City Council - workshop

GOOD EVENING. I'D LIKE TO WELCOME AND CALL TO ORDER PORTER STREET CITY COUNCIL'S MEETING FOR TUESDAY JULY 21ST. THIS IS TYPICALLY A WORK STUDY SESSION BUT BECAUSE WE'VE GOT SOME ACTION ITEMS WE ARE GOING TO SIT AT THE DIUS THIS EVENING TO CONDUCT THAT BUSINESS. SO AT THIS TIME I WOULD LIKE TO ASK YOU TO JOIN ME IN THE PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE.

I PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE TO THE FLAG OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND TO THE REPUBLIC FOR WHICH IT STANDS

I DON'T KNOW THAT WE DO. THAT WOULD BE A QUESTION FOR THE ATTORNEY. ALL RIGHT. WE HAVE A PUBLISHED AGENDA. ARE THERE ANY PROPOSED AMENDMENTS? COUNCIL MEMBER MORRISSEY.

YEAH. MR. MAYOR, I MOVE TO ADD TWO ADDITIONAL ITEMS TO TONIGHT'S AGENDA. WE HAVE SOME THINGS WE NEED TO VOTE ON SO I THINK WE SHOULD ADD A PUBLIC COMMENT PERIOD. I'D LIKE TO ADD THAT AHEAD OF ALL BUSINESS ITEMS. DIRECTLY IN BETWEEN BUSINESS ITEMS AND PUBLIC COMMENT, I'D ALSO LIKE TO ADD AN EXECUTIVE SESSION.

RELATED TO A REAL ESTATE TRANSACTION.

I'LL SECOND THAT.

A MOTION TO ADD AN EXECUTIVE SESSION. AT THE BEGINNING OF THE MEETING, AFTER WE SET THE AGENDA, FOLLOWED BY A PUBLIC COMMENT PERIOD AHEAD OF THE BUSINESS ITEMS. I HAVE A MOTION BY COUNCILMEMBER MORSEY, SECOND BY COUNCILMEMBER DEANER. ALL IN FAVOR OF MAKING THOSE AMENDMENTS TO THE AGENDA, PLEASE SAY AYE.

AYE.

ANYONE OPPOSED? Hearing none, those items have been added to the agenda. Council Member Diener, do you have an amendment you'd like to make?

Yes, I do. Mr. Mayor, I'd like to amend the agenda to include a motion for reconsideration to the July 14th, 2026 motion to censure Council Member Dedman.

Second. So we have a motion to add a business item C to the agenda this evening, which is a motion to reconsider the censure of council member Dedmond. And we have a motion by council member Diener, a second by council member Morrissey. All in favor of adding that item, please say aye.

Aye. Nay.

We have one nay. So at this time, are there any further amendments to this evening's agenda? Councilmember Rosabelli.

Mayor, I move to approve the agenda as amended. Second.

Motion by Councilmember Rosabelli, multiple seconds. I think I'll give it to Councilman Morrissey. And all in favor of approving the agenda as amended, please say aye.

Aye. Nay.

ONE OPPOSED. ALL RIGHT. WE ARE GOING TO GO INTO A BRIEF EXECUTIVE SESSION. I WOULD SAY TEN MINUTES. TOPS AND MS. ARCHER, COULD YOU STATE THE STATUTE FOR THAT?

Absolutely. RCW 4231.10, subpart 1, subpart B, to consider the selection of a site or the acquisition of real estate by lease or purchase when public knowledge regarding such consideration would cause a likelihood of increased price. For 10 minutes with action to follow.

Okay. We'll go into a 10-minute executive session.

And we'll return at 6.44? 6.44, sure.

I'm at the back end of the book.

Are you recording here?

We're recording, but we're muted.

So when I was talking to Sean and Jenny earlier, they said we can apologize for the contribution to YouTube. The only thing that we do, we would have to recreate the screen for YouTube. And I don't know how to do that. So just pause it and say that.

That's a miracle. Exactly on time. Have you restarted the recording, Jeanine? Yep. All right. So we're live and we're back in session. We're going to get to next item on our agenda. Because we have three business items, we're going to have a public comment period. Nobody in the audience. Is there anyone online? If they wish to make comment, they use the raise your hand feature and the clerk would bring you into the meeting. I SEE NO HANDS RAISED, SO I'M GOING TO CLOSE THE PUBLIC COMMENT PERIOD. WE ARE NOW TO OUR THREE BUSINESS ITEMS, THE FIRST OF WHICH IS APPROVAL OF AMENDMENT NUMBER ONE TO INTERLOCAL AGREEMENT NUMBER C-025-25 WITH KITSAP COUNTY. MR. RYAN, THIS IS YOU.

Thank you, Mayor. Good evening, Council. The City of Port Orchard and Kitsap County are parties to an interlocal agreement number C025-25, an agreement for goods and services originally executed on March 12, 2025. Amendment number one has been prepared to update the attachment A of the agreement. The updated attachment replaces the prior version, removes previous cost cap associated with the interlocal agreement, and provides an updated request and agreement for work. EQUIPMENT AND OR MATERIALS FROM USED BY BOTH AGENCIES. THE AMENDMENT DOES NOT MODIFY THE GENERAL TERMS.

I'M SORRY.

I'D LIKE TO EXPLAIN THAT UNDER THE COUNTY'S PERSONNEL MANUAL, ALL CITY EMPLOYEES ARE REQUIRED TO REQUISE THEMSELVES FROM ANY CITY BUSINESS. COUNTY EMPLOYEES. COUNTY CITY BUSINESS, YEAH.

OKAY. I'M SORRY I DIDN'T MENTION THAT SOONER. I FORGOT ABOUT IT.

IT'S ENTHUSIASTIC.

YEP. I WAS TOO. All right. You may proceed.

All right. The updated attachment replaces prior version, removes the previous cost cap associated with the interlocal agreement, and provides an updated request and agreement for work, equipment, and or materials from used by both agencies. The amendment does not modify the general terms, financial obligations, or scope of the original agreement. All other provisions of the interlocal agreement remain in full force and in effect. The amendment will become effective June 23rd, 2026 upon approval. execution by both parties I believe that is an error that date it should be July staff recommends the City Council approve amendment number one to the interlocal agreement with Kitsap County and authorize the mayor to execute the amendment this is just one of many interlocals we have with the county under this agreement we do our we purchase all of our chemical for de-icing so this is a common practice and recognized by the state as a proper procurement

Again, Council Member Morrissey, the biggest, you asked this question earlier, and we've got two separate items here related to this paving, and this interlocal agreement has a cost cap on it right now that the body of work that is the next business item would exceed that cost cap. And so this amendment to this agreement removes the cost cap so that we can approve the second business item and commence that work. With that, you have a motion or a question? Okay. Can I do both?

Certainly. Okay. I move to approve amendment number one to interlocal agreement C025-25 with Kitsap County and authorize the Mayor to execute the amendment. Second.

A motion by Councilmember Marci, a second by Councilmember Rosa Pepe and as the motion maker you can ask the first question.

Thank you Mr. Mayor. You know so I was just calling out that when you look at the actual draft There is no cap put on that. And so it doesn't talk about the materials or any of the things that we are pushing on that we're in the actual agreement. It is a blank agreement.

Correct. So we will follow our procurement processes as what we can purchase without having to bring before the city council. Anything excess of that, just like this attachment for the work, we will bring to this body for approval if it exceeds mine or the mayor's authority.

So it's an open, to answer your question, it's an open-ended agreement. We make small purchases within our procurement policies and budget, and when, like this paving, it exceeds those administrative limits, and now we need to bring that larger item before you, which is the next business item. Does that explain it? Okay. Other questions? All right, he'll be voting on, oops.

Sorry, I do have a question. Certainly. Um you said I just sorry you were giving an explanation so you said the approval of the amendment the first item.

Yeah that's the agree that's the urinal local agreement that allows us to then do the work in the second agreement.

Okay and then the work in the second agreement asks for an increase to the budget of that

NO, IT DOES NOT. WE'RE USING OUR EXISTING BUDGET BUT BECAUSE OF THE AMOUNT OF THE WORK, WE'RE REQUIRED TO BRING IT TO THE CITY COUNCIL. AND WE HAVE MONEY BUDGETED FOR PAVING AND TYPICALLY AND HISTORICALLY WE'VE GONE OUT TO PRIVATE COMPANIES TO DO THAT WORK AND IN THIS CASE WE'VE NEGOTIATED AN AGREEMENT FOR THE COUNTY TO DO THAT WORK INSTEAD OF A PUBLIC BIDDING PROCESS. AND WE'LL GET TO THAT BUSINESS ITEM SECOND.

And so I'm just trying to wrap my head a little bit about what you said.

Can I add?

Go ahead. So right now, if we approve the amendment for the inter-local agreement, what is the reason why the amount doesn't cover the amount that we need if it's already budgeted?

not completely correct i think councilmember morrissey is understanding your question better than i am i think so too so i'm going to try and provide some color here uh councilmember what i as i'm understanding this the first one we're voting on is the contract to do business with the county this allows dennis and his team say they need to purchase salt to put down for an ice event we're going to have that's going to fall underneath the threshold of a dollar amount to spend that he'd have to come ask authorization for us for, but they can just go buy that and that's their contract to be able to buy that and transact that business. The second one that we're gonna have is they are going to actually go buy, we're gonna buy paving of our roads and that's a 300 and some odd thousand dollar purchase if I recall right on the next one. And that well exceeds what they can spend without coming to authorize for us. So we're giving them kind of that blank authorization to do business with the county

um without having to bring all the small things to us and then the second one is one of the big things that we're going to vote on does that okay so the a is the blank authorization the b is the is the work yeah a is the agreement that allows us to conduct business with the county b and then b is a large body of work that requires city council approval okay and then if we have um

So this is just in this agreement just gives the blank authorization to the county specifically for road pavement and but nothing else.

Go ahead and this is a wide ranging cooperative purchasing in a local agreement with the county. It's for goods and services can expand from stormwater to parks. Water quality issues. It's very common throughout the state. Sometimes you'll see inner locals that have EXCESS OF 50 DIFFERENT AGENCIES THAT ARE PART OF IT. WE HAVE MANY OF THESE WITH THE STATE OF WASHINGTON. UMBRELLA WITH MOST AGENCIES, COUNTIES AND CITIES THROUGHOUT THE STATE. SO IT'S A VERY COMMON PRACTICE. AND THIS IS NOT A BUDGET REQUEST AND WE'LL GET TO THAT IN THE NEXT ONE. THE PRESERVATION BUDGET IS SET AS PART OF THE BIAMIUM BUDGET.

OKAY. SO WHAT YOU JUST EXPLAINED WAS PART A OR PART B?

PART A.

THAT WAS PART A. THANK YOU.

And if additional information, MRC has some great interlocal agreement verbiage piggybacking interlocal agreements and it covers, explains it great.

When he's referring to like a common way we use this interlocal agreement, IF YOU EVER NOTICE THE BRINE TANKS THAT RUN AROUND BEFORE A SNOW OR ICE EVENT, WE'RE SPRAYING THAT LIQUID ON THE GROUND. IT'S A SALT SOLUTION. WE DON'T HAVE THE EQUIPMENT TO MAKE THAT OURSELVES. THE COUNTY DOES. SO WE USE THIS AGREEMENT TO GO THAT FROM THE COUNTY BECAUSE THEY HAVE A FACILITY THAT MAKES IT AND WE DON'T. SO WE HAVE EQUIPMENT TO SPREAD IT BUT WE DON'T HAVE THE ABILITY TO MAKE OUR OWN BRINE. SO THIS IS JUST AN AGREEMENT THAT ALLOWS US TO BUY MATERIALS AND THINGS FROM THE COUNTY AND TO DO SMALL WORK AND THEN AT TIMES LIKE OUR NEXT ITEM IS GOT A BIG ITEM AND THAT REQUIRES CITY COUNCIL APPROVAL. everybody any further questions okay you'll be voting on approval of amendment number one to interlocal agreement c025-25 with Kitsap county uh all in favor please say aye aye anyone opposed nay WE HAVE THREE IN FAVOR AND ONE NAY. THE AMENDMENT IS APPROVED. WE'RE TO ITEM B NOW, WHICH IS ADOPTION OF A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING EXECUTION OF A REQUEST AND AGREEMENT FOR WORK UNDER INTERLOCAL AGREEMENT C025-25 WITH KITSAP COUNTY. MR. RYAN, THIS IS FOR YOU.

