Charter Review Commission - Regular Meeting

Alright. Hey. It is, 05:30, and let's go ahead and kick off this 03/11/2026 Numbuh County Charter Review Commission meeting. We're gonna go ahead and call this meeting to order. And, Peter, can you run us a roll call, please?

Toyer?

Here.

Danny? Here. Gregerson?

Here.

Chatters? Here. O'Donnell? Here. Cass? Here. Preston? Dodd? Menke? K Mink? Here. McGee? Eslik? James? Here. Galey? Here. We have 123456789. 10 members present.

10 present. Okay.

Great. And I see Amanda is here. Let me promote her to panelist.

So so we do have Amanda now, Peter?

Amanda's online.

Yes. Okay. Great. So that's, eleven. Is that right?

Eleven. Yep.

Alright. Great. Can I get a motion to excuse the absent members? So moved. Second. Okay. I have a motion to excuse the absent members and a second. Is there any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Alright. Great. Let's go to public comment. Do we have anyone online who was to provide comment here?

If you'd like to provide public comment, please raise your virtual hand. I don't see any hands. Oh, we have one. We have Catherine Lewandowski.

Okay. Great. Catherine, go ahead and take, three minutes, please.

Yes. My name thank you. Sorry. My power just went out and came back on. So, hopefully, it won't happen again.

I just wanted to, say thank you for your service and also let you know that I I'm very much in support of the your new charter amendment that is on the agenda for tonight to in support of proportional ranked choice voting for, the members of the Charter Amendment Commission in 2035. I think, I've been looking at ranked choice of voting for a long time, and I've been looking at where they've been implementing it around the country. And it's just really impressive to me on how it really helps to, make people feel more like they can participate in our, governmental processes, in our electoral processes, and, and how it's just really becoming so much easier for people to understand. The other thing I like about ranked choice voting is it helps to reduce the negative campaigning in in different kinds of things, and I think that that's a good thing. So we should try to reinforce that.

And just but just looking at, like, what happened with Portland and seeing what and seeing how much it really involved the local community members in their elections and stuff, I think it's just a really good thing. We really need to try to improve our participation in in our electoral electoral processes. So thank you very much again, and, I am supportive of this amendment. Okay? Thank you.

Thank you, Catherine. Appreciate your comments. Anyone else here?

I do not see anybody else.

Okay. Great. Do we have anyone in the audience who wishes to provide comments tonight? Go ahead.

Me. I'm back again. Perfect. Name is Eric.

Bidstrip. I live in Edmonds, and I am the Snohomish County volunteer lead for Fair Vote Washington, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization that advocates for use of ranked choice voting here in Washington state. I'm also here to speak in support of amendment number six that would adopt the rank adopt ranked choice voting for future elections of the Snohomish County Charter Review Commission. When considering any change, it's helpful to start such discussions with a simple question. Why change?

Snohomish County is very fortunate to be one of only seven counties in Washington state with a charter which allows us some freedom within state law to choose and organize our county government. Every ten years, 15 commissioners are elected and assess what changes should be made. Changing what is effectively our county constitution is important, and so it's worth examining how the charter review commissioners are elected and how much voter support they have. The form of voting used to elect the charter review commission, this time is known as block voting, which voters can vote for up to three candidates in a single contest. This is highly problematic for several reasons.

In the November election in which you all were elected, only one of you had greater than 20% voter support, and several of you only had a little more than 11% of voter support. These percentages were about the same as in the twenty fifteen Charter Review Commission election. I ask you, in what other election would any of you feel satisfied with a candidate being elected with less than 20% of voter support? If that's not enough, in the November 25, twenty twenty five election, over 37% of the voters in Snohomish County undervoted, which is a term means that they, used to describe when they don't fully vote for them all possible candidates, Meaning, when a voter could have chosen up to three candidates, they only voted for two or less. In the twenty fifteen election, this number was over 50% of the voters.

And when you consider that in 2025, only four out of 10 voters didn't have their voices firmly hold and represented raises some questions about voter representation. Finally, the use of block voting itself is problematic as it prevents electing representatives in proportion to the level of public support. Imperial, empirical research, court decisions, historical outcomes all converge on one outcome. The block voting is inherently flawed and should be replaced with a more representative alternative. It is arguably in violation of the Washington State Voting Rights Act and currently leaves Snohomish County exposed to potential costly litigation.

Adopting ranked choice voting for electing Snohomish County Charter Review Commissioners solves this problem. Ranked choice voting is already used in a growing number of jurisdictions across the country, including states and cities with a wide variety of political leanings, including Alaska and several very conservative leading, municipalities in Utah. I respectfully ask that you consider this charter amendment so that Snohomish County voters themselves can decide on what they want and to adopt ranked choice voting or not. Regardless of your personal positions on the policy, allowing voters to decide how their is conducted is the most transparent and democratic approach. I'd be happy to answer any additional questions you might have either individually or collectively, and I thank you for your time and for your service to our community. Thank you.

Thank you, Eric. Is there anyone else? Alright, great. We'll go ahead and close public comments then. And let's do can we get a motion to approve the minutes from February? So moved.

Second.

Okay. Have a motion to approve the minutes and a second. Is there any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Alright. Let's go to topics of discussion and, required public hearings. What do we have on that, Peter?

