's do it.

Yeah. Toyer? No. Fanny? No. Chatters? Yes. O'Donnell? No. Cass? No. Decker? No. Preston? No. Dodd? Yes. McGee? Yes. Eslick? No. James? No. Kaylee? I'm a no. K. Thank you.

That just helps me for the when I write up the minutes.

Yep. I got it. So with that, let's go to proposal 19 related to banning political action committees and corporations from donating to political campaigns.

Yeah. So this is mine. So the the purpose of this is to is to disallow donations to our county campaigns, which currently result in a disproportionate voice being given to individuals with deep pockets and influence. And campaigns should be about who has the best ideas. And that is the purpose of this.

And the proposal is to add a new section in the charter for election financing. And so Section 4.11 that would read, candidates for county elected positions are ineligible to receive campaign donations from political action committees or corporations and independent expenditures for or against any political candidate or issue shall be disallowed. I also recognize this is likely a Citizens United issue. And so I would I do not know that the charter is allowed to do this. And from a legal perspective, I would love to explore this.

But I would all I don't know if that's a really easy question to answer, that we're allowed to disallow those monies into our political campaigns at the charter level. So I I don't know if if we can directly ask that question if it's an

easy a legal opinion before we move forward. Most certainly.

This is not something that well, I'll I'll say this. The ability for corporations, PACs, independent expenditures, all of that to donate to political campaigns is a form of speech. And so limiting actually eliminating that, all out is constitutional infringement. And so that is not something I would recommend, because that would be challenged, and there's, liability definitely that could come to the county for that.

Okay. With that, do we have a motion on this?

And and that's what I thought. Yeah. But I did wanna bring it up Perfect. For for discussion. So I'll I'll go ahead and withdraw that, and we can move forward.

Excellent. Proposal 19, Germanado. Let's go to proposal 20.

Okay. That's also mine. So, that is another election financing, issue. And so, this is to reduce the maximum donation to 50% of the currently allowed amount from the PDC. The PDC currently allows $1,200 per individual to donate to a political campaign per election.

So right now, that would bring county election donations per individual down to $600 per election. And, yeah, so that's all this is. And it and again, it the purpose is to lower the barrier for people who don't have 50 friends who can each kick in $1,200 But they might have 200 friends that could each kick in $100 Right? And really, it's just to make it more affordable for folks to run for public office.

Okay. Do we have a motion on this?

I'll make the motion.

K. Second.

And we have a second. Okay. I'll open the floor for one minute thoughts.

Just to clarify, this is just is this just county positions only? Okay. Thanks.

Patrick. Thank you. One minute on

the clock, please. Campaigns are campaigns are won by personality, message, and and money. When you start limiting the amount of money that people can collect in various ways, that favors people who are well known and well connected. It does not favor people who are new to the new to the political process, haven't built their base yet, don't have the ability to go out and speak at a lot of different places to gather funds from a lot of different places. So this favors the establishment and actually disadvantages people who are new and trying to get into the trying to get into the political process.

So I I I love getting big money out of politics, but the problem is that unless and until we set a cap and say everybody can only have x amount of dollars period, and we cap that off, this is creates an unfair advantage to people who are new and trying to get into this space. Okay. First comments. Anybody?

Any other discussion, Janelle?

I I definitely appreciate the intent. And I know in Edmonds, we had, for city council, lower thresholds and what was allowed. I do think if we put this in the charter, though, it's going be ten years out. And so who knows how fast inflation is going to go? And maybe $600 in ten years will be very much money. So My my thank you for bringing it forward for discussion.

Here's

a sign. Excellent. Rob.

I'd like to address that. Yeah. So so the way it's written and the way I'd like to to see it stay is maximum donation is 50% of what is currently allowed at the PDC Yeah. Absolutely. So it should go up and down. And as far as favoring the establishment, I understand that. But you also have folks who go out and get donations from, again, PACs and corporations. They've got their people lined up. They're still they're only going to get $600 as opposed to the $1,200 or the 2,400 if they're in a primary. So that really does bring it back down to, individual people being able to have a lower threshold to be able to run competitively.

K. Any other any other discussion on this one? Okay. This is a five voters. Go ahead, Peter. Toyer?

No. Fanny? No. Chatters? Yes. O'Donnell? No. Cass? No. Decker?

No. Preston?

Yes.

Dodd?

Yes.

McGee?

Yes.

Eslick? No. James? No. Kaylee?

No. Four yes votes.

Okay. With that, let's go to proposal 21 related to requiring a super majority vote of the county council to raise taxes. Chanel?

Yes. So, you know, with some of the proposals for trying to increase count, council size and thinking about what are some of the key functions of county council. And obviously, it is managing budget and putting priorities to the services that the county provides. And we've seen, I think, across not just county, but state and many of the cities here and other districts just max maximizing as much tax increase as possible because of everybody's feeling the pinch. Costs have gone up for many, many things.