Thank you. The City of Port Orchard and Kitsap Counties are party to the interlocal agreement for goods and services. Under this agreement, the City may request work materials, equipment, services from Kitsap County Public Works. The City has prepared the request agreement for work, which is attached, for pavement restoration. Ten locations that are outlined on page 14 of the packet, there is a map and I can answer questions as they come up about those locations. The proposed project consists of approximately 1,200 tons of asphalt, taking approximately 16 and a half working days of county resources for pavement repair activities across the streets indicated, including Beach Drive, Hortsman Road, John Claussen Way, Harrison Avenue, Kitsap, Rockwell, Kendall, Melcher, Ramsey, Salmonberry, and Cathy Avenue. Kitsap County has provided cost estimates totaling $308,000 and $523 as in the estimate we will have to be responsible for paying actuals with a not to exceed amount of $350,000 named in this agreement identified in the request and agreement form. THE WORK IS ANTICIPATED TO BE COMPLETED NO LATER THAN SEPTEMBER 4, 2026. ADOPTION OF THIS PROPOSED RESOLUTION AUTHORIZES THE CITY TO PROCEED WITH THE REQUEST AGREEMENT FOR WORK UNDER THE EXISTING INTERLOCAL AGREEMENT ALLOWING KITZAP COUNTY PUBLIC WORKS TO PERFORM THE PAYMENT RESTORATION IN COORDINATION WITH OUR CITY STAFF.

Mr. Mayor, I move that the council adopt a resolution authorizing execution of a request with agreement for work under interlocal agreement C025-25 with Kitsap County in terms and conditions acceptable to the city attorney. Second.

Motion by Council Member Morrissey, a second by Council Member Rosa Pepe. I do have one question for you, Dennis, myself. I noticed in the body of work that we're doing some improvements on Salmonberry from Bethel to the city limits. We've got a project coming there. Is this just putting a Band-Aid on the road to get us to that project because it's in real bad shape?

A little bit of both. It's most of the work that's going to occur is beyond the scope of the Salmonberry Roundabout. This list was developed with the information that we're gathering in our asset management software. These are our most frequently complaints that we receive through CQIC. We are taking care of our biggest liability out there is our goal for this.

Fair enough. I just was questioning that. I didn't want to put asphalt down and tear it up two years from now if it's not needed, but it sounds like it's needed. Other questions? All right. You'll be voting on adoption of resolution authorizing execution of a request and agreement for work under interlocal agreement C025-25 with Kitsap County. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Is there anyone opposed?

Abstain.

You can't abstain. Point of order. Yeah.

Oh, I thought I was allowed to abstain.

No, unless you have conflicts of interest.

Well, it just seems weird to vote on something that I already voted no on. So do I just vote no again?

You have to vote no. You can vote however you like, but you have to vote.

Oh, okay. I guess that just doesn't make any sense. Okay.

No. Your vote was? No. No. Okay. That passes three to one. All right, you can go get the other council members.

Outcomes?

Yes, they both passed. Three to one. All right. So, Council Member Diener, you added this business item, so it's a motion to reconsider, a censure of Council Member Dedman, and I'll give you the floor.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I prepared a statement that I'm going to read, so bear with me. I will also read the original motion that was made.

I think a motion needs to be made first.

Sorry, thank you. Mr. Mayor, I'm making a motion to consider a reconsideration for the motion to censor Council Member Dedman on July 14, 2026, which failed in part due to my vote.

SECOND. SECOND. SECOND BY COUNCILMEMBER ROSPEPE. A MAIN MOTION BY COUNCILMEMBER DEAN.

POINT OF ORDER. CAN YOU MAKE A RECONSIDERATION IF YOU VOTED IN OPPOSITION TO IT?

Actually, he can because he was on the winning side of the vote. It failed. It failed.

In part due to my vote. So yes, the answer is yes.

Oh, because you, wait.

The only two people that can make, well, there's three people that can make that motion.

Isn't it... Sorry, I just wanna get a double check from, sorry, Mr. Mayor, may I get an answer from City Attorney Archer on this about if you, so the motion was for a public censure. And from my understanding of Robert Rules, the person had to be in favor of the motion SO EVEN THOUGH THE MOTION FAILED AND YOU WERE ON THE WINNING SIDE, YOU HAVE TO BE IN FAVOR OF THE MOTION TO THEN HAVE, BE ABLE TO MAKE A MOTION FOR CONSIDERATION.

THAT IS NOT MY UNDERSTANDING, BUT I'LL DEFER TO THE ATTORNEY.

Thank you so much. You have to be on the prevailing side of the vote on the action. And so in this case, because the action failed, anyone who was on the side of voting no would be in the prevailing side and able to make the motion for reconsideration. Anyone who made the original motion or voted in favor would not be eligible to make a motion. And so Council Member Deener, on the winning side, the side of the motion failing, is eligible to make that motion. Okay. Thank you for the explanation.

GO AHEAD, MR. DEAN.

I WAS JUST ABOUT TO COVER THAT IN MY STATEMENT. SO PORT ORCHARD MUNICIPAL CODE 2.04.110 READS, AND I QUOTE, MOTIONS TO RECONSIDER MUST BE BY A MEMBER WHO VOTED WITH THE MAJORITY AND AT THE SAME OR NEXT SEATING MEETING OF THE COUNCIL, END QUOTE. SINCE THE MOTION ORIGINALLY FAILED DUE TO A TIE, ONLY SOMEONE WHO VOTED NO MAY MOVE TO RECONSIDER AS I'VE DONE. So as I understand, this motion is debatable only to the extent the original motion was debatable. And by adopting this motion, it places the original motion back before the city council as though the previous vote had not occurred. In other words, by adopting the motion, the council debates and votes on the original motion again. I'm going to read the original motion as originally presented by Council Member Morrissey. Council Member Morrissey said on July 14, 2026, I move that the City Council formally censure and express its disapproval of the conduct of Council Member Dedman for publicly making statements about the resignation of former Council Member Fenton, despite not being present for that meeting. Her comments have misrepresented what occurred and have contributed to public confusion and unfairly diminished confidence in the integrity of this governing body. Mr. Morrison recognizes that elected officials have the right to express their opinions and engage in public debate. However, those opinions should be grounded in accurate information, particularly when commenting on official meetings and actions of the governing body. By publicly characterizing a meeting she did not attend in ways that are inconsistent with what actually occurred, Council Member Dedman has undermined informed public discourse, and eroded trust in local government. During the executive session, the Council and Ms. Fenton addressed the need for an investigation into allegations of misconduct involving Mrs. Fenton. Before the Council reconvened in open session to discuss whether to proceed with an investigation, Ms. Fenton submitted her resignation. As a result of her resignation, the Council did not return to open session to consider or take action regarding an investigation. It is unclear why Ms. Fenton has attempted to withdraw or contradict her resignation. The Council's understanding is that her resignation became effective upon submission and acceptance and therefore cannot be unilaterally rescinded. At the time of her resignation, the Council believed that accepting her resignation without pursuing a public investigation appropriately respected her request for privacy and avoided the need to publicly address allegations. However, Councilmember Deadman and Ms. Fenton's Subsequent public statements contradicting the circumstances surrounding her resignation have left the council with little choice but to disclose these additional facts to provide an accurate account of the events and to maintain public confidence in the integrity of the council's actions. Mr. Morrissey wants to affirm the expectation that members of this body will represent official proceedings accurately, correct material misinformation when it occurs, and conduct themselves in a manner that promotes public confidence in government. I'd like to add to what was read on July 14th. What changed my view of the original motion is that while I have extended Councilmember Dedmon grace, including in public meetings, the end of the July 14, 2026 meeting showed me that Councilmember Dedmon even under threat of censure does not respect the rules of order specifically and most often being recognized to speak. last Tuesday evening, talking over the mayor and failing, even if she felt she was right, to be properly recognized, contributed to being unable to conduct the remainder of our business. I, as an elected representative of the city, cannot feel good about my obligatory fiduciary responsibilities to the city if I do not finally take a position on the behavior of my peer, Councilmember Dedmon. I'm hopeful that, like with any peer, we can agree to disagree and let the decisions be made by council without disrespect to the process. If we do not follow the established rules of procedure, what good is having rules of procedure?

I just wish Councilmember Warden, actually, I'm gonna allow you to speak last to this matter, all right? And Councilmember Warden.

I'm gonna say for me, what changed my mind was the constant disruption. And it's not productive. It's not productive. It just makes things more challenging for us. It makes us look more unorganized when we're not. in the refusal to use Robert's rules of order. I fully believe that council member knows the rules of order. She started demonstrate them again tonight. So I'm sure she knows them. And after constant encouragement to do so, it continues to happen on a regular basis. After being asked on a regular basis to please wait your turn, you continue to disrupt. So I'm hoping that this motion will help us move further along to have more productive meetings. So.

Council Member Rospepe. I have a statement I'd like to read into the record. I've given considerable thought on how to address this issue, not the censure motion itself, but how did we get here and how do we move forward as a council? Washington state law and Robert's Rules of Order are very clear on the role of the mayor as council facilitator. and the role in maintaining order and decorum. Likewise, we need to acknowledge that staff are the subject matter experts and it's our responsibility to engage staff and not marginalize or ignore them. The misinformation of the law and manipulation of the Monroe versus City of Paulsville decision by the Washington State Court of Appeals and ignoring the detailed analysis provided by the city's attorney was more than disheartening. making public statements that faultless falsely accused fellow council members and staff of unlawful conduct and in doing so expose the city to expensive meritless litigation is a breach of our responsibility and duty as elected officials it undermined its staff the support of the community and continues to draw unnecessary attention from outside the community I think it's important to recognize that the majority of the citizens of Port Orchard and staff find this behavior deeply troubling. It is true it gets attention. It is also true that it is a distraction. But as you talk to people of the city, they still believe in decency, respect, courtesy, and kindness. No individual council member can continue to run the risk of playing to the crowd and creating legal risk for the city. If there is an issue, it is our responsibility to be engaged, to do our homework, to reach a consensus, and then support the consensus, not undermine it. Finally, I'd like to address reputation and integrity. It's all you have, and if you're willing to sacrifice your integrity for a sound bite or a social media posting, then you will reap what you sow. Thank you. Ms. Mercenary?

Yeah, I apologize for not being here last week, but after reviewing the recording of last week's meeting, I support this censure. In my opinion, this council person's conduct raises serious concerns about adherence to the parliamentary procedures and the expected standards of this body. These standards help ensure fair, orderly governance and maintain public confidence in the council's work. I believe this censure is an appropriate step to uphold accountability and preserve public trust.

Mayor Morrisey.

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Mayor. I don't know that I have a lot to add from last week. I think I got most of that out other than, you know, when it comes back to the misrepresentation of the things that happened in said meeting. We all took an oath of office that I think we all uphold and I hope we all uphold it to the same degree. I put my full faith and being into that you understand the weight of what that holds and we need to make sure that we continue to represent ourselves well, that we don't erode additional trust with our community and that we move forward as a whole. So thank you. You have the final word on this matter.

