Charter Review Commission - Regular Meeting

Can you hear us now? Yeah. Okay. Perfect. Let's start over. Toyer? Yeah.

Here.

Vanny? Here. Gregerson? Here. Chatters? Here. O'Donnell? Here. Cass?

Here. Decker?

Happy to be here.

Preston? Here. Dodd? Here. Menke? Here. KeyMinck's gone. McGee? Here. Eslik? Here. James? Yep. Gaily? Here. 14 members present.

So we're just missing Dale?

Yep.

Can I get a motion to approve his absence? So move. Second. Okay. I have a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Perfect. Can we get an approval of the agenda, please?

So moved.

So we have an approval of the agenda. Is there any discussion on the agenda? Hearing none, all those in favor?

Aye.

And any opposed? Alright. Let's move to public comment. Let's go ahead and go first online. Peter, is anybody online who wishes to provide public comment?

If you'd like to give public comment, please raise your virtual hand. I see Joseph Wankelman. I will unmute you, and you should be able to speak now. You have three minutes.

Thank you. Good evening. My name is Joseph Wankelmann, and I'm in Lynnwood. I am here to ask the commission to advance a super majority requirement to the ballot for four out of five commissioners to raise taxes. My reason is grounded in research I completed for my master's degree in data analytics and policy at Johns Hopkins University, where I built a dataset covering roughly 210 local governments across the country for fourteen years, giving me over 3,000 government year observations.

The foundation is from the Lincoln land, the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, Fiscal Standards, Citi's database, the gold standard for comparing municipal finances layered with HUD homeless counts, census demographics, and IRS, migration records. The question I set out for my capstone was to answer was, was to answer is simple. When government raises taxes on residents, what happens to hardship in those communities? The data gives a clear answer. As tax burden rises, hardships rises with it.

The relationship is consistent and and statistically strong with p values well below the point zero, the 0.05 threshold. This is not a fluke, and it falls, and it and it falls hardest on the people who can least afford to carry it. The pattern points to something structural. When local, economic base erodes, the burden shifts onto residents who remain, and each new tax deepens the hardship on the working, poor, and the families already one setback away from crisis. That is and that is what I deemed it, called the fiscal poverty trap.

A supermajority requirement does not prevent government from raising taxes when the need is real. It requires broad agreement first and forces elected, officials to exhaust other options, including the hard work of rebuilding the economic base. These findings can be trusted because the data pipeline is fully reproducible and the results survive multiple robust checks. And so I just really want to encourage the charter to, to consider passing this to a ballot measure. Thank you.

Thanks, Joseph. Anybody else, Peter?

Yes. We have Janine Demerius. You should be able to unmute.

Hi there. Are you ready?

Yes.

Okay. Hi there. My name is Janine Demeray, and I live in Everett, Washington. And I just wanted to call in and, comment because I had read this article today. It says, who is running the Snohomish County Charter Review Commission?

And, you know, as a person living in this world right now for a long time, it's really hard to keep on top of everything that's going on because we feel so overwhelmed. And then I just gotta say, when I read this article and I read kind of the the positions and the people that are involved, the Toyers to be specific, It just seems like I have to now fight every single time to know what every part of the process of my government is doing because this doesn't seem very transparent. You have a once every ten years opportunity to make changes, and it seems as if the general public wasn't really involved in understanding their opportunity to do so, what that meant, and what the outcome is if they do not participate. I mean, you take the twenty four zero three initiative, you know, for protecting the Snohomish River and the fact that 57% of the people voted for it, but yet it seems like there was not really any part opportunity for people that have an interest in that, if any of those in the 57% to be able to come forward and say, hey.

This is an opportunity where me or my group or or my ideas, I want to present them to you because I'm interested and invested in protecting my community, especially when you take into consideration how much the Master Builders Association has thrown money towards, electing these people that are currently now in these positions. So I just wanna say that I see you. I wish I didn't have to look at every single corner of where I live to make sure I'm not getting asked over by my government somewhere down in the future down the line, but it seems like that's what I have to do. So I just wanted to call in and let y'all know that I see you, and I see that this looks kind of disgusting. And I'm gonna make sure that I let everybody else that I know know that there's nefarious things that are happening and more people need to pay attention.