So I brought this to you guys last week. I did a little research on it. There's a and and and I have talked about this. In 2016, the required public meetings were done as public hearings for the public to review amendments that have already been decided to go to the ballot. Chair Gailey and I spoke about doing it differently this year, having public hearings sooner in the process to give the public the ability to present their ideas for amendments, as opposed to having public hearings on amendments that have already been decided.

So our idea was to we have two meetings each month until this is over, March, April, and May. Our our thought was one meeting a month will be here in Everett, The other meeting each month will be at a different location, somewhere in South County, North County, and East County. I spoke with mayor Vannie and about having it in Arlington for the North County one, and I know some of the other folks were suggesting a location in Lynnwood for the South County Meeting. So I'm gonna do some work on that to get those scheduled ASAP so we can get the the the press releases out to the media organizations and start to make sure people know that they're gonna be elsewhere. Elsewhere. So if I haven't if anybody has any suggestions, please let me know.

Alright. Great great work on that, Peter. Appreciate it. Let's move to, the draft advanced proposals. And the first one on the docket is the proposal related to lobbying activity by county officials. Jimmy, do you want to refresh our memory on that? What what what we're doing with that? Sure. Thank you, Brett.

So this amendment boils down to a pretty simple issue. The people have, informed me that, if someone is on the payroll of a lobbyist firm, they should not also be on the payroll of the people. So this amendment is to close the loophole that may allow that. And and I'll also mention that I had a a community group reach out to me, called One Voice Najomish County, and they they provided to me a letter that they sent to this commission, but I did not see it distributed amongst the materials. So maybe Peter can help track down where that is and why it hasn't figure out why it has not gone to commissioners.

It was a joint letter between, one voice, NAACP Snohomish County, Snohomish County Indivisible, and League of Women Voters Snohomish County regarding this amendment in support of this amendment and expressing concerns about whether or not it is permissible even at this time, for you to be both employed by the people and by a lobbying firm. So if it is permissible, that will be, that will come out in the rinse eventually. But this is to close any loophole that may allow it to be permissible.

K. Peter, are you aware of this? I don't think I've seen it in my email. Is was this the Janice Green email? Is that what we're talking about?

I mean, I I

Yeah.

Yes. I I did receive an email, and the email was more so a complaint Okay. As opposed to

Hold on. Just so so you're not having a conflict here. So is that the email we're talking about? Is that what we're talking about?

I I don't I don't know because I didn't receive the email. I was provided a copy of a letter via email.

Okay.

So Debbie said she could speak on this.

Okay. Debbie, go ahead.

As the ethics commission clerk, I did receive the letter as well. The letter was, submitted to the ethics committee, and that, complaint has been dismissed.

Okay.

An order of dismissal has been sent to the complainant.

Okay. So that's been dismissed, but that same group is supportive of your amendment. Is that what we're saying?

That that's correct. That was part of that letter, and which is why I was hoping that the commissioners would have an opportunity to read that because that is evidence that we have several several community organizations that are tracking this issue and that are very much in support of an amendment that would close that loophole.

Okay. And where are we at on looking into this amendment as far as adding it to a possible, amendment to the charter review? Are we have we done some research on it? Have we looked at it at all, Ben?

There there has not been any, legal insight into that. The process that mister Condals and I have worked out that he will do the research on policy type issues. And then as that comes forward, then the legal piece will come to me after that's been done so that I am not using time and budget to, go into the legalities of something that may not even Yeah. Progress. Right? So as soon as that comes from this body for me to do that, then I can look into the legalities of all of that.

So That sounds great, man. So so that's our next step on this.

Yeah.

Peter, you wanna go ahead.

Yeah. And I provided some so just so everybody knows, I did have conversations over the last two weeks with all seven charter counties. Well, six, not us. But and I I ran through the the amendments that we have so far and asked them what they have in their charter, how they've handled that. The this one, which has been labeled amendment one, no county has anything in their charter like this.

They do have, most of them have code of ethics. San Juan County was quite interesting. I'm waiting still on the documentation on that, but they have an internal policy of disclosure, which I think might be interesting for us to look at. But what I did what I did attach was our current county code of ethics so that we can see what's currently in place. And then maybe if there's any holes in there that we can beef up either through the charter or through the code. And then Pierce County's code of ethics, which I thought of all six, Pierce County has the most robust in my opinion. So, yeah, if there's additional things that the commission wants researched or looked at or if we want to take this further, I'd be happy to do whatever you guys would like.

Okay. What's the desire go ahead. Go ahead, Janelle.

I guess I just need some clarification. I know so section 9.3 of our current chartered does talk about mandates that the council have ordinances regarding codes of ethics, and it and the county does have that. So would it make more sense that maybe if this is something that's desired that it's outside of what the Charter Review Commission would do, but it would be something to discuss if there needs to be something tightened up in the code of ethics that county council is responsible for enacting.

Yeah. Great point, Sean.

I read through the code of ethics that was sent out, and I think everybody got that. It's surprisingly tight, and it it it certainly all about disclosure. I think that was a key thing about that. You had to disclose a tremendous amount of information that the voters and the public would have. I agree with Demi in in the in the way that, in the way that, this is probably not a good idea to have lobbyists on the council type of thing, but I don't think it belongs in the county, charter. I don't think, we should save room for it, on the charter amendment. I just don't think it's the place.