Thank you. I would like to point out that it seems that council members Trenary, Diener, and Rosa Pepe have prepared statements. I would like to ask, this is a formal request, public records request for those prepared statements. Also, I do not have a prepared statement because as you saw the agenda, I was not aware, I just saw the agenda. I was not aware that there was going to be, nor was the public aware that there was going to be a motion for reconsideration made tonight. So give me grace in understanding that I wasn't prepared for this. I WOULD ALSO LIKE TO POINT OUT THAT COUNCILMEMBER DEANER JUST READ THAT THE MOTION FOR CONSIDERATION LOOKS AT THE ORIGINAL MOTION AS IF NOTHING ELSE OCCURRED. AND YET MULTIPLE TIMES THE COUNCILMEMBERS HAVE POINTED TO THINGS THAT HAPPENED AFTER said motion was made and the motion for the original motion, the discussions around the original motion. So pointing to things that happened after do not fit within looking at the original motion as again, as if nothing else had happened. I would also like to state that FOR INSTANCE, COUNCILMEMBER ROSA PEPPE STATED THAT HE ALSO INTERRUPTED DURING THE MEETING AND THAT NOBODY WAS PICKING ON ME ON REPRIMANDING ME ABOUT THAT SO THAT WHICH EVIDENCE IS THAT OTHER PEOPLE INTERRUPT TOO. I WOULD ALSO LIKE TO POINT OUT IF YOU LOOK AT THE JULY 17TH, JULY 14TH, SORRY, JULY 14TH, 2026, THAT I ALSO WAS NOT THE ONLY ONE THAT WAS SKIRTING THE ROBERTS RULES OF ORDER BEING THAT IT WAS A HIGHLY CHARGED MEETING. I WOULD ALSO LIKE TO POINT OUT THEY HAVE CONSTANTLY TALKED ABOUT MISREPRESENTATION, ABOUT events that occurred that I was not present to. I did not misrepresent, as I stated at the original motion, because I always stated that when, for those instances that I was not there, I was repeating what Council Member Fenton had told me and had stated. And so that is not a misrepresentation. Also, give me a second, sorry. I WAS JUST TOLD THAT MY ACTIONS HAVE CREATED LEGAL RISK. HOWEVER, THE ACTIONS, ALL OF THIS STEMS FROM THE ORIGINAL ACTIONS OF THE COUNCIL AT THE JUNE 16, 2026 OPMA SESSION. that during the June 18th, 2026 special session, Council then voted in favor of waiving the confidentiality of that session. So, I was, I then spoke out about what I had witnessed, what I had personally witnessed at that meeting because confidentiality was waived by counsel. Also, the actions that occurred at counsel were not from me. You cannot tell me that I created risk because of OPMA violations that were created and put forward by the other council members, by council majority. So in conclusion, everything that was stated here shows to me that we are still trying to skirt the issue of transparency by trying to look at me and make me a fall guy for what is happening. And that's just, I don't know why we're trying to do that because I think just as council member Rosa Pepe stated, I agree. How do we move on from what happened? What happened is crazy. And so I think we all as a body should be figuring out instead of trying to point the finger, I literally am speaking about this so that we can try to figure out what happened. Right now, it's a he said, she said battle. And that's not transparency. That is not what makes that is not what makes people trust the body, and that's not on me. And so, with that said, in terms of interruptions, I apologize, that is definitely something I'm working with, because of my own neurodivergence, it's really difficult for me, and so I have since then bought fidget toys and things like that, and I know that the council members who flank me see that I often am listening, my way of paying attention is by tracing and drawing and to try to keep my focus and so I'm not interrupting. So I acknowledge that and I own that and just know that I am trying to do better because I do want y'all to feel respected and I do want to follow procedures, but I can admit that it is difficult for me, but I am not just resting on that and making an excuse. I'm doing something about it. Thank you.

We have a motion by Councilmember Diener to reconsider the censure made on July 14th. This motion was seconded by Councilmember Rosa Pepe. All in favor? Point of order, Mayor.

Yes. In reading Robert's rules, I had a question.

seems to be in two places on whether uh council member deadman can vote on this motion or not yes and and uh you're correct i erred in the uh on the 14th council member deadman does not get to vote on this matter mr mayor yes

The motion is in two parts. So the first motion is the motion for reconsideration, which Council Member Dedman can vote on. The second is a motion to censure because that motion is then back on the floor. She cannot vote on the second.

Okay, there's second. There's two separate actions. Thank you for that clarification.

Point of order. Point of order. Oh, we'd have to wait on the motion to public censure. Okay, I'll wait. THANK YOU.

SO WE HAVE A MOTION TO RECONSIDER WHICH COUNCILMEMBER DEDMOND CAN VOTE ON THAT WAS MADE BY COUNCILMEMBER DEANER AND SECONDED BY COUNCILMEMBER ROSAPEPE. ALL IN FAVOR OF THE MOTION TO RECONSIDER PLEASE SAY AYE. AYE. ANYONE OPPOSED? OKAY. THE MOTION FOR RECONSIDER HAS BROUGHT THE ORIGINAL MOTION BACK TO THE TABLE. TO BE REVOTED ON? OKAY. ALL RIGHT. IS THERE ANY COMMENT ON THAT? OKAY. SO THE MOTION ORIGINALLY WAS MADE BY COUNCIL MEMBER MORRISSEY, A SECOND BY COUNCIL MEMBER, EXCUSE ME, ROSAPEPE. ALL IN FAVOR OF THE.

WAIT POINT OF ORDER.

YES MA'AM.

I STILL HAVEN'T BEEN TOLD WHAT SPECIFICALLY I'M BEING CENTERED FOR LIKE WHAT VIOLATE WHAT POLICY OR RCW OR LIKE LAW THAT I BROKE SO THAT WAY I CAN BE VERY SPECIFIC WHAT I'M BEING CENTERED ON.

I BELIEVE BOTH ON THE 14TH AND THIS EVENING COUNCIL MEMBER DEAN OR READ THAT INTO THE RECORD. I'M CERTAIN YOU'LL BE PROVIDED A COPY OF THAT.

CAN YOU PLEASE MAKE THAT CLEAR WHAT RULES I VIOLATED THAT I AM BEING PUBLICLY CENSURED ABOUT? I BELIEVE CITY ATTORNEY, IF YOU MAY, ASK CITY ATTORNEY ARCHER WHETHER OR NOT I'M SUPPOSED TO HAVE IT CLEAR WHAT VIOLATIONS I VIOLATED. in terms of what the public censure is about?

I don't believe that's necessary because it was read into the record, but I will defer to the attorney whether or not we need further clarification.

If the request is for the motion to be restated, we can read that back into the record. It has been read into the record once this evening, but we can read that back into the record if they'd like.

The question at hand is whether or not we need to state specific state statutes that have been violated.

The motion for censure is itself a valid motion as written, and it states the basis for the censure as far as I understood as I heard it. So it can be restated if the council person wants to address any particular allegations therein.

Yes, please restate it so that it is clear to me which policies and laws I am being accused of violating.

So, Councilmember Morrissey or Councilmember Diener, which one of you wants to read the motion's percenture again?

You want to read your original motion?

It's up to you. original motion i move that city council formally censure and express its disapproval of the conduct of council member deadman for publicly making statements about the resignation of former council member fenton despite not being present for that meeting her comments have misrepresented what occurred and have contributed to public confusion and unfairly diminished confidence in the integrity of this governing body I recognize that elected officials have the right to express their opinions and engage in public debate. However, those opinions should be grounded in accurate information, particularly when commenting on official meetings and actions of this governing body. By publicly characterizing a meeting she did not attend in ways that are inconsistent with what actually occurred, Councilmember Dedmon has undermined informed public disclosure and eroded trust in local government. During the Executive Session, the Council and Ms. Sventon discussed the need for an investigation into allegations of misconduct involving Ms. Sventon. Before the Council reconvened in Open Session to discuss whether to proceed with an investigation, Ms. Sventon submitted her resignation. As a result of her resignation, the Council did not return to Open Session to consider or take action regarding an investigation. It is unclear why Ms. Fenton has since attempted to withdraw or contradict her resignation. The council's understanding is that her resignation became effective upon submission and acceptance and therefore cannot be unilaterally rescinded. At the time of her resignation, the Council believed that accepting her resignation without pursuing a public investigation appropriately respected her request for privacy and avoided the need to publicly address the allegations. However, Councilmember Dedmon and Ms. Fenton's subsequent public statements contradicting the circumstances surrounding her resignation have left the Council with little choice but to disclose these additional facts to provide an accurate account of the events and to maintain public confidence in the integrity of the Council's actions. I want to affirm the expectation that members of this body will represent official proceedings accurately, correct material misinformation when it occurs, and conduct themselves in a manner that promotes public confidence in government.

Point of order. SO IT SOUNDS FROM THE REPETITION OF THAT I LISTENED TO IT VERY CLEARLY THAT I'M BEING ACCUSED OF NOT BEING PRESENT AT A MEETING AND THE MISREPRESENTING STATEMENTS MADE BY COUNCILMEMBER FENTON THAT WERE INCONSISTENT WITH WHAT ACTUALLY OCCURRED SO MY QUESTION IS IS WHERE IS THE PROOF

Council member, I'm gonna.

No, no, this is a point of order, this has to be.

It is not a point of order.

Yes it is, I literally. It's a point of information.

I disagree with your point of order. If a council member, if the body wants to.

A point of order, you cannot publicly censure somebody.

Council Member Morrison.

I'd like to call for the question, please.

Second. There's a motion to end debate. The question has been called for. It's been second. We'll vote on ending debate. All in favor of ending debate, please say aye. Aye. Opposed?

Opposed because I was not stated, a violation was not stated.

You may cast your vote and nothing more, ma'am. So the debate has been ended. We are now voting on the censure from July 14th. All in favor of voting to approving the censure, please state aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? THAT PASSES UNANIMOUSLY. THAT CONCLUDES OUR BUSINESS FOR THIS EVENING. WE HAVE TWO DISCUSSION ITEMS STILL ON THE AGENDA. THE FIRST IS THE BODY OF WORK DONE BY THE COUNCIL'S AD HOC COMMITTEE. JAY, I BELIEVE YOU CHAIRED THAT COMMITTEE.

I DID AND I WOULD LIKE TO AGAIN EXPRESS MY APPRECIATION FOR COUNCILMEMBER WARDEN AND DEANER IN THIS. I KNOW THERE ARE NUMEROUS nits to it and some changes that people would like to see and I'm fine with that. This was just a this is not a trial balloon it's a it's a work in progress. There's different ways of doing this. The one I've done before is basically starting with the section and then just working our way down and going from there if that's okay with everybody. So and obviously I also will say that Charlie and Brandi have reviewed this also and so you know if they please feel free staff to weigh in also. So one is the purpose, page one. We go to the purpose and we go down through city council. I don't know if anybody has anything on that. I do note that, and let me say this in advance, there are times when we reference a POMC that those will need to be when Brandy looks this over, to see if there is any interaction of whether that gets deleted or put in. One thing I should go back and Charlie I'll ask you to maybe weigh in on this. I asked Brandy because this can be a standalone document or this can go into the POMC regardless of where it is though I think Brandy correct me if I'm wrong you said that if we wanted to make changes to it we would have to do a Give me the right word again. Resolution. So it's really half of one dozen of another. So that's where I'm at with that. So I apologize. So anybody have anything on page one? Yes, Charlie, go for it. Did you have a question or comment?

I know I just was going to say we summarize that perfectly. Yeah, I can either be something you embed in your municipal code or it can be a standalone document that's adopted by resolution. And I would say the more typical approaches for it to be adopted by resolution, it makes it a little bit more malleable for you to change when you need to.

So in that case, Brandi will have to look at all the numbering and stuff. This was just done as a as, you know, starting with one and working our way down. OK, so does anybody have anything on page one besides that? Go ahead, John.

Yeah, so first of all, thank you to the team that worked on this. I had circled all the Xs on POMC, so I will just ignore that. I'd like to call out in section two, line two, approves the annual budget. Again, it's a biannual budget. Thank you. So I wanted to call that out. That's a good one. And that's the only thing for page one for me.