And if it's justifiable, I believe a supermajority would support tax increases. But this would bring some accountability to sticking with budgets and considering the pain and the burden of taxes on individuals in in our county. So it'd be just a very simple procedure that it would require super majority to raise or increase any fees on the public.

Okay. First of all, do we have a motion on this?

I'll move.

Second. Do we have a second? Okay. Patrick, go ahead.

I love the concept of super majority for taxes. However, I'm not in favor of it for fees. And simply put, that's because what if your rec center decides that they wanna bring on three extra lifeguards, but in order to fund that, they have to increase the fees by 50¢. Or if your parks and recreation has wants to put in a Frisbee disc golf, on the public space, but they wanna charge a dollar for people to use that. So there's a lot of funds that go on and fees.

And and even in your planning department, what if they decide that, you know, they gotta get better better quality inspector out for your residential fence. So your permit fee to put a fence or a deck is gonna go up by a $100. I think those should be left to the discretion of the city and the administration because they're not material to most people's actual finances, and they're often very discretionary. So super majority on taxes, I would agree with. But on funds and fees, I'm less less happy about that. Okay?

Additional comments. Amanda, ahead.

Thank you. I appreciate the intent here. I own my home. It is getting more and more expensive, but the vast majority of that is voter approved initiatives. And I see even more of that in my King County, Bothellites.

I think what gives me a lot of pause here is in November 2024, the county council debated an 8% of the county portion of property tax increase, And there was a lot of really bad discourse about it. We had a county council member saying the county's gonna raise your overall taxes 8%, which wasn't on the board. And I just think that we haven't seen enough maturity in the way that we talk about taxes to require an even bigger hurdle when we can't even keep up with inflation with that cap on our taxes and raising them more than 1% or the rate of inflation every year. The part of our taxes that is really challenging isn't the part that the county council controls and adding more barriers when we've seen people really not use their power responsibly makes me very nervous, so I can't support this one.

Dave, can you

I think something Brian Sullivan said earlier, and I agree, is it would create an environment for more vigorous debate so they could hammer down. You know, maybe they're talking about like, at our county, they were talking about 8%, and then someone was talking about 0%, and they end up with four. So that way, they'd have more debate and come up with something more reasonable if there was just that one extra vote.

Did you are you, waiting to speak to

I got some questions. You you haven't spoken on this one yet.

No. Not yet, but she's coming.

But you're good, and I I like everything about it.

So with with regard to the supermajority, and we discussed this with the stabilization fund, which I believe was appropriate because that was dealing with protecting against catastrophic events and protecting against overall insolvency on a long term basis. So I think it is very appropriate to put a significant barrier there. With regard to general operations, the cost, the inflation impacts, government operations, and the government has to be able to respond in a timely manner. A super majority vote that is being suggested here would be a serious barrier to just being able to meet the needs of the people. And I also wanna point out that with a three out of five vote needed to pass something on our council, we effectively have a 60% supermajority that is required.

Typically, when you're talking supermajority, you're thinking 60%, not just the straight 50%, which is a true majority. So we're already at a 60% majority requiring a four out of five votes. Now we're talking about an 80% majority required by our government, officials just to meet the basic needs of operations, for our county government. That threshold is not reasonable. In addition, there, there is history of super majorities, for just general operations harming the bond ratings of entities that choose to adopt them.

Examples can be found around this in Arizona and Nevada where this type of legislation was implemented, and it did in fact implement their impact their bond rating, which that has a significant impact on your debt service and what you pay for that, which that is a cost that, taxpayers can't get out from under. So we are we are increasing costs on the back end with policies of this sort. So the solution is not to institute a minority controlled rule, which requires 80%, approval and essentially gives 20% veto power over decisions being made. The solution is vote out the people who aren't doing what you want, on a day to day basis in terms of your general county operations. I'll I'll I'll stop there.

But I do wanna challenge folks who believe that this is a good idea, to to provide case study examples of where legislation of this nature has not resulted in the types of outcomes like increased, costs from lowering of bond ratings, as well as just putting additional burdens on the ability to build infrastructure and carry out the the general needs of of your government.

Janelle? I'm

pretty sure we said that we weren't going to vote some by your own words, vote something down just because we're worried about the downstream costs at this point, or what it might be in terms of what you're talking about with the bond rating. The other thing is that if we can pass this through, at least for more research, I'd like to bring forward research that definitively shows that every time government raises taxes, it increases poverty. And we need to start taking that very seriously in our community.

Okay. Sean.

Normally, I'd be the anti tax guy no matter what it was, but, this one here, I think, is fraught with, some perils Patrick pointed out. So I'm going to be a no on this one.

Okay. Any other first timers?

Point of information. I I just wanna clarify. My comment was in regard to representation of the people. This proposal actually reduces representation by allowing a minority rule veto. So when I'm talking about costs and protecting against costs and what those should be used to support and not, this is very much in alignment with what I what I previously said. This does not increase representation of the people.