Okay. Jennifer's hands up. Jennifer, go ahead.

I get so just kind of a more maybe process y kind of question. We voted on this last time, right, to advance it for research. So I kind of thought it would come forward with, like, development of a proposal that would the motion that was passed instead of kinda, like, doing the same discussion we did a couple weeks ago. I could so maybe that's what I was I I saw it on the agenda again. Was like, oh, we're gonna talk about it again. Like, we we just gave direction. Staff already has the proposal done. So anyways.

Okay. So, Jennifer, just so I clear I clarify, your thought process is that Peter would actually write out what the proposal would look like in the for the charter? Okay.

Well, yeah. Or something that was like, you know, we talked a lot two weeks ago about, you know, I think commissioner Chatter's proposal was kinda really expansive. Like, maybe even every single county employee and there was a little bit of discussion about, like, is that feasible? Maybe maybe there's some restrictions that wouldn't really allow us to do this. Maybe it's more about just the electives, just the county council, just the whatever, you know, like, there's different ways to slice it up.

And so, because it got the requisite votes to move forward for analysis, I kind of expected that Peter would dig into some of those issues. Like, or someone from county employ you know, like, someone in HR or someone from the county council could come to the commission to explain their thoughts on how it could work and where it might fit. I know how the vote split went so we could, like, rehash it and folks who were opposed to it could, like, kinda say they were opposed to it again. But, like, what was the point of like, are we gonna do analysis on the proposals if they get the votes to move forward or not? I don't know.

So are we saying that we need to that maybe, we need to refine the wordage into an actual proposal that we could then so we can really understand what we're what we're asking. And maybe that's what we can do over the next two weeks is maybe get, Demi and Peter, you guys wanna get together and really refine what your what your what is the proposal language that that then, Peter can get into some, maybe some more in-depth analysis and bring that back. Does that sound doable?

It it does. It does. Yes. It does. And I guess I want to mention that, it it is definitely useful, and that's always a first step to go and see if there is, an amendment like this, or if there is a section like this existing in a charter.

But I would hope that this commission would, not, be too timid to lead on an issue that is widely, this is this is a very broadly, accepted as a good idea. I've talked to many rooms full of people about about this idea, so far. And I would hope, commissioners, you are also out in your communities talking to folks about the amendments that have been put forward. And, there is broad support for this idea. So I would hope that we could, at at a minimum, translate it into a potential, policy action and not be afraid to lead on a matter that perhaps is not something that another county has done before. Snohomish County people are very creative. We should not be afraid to lead on these types of issues.

Okay. So why don't we, over the next couple weeks, you and Peter get together? Let's refine the language. And then based upon that language, do a little more research and bring that back. Does that hit your intent, Jennifer?

Yeah. Yes. I mean, I think that sounds great. Okay. Yeah.

Great. Amanda with the angelic aura behind you.

I think I got this background from DNR, and it was just nice nicer than my actual house. So and I apologize. I'm losing my voice. I'm not in person tonight because I'm just not feeling well. But I appreciated commissioner Gregerson's comments, and and I agree.

And I was gonna say to Demi and Peter, I think given that there was a lot of feedback when we're talking about this, don't be afraid to come back with, like, options that work together or separately too. Like, it may be that we we all agree on three out of the four things, you know, or that kind of stuff. I was also gonna ask, and I'm not sure who this is to. So I'll start with Chair Gailey, and then maybe we'll go to our legal advice. But when, commissioner Chatters brought up listening to constituents, is there anything that stops, like, let's say, all three District 4 commissioners from trying to hold, like, the three of us go listen in the community? Can we work together on that? Because it's just three out of 15, so it's not a quorum. I just wanna make sure that was okay before I reach out to my two.

Yeah. That's an interesting point because you don't have a quorum of the charter review committee, but is there considered a quorum of your district? I don't know the answer to that.

That's I hope not. That's a good point.

That's an interesting, question.

I can say that it's not a quorum of this body, which everyone knows. I don't know if, typically a quorum of the districts is not a quorum because they can't make the decision. Right? That's that's generally the concern with the open public meetings and open records, those kind of things is, can a decision be made by that body kind of behind the scenes?

And

with three members of a district, I don't see that being the case. But I will take a look at that to make sure and get a foundation for that. But, I I don't see that that would necessarily be the, be a concern just having three members in the district out talking to to a group.

Okay. Thank you. Of course, now I have to talk the other two into it, but that's a

good start.

Question, question, madam. About that. So if we established each district as its own subcommittee, would that would that allow the subcommittees to then meet and and do work in that manner?

Well, I think if the subcommittee had action power, then that would meet the prong test of a quorum. So then that would be problematic. Yeah. Like, by your word word use of prong, isn't that, like, lawyer language prong? Felt like it. Anyway but

A lot of the state reps get together and do town halls. It's just information.