Thank you very much for your time.

Thank you, Janine. Anybody else, Peter?

Next, we have, Katherine Lewandowski. You should be able to unmute.

Yeah. Can you hear me now?

Yes.

Hi. My name is Catherine Levandowski. I live in Arlington, Washington. I'm a semiretired registered nurse, and I sorry. I didn't really have time to really prepare anything specific to say, which I usually like to do.

So I'm just gonna have to wing it, but I have to agree with the previous person that there seems to be frustration with people in a lot of the timelines and deadlines and things like that there where people don't feel like they are able to actively participate in this whole process, and it doesn't feel like to them that some members of the commission aren't really interested in in hearing their thoughts and good ideas, so I wanted to just mention that. The other thing too is I didn't have a chance to, other than early this morning, go through the agenda a little bit. And it seems like this has happened before that the agenda when I tried to check it early, it's not posted till, like, the day before. And I just really don't often have time to that much time to be able to wing you know, look at something that detailed the day before any kind of a meeting. So it it makes me it does make me feel a little bit wary that maybe there is some an appearance of nontransparency or that you don't want people to really weigh in on on things.

And that kind of bothers me because I it just it doesn't make me feel comfortable with the state of our government. And then so I did wanna mention those specifically the on the the you have a thing on the agenda regarding people being able to hold two positions, two elected positions. And I just wanna say, I really don't think that that is a good idea. I mean, we have people now, even more people trying to run for multiple positions, and that just reduces people's ability to, or even the government's ability to to get feedback, to get the good ideas from more people. You know?

I mean, it's, it just it limits how much input. You are only getting a certain people's, point of view, and so you're limiting your everything from your experience and such, rather than, opening it up to more diverse views and, because some peep times people can they've they've had they they they have a different perception of what's happened. And if they're not invited in to to share in the process, then you miss out. And for a lot of us, that's it. You live you miss out for a lifetime.

You know? And things are changing so fast now. Anyway, so I wanna say I really think that that should be, not allowed. Alright? Thanks. You have a great evening.

Thank you, Catherine. Anybody else, Peter?

If there's anybody else online who would like to speak, please raise your hand now. I don't see anyone.

Okay. Great. And is there anybody in the audience who wishes to provide comments tonight? Go ahead.

Do we

have his mic on? Okay.

Is it

on? Yeah. Yeah. That's better.

Bill Sicalis, retired executive director for the Boys and Girls Swabs. But I'm here tonight representing a group that's dealing with your proposal five to make the county the offices of county executive, county prosecutor, and county council members nonpartisan. So I represent the group that's worked on the document that you received and why the changes making nonpartisan elections can improve voter participation. They can encourage broader candidate participation as well. And amending the charter would align all the county elected positions under one constant governance.

So we respectfully ask that you advance this to consideration for for the charter. Thank you.

Thank you, Bill. Anybody else? Go ahead.

Hello. So my name is Abby Ludwig. I think you know many of me. I've sent a lot of emails to this commission. I've been really trying to pay attention to what has been going on, and I think you know my frustration in in the process.

We are not done with the process. We still have two more points on your three point timeline. So I will say, to get everybody up to speed, we only had three deadlines that we were looking at that we were told in order to try to understand the process. So the first one was set for April 1. It got changed to April 8, the and exact language that was used was all proposals need to be considered to be considered must be moved to be to under consideration.

So what does move mean? It turns out move means a vote, so we weren't quite clear about that. And that move to consideration also means if it's not moved, it's dead in the water. So you guys reviewed 15 on four eight, 15 different proposals, and you shot down a lot of them. And that means they're all dead. So what is our next timeline? The next timeline is May 15. So between April 8 and May 15 is six weeks. So during that six weeks is when you guys are under consideration. So all the ones that are dead in the water were actually kinda never really considered.