Anybody else? Yes, sir, Mark. In that same section, section two, we talk about the city council, and then we move and start talking about the mayor. And the second section of that sentence that starts, while the mayor and staff handle the day-to-day administration, the council provides policy direction and fiscal oversight to guide the city's work. That's a restatement of what was stated above. So I would like to see the discussion of the mayor handling the day-to-day administration removed. Yeah, it's a matter of this.

Okay, I'm sorry, where are you specifically?

Section 2, City Council.

Yeah, okay.

So, Port Orchard City Council serves as the city's legislative authority. The council sets policy, adopts ordinances, approves the annual or the biannual budget, and oversees the city's finances to ensure accountability and alignment with community priorities. Boom. Just end it.

Comma, while the mayor and staff handle day-to-day administration, period. Turns it into a little more of a run-on, but I see where he's saying, because the rest of that is a restatement of what happened.

Okay, yeah, then cross out the council. Correct. This is where I'm going specific. Council provides policy direction and fiscal guidance. Okay, just cross that out.

Yeah.

Cool.

So should he be striking the word while, and then it starts with the mayor and staff handled it, and it's just a- Either way.

Yeah, I get it.

Okay, anything else on page one?

I'm going at it. I look at this body and you guys did a great job putting this together, but oh my gosh, it's long. I think we need to condense it down a little bit. The 2.01 swearing in, that's all good stuff, but can we remove or discuss the idea of removing the oath will be recorded with Kitsap County? Where is the importance of that? I mean, we all know that's, when you become a council member, That happens, that's what it is. So that to me was a little bit much on that paragraph. Section 2.02, election of a council president. Can we just do one at a time?

I think Eric wants to speak. Just on the 2.01.

Yeah, I don't want to discuss the swearing in part. Just so you know that the way this was written, we used other cities as, template basically and just changed words. I agree with you. I just don't want you to think that we sat there and tried to do some word filler make it as long as possible because I can drink some Starbucks coffee, but not that long. Yeah.

So I think Mark's making a valid point that the length of this document and like the swearing in procedure, it's already state. It's in state statute already.

All PMA stuff as well.

So yeah. Okay. So go ahead. I'm sorry.

I'm not I don't want to run your meeting. I might kind of run this. It's like so what I'm understanding, John, you next just strike that section.

So I was going to take a different side. I'm thinking of somebody new who might just want to look at this section, understand what they got themselves into. You may not know that. Had I not had a decent relationship with Mayor Robb in getting my soaring in done, especially the first time I got elected because I actually had to travel, right, and there's some time in there, so I would have known those things. I would appreciate it, but I understand where you're coming from in not making it 33 pages. That's just my two cents. Take it or leave it. I'm not going to die on that hill.

Do we have a consensus to strike it or keep it? Kind of a thumbs up, thumbs down? I don't want to say don't care because I'd like to have up, down or something.

I can share with you. The clerk reaches out to newly electeds, tells them what they need to do, what trainings they need to go to. She's got a whole piece on orientation.

Does anybody have an issue if we remove it? Okay, that section's removed, 2.01. Okay.

2.02. Thank you. I have a problem with changing our current Council-Mayor relationship from Mayor Pro Temp and Council to now an election of a Council President. To me, that is a different form of government than what we as the City of Port Orchard have ran for several years. I don't see a reason to change it or change the terminology. We're not Bremerton, and I don't know any other, maybe Maybridge Island. has a council president, I believe, but I don't understand the reasoning why we would be wanting to change that.

Charter cities that I'm aware of, Bremerton, Tacoma, Spokane, there's others out there.

Do you want to speak here? No. I'll take it. Basically, this was brought up as a change in title duties aren't are the same and The committee did not have a issue with it if we wish to change it back. That's fine, too I just need a consensus.

That's all I need But I would add to this if I may the duties of reading through this body the duties of the now council president are not the same as the current duties of the mayor pro temp

They're more they're more much more robust, robust. OK, and we get to those and we can decide decide on that. So do I have a consensus? Thumbs up, thumbs down, sideways. Don't care. I mean, I don't mean to be rude. It's what can you live with? I'm not planning my statement for sure. Go ahead, Scott.

I feel like this is an important issue to decide perhaps now before we move forward and then try and decide it ad hoc throughout the document. okay what are your thoughts i'm i'm okay with it and if i mean it's an experiment if it doesn't work then we can go back but i'm okay with trying i am too sure john go ahead here sorry i just don't know what role i'll use counselor morrissey what role he

would do that's mayor, oversee a meeting. Besides that, he doesn't oversee a meeting. He's part of the council, and he speaks for council. He speaks to council. He deals with the mayor directly on a regular. As council, I don't understand, and I'd like to be educated if so, what is the role mayor word in there would he fill if, and the mayor will not pass away today, but if he did, Councilor Morrissey is not gonna automatically be the next mayor. I don't know why the word mayor would be in there. He's part of the council, and I think council president fits that scope. That's my word, my opinion.

Okay, go ahead, John.

I might just add, as the guy who gets to wear that badge or say that sometimes, nobody has any clue what that means. And I think they'd have a better understanding in its new term. But again, I think I concur with they are adding some stuff. The mayor and I even talked a little bit about it yesterday. But by and large, other than I think the agenda stuff, it should remain the same based off what I read.

Is everybody can everybody live right now with Council present till we bring it back. That's the question. OK.

I think I can. OK.

I'm sorry. Thank you. It's shaking your head no. So would you like to win.

Oh I was with somebody else. It was. I don't think that's our form of government but whatever.

On the next, just something that's.

Is this page one or six? I'm on the next page. Okay. I'm flipping right now. Same section. Flipping right now. Number three.

Yes. When we vote, it's typically voice or a show of hands, not and. Number three the last thing my voice and show of hands we vote verbally and at times when oh so it's an it's an or I like I suggest an and slash or and or that could be yeah sure when I'm sorry I'm still trying to um when is the or uh

like applicable in the sense of like when I asked for a show of hands so that it was clear who was voting it was like at the other meeting it was kind of like no so who makes that determination whether or not

I typically do, but I will look to you if you guys aren't clear. And it's pretty clear most of the time. I can hear, because you guys vote yay, and then I'm waiting for, then I ask for the nays. So, you know, I can typically hear. So if it's not clear, I'll do it. And I typically, if you guys ask for that, I'll go to that.

Can we have that in writing? I would rather have that in writing in our new rules that anybody can call for a hand vote because if anybody's asking for it, they're asking for clarity and that it shouldn't be up to one person to be able to ask for that.

So if I can speak to that first, I think as the facilitator of your meeting, I should have that authority. And if you guys don't agree, if I clearly heard it, you guys have the ability as a body versus an individual council member to override me.

That's why I'm asking.

Council Member Morrissey. Yeah, so that is already a part of Robert's rules, because I have used that in the past to call for the question for individual votes and it is recorded by the clerk.

Yes, so in our new rules, what I'm asking is that in our new rules, we state that if somebody, anybody, any council member asks for a hand vote, that that be respected because it's just as easy to say yay than to just hurry up and put up your hand. because the other time there was somebody talking and then like I said, I only heard like two people say it, but then it was called as saying like it passed, even though I only heard two people say yay. And so that's why I was like, okay, we have a question up. And so I realized in that going on that I was like, oh, it's actually really important that anybody should be able to say, hey, can we just make this clear? QUICKLY SHOOT UP OUR HANDS BECAUSE IT'S NOT GOING TO BE ANY EXTRA PRESSURE OR IT'S NOT GOING TO MAKE THE TIME ANY LONGER FOR OUR MEETING. THERE'S LITERALLY NO REASON WHY ANYBODY SHOULDN'T BE ABLE TO JUST SAY, HEY, CAN WE DO A VOTE BY HAND? OKAY, HERE.

LIKE, WHO CARES? So in answer to part of your question is this show of hands was something that was used regularly when we were voting on matters during COVID and we were not meeting in person. And so that was the protocol at that time. It's been useful a handful of times since then, but I'll take a different twist. I've talked to people who think that doing both is the way to go. And the value in showing your hand as well as stating it is so that people who are watching this online, and you can see how small the screen can be for viewers, they can actually see who has voted by virtue of the hand raise versus trying to figure it out by virtue of voices. So I think there's value in doing both.

I think I'd like to leave some flexibility if it's already in Robert's rules. I don't want to add it here. I'll stick to it because it already we start off this document by saying we're governed by Robert's rules.

So what you said was and or that gives flexibility and will default to Robert's rules. It's kind of what I was here.

Okay. Person who has the next comment going down down the list. Council vacancy. Yes, go ahead, John.

Yeah, so subsection C says for no less than one month. I would just point out, we didn't just follow that. Well, we don't know just I know. So I'm just saying I don't know if that's the right term. What would you like to see? That's the question. I would like to say I don't know. I think it depends on the expediency of when that would happen. I would I would like to see absolutely no less than a two week period because I think that's enough to be able to get out there. But again, we're setting a minimum there. And so I'm not to say that a future council couldn't do it for a month. I just don't want to box them in here.

But just as soon as possible. I mean, the timing of meetings and things is going to get in the way of it. You had your hand up.

It's for the mayor to acknowledge me. Thank you, Mayor. I have a question about Right now I'm looking at the city council work study and the documents everybody's looking at, I realize they're not attached to the agenda packet. And so we're kind of going through this and nobody else can see what we're going through. Was there a reason for that, that it's not attached?

They were sent out in a separate email a week ago. which you could download. That's where I downloaded it.

I'll download that. I'll look for it. I'm so used to everything being on the agenda that I was like, oh, I just realized they're not attached here. Okay. Well, thank you.

If you don't have it, then I can send that to you. About a week ago. It was, I think, last Wednesday.

I believe it was sent July 15th.

Yeah. And that should be from Brandy.

I do have a printed copy if anybody would like a printed copy as well. And I am sharing it on the screen for the members of the public.

So where do we settle?

We're at C and we haven't settled on the city clerk would distribute published notice of the vacancy and it was, we went from a month to two weeks and now the one as soon as possible. That would be that fine. I'm comfortable with as soon as possible.

I just don't want you to see yourself. As soon as possible, okay.

Set yourself up for failure. Notice of vacancy as soon as possible. Okay, thanks.

big glaring one is E and that's vastly different than what you're doing. So I would say remove E altogether. Okay. I think each council should determine how they would like to define what that process looks like.

All right. So remove E. Can people live with that?

Go ahead, Eric.

Why?

Why remove it? Well, in particular, this one calls out for five minutes. You know, so I just think that you'd probably want a little more deliberation and hear from a candidate more than five minutes. Do we want that this time?

I mean, as an example. Well, we're going to. Well, my thing is that we are setting this. When you say that a different council might want different, well, a different council might want all this different. We're looking at 15 years from now, they can just have something to follow. They can also take it seven years from now and change it as well. But we're just trying to set some sort of guidance for them. There should be a number on there for presentations, time, policy, the direction that we're gonna go when we're gonna do this process.

So my thought process is that may look different for a different council than this council. The types of questions you may be asking or not asking may look different. Again, I'm trying not to box a future council in so that they can do that because they'd have to look at this body of work, go do this deliberative process while still on a time clock to fill that vacancy. So I think there are certain things where you would like to be more restrictive and create narrow lane and I think there are places where you want to be less restrictive and have a much wider path I think this is one that could be way more subjective than objective and I would like to leave it more open-ended you know so you raise your hand that's for deadman yet I thought I did I

I realize that we're talking about vacancies and all of that. And so after everything that happened, is it possible that we could include in our new rules that in addition to what is required by the rcw that we require um a written or form a written uh resignation or something where we require resignations that are made open and public um because i think that as long as we are more restrictive than rcw we're allowed to do that we just can't be like less restrictive but i don't know we have the city attorney here and she can answer that

Can you pin in on that? I think there's case law.