Yeah. It seems like

it'd be the same as that they're not making any decisions. Yeah. And maybe it could be something, commissioner Chatters, that that different district people get together in an area and talk. I did have a question for clarification on your amendment, about the lobbyist and anybody employed by the county. I don't know if I mentioned this before, but what if somebody's working in the parks department, happens to work for an environmental lobby group also, or does a little bit of work for them from time to time? Would they be able and if somebody's already in that role, could they stay, or would it be going forward with new hires? Or those might be some things to think about when you and Peter put something together.

Ben, did you have something to add there?

Yeah. The the prong piece, I don't know if I would I would go that far because, yes, that is very specific legal term that means a very specific piece of a law. Oh. But, I think in general, yes, getting to what you were saying, yes, it's, if there's a committee that could take action as a body, say five, and three members of that committee were doing something that could constitute a quorum because they could, make that decision together. So that that would be problematic for sure.

So I think, Amanda, I think you're gonna be okay, but let Ben do a little bit of let him crack open a book or two and make sure we're good.

Thank you.

What else do we have on amendment one? Do we have a way forward? Alright. Great. Let's go to amendment four. Proposal related to expanding the county council from five to seven members. What work have we done on that, Peter?

I've provided the spreadsheet and the spreadsheets for four and five of what the other charter counties have done regarding number of the the size of their county council or county commission as well as the partisanship question.

Okay. Jennifer, do you wanna talk some more to this?

Sure. I was I was happy to get enough votes to advance this to a research stage. It's it seems compelling information to me about the shift. The only other counties that have as few council members as ours are quite a bit smaller. So it's that always seemed like a reasonable policy reason for this. I would expect that staff could develop this into, like, the actual charter language, and and we might see that in a few weeks.

Okay.

That's what I thought the next step would be.

Alright. We can do that as well.

Michelle? I think as part of the research, I'd be really curious to know in terms of, like, how much per county is unincorporated area where they are dependent on that representation versus representation amongst their city leadership for those kinds of duties, that makes sense. Like, you're an unincorporated, you're relying on, you know, county police protection. Whereas, if you're in a city, you've got that city has their own police protection, in which case, you know, your taxes and your representation might might be more important at the closer local level, whereas some of the so Snohomme I guess what I'm trying to say is Snohomish County has many cities, and many of our our citizens are represented in that way, versus maybe Whatcom County. There's a lot more unincorporated areas that requires more representation.

Okay. Alright.

Peter, since you said you're a data geek, we look at something like this for all the counties?

Yeah. Well, yes, we can, but all the other counties will be three. Oh. Because if they're not charter counties, they're standards.

That was easy. Thanks for that data. Any

other comments on this amendment? One of Rob.

The only thing I was gonna ask is I'd be curious to see what their pay structure is and, like, their total compensation package between, you know, wages and benefits and then if they had an assistant as well just kinda to compare these other counties.

So so maybe look for a fiscal impact?

I guess Yeah.

I guess my concern would be if we had two more, council members, are they getting paid the same as the the existing ones and what the fiscal impact of that would be.

Okay. Sean?

Mine is more of a point of procedure. It it seemed to me, and Jennifer could probably speak to this, that we had and I'm talking about earlier when we we we had already moved to the research part. My understanding is we moved to the let's hear more part, when we get five votes, and that would move something forward. It seemed to me that when we did this last time around, there was another level of maybe at seven votes where you're not quite a majority because certainly it would have to be eight to have the thing get on the ballot. Seven votes would get to where now we're getting really serious about that.

So I don't know if the commission wants to do that. It because I think that the, you know, the the five votes is a small threshold to have something move forward. And I think the idea that it's getting close to being on the on the as amendment or send the staff to work work more on that. So maybe there's maybe there's a spot in the middle. I don't know. Because right now, we have either five votes, we hear more, or eight votes, it's going to be on the

The ballot. Sure. So, yeah, I agree. So, when we get this initial info back on this next go round, then let's go to that seven threshold. And if it passes that, then we then then we can get as we get closer to the end of this and actually have to put it on the ballot, then it'd be at the eight.

Yeah. Then there would be a debate, part there at that time that you debate if you got to seven. And now we we have the we're getting close on this thing. Let's go back and forth on this thing. And then that that's when the important part to be have the public hearing on that is now they get involved in that part where they can still kick the thing to the curb or or get something added to it. So Okay. Don.

No. I agree with you, Sean. I just I I can see if we keep it at the five, we're just gonna keep chasing our tail round and round on the same same item. I swear, if we have once it gets to this step, then you like you say, you increase it to seven votes, and then the next step would be nine and so forth. But I'm in agreement with you on that.

K. Jennifer?

There was a second threshold before. It was how we directed the attorney to spend time on work. So we did our staff did policy research, we got input from the county. I think on this one, we could consider asking the county exec to weigh in on the budget impact. They did last time.

And I would also anticipate that the second threshold happens sometime, like, not the next meeting. Right? There's not enough time in between our meetings to have Peter develop additional information and work on advancing the proposal. The second threshold kind of got gets proposals, like, a little bit more fleshed out so that at the very end when we took we're taking final votes. I think because we were, like, we had a lot of proposals. And so we had, like, quite a few that were, like, these are all good ideas. These should keep going. Like, maybe we want all these things. And then at the very end, it was more, okay.