Right? There was no public input, no public testimony. There was there was nothing we could do. So and ours was one of those proposals. It got three minutes by the sponsor of the initiative, and then I think you guys talked about it for two minutes. And, honestly, what we heard you guys talk about with our proposal, we didn't get a chance to actually answer that. We would love to have the opportunity to re to answer your questions. You guys had some questions about that. So looking forward, let's look at the two more timelines that you guys gave us to try to give us, you know, an idea of what this process is. May 15, the exact language is, final proposals I I don't know what that means.

Final proposals must be adopted. I don't know what that means either. I think it's another vote for ballot consideration. These are all up for ballot consideration, so I don't know exactly what that stage means, especially when on May 29, it's the final vote to transmit to the county council. So unless I don't understand what's going on, that's the vote that it would leave this commission and it would go to the council.

So what is May 15? The final proposals must be adopted for ballot consideration. Seems like an arbitrary deadline that doesn't really mean anything to me, and that's two more weeks. If we woulda had those two weeks as a public person putting a proposal into this commission, we were so rushed to try to get everything in by April 8. We did it it was so confusing. Those two weeks would allowed us so much more time. Those two weeks could have been pivotal. There was a lot of confusion. Okay. Anyways, so here we are.

This is where we are. Right? So let's talk about what are you guys gonna do for the next month. Right? So you have four weeks to talk about the proposals that you did agree on, and they look like they're all fiscal and administrative. I don't think any public proposals actually got approved. So in essence, you completely eliminated public participation.

That's why we're here.

And that's why we're here. Thanks for listening.

Okay. Thank you. Anybody else in the audience? Go ahead.

Good evening. My name is Rachel Kurtz McElaine, and I'm a cofounder of Standing for Washington. I I want to state for the record that this process has fallen short on transparency and meaningful public participation. One of the proposals submitted by our organization through my cofounder was for an office of watershed advocate. The concept was folded into the proposed ecosystem advocate position considered on April 8.

I also participated in the Pierce County charter review process, so I am not speaking in the abstract when I say this: Pierce County did a much better job making its process visible and understandable to the public. In Pierce County, there was a dedicated charter review page with a running proposal page, a clear timeline, a written public comment form, a proposal submission form, posted meeting materials and recordings, charter update sign ups, and listening sessions district listening sessions. The public could much more easily see what was happening and how to participate. That was not the experience here. In Snohomish County, public comment may have technically been allowed and proposals may have technically been accepted, but that is not the same as a transparent public process.

For most of this process, the public was not clearly shown what proposals were pending, what had moved forward, or what exactly people were being asked to comment on. Our own experience made that clear. Our proposal came up at the end of a roughly three hour meeting. There were about two minutes of discussion. Only two commissioners supported it. It felt like the outcome was effectively over before the discussion began. And because charter review only happens once every ten years, that matters. This is not a minor frustration. It is a failure worth putting on the public record. So my point is simple: Snohomish County may have technically allowed public comment, but it did not provide the level of transparency the public deserved. Pierce County showed that this could be done better. Snohomish County should have done better. Thank you.

Thank you, Rachel. Anybody else in the audience? Good.

Hi. My name is Janice Green. I'm one of the conveners of One Voice Snohomish County. We're a nonpartisan community coalition. I'm here to state concerns on record.

We reviewed every meeting, transcript, and official minutes from January through April 8, and that record to me is very serious. The commissioner's commission's coordinator and vice president is vice president of Toyer's strategic advisers, the firm who founder man founder manages Regent PAC. Regent PAC endorsed 11 of the 15 commissioners at this table. The PDC records show that the coordinator was co endorsed by the Regent PAC alongside vice chair James at vice chair James at the same 2025 Marysville City Council ballot. Vice chair James then served on the hiring committee to that selected the coordinator.

The relationship was not disclosed to the full commission, and ethics complaint was filed and dismissed without investigation, so it's administratively dismissed. Under the commission's own rules of procedure, only commissioners may sponsor proposals. At the close of the February meeting, the coordinator confirmed on the record that zero community community submissions have been picked up despite four sitting in the county share point. Every transparency and accountability proposal the community brought forward was failed was denied. This February 25 official meeting minutes confirmed that nonpartisan officers voted 11 to four matches the Regent PAC endorsement split exactly.