I can look into it in more depth, but my initial thought would be because the act of resignation is something owned by the individual, that the council may not be able to direct that individual how to exercise that right of resignation. But I'm happy to look into that and provide feedback. I believe I've seen that in a set of local rules, something at least about to whom it must be tendered or a recommendation rather. So even if it's simply from the recommendation perspective rather than a requirement perspective, I'm happy to provide examples.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Mr. Mayor. Yes. Um, with respect to that last issue, I'm not in favor of changing it. If somebody wants to tender an oral resignation, that's fine. Um, so I'd like, I'd like to kind of put that to bed. Is that something we want the attorney to look into?

Seeing anybody else wishing, desiring that, so.

Uh, nobody's stating that it can't be oral-like. formality of needing a written something written or maybe we just say that the formality of having it done at an open meeting maybe something like that like having the person come in and say oh yeah i resigned in open meaning verbally that way there can be no misinterpretation about people's words and i'm just saying that for the sake of our body that we don't ever want to have this kind of risk of litigation how what can we do looking forward to make sure that we as a body like don't have that happen

So first of all, I'm not sure there's I mean, there's always risk of litigation no matter what you do. You keep talking about what's happening as if that was a weakness. I don't see it that way. But also we may have people that want to resign orally and they're not going to do anything else about it. They're just like, I'm done, I'm going to walk.

I'm not hearing support for this idea, so let's move on. We're only on page two.

We were still on presentation E, and the question was whether to keep it in or out, and I go back to the statement, what could you live with? I'm just going down that route, because otherwise we'll be here extending the meeting.

I mean, what you're currently doing and what has happened in the past, the City Council will conduct an interview process, and how, I mean,

So would somebody like to, is there a way to rework it or would you like to just at this point in time, remove it? Remove. Okay, fine. E is removed. We have F on there. Can everybody live with F on page two? Everybody good? All right. We made it to page three. GO AHEAD, JOHN.

THE LAST WORD ON PAGE 3 IS THE ONLY THING I WOULD CALL OUT. IT IS NOT THE KICKSTAP ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE. IT IS THE ALLIANCE.

KICKSTAP ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT ALLIANCE. I APOLOGIZE.

I'VE GOT A COUPLE OF OTHERS, TOO. OKAY. GO FOR IT. UP IN STANDING COMMITTEES SECOND SENTENCE AT THE END OF IT WHERE IT SAYS COMMITTEES WILL CONSIST OF UP TO, CONSIST OF THREE COUNCIL MEMBERS. NOT ALL OF OUR COMMITTEES HAVE THREE COUNCIL MEMBERS. I THINK IT SHOULD SAY UP TO to three council members. I'm sorry. Um, specifically the committees. So the second line, the, where the consistent up, up to three council members, because not all of our committees have three council members, three council each. Okay. Got it. Okay, go ahead. And then on these regional boards, I serve on many of them and I have an alternate and your process doesn't define the mayor's alternates. And do you want, and just a question, do you want that? I think we've historically embedded it into your committee process. We have. And- Okay. So do you have language that you would like to add? I don't, I'm just pointing out that it is. So we need to add? Mayor's alternates. Mayor's alternates, okay. Regional boards, some, you know, that it will follow the procedures. Whatever procedure.

Hope you're getting this too. We'll compare notes later. All right, anything else on page three?

Page four. I have one in excused absences. I'm the one that- What section, sir? All the way to the bottom, B. Thank you, thank you. That last... I'M THE ONE FACILITATING THE MEETING. I SHOULD KNOW IF YOU'RE GOING TO BE GONE, TOO. SO I WOULD ADD THE MAYOR IN THERE. SO COUNCILMEMBER SHALL RELAY ANY SCHEDULE TRAVEL OR PERIODS OF ABSENCE TO THE MAYOR, COUNCIL PRESIDENT AND CITY CLERK. THOSE THREE PEOPLE. IF YOU'RE WANTING THE PRESIDENT INFORMED, BRANDY AND I NEED YOU TO KNOW, TOO. okay that's fair and and i'm looking around as people make changes because i'm looking to see if you know we we have consensus that's all okay and that same section which flows onto the next page next page that council members so that's that same correction there the one that's second paragraph council members shall also inform the mayor council president uh that they will BE LATE FOR MEETINGS, I WOULD PROBABLY EVEN INCLUDE THE CLERK. OKAY. WE'LL DO. MAYOR, COUNCIL PRESIDENT, AND THE CITY CLERK. SO THAT WE'RE ALL, YEAH.

FRIENDLY AMENDMENT? SURE. HOW ABOUT ONE OF THE THREE? OKAY. I THINK AT LEAST IN OUR CURRENT CAPACITY, WE DO A PRETTY GOOD JOB, I THINK. SO I WOULD HOPE THAT WOULD CONTINUE.

SO MAYOR, COUNCIL PRESIDENT, OR CITY CLERK? THAT'S FINE.

OKAY. CAPTURED? Thanks. All right. So I had one on page 5, lack of attendance, second line, their seat shall become automatically become. It seems like we got too many becomes in there. So their seat shall become automatically vacant. Remove the second become. And did anybody else have anything on page five?

Okay, page six. Got one in orientation. It's not Brandy that, she plays a role on that, but I'm the one that schedules everybody's time with the various directors. I apologize. So it could be,

guess i'm gonna schedule the time with the brandy too so it should be the mayor yep sure i had a question comment yeah so if somebody can have an excused absence because they get sick you're back on page oh sorry we were just talking about excuse uh you uh the absence So I'm looking at this language. It says a council member misses 50% of a meeting, it will be considered an absence. However, people are allowed to be sick. So if you, so you're stating that a city council member, although if they were sick ahead of time, they would be absent, they can't get sick in a meeting? That's kind of what that read says. I'm sorry, page five. Sorry, page five. Thank you. That's what I was looking for. Thank you. Yeah, I know there's so many like words and stuff. Okay. Page five, section C, lack of attendance, second sentence.

Section C, if a council member has a word. Last sentence in that section. Oh, last sentence, in addition to excessive.

Or if they even have an emergency, like anything, that statement does not allow for anything like that.

Okay, how would you word it? I'd look at it as case by case basis. We had a council member several years ago who had a family issue that required them to be out of town and that was excused by the council. Otherwise they would have fallen into being out of absences. That's on a case-by-case basis. That address it comfortably right now? Everybody's okay with that? I am. For now, yeah. Yep, they'll be coming back. Yeah. Okay, we're at six. The mayor had changed to the Mayor's House work schedule orientations. Was there anything else on six? Yes.

I'm sorry. Council President, 3.03? 3.03, yes. I'm really not a fan of two, three, four, or five, quite frankly. Coordinate agendas, number two, coordinate agendas for regular works day or special council meetings in coordination with the mayor. We're already running we'd already already like to have our agendas sooner in the week. We're now administrating another another level or trying to put in another level of administration into creating these agendas to get them out to us. Sometimes things aren't ready to be I mean finalized for the agenda until Friday morning and now we've got to task the mayor and the clerks to go get the council president to approve all of these agendas before it can come to us. To me that's...

It's not Friday morning, it's early Friday afternoon.

But it's one too many layers that we don't necessarily need to have in there. Number three, when needed to be a liaison between the mayor and city council to relay issues and concerns, Yeah, yes, I mean I can I can live with that one. It's I don't know that it happens. In my time being on the council, but I can see Eric's given me the years down the road. The state is looking at those 3, 4, it may have also happened this year.

You want to go about 4, 5, right now in America.

Well, just input and planning coordination with efforts with retreats and planning. I think currently and for the five years that I've been on on council, I think the mayor does a pretty good job in reaching out to us during retreats and making us aware that he needs our input and expects our input and gives us time frames to get that input to him. already. Now we need to again add another responsibility or layer in to this process. I, I think we're, it's an exercise in futility. I want to step back. Uh, Council Member Deener is over there with his hand raised. I think I had my hand up first.

Okay, whoever's first, please go.

i just wanted to point out that that when eric and jay and i were meeting about this and trying to craft up what the roles of the council president might look like we kind of threw everything to see what would stick we knew that this would probably want to be one of the more interesting discussion points i can certainly understand what mark And I think, if I might sum it, it's fairly well oiled now, so why add another complication to it? I think that, to your point, I think three does make sense, but I'm happy to look at toning down those responsibilities.

And if you wouldn't mind, I can go ahead and let Eric.

I'll use... the agenda one as an example, if Council Member Diener was Council President, there's no shot that he's doing that role with his day job. There's no chance he's doing that. Also, number one, 3.03 , number one, serve as a facilitator in the absence of the mayor. That's what it should be, not mayor pro tem. not gonna do anything the mayor does he's not gonna sign a contract he's not doing anything at all but he does get the vote he would vote anyhow when he's up there the mayor you mean the mayor doesn't get the vote i don't vote oh no he can vote it's 3-3 he can vote so he does vote on certain things right you vote so um i agree with you certain things um certain things take super majority too um but I think it should be served as facilitator in the absence of the mayor, because that's literally the only thing that he would do. I couldn't imagine anything else.

I may be wrong, but I do remember or think I remember that there was a, when the mayor was out of town and Beck Ashby was the mayor pro tem, There were a couple of issues that came up and it was that she was involved in and filling in for the mayor and making some decisions. And I, you know, so my point of it is, is if you're, if the mayor's gone and it's unreachable, it is the mayor's pro tem. Correct me if I'm wrong, mayor, but you know, it's kind of a fine line.

Let me add to that then. I'm not sure I'm comfortable. That was my question. Okay. not sure I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the Council President making Mayor decisions.

My practice is I don't if I'm okay when I leave the country I don't take myself you know I'm disconnected THE WORLD THAT WE'RE IN, YEAH, THIS IS TRUE. THIS IS ME. SO MY PRACTICE IS WHEN I KNOW I'M NOT GOING TO BE AVAILABLE THAT I DELEGATE MY ADMINISTRATIVE AUTHORITIES TO NOAH CROCKER RIGHT NOW, THE FINANCE DIRECTOR, BECAUSE HE'S, AND THEN, BUT HE NEEDS TO WORK WITH, HE IS INSTRUCTED AND HE KNOWS TO WORK WITH THE MAYOR PRO TEM. because he's the mayor pro tem or council president in this document, then is to communicate to the council. The role that I have where I'm reaching out and communicating to you, no, it doesn't do that. So he reaches out, okay, Council Member Morrissey, I've got this issue. I need some guidance on this. Can you communicate this to, well, here's the problem then. He's still a council member and he can't

Purchase order, nothing.

Zero.

Yeah. Nothing.

Yeah. So can we ask for Ms. Archer to weigh in on this? Because I'm sure there's already been settled. Ms. Archer?

Yes. So a mayor pro tem or a council president or however we want to title them would not assume the administrative authority of the mayor over city business. So just as the council member mentioned, there would be no contracts that that person would be able to sign. They would be able to step in for ceremonial duties. So if there was an event that needed a presentation by a mayor, they would step in and do that work. There would not be an OPMA violation were that person to be the one who sends out information to the council in the mayor's absence, because that would be passive receipt of information. So hopefully that helps a little bit. You can give them more powers and you can create that position however you would like, subject to not stripping away any of the mayor's powers. There's been questions this evening about sort of the use of the term council president. And I can assure you it's a term you can absolutely use. City of Mukilteo, which is a mayor council form of government without a city manager, they actually have a council president and a council vice president. So you can create whatever roles you want, but you can't give them, you can't take the mayor's powers and give them to those individuals.

So my practice is correct. And I don't think it should be documented in any way because... YOU KNOW, I, YOU KNOW, 10 YEARS FROM NOW, I'M DEFINITELY GONE. NOAH'S MAY OR MAY NOT BE HERE. AND THE CURRENT MAYOR MAY HAVE A DIFFERENT PERSON THAT THEY'RE COMFORTABLE WITH HANDING THOSE ADMINISTRATIVE, BUT IT'S AN E-MAIL I SEND OUT BEFORE I HAND OUT ON THAT TRIP TO, YOU KNOW, THE OTHER DIRECTORS.