Are we

really gonna put 20 things on the ballot? No. We're probably gonna weigh these against each other and only a few will make it to the end to get the, you know, ballot title developed and and all of that. So

Okay. Yeah. David?

Regarding representation, whether county has three, five, seven, or nine representatives, every citizen is represented in the is represented in the county. Doesn't matter how many you have. So just have that thought because of of our our council members, some have more rural areas, but they're still representing their people in those areas. So it's just something to think about. It does just want to throw that out there.

That's an idea.

But it's okay to flush out also.

And I would also argue that more is less representation as far as the voice that you have. If you have five people up here, your voice is loud. If you're out there in Skykomish and this is your guy, if you dilute that, if you have seven, somebody should probably put a proposal together that we go down to three. See how that works.

Alright. Okay. So we're going to we're going to vet this one out a little bit more and bring it back and, see where we go. Good? Alright. Let's go to amendment number five, and that's the proposal related to making the offices of county executive, county prosecutor, and county council nonpartisan. It looks like, that amendment does have some charter language in it already. Or no. That's the existing charter language and then a proposed charter language.

Did Peter, did did you or legal do any further work on this?

Yeah. It's part of the spreadsheet that I handed out in well, it was in the email, regarding what the other charter counties do as it relates to partisan versus nonpartisan.

Okay. I'm open for discussion on this amendment at this point. Do we let's let's start it out this way. Do we, to me, this language looks good, looks possible. Is there any more vetting of this actual language that we think Peter needs to do, before it goes any further? Go ahead, Debbie.

So this one this one's a real interesting one. And and I've been talking to as many folks as I can get in front of, about this issue. And and what I am hearing from the community is there is very broad support for the idea of every elected position being a nonpartisan position in terms of the expectation of the actions and behaviors of the person occupying the position and how they serve the entire community. However, there is also a a very broad sentiment amongst folks that they are quite tired of being disappointed in their elected leaders and finding out things after the fact that perhaps they did not know, that they did not learn about. And I I think we had a few comments last time.

I believe commissioner O'Donnell mentioned that it is difficult to even, become elected unless you identify in a partisan manner. The public wants more information. They want transparency. They so this, I think, is two separate ideas. The idea of whether or not a position is is nonpartisan and whether or not there is a required disclosure to the community of partisan affiliation, party affiliation.

And the community, while they want nonpartisan action and behavior by their elected leaders, they also want to know when they are vetting who they are going to hire for these jobs. They want to know party affiliation. If you ask a community member, which I have, how would you feel if you elected someone and then found out that they had, that they were affiliated with the Communist Party of Washington? And they were horrified. They were like, no.

We believe we deserve to have that information. Political parties have, they explicitly articulate public policy positions. These are public policy jobs. And to say that there is no material connection between a party affiliation that has an explicitly stated public policy platform and disclosing that affiliation to the public, that is just not what I am hearing from people out here. So commissioners, I'm asking you, how can we solve the problem of disclosing to the community party affiliation, which is important to the people, which they do want to know, while also supporting the idea of nonpartisanship and nonpartisan action and behavior by our elected leaders.

How can we how can we solve that? How can we incorporate that kind of language and that kind of compulsion to disclose, to have transparency with the public when you are vying for these jobs? How can we bridge that gap in this language?

Okay. Amanda.

Thanks. So I've said before that I'm currently a student right now, and I'm actually taking a state and local government class, which I share to preface that we just had a unit on judicial elections. Elections. And some states, they're partisan. Some states, they're nonpartisan.

And I was surprised and kind of dismayed to find out that nonpartisan elections are actually much more expensive. It increases the barriers to running and gaining office because you have to raise more money, and you have to spend more of your money telling people what you believe in. So that also kind of pairs with in talking to King County voters. So I've been a Snohomish County voter my whole life. In talking to King County voters, which is half of my city plus, you know, a couple million people, King County went nonpartisan, and it didn't change who got elected, but it made their elections, like, a lot more challenging to support.

It's harder for candidates. Again, they have to raise more money. They have to spend more money telling their story, And it didn't functionally change the party makeup of who gets elected, but it added more confusion. So I'm wondering if in part of this analysis, that comes back to us, can we look at, are we raising the cost of running for county council and these other county positions? And what do we really gain if it didn't change much in the county next to us?

And I'm I only have that one example in Washington, like, ready to go, but I would love to get some more analysis of where this has been done before and just what was the outcome? Is it what proponents are hoping for, or is it does it just add more confusion and more expense, which seems like a way we maybe don't wanna go, if our goal is to hear from people and they have the clearest information. So I just wanted to request some some detailed information on that. And I'm happy to send the citations from the study in my textbook that talk about that. I can send that to Peter, and then he can get them to himself or whoever needs them. But yeah. Thank you.

K. Good comments. Yeah.

Thank you, Amanda, on sharing on that. Well, I guess we could also look at the data with the counties that have always been nonpartisan to see if the average race is more expensive than Snohomish County or the ones that are partisan. Like, we have the data now, so we can compare pricing between those races. I have to say, I've talked to a lot of people. A lot of us here run for different elections, done a lot of doorbelling.