Every transparency and accountability proposal sponsored exclusively by non Regent PAC commissioners failed. Every proposal sponsored by Regent PAC endorsed commissioners that came to vote advanced on the seven vote threshold for March 11 transcript on the seven vote threshold, the March 11 transcript and official minutes contained no motion, no vote, and no prior decision. On March 25, the coordinator stated that the commission had decided these this two weeks earlier. A commissioner challenged that on the record, calling it a conversation with zero new information. The commission voted to adopt the rule that day.

The lobbying ban passed eight to seven on February 25, and that declared the threshold on at April 8 meeting, it received only five yes votes. Three commissioners who voted yes in February vote no in April. On the public hearing, a meeting is not a hearing. Your own attorney stated on the record on February 25 that the commission must hold three geographically distributed public meetings. Southeast and North County.

None were held before the submission deadline closed. Arlington and Mountlake Terrace occur after every proposal was already voted on. That require was the requirement just wasn't met, and the county council will receive this transmittal. One voice will be there, and the public record shows this process every step of the way.

Great. Anybody else?

Good evening. My name is Nadine Shanti, and I'm a resident of Clearview, which makes me a Snohomish County resident. And I'm here to speak just as a resident tonight. In Lake Stevens, there were several proposals that were put forward, one of which was really important was about transparency and accountability. And I have to say, as a citizen, I was at first surprised at how similarly that was dismissed.

And then as I watched other proposals get knocked down, I was shocked. And by the time I left, I was angry. I'm back here tonight because I'm still angry. There are transparency issues here, as have been stated earlier. And transparency is something that we all know is important.

In The United States right now, there's a lot of people who are upset about where money comes from, where it goes, and what's being asked. My vote is not for sale, and your vote shouldn't be for sale either. And that's why I'm planning on being at the next three meetings because I I am trying to get everybody that I know to know what's going on here and to at least come in and let you guys know that private citizens, regardless of party affiliations, want transparency. And that issue that we brought up should not have been shut down. It should have been discussed.

It should have been discussed for what were reasonable requests, what may have what should have been rewritten or reconsidered, but not just to knock it down, and now nobody even knows what went on. So that's why I'm here. I'm just letting you know that as a private citizen, I'm angry. That's the word I'm gonna use.

Great. Anybody else? Seeing no hands, we'll move forward on the agenda. And, Peter, I just wanna make sure tonight do we have any time restrictions as far

as 09:00. Security wants us out by nine. Okay. And and if you've parked in the garage, the garage closes at seven.

Yeah. Okay. So those are our time constraints. Okay. Can I get a motion to approve the April?

Can I just note on there that those minutes are the amended ones that were emailed out with commissioner McGee's, requested changes?

The ones that were printed, it doesn't look like those numbers are on.

They yeah. They were printed before the change.

Okay. I just wanna make sure what we were voting on is what was emailed and not Yes. Exactly what's Yep. Okay.

And it doesn't substantially change the minutes. It's just kind of a clerical thing with with the additional details that were requested.

So can we just clarify that for the public who might be following that the minutes that may that were that were received initially did not include the roll call and the vote of each commissioner for all of those proposals that were raised on April 8. The minutes have been amended to include the roll call and the vote count so the public can see clearly who voted for what on proposals that were raised in the minutes. So those are the minutes that we are voting on.

Okay. Amanda?

I move to approve the minutes as amended and available in our inboxes.

Okay.

I'll second that.

Okay. I have a motion and a second. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, hearing none. All those in favor?

Aye. And

any opposed? All right. Approval, motion passes. Topic of discussion, I'm gonna hand a little bit of time over to, Mark before we kick off on these draft proposals.

Yeah. Thank you, Chair. Yeah. I just wanted to add this. We had this added into tonight's agenda, because of the volume of amendments. I wanted to make sure we were all cognizant of what the endgame would look like when it shows up on a ballot, and we don't wanna have voter fatigue and have, you know, 15 amendments show up. So we just need to consider, consider that when we're, deliberating and and voting this evening to just, be careful to pass through the ones that that should be passed through. Obviously, we don't wanna cut anybody off that that needs to be. I'm just saying be cognizant of of the number. The volume the sheer volume can be unwieldy if we're not careful. So

Can I can I ask

a question

about that?