TO MOVE US FORWARD, COULD I ASK THAT WE WOULD, COULD PEOPLE LIVE WITH STRIKING and leave one, three, five, and six. This is, again, we'll come back to council. Could people live with striking two and four?

I'd like to strike the mayor pro tem. Sorry, Mark, I apologize.

I'm gonna strike two and four. And Eric, what was the last one? I'm sorry. I'd like to strike the Mayor Pro Tem verbiage and put facilitator. Well, he does serve as the Mayor Pro Tem in the absence of the Mayor. It still is a function. That's fine. Okay. Okay. We did change the one on orientation on 3.04.1. Is there anything else on page 6? Okay. Page 7 I had on mine to delete the section 3.06. Can everybody live with that one? It was a duplication. Is there anything else on page six? Go for it.

I believe 3.07A number 3 at the very end have a clear understanding of what may be said.

Thank you. Sorry.

I didn't catch it. Okay. Going on that one. Okay, go ahead. I'm sorry, I'm laughing too hard. 3.073. Yep. Consult with city attorney and mayor regarding topics that relate to city liability and current litigations. I would like to strike the city attorney, consult with the mayor, and let him then take it to the city attorney. We need to keep our costs under control for direct, no offense, Charlie, but direct communication with the city attorney over just anything. I'd suggest we strike the city attorney, start with the mayor first. I can live with that.

I can live with that.

All right.

How do we know that the mayor passes that on?

Follow up, good follow up.

We can ask that's what you get an email reply back and it's a public record Typically matters of legalists.

We're gonna have an executive session Saying that a city so a City Council person has to go to a mayor about a legal risk issue for the city but the City Council is doesn't report into the mayor because the city council is not an employee of the mayor and the city council might have questions that have to do with the mayor but we should still go through the mayor to then go to the city attorney that's my understanding what was just said is that accurate um so what you're saying right now

I probably worded it the exact same way that you did when we were sitting there asking that. And that's the problem that I had as well is that I agree with you that it's, and what we said was when we were sitting there is I think it was like encouraged, we encouraged to go that process. But the attorney works for us as well as she works for the mayor. She works for us as much as she works for the mayor. So I think we use the word encouraged.

I had my hand up. I just want to clarify that when you look at under A, this is about when you're meeting with, speaking to, or appearing before community group or another governmental agency or representative. So I think the scenario that you were just talking about wouldn't necessarily fall under this Section A under guidelines.

Go ahead, John. Thanks. So I might want to just maybe there's a compromise here because I hear what Councilmember Trenary is trying to say. What if we're out of budget? we've exhausted our budget that we've set for the city attorney, how do we deal with that? So how about we make a, cause I also hear what council member Dedman and Warden are saying too, you know, what if they have a fundamental disagreement with the mayor? So what if instead of consult with the city attorney, if you wish to consult with the city attorney, you can check in with your council president or mayor, The mayor may or may not be willing to allow you to go speak to that, but if you can make a case to your council president, he might say that. I don't know. I'm just trying to make a compromise because we have other resources such our MRSC available to us, things like that, that we could get those answers on our own. I'm just trying to throw out something on a compromise. I don't know.

I understand what you're saying, and I think Councilman Dedman and myself have the same mindset, which is he cannot prevent us from speaking to the attorney. Um, he's not, we don't work for the mayor. The mayor doesn't work for us. She works for both of us. I understand the dollar figures that go there and it's a lot fully understand. I just wanna use the word encouraged. Go ahead.

I'm gonna star this like three stars to come back to on this one, all right? At this point in time, what I'd like to do, if it's okay with council, is go to 8.30 and then look at our questions and realize that we will have to bring this back or get additional information. So if we could go through, I've started and we'll come back to that one, okay? Page nine.

I've got something on page eight. Go ahead, I'm sorry, I should ask. Media alert, I think council members shall send an email to the mayor comma council president and the city clerk. I had and mayor through the clerk. Okay, so I'm sorry, say that again, to the mayor. Because you're sending an email. Yeah. Email all three people because I might be on vacation. Brandy might be on vacation. Council President might be on vacation. Council President. Making sure that, so I go Mayor, Council President, and City Clerk. Thank you.

Were you back there?

On media alert, if you're, it says, it just was, said Council, it just said Council and it should be Council President.

Yep. i think the clerk should be included in that too so mayor council president and city clerk as soon as possible after this book so when you send that email you're just sending it to all three people as a catch-all you said you were on nine which section no no we're on page eight under media alert c comment is there any other comments on page eight go for it

So right now I'm a little bit concerned and we've been having this conversation with the fact that it keeps, we keep telling council members they have to go through a council president. So we're making it so that council members now have a boss called a council president. Is that what's happening?

That's weird.

So we're giving council members a boss when there's really, so we're creating extra layer of bureaucracy, why? You're saying exactly, sorry. Mayor, may I talk fast? May I ask Council Member Trenary a question? Okay, Council Member Trenary, sorry, you're saying exactly as if that's a good thing?

No, what you're stating is exactly correct.

I was hoping you could explain to me why. Okay.

So I will answer that one and if I'm incorrect, Eric and Scott jump in. The reason to communicate with the council president is you're not looking for a yay, nay. It's that the council president is the mayor pro tem in the absence of the mayor. And while he doesn't have the duties of signing contracts, et cetera, there are times that he or she will be representing the city. And in here somewhere, there's a no surprise rule. And that's exactly why. As much knowledge as they have, the better off they are. That's it.

Okay, so then I think then somewhere we need to include that the mayor has to send city council an email stating that mayor pro tem or council president is now being considered the pro tem slash the pro tem and then must then send another follow up email to city council when that is no longer the case. So we have to add that in.

Why? And I might point out we can't direct the mayor without it being a resolution and voted on by this body.

Okay, well then we, I get.

We have the same respect with, we asked the same respect with Chief Brown. Example, he was in a, know a magazine or a article or something and we were we were caught off guard with that he doesn't he does not work for us and so um i don't know maybe it's accountability or something not accountability with us but with him he doesn't work for us so we just kind of act ask for the same respect and the only reason why we asked that for him for him so because when that gets published who we get emails we get calls we get stopped at safeway saying what's this about gang activity you know we were caught off guard so that's why chief brown when there's a car accident or a fatality or those things and he speaks he does send those to us i think this is kind of asking the same actually you're right let's not ask that since that's not an authority so then if we're supposed to follow this then to me

The obligation then goes to the council member to state that they have been authorized now as the mayor pro tem and then once that authority ends to then send an email saying this authority has ended and then making that clear if that's what we're responsible.

I don't think that's it. Whatever it is, that way it's always. I just can't tell him what to do. That's why I said, that's why we're not talking about the mayor. It would go on the Mayor Pro Tem then. I want to go with what she wants.

Yeah, the Mayor Pro Tem then, if we were supposed to follow that, there has to be very clear as to when we would need to address the Mayor Pro Tem as the Mayor Pro Tem, because otherwise you're just a council member.

So then, yeah. Example, what you said. the authority like with chief brown we don't have the authority yeah exactly we don't that's why i said ask ask he could say no we asked he said yes i mean i could ask my wife to go buy me a new car she can say no but it's not authority i'm just asking and so he said yes we do our best to communicate we don't want so we don't want to surprise anybody of course

So I got two things. I very much agree with what Councilmember Dedmon suggested that it does put when that delegation authority has been delegated that there is something added in here as a role of any council president to alert their peers. WHEN IT STARTS AND WHEN IT ENDS. I THINK THAT'S ABSOLUTELY A FAIR ASK AND A GOOD THING. WHEN IT COMES BACK TO THIS PARTICULAR ONE ON THE MEDIA ALERT, I DIDN'T READ IT. I ALSO DIDN'T TAKE THAT TO ME AND COUNCIL PRESIDENT. I THOUGHT IT MEANT TO BCC ALL OF US TO SAY, HEY, I DID THAT. BECAUSE YOU CAN, JUST AS LONG AS WE DON'T ALL RESPOND TO IT. THAT'S THE WHOLE POINT IS YOU CAN PUT THE INFORMATION OUT AS A PASS THROUGH, BUT WE CAN'T RESPOND TO IT. Again, I wasn't reading as giving any more authority or anything to any council president role, but I also didn't take it to mean that. I thought it meant, hey, you gotta send an email to all of us, but then we all have to remember our own OPMA stuff that you cannot respond to that. And that's why I recommended the clerk.

including the clerk because she's the one that will disseminate information out back up to the full body.

So I've made a note to look at the delegation of authority because it would not go in this section and we'll take a look where it would go and bring that back. Is there anything else on page eight?

OK, going going to go ahead. I'm sorry I'm I'm struggling with the response process. OK, what would you like to see? I would like to see the way it's handled right now. I'm.

I, too, would like to support that because I think, again, you're creating a position that's going to be untenable for the average person to sit in, and I have those abilities to flex out now. I'm not here to say that I would have that forever, and I don't... want that one either but I'm glad you said something because I wasn't gonna be the only one with that thought process because I didn't want to say I don't want to do that I would if this body asked me to but I can tell you that would be a tough nut to crack long term because sometimes we can get a lot of questions

I'd also like to add to that Councilmember Dedmon brought up earlier. We're bringing in another layer of control, if you will, and we were elected by the citizens to speak our mind directly. This particular statement right here basically doesn't allow us to do this, number one. I'll continue to add on to all the responsibilities of the council president. I still work. I run my own business. Scott's a hard worker. Many of us still have our own businesses. We don't have the mental capability and the physical capability to handle all of these.

I take exception to that, sir. I think we all have the mental capability. We may not have the time capacity.

You just got 20 years, you may not have the mental capability.

Okay, so if I could just kind of, I don't mean cut to the chase, but let's go. Are you looking at deleting the whole section or saying rework this section? One of my, I'll give you, a kind of, not a pushback, but one of the thought processes on this is I do not, when I see a ghost to all council, the first thing I do is I look to see if the mayor got it. You know, on that. After that, I make a decision saying I do not respond to every email. In some cases, it's a short response. In some cases, it's a little bit longer response. But I wonder sometimes if a person doesn't get a response. It was trying to fill the void in case a person get a response. The same, the council president said, no, hey, we got your email. You may be hearing from other council members. It's, it's just kind of a, a uh, what do you call, what do you call it? Just kind of a automatic response to make sure that people know we got it. I'm fine if we want to continue it as is. I just want to make sure that people are being heard and recognized and they are heard. That's it.

I'd like to thank you for that. I'd like to strike it.

The whole section?

Yes.

When you say the whole section, can I get clarity on what specifically? You're talking about?

Section B. Section B of 3.0. Okay. I concur.

I mean, if you're going to go there, you might as well take out C. Yeah.

Yeah.

I concur. It's just cumbersome.

Yeah, because there was a part of Section C I want to delete it anyhow, so let's just do it.

Where are we, boss?

Take out C completely and B. Oh, B?

B. Okay. Yep. And then the following page 9.

Section C. I was referring to C, also the media alert section.

That's what I thought.

Okay, so can everybody live with striking B and C at this point in time? Yep. But I'm talking about a different C. Okay.

Yes, we're talking about 3.08 C. Yes.

We had moved on from 3.07 C. So we would be at, now we'd be on page nine, quasi-judicial D, if anybody had anything with that.

I have but one portion that would be one, two, paragraph three.

Starting unofficial.

Unofficial. On line two, matter shall be forwarded to the city clerk or staff lead. I don't think staff lead. I think city attorney should be put in there. This is a quasi-judicial matter.

Charlie, can you weigh in on that one?

Yeah, the correspondence just needs to be collected and then included in the record. So it's more of an administrative task. The city attorney would not be reviewing the correspondence. I'm happy to receive it. But the reason for that provision is just so that all correspondence is collected by the clerk or DCD, who's often the permitting body that's overseeing the permit that's on the .. Collecting records with staff.