Patrick. Move to amend if the chair will let me speak to that. Go ahead. I move that we amend, on the paper in front of us, item c one, a new tax, then strike fee or public chain charge or leave or, of course. And then under item two, strike fee or public charge. And then under d, item three, end the item three there with the word taxes, replace everything after that with a period and strike.

Okay. So I already have an amendment to the original motion. Is there a second? Second. Okay. I have a second. I'm gonna go very cautiously here. I detest making legislation on the diocese because it gets convoluted and and a little crazy. But we'll we'll roll down this road for just a minute and see what happens. Any discussion on that amendment? So the clarification is essentially taking out fees. Fees or other charges.

But not the new tax.

But not the new tax.

Fees or other charges is the only portion I'm seeking to strike here.

Correct. Any discussion on the amendment? Okay. Hearing none, all those in favor, so we'll have a majority on this amendment. All those in favor of the amendment? Aye. And any opposed?

No. No.

Okay. Motion passes. We'll go back to the original motion. Further discussion on the original motion? Go ahead.

Yeah. I I think this is, I think this creates a much higher barrier for the county council to be able to do their jobs and to fund the government. I I, you know, I I didn't look at the exact percentages, but, of course, they're very, very simple. It is right now, we need 60% to already pass. And when I look at supermajority, that's usually the number that they're looking at. And so we already effectively have that. There was a you're right. There was a bit of a blown up fiasco with the last county budget. It was all in the papers. It was a big deal.

But they worked together, and they negotiated down to a level that everyone there, Democrats and Republicans, could kind of go forward for. Nobody was happy, but but they compromised, and they were able to to pull together something reasonable. And I think that, I think this makes it way too difficult to pay for the things that we need to pay for in our county government. As a taxpayer, I hate my taxes going up, but I do love the fact that the government functions. So I I will be a no on this.

Amanda's Okay. With that, this is a five vote pass.

So all

those is up.

Oh, Amanda, go ahead. I'm sorry.

Yeah. I just wanted to really reinforce what commissioner Chatter said about places in Arizona and Nevada lower losing their their credit rating. Like, every government has to bond to build things. If we lose that ability or it is weakened, our county will not give us the services we need. I think that that is a big concern, and I just really wanted to highlight that. Like, I think all of us who work in cities at least, I don't know about ports, but in cities have to deal with bonds. I've seen our credit rating go up in Bothell and experience the benefits of that. You do not want that to go down. So I just really wanted to highlight that. Thank you.

Okay. With that, this is a five vote. So I was in let's do a real call, Peter. Toyer?

Yes.

Fanny? Yes. Chatters? No. O'Donnell? No. Cass? Yes. Decker? Yes. Preston? Yes. Dodd?

No.

McGee?

No.

Eslik? Yes. James? Yes. Gailey?

Yes. Proposal passes. Let's go to proposal 22 related to county financial transparency. Janelle?

So this proposal would be to increase transparency on expenditures made by the county. And actually, it kind of ties back to the idea of being able to more easily see where there could be influence made by the decision makers on where money is spent. I spent some time trying to figure out and there is like a contractor's portal. There is some information on contracts that have been audited. But the information is just all over the place.

And clearly, is information that is public, so you could make a public records request. But I think to make things easier for the public as contracts you know, if there's a purpose and need for the county to spend money, and they're going to contract out, I think that people have a right to know who's getting the money, what's the name of the organization, and where are they located. And then if there are any audits, that should be also posted and all in one place so that you can see the continuum from beginning to end.

Okay. Do I have a motion on this?

I'll move.

Second? Second. Okay. And I have a second. Let's discuss it, Patrick.

Yep. Thank you. I'm in favor of this, but I'd like there to be a threshold. I know that in certain cities, for example, procurement can place procurement without having a statement of work because it's under a particular threshold of the city. So I would advance this, but I would want there to be and it could be pegged to 2.1% of the city's revenue or something like that. But but put a threshold on this so that they don't have to run around and change every little expense that happens to come out.

Okay? David?

Are you suggesting that this information would just simply be on the county website or something like that?

Yeah. I think this should be on the website. It could be down searchable, downloadable, have the data at the fingertips of the citizens.

Okay. Additional discussion. Alright. This is a five five voter. Peter, what we got? Toyer? Yes.

Benny? Yes. Chatters? Yes. O'Donnell? Yes. Cass? Yes. Decker? Yes. Preston? Yes. Dodd?

Yes.

McGee?

Yes.

Eslic? Yes. James? Yeah. Kaylee? Yes. Inendez.

Okay. That, proposal 22 passes. Go to proposal 23. Patrick?

23 is not next to 93 in here.

Was a late addition, so it might be in the back of your packet.

Okay.

It's not another chance. It's

proposal 23. It is

it's in the back.