And I find that 90% of the people agree to 90% of the things. And then to have some kind of label as to what team you play for or not becomes more of a distraction instead of people working together on the common ground. And I think more than anything, we need to be working on common ground. We've got huge issues facing our county, our state, but we'll focus on the county, but even within the cities that we need to just work together and not be looking for ways to divide ourselves. So I'm all for being nonpartisan for all positions county level.

Good job. Mark.

Yeah. Thanks. Yeah. I had to rush the last meeting, and I didn't have a chance to really, you know, talk about or emphasize any particular points when this was presented last time due to our time constraints. So it's good that we have this extra time to talk about it.

There's some good points being brought up. But, also, I don't agree that we should be concerned with some statistic that it might be more expensive to run an election as a nonpartisan than a partisan. I've never heard that. And we have actual positions here in in Snowfish County. Back voters supported the the same exact approach back ten years ago that in 1996 or I'm sorry, more than ten.

In 1996, the Charter Review Commission proposed making the offices of county treasurer, sheriff, auditor, assessor, and clerk nonpartisan. So prior to that, which was voted overwhelmingly in by the public, prior to that, they were partisan. I think you're right. Have it built in in our own backyard here that talk with the treasurer, sheriff, auditor, assessor, and and clerk clerks that have run since that law has been changed in the charter. And see ask them if you're concerned that it was it went from a, you know, less expensive to more expensive because of this.

I don't think that's even an issue that's that's ever even crossed anybody's mind. So, you know, having the rest of the county join them makes perfect sense. The transparency in elections comes from disclosure law, not from party labels. Campaign finance activity, political committees, and independent expenditures are already fully reported. Public can access that already.

All they have to do is ask questions. If they're waiting until the day that they fill their ballot out before they wonder if this person was associated with, you know, a particular party. You know, that's something that, you know, we can't change at this level. They should, as a smart voter, have already looked at that and done done whatever research they can as a voter is expected to do. And then you have the statements, of course, right there in the pamphlet that that outline, you know, what that person stands for, what are you know, what issues are they standing on, and those are the things that that voters wanna know.

You know, the fact that they're, you know, a party affiliate outside of the job parameters really has no bearing on it as long as they are fulfilling the job they're voting for and addressing the issues that they ran on. That's what we wanna see. And then you can vote them out if they lied or if they're, you know, pulling the wool over. So to me, it's increasing transparency and accountability. I've got more to say, but I'll let others chime in.

Alright, Mark. Thank you. So, something that piques my interest, Peter, can you take a look at 96 and see if there's some reasons why they didn't include the executive and the council members?

Yes. I can do that. And, also, just so everybody knows, there was a more recent one in two King County went nonpartisan in 2009. So there that's a little bit more recent than 1996, but I can look into that as well.

Okay. Great. And, Don, did you have comments? Okay. Amanda, go ahead.

Yeah. I was just gonna clarify. Again, I'm day cold brained, so I might not have been clear. It's it's actual studies that show that nonpartisan elections are more expensive. It's not a guess. It's studies, like that's why it's in my textbook. It's not anybody's guess. So I'll share that with Peter so he can share it with the commission, but it it's not a hypothesis. It's actual fact. It was just kind of alarming and very relevant to what we're talking about. Thanks.

Okay. Thank you, Amanda. Let's go David first.

Oh, Amanda, I'd like to see that, just because you've got, like, in on council city council races. They're nonpartisan and some other ones are. So I I would be curious as to how they measured that. And if it went from one one election, they went nonpartisan to partisan or vice versa, how did that happen? And it could also be determined by I mean, there's, a variable would be if you had a long time incumbent that the community loved and then they changed it, that might be harder for the person running against them to be much more expensive or something like that. But

Mhmm.

What if someone's truly I've talked to people who had thought about running for office, but they got I don't wanna be part of any party. They really are nonpartisan. They don't wanna be part of the communist party, the green party, socialist party, republican, or democrat. So are we alienating them? So what do they what do they put after the name? I'm really truly nonpartisan. I maybe people wouldn't believe it. I don't know. But just something to think about.

Yeah. Good comments. Let's let's go to Sean.

Yeah. I in fact, 35% of people in Washington state identify as, independent. So I think that's a a giant swath of the public, and this is gonna be an easy one. We're gonna get it on the ballot, and, and people are gonna have their say. And if, if they don't want it, it'll get voted down. But if the counties surrounding us are any indication, this thing's gonna pass overwhelmingly. 58, 59%, maybe 62% of

the vote. So Great, Sean. Did you have additional, Den?

Yeah. I I really love, commissioner O'Donnell's point that there are so many independents out there. And and I think that that is something the public wants to know too. They want to know party affiliation. They also want to know, folks who are independent. They want that identified. And I just wanna mention that in addition to to discussing this issue with folks in the community, I I also discussed, the voter pamphlet. And the community at large is not aware that there is no vetting of the voter pamphlet statements. That what folks write in there and we've all seen some things over the years, that were, not accurate, being presented in a voter's pamphlet. So so there is there is a gap between public expectation of what is happening and the reality of what is going on.

And the public absolutely wants more information, not less. I would challenge any of you to go into a room full of any of your community members and ask them if they want to know less about the people who are vying for these jobs, especially with regard to a material connection like we are discussing a public policy an agency that has a public policy platform that they are affiliated with and then say to the community, oh, no. No. But you don't need to know that information. The community expects that the the voters' pamphlet is better vetted, than it is, and and I don't know the mechanism to solve that.