But if it's, I guess that's, it would depend on what type of quasi-judicial because we can't receive some information on some of our quasi-judicial proceedings. So that's why I wanted to have the city attorney included. But if she's not worried about it,

Yeah, this is intended to capture the correspondence you receive from the public on quasi-judicial matters, which are permits usually or associated with rezones. So even though we tell the public, you know, you can't speak to them about them prior to the hearing, you're still often going to get emails. And so we, through the quasi-judicial proceedings, we have to put those correspondences in the packet Or otherwise publicly notice them. So that's why it becomes an administrative step that anything you get, we have to show the public. Right?

You don't have a desire or a need to review that.

No, I would not be looking at them.

OK, then I'm OK with it.

OK, so. Shorten what? Section D down a little bit.

It's fairly large and wordy.

Are you talking about quasi-judicial? I will ask our attorney to take a look at that section and Brandy to take a look in sections, see if we can shorten it, okay? Okay, can we shorten? I'm going to, if it's okay with you, go to, try to get through page 10, get down to 3.10 and stop there. Okay. So my question is on 3.09, council and staff interaction. Does anybody have any comments on that? And go ahead, John.

Section A, number two, I would add to the end of that sentence, and approved by the mayor. Where are you at, what page? Number 10, 3.09, section A, subsection two, and approved by the mayor.

The staff works for our, and approved by the mayor, yeah.

I'm fine with that.

Yeah, I got you now. Any other? Keep going.

Subsection 6.

Well, city business, we don't consult with the attorney on it. It's directors. This is a little... So how would you reward it or eliminate it? Here's my challenge. So I served as a council member under a mayor who didn't allow council members to have contact. Everything had to go to the mayor, and I thought that was heavy-handed. But, you know... staff work for the mayor. I think we had a particular council member that was abusing staff time.

And I'm actually not, now that I'm reading it, I'm not 100% sure why I had it subsectioned. I didn't write a note, so. Go ahead, Mark.

I've got a concern. I don't know if I'm just not reading it in here correctly or not. But I think council should, it talks about getting together with staff members. And I think council should direct all their questions to department heads or the clerk's office. And it needs to be defined so that we're not going out talking to the guys weeding out of public works or something along that lines, asking them questions. We need to ask the questions, pose the questions to the department heads, let them find the answers, the correct answers for us.

Do you have a section you were referring to?

I did, but my notes aren't showing me where they were. I think just oh, okay. So a number two because of staff work responsibilities, any meetings with council members will be at a mutual agreed upon time. That's kind of where I picked up on that.

So I just promoted to add and approved by the mayor is what we just kind of all head nodded on.

Well, I'd like to change that to department heads responsibilities rather than staff work responsibilities.

I agree.

directors or because yeah because directors responsibility because of just directors work responsibilities.

Okay that would okay that then I would delete what John added at the bottom if we're changing that to department heads because there are times uh when I'm doing work with with the committee I call Dennis up and I say, hey, what about this? Or he'll call me. I don't go through the mayor for that. So if we're changing it to department heads or department directors, then I would eliminate what you wanted to add. I understand what you were saying with staff, and I agree. It's kind of not a squishy one, but it depends on the level. I don't think anybody here would abuse that. hopefully not today i said hopefully not yeah but we won't okay i'm starting that one and we'll come back on that one okay All right, that's all I wanted to go through, if we're time wise tonight, because we do need to talk about our questions. And I would like to, I think, I'm not sure, you know.

I'll look at our agenda for next week, whether we can squeeze a little bit of time in.

Okay, could we get like a couple of half hours, we could be done this. Eric, I'm sorry, didn't mean to cut you there.

No, no, I just hope that when we're done with this, We move ourselves out of the employee manual. Because council members are in the employee manual. And I was talking to Ms. Lund about that, and I was stating that we should not be in the employee handbook. We're not employees. There are things in there that state, you know, with harassment and things like that, you know, we follow as well. There's a couple other items, too. And so people over there can look into that. to see what.

Charlie there, whether or not.

If we're not employees, we should just have whatever's in there in here.

You are employees in some sense.

Right. Yeah, employees the wrong term. You're not employees. Yeah. And the personnel manual is a document I apologize for interrupting is a document that council adopts. So an update to that is absolutely within your purview. Yeah.

I'd like to thank everybody for their time tonight and I think we're making progress and thank you. Scott, sorry.

I was really moving on to the next item. Yeah, I'm done.

I just wanted to say thank you to Eric and particularly Jay for herding all these kittens. It was a lot to go through, a lot to prep and so my thanks to both of you. We're moving forward.

okay and i don't participate in the council appointment process so i am going to step out of the room and turn the meeting over to the mayor pro tem to lead you guys to the discussion related to the council interview questions it's 8 30 can we have a break sure absolutely yeah can we take five minutes five minutes be back at 8 35.

Team, I said 835 or 837. We'll go ahead and get rolling. You know how I like to keep them tight. Before you, you have the same questions that were in last week's packet. I had Ms. Wallace print them and bring them with us. But I see you also see feedback from Council Member Diener. Thank you for providing that, Council Member Diener. Since you are the one who... Did your homework. Would you like to lead us off and walk us through your email?

So I didn't you know, I tried to be selective so that I wasn't like completely overshadowing the questions that we had in front of us. But I think some of these are pretty important. And the first one is how how would a potential candidate propose to manage growth in the city of Port Orchard? One of the things that I think we have to be aware of is that we have a major housing crisis, not just here, but particularly felt in Western Washington, but it's all over. And experts have agreed across the nation that the way to address that is through saturation of a housing market for housing of all types and for all income levels. And so I think what that signals to me is we have to be more welcoming of change if we wanna see our kids and our kids' kids own houses someday. Because at the current rate of non-development by virtue of many kinds of restrictions in zoning and other places in ways, we're not seeing that. And so I would like to see an applicant be able to try and intelligently discuss how they feel about the housing market. I always say that people who don't want change, I like to remind them that who else didn't want change was their forefathers and the forefathers before them and here we are. We are going to grow and our character is going to change. It's just the way it is. And I'd like to see somebody talk about how you manage growth because you can't stop it. And then there's the whole GMA aspect and component to that. So that was my... train of thought question about managing growth I think I think it's important and then maybe you know I look at the second question on the utility rates capital planning have contributed to where we are but be that as it may how would the applicant talk about capital planning. We have agreed that we weren't going to look at a utility rate increase recently, but that was kind of what got us into a situation recently of where we were playing catch up. And so we knew that these current hard economic times maybe warranted that, but it'd be nice to see somebody address that kind of affordability from a long-term perspective. And so that's a question that I think maybe others are better at finessing if they see value in that. And then the last question is just like, how do you see yourself in the role of a council member? Would you want to regularly meet with the mayor And maybe to ensure accountability is not the right, I probably shouldn't have said to ensure accountability, but certainly we want accountability, transparency, and good decision-making. And then I say particularly during, you know, the fastest growing city, being the fastest growing city, one of them in Washington. So that's kind of the... Those are my three questions that I threw out there.

I think it would be nice to shake it up. And if I may, I'd like to talk a little bit more about... Maybe it's too late.

But it would be nice if these questions could be done in confidence.

So before I get that, I just realized when I turned it over to you, I probably failed to set the framework here. And so I actually want to just set the framework with Clerk Wallace. Clerk Wallace, remind the team here what we've set up in the framework and what the candidates are expecting when they come to us next month.

So they border.

I object to this discussion when we still haven't established our authority as a body to hold this vacancy.

Okay. Thank you. Clerk Wallace.

So I've communicated to the candidates that they have interviews on the fourth and the sixth. I've scheduled four and four. They have 30 minutes and that they're going to be asked questions and all the questions will be the same. And they can bring whatever documents that they wish to share with the council that has not already been shared with them through the public process. And reminder that anything that they provide is open to the public upon request. Outside of that, that is all I've shared with them. And I will also, if I may, if I remember correctly during this last council vacancy interview questions, I believe the council had some discussions of what topics that they would like to interview the candidates with the questions. And each council member got to pick one question. So if that's helpful, that's what I know.

Thank you. Okay. Now that we've set that framework and we understand that we're under 30 minutes and that kind of stuff, let's continue our conversation.

Okay. And that generated an additional question for me. Are we precluded from having a second round of interviews through this process? Good. Okay. I'm saying that we're not precluded and that's good. The other thing that I was just starting to say is I feel like giving away the questions in advance may not necessarily pull out of somebody genuine responses. maybe they're saying what they think we want to hear. And so I don't, maybe it's too late for this, but I'd love to explore a process whereby we give people questions one half hour in advance of their interview. I have found that that works well with job interviews. It helps people at least to get their mind around what might be expected of them. So that's all I have to say.

Okay.

Thank you, Councilmember Deano. Councilmember Dedmon.

With what Councilmember Diener just mentioned, I believe that that would put any member or candidate at disadvantage who is neurodivergent who might need more time to prepare because of how, well, you understand why, or I hope people understand why. And so I would like to go on record that yes, I still think that it's an invalid vacancy, but also that as a general statement, we should always be looking out for, you know, not disadvantaging folks.

Council Member Warden. Yeah, I'll respond to Council Member Diener's statement. At first, I thought to myself, I like that at 30 minutes ahead of time, but we're not giving our packets 30 minutes ahead of time, right? They're coming on to Council from all walks of life, and we're trying to see their ability to communicate, their ability to work well, we definitely want to know their background for sure. And we got that. We got their resume. But I'm giving up. We're all given packets of things that we most still don't know about. And we're giving those on Friday. And we're voting on that on Tuesday. And so we're actually making decisions. So I think they should get the questions that ahead of time, and if everyone gets them, that would be fair as well, and they can do their research, just like how we do our research on our packets. Go ahead.

My response to that would be is when we're sitting here in the dais, we're actually being required to make split-second decisions, if you will, based on new information we learn about a matter in front of us. Like amendments to motions.

Council Member Dedman didn't know that we would be voting on something tonight that wasn't originally on the agenda.

So so there is there is a need for being able to you know be able to React rather quickly to issues and in front of you that may not have a lot of experience about and I agree That's not what the purpose of these But I also just feel like this can be gamed and and I think most good people would not gain this but

There are people that would.

And because they have their own motivations, which may not be in alignment with council or city values at all.

I appreciate you sharing that.

Council Member Rospepe.

It's kind of a torn between what both of you are saying and I would like to ask our city attorney. Is this one that we could discuss questions in an executive session so that these would not be public? By that I mean that we would be able to have these, give them to a half hour in advance. I don't have a problem with that. In fact, when I went through the process, I think we did get them in advance. But is that something we were able to do to, I don't mean to hide the question or get you a got you, get a little bit less preparation, so to speak.

I believe you cannot. I don't see a basis under the executive session privilege. Arguably, we can't even keep people out of the room during the preceding interviews. Okay, thank you.

Scott, I like the questions. We've got nine questions here if we do that i would ask is there a way to kind of on your questions make them a little bit uh more layman but i would like to adequate i would like to add a question we may not get to all 10 of them you know on that and my question that i would start out with is what are the duties and responsibility of a city council member because we don't you know the one where we i'm not being picky there scott but you know regularly meeting and working with the mayor i don't i don't know too many council members that regularly meet with the mayor uh i could be wrong but i'm just saying is uh i'd really like to know what they think the duties and responsibility of council members because i will echo john clausen here we're one of seven

So I might also point out that, I don't know if you cut that in the email, I don't know that he verbalized it, he was also positioning to remove questions two, three, and five from the original. And so I'll just point that out. I did see you had your hand raised, Council Member Deener.

It was also my intention that maybe before we start workshopping some of these, we decide whether we want them in or out to begin with.

Well, I think that's already been decided. We can't do that in private. We have to do it in this open.

Sorry, I meant workshopping right now.

Oh, stop workshopping?

Sorry, let me start over. My intention was that we could certainly re-tailor some of the questions I proposed, but first, perhaps, are there any questions we want to take out of the nine or I think Jay added a tenth so that we don't spend time reframing those questions if we're not going to if they're not going to get the vote to move them forward.

