Remarks by Ronnie Wright
112 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 1 of 5
The ancestral lands of the Coast Salish people, we pay our respect to those past and present. Tonight's invocation will be led by Pastor Elizabeth Lawson from the Living Word Four Square Church. If we could all please stand for the invocation and then remain standing for the Pledge of Allegiance that will be led by Councilmember Stuckey.
All right, this is a reminder that tonight's meeting will both be a physical and a virtual meeting. It may be viewed on YouTube and following the meeting on Facebook. We have two absent from the meeting tonight. Council Members Marshall and Wittgenstein have asked to be excused. So if we could have a motion to excuse both of them from tonight's meeting. Yes, Mayor Pro Temp.
Second. All right. We have a motion and a second to excuse Council Members Marshall and Wittgenstein from tonight's meeting. All in favor, raise your right hand. That passes unanimously. Thank you very much. Approval of the agenda for tonight. Are there any suggested changes to the regular agenda? If not, I request a motion to approve it as presented. Yes, Council Member Stuckey.
If mayor's okay with that. Sure. Yeah. Okay. So, um, We have an amendment then to the agenda as presented to add a budget discussion at Section 5A right after Mayor and Council comments.
All right. And we have a second. Is there any further discussion before I call for a vote for that? All right. Is there a motion then to approve the agenda as amended? I move to approve the agenda.
All right, all in favor, raise your right hand. I think I screwed that up, but okay. Passed unanimously. Thank you, we got there. All right, so I'm gonna move on to presentations. 2026 Whidbey Island Marathon Event Recap, we have here to introduce that tonight, our race producer, Jared Loringer of Fizz Events to present.
Thanks for your presentation, Jared. Are there any questions or comments for Jared? Yes, Council Member Stuckey.
Anybody else? All right. Well, thanks again, Jared. We appreciate all your hard work on this, and we look forward to you doing this again next year.
All right, we're going to move on to public comments. Comments on consent agenda items or subjects of interest not listed on the agenda at this time. Opportunity to comment on the remaining agenda items during the meeting as appropriate. Please note comments regarding public hearing items will be heard during that portion of the agenda. We have no public hearings for today's meeting. Visit our website for methods to submit public comments. Public comments sent anonymously or from a non-verifiable address will be shared with the mayor and the council but will not be displayed. At this time, we…
Welcome to the Park Board, Kathy. Thank you so much for volunteering.
Great. Thank you, Julie. Is there anyone here with us this evening that didn't have an opportunity to sign up that would like to step forward and make public comment at this time? All right, hearing, seeing no one, I'm going to close the in-person public comments, and then we received several new public comments since our last regular meeting, and we'll display those now on the screen for all of us to review. All right. Oh, I'm so sorry. I thought that was the end. All right. Now I'll go. All right. So just to put everyone's mind at ease, the arts commission, as well as a nonprofit in town…
All right, so we have a motion to accept the consent agenda as presented by Council Member Peterson, seconded by Council Member Merrow. Is there any further discussion before I call for a vote? Yes, Council Member Heisen, or Mayor Pro Tem, sorry.
Anyone else? All right, all in favor then raise your right hand. And that passes unanimously. Thank you very much. Right, we are going to move on to council comments and mayor comments. First up, mayor comments. Last week, Council Members Stuckey, Arms, Merrow, Peterson, and Wigenstein, as well as our city administrator and I attended the Association of Washington City's District 14 meeting in Burlington. It was a great opportunity to connect with other local elected officials and city staff, share updates and priorities from our community, and discuss the issues facing cities across our…
So to address what you're proposing or what we're just discussing here, to go from a five to a three, we can absolutely look at that. David and I would have to go back and crunch numbers, though, and see what that does to the bottom line and then make adjustments and other things. And so I'm not opposed to that at all. Again, that's we're happy to do that that that's what the workshop was all about too is we're happy to have those conversations And again, we're not we're not mandating any of the suggested revenue streams that were brought forward were just they were suggestions to you all and…
I just want to also thank all of you. I appreciate the discussions like this. The one thing that I want to point out, I leaned over and I mentioned to Council Member Stuckey, the thing that's frustrating is if you go back and you look at the history of just this topic, this got pushed out through 14 different meetings rather than reaching resolution at any point in time. If we had reached an agreement much sooner in the process, we would have been further down the road at this point. It just goes to show how important it is for all of us to have these civil discussions and come to an…
I don't necessarily know that she's talking about salaries, though. I don't know that. Again, you're using numbers, and I don't know what the specificity behind those numbers is. So do you have anything specific you're referring to in those numbers? Well... Nobody went to D.C. this year, so...
So David, I don't, can you, I don't have my mind. I don't have all of the things.
Yeah. Because otherwise, I don't think that we increased anything other than that position and then the increases and just what were benefits and other things, right? I mean, you know, there's... Because I know I didn't give you guys any raises, so...
Um, I don't need that to be on the front of the paper.
It's all of their IT stuff, too. Was that it? Council Member Peterson?
Okay. I'm sorry. Council Member Merrill?
And because David won't, so I will, because nobody in this room really understands what a big deal it is. David is also on the governmental accounting standards board for the entire country. That's a really big deal. And we have him in this city. So we have... someone that's really, I always tell him every day he's a genius. He likes to make fun of me, but I think he's a million times smarter than I am. I enjoy working with him every day and we're lucky to have him. He does understand what we're facing, we both do, which is why we're trying to always look for additional ways to bring in…
Yeah, no, I know. But I mean, still, though, is it a salaried position? Okay. There you go.
All right. Thanks, David. All right. Anybody else for the good of the order? Does everyone feel like they got to ask their questions? I know there can still be more. We're not saying this is the end all be all, but I'm just saying feel good tonight.
I wasn't correcting you. It's not salary. I guarantee you, Christina just corrected him.