My point is that there is a disconnect between what the public wants, what they think is happening, and what is actually happening. And the impact of this will be to obscure even more data about a candidate from the folks who are being tasked with, who to select represent them. Thank you.

Let's go with Mark first.

Yeah. Thanks. Yeah. I think it's a misnomer to say that there would be any, obfuscation or obscuring of data. It's it's plain and out there if somebody is affiliated with a party. That, by definition, means that it's not secret. It's already out. It's public information. And if a candidate ran under other pretenses, that would be a statement on their ethics. And that would also be something that would come back to haunt them, no doubt.

And as we all know, if if you've been through an election, there there really are no secrets when you're running. Your your opponents will make sure of that. That's just kinda how it works, and it's a natural ebb and flow. So the other thing, just housekeeping, if chair Galey, when and you've been good most of the time. I hear the name real quickly who's speaking, but it's the first time I've been online, and and we can't see or or identify who's talking all the time.

I can

recognize some of the voices, obviously, but others, I can't. So just either the commissioner, state your name before you speak, or if chair Geely introduces that commissioner's name a little more prominently, that'd be really helpful.

That'd be great. David Preston. Very good. Okay. Jennifer Gregerson.

Thank you. I was you know, it's just occurring to me really that this is already accomplished because you don't have to join a party in Washington State. It's an open primary for these seats. So you could already write down if you don't feel like you are part of the Democratic party or the Republican party, we we don't need to make this change. Candidates can already, they could write down nonpartisan party if they wanted.

So I think it is valuable information. It certainly, like, tells me a story about what someone stands for, at least part of the story, you know, as a voter. You know? But I think it it I don't know. Some of the past, commissioners, there some of the points you've made kinda made me feel like you were saying that people were forced to join parties, and and they're, you know, they're not, in Washington state. And there isn't, like, party registration like there is in other states. The part the primary is now open in a way that it wasn't. You know? I don't remember when that changed, but a couple decades ago, that has changed. So, yeah, it's kind of a solution in search of a problem that I don't see exists.

Okay. Great. Alright. Peter, do you have a little bit of info to follow-up on?

Yes. I do.

Yeah. Okay. Perfect. Alright. We'll do a little more, hashing this one out and bring it back in two weeks and see where we go with it. Alright. Let's go to new proposals. We like new proposals. Let's go to amendment six, is a proposal to utilize ranked choice voting in the elections for charter review commission. Commissioner Amanda Dodd. You wanna talk about this one?

Sure. I think it's pretty straightforward. I would ask that if we get five votes at least to move forward on this that we invite, it could be fair vote Washington. It could be, we could ask, you know, the county auditor, but we have someone talk about ranked choice voting because I think whenever there's something new, there's this undercurrent of, like, oh, no. It's terrifying.

So we could get some facts about what that would look like, in front of the commission and at the public hearing. But I'll just share some quick quick stats that I pulled together. What's kinda cool about this last Charter Review Commission election is we also had three county council seats up for vote. Districts 1 And 4 were unopposed incumbents. For District 1 in the county council race, there were 7,343 under votes, which is common when there's only one person on the ballot.

Sometimes people are like, well, I'm not gonna vote if it's the only person. My dad does that as an example. But, for the Charter Review Commission race, which was competitive in District 1, there were 34,283 under votes. In District 4, for the county council race, there were 7,323 under votes, very comparable. Again, just one incumbent, no opposition.

And there were 30,371 under votes in the charter review race there, which was, again, very competitive. In District 5, where there was, a competitive county council race, there were only 848 under votes because every vote counted because there were multiple candidates. For the Charter Review Commission, there were even more under votes in District 5 at 35,610. It's pretty clear that block voting is not getting, like, the democratic results that we would hope for. A lot of people in our districts are not being heard.

They're not voting enough. They're not picking all three representatives. Ranked choice voting also means that and and I would want someone who's an expert to talk about this for everyone, but it means that everyone gets closer to someone that they want to represent them. It also brings a lot of representation to districts that are very split. Ranked choice voting, because of the way that ranks your choices, please pardon the horrible pun, actually, let's like, you can get, like and I'm just gonna use republican and democrat.

I I don't mean to be charged right after what we were just talking about. But in a highly democratic or highly republican district, you can actually see more people elected from the historically underrepresented party in that area. It's a really fascinating thing. And I think for the Charter Review Commission specifically, anything that we can try to just get better results and get people who are like we have more under votes than, like, the total winning people got in some of these districts. It's pretty bad. So I this is kind of my idea on how to help fix that and just move away from the block voting, which isn't getting us very good results. I'll stop that.

Mister Dodden, I'd like to clarify something. Are Yeah. Does this only pertain to the Charter Review Commission election? Yes. Or does this pertain to all county positions?

This is what I'm proposing is just the Charter Review Commission. That's what I had a comfortable formed proposal for. If you wanna propose something else, I'd love to talk about that too, but that that is I

I don't. But I just wanted to clarify that we weren't talking about every county position that you wanted to rank, voter ranked

Correct.

Voters ranked RCV. How about we'll acronym it.