So I think what I'd like to do to take this now hearing that and I haven't is anyone else want to put some stuff on the table because i also want to say hearing that we're going to have 10 questions and 30 minutes doesn't sound feasible and so i think yeah so i think we're going to end up having to edit that but i think what we should do at this point to get to that point is to say does anybody else have any questions they want added outside of the what i'm now seeing is nine questions and i think you added the tenth um that they want added for consideration moving forward Councilmember Wharton.

Yes, I would like to know if their career conflicts with City Council if they have to recuse themselves What they do for a living that would require them to confuse can recuse themselves There's that could be that could get tricky. I

Can I ask for you to give an example?

Yeah. If somebody from Kitsap County Parks decides to come here, which they're not, so I use that based off the applicants, that would really put us in a sticky situation because we have three people who can't vote on a lot of topics. especially the way as close as we are with Kitsap County up the hill and on the south end of the county, I guess every city is, I guess, Paulsville as well, but we're touching. Just tonight, two topics tonight, you and I had to step out. If someone from Kitsap County Parks came in here, we would be tough. As an example, though, I mean.

Sure. Can you give an example that's not related to county employment?

No.

So I might throw one out. It would just be nice to know for that person coming in, right? Let's say it was Councilmember Trenary who was a candidate. It would behoove us to understand what little conflict of interest he has, but he has one. Now, he has contracts with the city of Port Orchard. I think that's fair for us to know ahead of time. Just my thoughts. I'm not saying that I'd rank this one.

That's fair. Now we have 11 questions. Now we have 11.

So, anybody else have a question they want to add for consideration? Councilmember Gennari.

I have no questions I want to add, but I do want to discuss a couple of things that I'm seeing on this list, as well as Scott's. Scott, your three questions, very well thought out, very detailed. I think almost to a fault. dumb them down a little bit. I would like to see something along the lines of the utility rates and capital planning question. I think the managing growth is a little bit deeper than we should be asking.

But it is the number one issue facing.

But we're so confined and constricted by GMA and UGW, or UGA, we can't expect Are applicants to have those statistics and that information? You're right that that is a number one topic. But we are talking about coming on and being one of seven. It can pick that up. So let me give an example of. But we need to find who they are and how they will fit. And if they have the time availability to really dig into this and do a good job on council because we all know when we first came on we didn't have all the we didn't have the idea of all the time that was going to be required to do this job effectively and so i'd like to see a question evolving around that you know how will this fit into your schedule and are you willing to fit into the schedule go ahead i may

uh... i think we would be remiss in not asking a question about one of the issues that gets people most excited in terms of land use uh... and it's something that the state is foisting upon jurisdictions to take care of through unfunded mandates uh... an example of where this could be important is we recently had a couple of rezones. One of those rezones was pretty excitable. But I don't think people ever had a discussion about what is needed to help fix the housing crisis. Can we even fix it? And so I think there needs to be a better discussion about character and what that means and where housing should be allowed and a deeper discussion. I'd like to see somebody give us their point of view on what that could actually look like or whether they believe it's not even a problem. So I think that, for me, that's one of my biggest questions because that's one of the biggest issues facing us.

Okay, so I'm hearing there's no more questions we're adding to the list. Thank you. Clerk Wallace, can I get you to take our notes down from here, please? So what I'd like to do now is semi-rank choice voting for questions. And so I wanna do this as best we can. And so I'm gonna guide this without having to make it overly complicated and try and do a voting process like we did committees or anything like that. So I might take the liberty of leading this and saying, if I were only in charge, I would like to start with the question of a role of council member.

Clarification, if I may. How many questions are we trying to get down to?

Well, so I think we'd like to get through and see where we're ranked. I'd like to see where we rank somewhere around that five, six number, if that's okay, and then kind of go from there.

I would like five, but we'll see where we go.

Okay, so I'm not trying to box anybody in. I'm just trying to throw stuff out there that makes this process work.

I HAVE IN FRONT OF ME A 2026 COUNCIL VACANCY INTERVIEW QUESTIONS AND SUPPLEMENTAL QUESTIONS. I DON'T HAVE THE SUPPLEMENTAL. I DON'T HAVE THAT.

SO THAT WAS NOT ONE THAT WAS PROVIDED BY.

SO WE WON'T BE WORKING WITH THOSE.

SO UNLESS THERE WAS SOMETHING ON THAT RIGHT NOW, I WAS ONLY WORKING OFF OF THE SHEET THAT MS. WALLACE PROVIDED US THIS EVENING. IF THERE WAS ANYTHING ON THAT, You probably printed it from last week's packet where all this was put together. There was multiple different possibilities you could choose from. So we're working off of this one that was provided to you this evening that only has one through six. So as I said, I think if I only had a say, I would ask the role of a council member question first. No hands? I'm not putting them in order here. Right now I'm just saying that would be within your top ones you would like asked. Is that a vote or is that you would like to talk? I would like to speak. Go for it, please. I have two questions I would like to add. Okay.

One of them, why are you interested in serving on the city council and what do you hope to accomplish?

Is that a new question?

Yes, he's adding questions because he heard that I... The second one. Describe the strengths and experience you would bring to the council.

And that's also in your question? Okay. Are those from the supplemental?

Yes.

Okay. All right.

Okay, it's okay, because we'll get through them, right? Okay, one last call. Does anyone else wish to add any potential questions to be asked? Okay, hearing none. Now back to this, and the way I'm going to try and do this without us just rank choice voting would be, if I were going to do this, this would be in my top list of questions. For me, the role of the council member would be one for sure. Is, we're good? I'm looking for thumbs, head nods, some kind of, that would make my top.

What are the duties and responsibilities of a city council member?

Correct.

Okay.

Next. I'm looking, I got two here. I don't see it on there. It's from Scott's question, role of a council member, on Scott's email. And we can workshop the wording. It doesn't have to be the way Scott put it, but it's a question around role of a council member. I'm seeing in general agreement there. Okay, moving forward, that's gonna be in consideration. Anybody else have a number one that is absolutely something that you would want asked? We can't miss this question. Council Member Deener.

Managing growth.

I had that as my third if I was ranking them. So I too would like to have a managing growth question.

And I'm happy if it's third.

Again, we're not ranking them now. I just, I did so that I can see which ones I wanna keep in my top five or six. Council Member Trenary.

What skills do you possess or accomplish?

So he's on, I'm sorry, not to get us out of order, but he's on the managing growth. Would that make your top five? I'm looking for head nods to see, I can put it in a, we can come back to it after we get some. Okay. So right now we only have the role of council member. Now, council member Tremory, you have one that you would like, and that would be number two, what skills do you possess or accomplishment that you have done in the past that will directly benefit the citizens of Port Orchard, which I think also goes to the, one of the questions that you had described the strengths you would bring from council or bring for council, kind of an amalgamation of that. Okay. Nods, we're good. Okay. There's number two, an amalgamation of your skill sets and strengths. Number three, Anybody have one they can't live with?

Or live without?

Well, we put that on a, no, I'm not saying, because none of these are in order. I'm just trying to get the top questions.

Managing growth, make it a top question.

Okay. So we're revisiting managing growth. Do we feel comfortable that managing growth will be in

Those top ones it will be because that I just don't want to those are great questions Scott Yeah, I don't I just don't want all three of those in there I like that I also like What do you believe is the most pressing issue for a city, which is basically I agree the most imagine your health Martin You know, it's almost on the same bike for I I like four.

I'm down with four.

I'd like to, for a fifth one, I think number three on the vacancy interview questions, how would you balance a major capital project need against good financial fiscal management? Because we end up having to have a discussion on that. So that would be a fifth one.

I would also like to maybe add in and do another amalgamation and whether we include the utility rates in that. I think it's overall fiscal approach, right?

It's fiscal approach without being a specific because one of the things none of us possess all the knowledge to be a council member. We have all learned information by serving on different committees. I've served on every committee that we have here and I have learned so much during that time frame that I think trying to have somebody have a lot of knowledge coming in, I'm more interested in what are their perceptions but you know how would they handle something if does that make sense you know how do you balance this against that as opposed to hey utility rates against you know this that they don't have the the background for that one in my opinion so in the private sector we call that behavioral interviewing uh and i i believe i'm down with that so uh i just think capital dollars

general dollars, capital for utilities versus, you know, there's just,

i couldn't imagine them really knowing that i mean that they do i mean fantastic but that's just to me to me we're really asking so can i before we go there i think what i'm hearing and i just want to make sure we get everybody on board with what i'm hearing uh is that we're actually talking about uh their approach to the city's fiscal policy as opposed to it necessarily having to be capital plan related, any of that. When we say we do two things, policy and budget, I think a fiscal policy or outlook on how they would do that would be a pertinent question. But I don't know the right amalgamation of what that looks like, but I'm clarifying if that's what you're saying or not.

Maybe there's a way we could reword the question.

well so again none of these questions are set in stone they're more topics so yeah yeah i want to wordsmith all of these is there a way but let's get the topics down and then we'll for sure work down yeah all right so we're settling on that right now i'm going to say fiscal policy uh just call it that and then we can wordsmith that i don't want to take a look at number three if you would in that area yeah that's what i'm trying to correct okay So right now I'm showing five, role of council member, describing of their strengths, managing growth. What do you believe are the most pressing issues for the city in fiscal policy? Is there anything else? Like I said, I'm not limiting it to five or six, but is there another question that you feel

passionately about this should be considered we can still pair this back from what we have scott you had your hand up first and then i'll go i did i just was going to say that that i think five is good and we've got a half hour but you just said let's keep going and we can pair it back okay i would actually say let's stop here because the sixth question should be is there anything else that you want to add

And we can do that. I'm just making sure that we've provided all the feedback. I don't want to cut off public comment before.

So may I have a friendly on this? What if we go through the remaining questions that haven't been added which is 1, 5, and 6 and my middle question and see if any of those need to be included because like for example number 5 is a no-go for me.

number one is a no-go for me i mean so i think i think some of these naturally eliminate themselves but i'm just i'm not going to even worry about the other ones unless you guys think that we need to add them to the list but i hear these two are good anybody else mr edmund no okay uh Okay, so we have our five topics. Let's wordsmith those questions.

Because of where we are tonight, do you want, I'm not putting it on you, but would you like to wordsmith the questions and bring them back next at our meeting?

I'm okay with doing that if you guys want that, and then you guys can, we can wordsmith them out, and then we can make adjustments from there. Yeah. If this council's okay, we can do that, and we will just add that as a, I will caveat, we've got to keep it short next week because we're adding staff to meetings that anyhow. Yeah. Okay.

I think in the interest of time, I think that's the best move to take at this point.

Everybody agrees? I have three. Definitely going to need a fourth. One, two, three.

Eric.

but oh for sure sorry thank you uh so that's uh uh four so uh i will work with that uh it will be my intention that it you get them before the packet comes out uh but that may only be my intention it may not be my reality uh i think all of you know the extra work we've had uh uh last couple weeks so uh i i'll do my best to get that uh over to miss wallace so she can disseminate that information Last of the bit here, I wanna make sure I don't have an agenda up. Was there a good of the order on the agenda that I needed to make sure there is a good of the order on the agenda? Anything for good of the order? Yes, Ms. Steadman.

I would like to thank Director Crocker for getting back information to let us know that a veteran who was who is suffering financial just I guess I'll say distress from utility bills um that they talked to him and they let him know about um the resources that we have available and also got him in contact with kitsap community resources veterans assistant manager program to um to to make sure that he received assistance so i really um love that we are our city is doing that kind of work um i would also i'll wait

They're recognized, so go for it.

Okay. I would also like to point out that a point of order is a formal statement or question raised by a member of a meeting, debate, or deliberative assembly to draw attention to a breach of established rules of procedure. Thus, my use of the point of order earlier was correct. Thank you.

Anybody else for good of the order? Hearing none, this meeting's adjourned.