Okay. Great. Commissioner Press. I heard from many people that they didn't understand they needed to vote for three, they only voted for one over and over and over again. They're kinda slapping their forehead. They didn't understand that. So how could it have been communicated better? It comes up once every ten years. It's way down on the ballot. It looks a little overwhelming by the time you get there. So, commissioner Dodd, maybe you've got a way to communicate that better for folks. So an idea. So then

the question becomes, does it fix the problem? Because right now the problem is they don't read right above the thing choose three. Right? So now they're choosing one on all of them. Now they now they have a ranked choice option. Still don't understand what that means, so they still choose one. Do we so did we fix the problem? No. Maybe it's a highlighted neon two three, please.

Send a video.

I mean, I think displaying charter review as some kind of chart. But where I struggle with this is that you're not ranking your choice. You get to pick three. So they're all the three that you pick are like a number one because there's really three slots and you're picking three. Not, hey, I like this one, then I like this one, then I like this one. So I I kind of think from just a purely semantic description, it doesn't really apply. Now changing the format on the ballot, I'd be really open to if it could help communicate that, hey. Pick three.

Yeah. And and so maybe that becomes talking to Garth and talking about some sort of election policy that if there's more if you if you need to choose more than one, how do we neon light that decision? Right, Dunked.

Yeah. No. That's what that's what I was gonna say is, basically, it's once every 10. I mean, by ten years from now, they're all gonna forget. Oh, I'm supposed to vote on three again. But it's just, like you say, how do you put that neon light on it? Hey. This is once in a ten year election. You do pick three

Yes.

Not just the one.

Yeah. Tammy, go ahead.

Okay. You. You know, ten years ago, I had never heard of ranked choice voting. And and so I I thought, I I thought that this was a very thoughtful proposal because of exactly the undervoting issue. I heard from so many folks, just as commissioner, Preston mentioned. They just did not get it, that they could vote for three. And I think ranked choice voting is is it's an it's a it's a new idea to many of us. I think that when I talk to community members, there there are some folks that are better versed than others, but they clearly feel the problem. The public feels the problem. And I think we would have quite a long time to educate folks.

So ten years from now, ranked choice voting could be a household word. And I think that that when you're making a change of this nature that I think really applies very well to the charter review commissioner election, specifically, starting with this type of position and this type of election, that is a real golden opportunity for us to to try something like this to improve the process for the public. Because what we do know right now is it is it has not worked, in the manner in which it was intended to provide the represent the representation that the people are asking us for.

Okay. Any other comments on this amendment? Proposed amendment? Alright. Go ahead.

I had

a I a question. Let let

Can I go first? Is that okay?

You can go first. Yeah.

I just wanted to say, I'm still, like, learning about this, and I'm not I don't know how I would feel about the final disposition, but I'm interested in, like, giving it a tiering and learning more. And then so and for the record, I have to head off to my conflicting meeting. So thanks.

Understandable. Okay. Rob, go ahead.

So just to clarify, this, proposal would get rid of the districts and just rank, you know, the top three names that are countywide. Is that what I'm hearing?

Do you want me to jump in?

Go ahead. Sorry.

I wouldn't normally sneak in like that. No. You're done. So it would not get rid of the districts. It would, you would still vote within your district because what use would countywide at large, you know, charter review commissioners be really?

But I'm thinking and, again, it would have to get five votes to move forward, but I'm thinking that we could and I'm happy to to do some of this legwork myself, work with again, it could be FairVote or the county auditor and just come back with what it could look like if that would help people visualize it. So I'm I'm worried that we're all kind of we've got our own idea of what RCV would look like, and then we're moving forward based on whether we like that or not, not what the county auditor would actually do in 2035, which sounds terrifyingly far away. So if everyone's open to that and you're willing to extend a little grace, maybe we can move forward and get that information. It doesn't mean we move forward to public hearing and putting it on the ballot, but it lets us make an informed decision about amending the charter or not.

Okay, Amanda. I'm good at that. Let's let's call for a vote on this. Here, can you give us a roll call vote, please?

We need somebody to make the motion.

I'll make that motion.

Okay. We have a motion. Do I have a second?

Second. I'll second.

K. And a second.

Who is the second? Janelle. Janelle? K. Dwyer?

Yay.

Fannie? Yay. Gregerson?

Sheila.

Chatters? Yes. O'Donnell? Yes. Cass? Yes. Preston? Dodd? Yes. K Mink? James? No. Gaily? Yes. We have 12345678 9 yeses.

Okay. Great. That's gonna go ahead and pass. We'll, I think there's some good direction there for you, Peter, and maybe some teamwork with Amanda and and maybe Garth and and, come back with a good look product on the next go around. Great. Good discussion on that. It's fun. I'm gonna open the floor to any other business alibis, anybody have brass in their pocket they need to shoot down range, army term.

Quick quick request. Could could we get a timeline on the website for the public so they know kind of what is the last date that an amendment can be proposed just so so folks can be aware. It would that would be really helpful.

We we can task Peter with that. That's

I love I love it.

Gabby is the webmaster, but we will work together on that.

Alright. Perfect. Any other rounds? Perfect. Can I get a motion to adjourn? So moved. So moved. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Alright. Let's adjourn.