Yeah. What do you mean be cognizant? What what number are you hoping that we'll stop at? I I'm just trying to understand what you mean by that.

There's no number.

Okay.

K? Yeah. Just be cognizant of the volume that we have to look at tonight and that what stage we're in. We're passing on to the final. And it's pretty easy to see that we've got this many. You can count them up. And if they all make it through, then then that's the way it is. I'm just saying as an as an added thought, you might wanna think about that. We do have to get these on the ballot, and I remember ten years ago. I don't know if you guys remember that when it showed up. I was not involved in any politics at the time, and I was overwhelmed when I opened up my ballot. Just flat out, like, woah. How am I ever gonna understand or vote on any of these things? So that was a consideration that, I think should be taken, when we're when we're delivering tonight.

Alright. Great. I'm sorry, Jennifer. Go ahead.

Would you it makes me wonder if it's worth reflecting maybe at the end of tonight's meeting if there's a desire to revisit any of the topics that were passed at the last meeting. So once we get to the long list and we have maybe there's some real winners on here that in reflection based on your comments, vice chair James were like, oh, man. I wouldn't I wasn't there, but wouldn't have gone for that proposal last two weeks ago because I kinda like these ones better. I wonder if you might one might think about a step where we we revisit the whole package in the light of, like, this is these are all the things that made it through and didn't make it through. At the city, we're looking at kind of taking one final vote on the final report that I'm expecting that the committee over there could say, now that we see the whole thing, we're gonna we wanna further discuss certain items that are in there.

So I don't know. It just makes me wonder about that.

So Your

thought process is at some point, possibly tonight

Or at the or in a couple weeks, at the very

currently dead, could get resurrected. Is that what you're saying?

I wonder if it just seems like arbitrary that we, like, we passed a ton. I was trying to add them up, you know, from last time. Like, we already hit capacity for the ballot and the voter appetite. Is that sort of the message that I've heard? And we've got a ton more, and maybe there's some ones on here that are better than the ones he voted on two weeks ago. I don't know. That's all. We don't have to think about it more. But

Janelle's hand is up.

Janelle.

Yeah. Actually, to kinda carry on with what commissioner Gregerson is saying, you

know,

we have some that are sort of they've already had legal counsel review, but it'd be nice if, like, they stay in the parking lot till we get more information on the previously advanced proposals so that we have the whole group to look at and have further discussion and an opportunity to talk to more people from the from the public with these and to get more public input before they're, you know, just, dropped for concerns of the voter fatigue. Like, I just hope we have, like, another step for consideration before they're completed.

So I think that if there's any of the proposals that are on here now that are still in consideration, the idea of of tabling them, is not off the, I mean, we could all we could always table it. We don't have to strike it down or move it forward tonight. We could we do have another good two weeks, before we really need to start pairing it down. So if there's if there's something here that we wanna chew on a little bit more and get some public input, I think that that's more than, we're more incapable to to table it for the for the next round if we don't wanna move it forward or kill it tonight. Amanda?

Thank you. I appreciate not wanting a long ballot. I also it it is an even numbered election year, and we will see some of the most representative voting come out of our county because more people vote in even number election year. And I'm really concerned. I appreciate not wanting to give us direction exactly this many amendments, but it also means when we're vague, everybody's gonna take that exactly as they think of it in their heads.

And we're all gonna go forward with kind of inconclusive thoughts about what that means. And on top of that, we've heard a lot both via email and tonight about people who are really worried about the transparency of this commission. And it can be true that both we have people doing hard work and that people still feel like they weren't heard throughout the process and they didn't have a chance to engage in that work. And my concern is with this concept that we've discussed before that there are 11 commissioners that all receive very similar independent expenditures towards them who have been voting roughly in lockstep with each other with a couple couple of outliers here and there. And what's advancing is a very set agenda for voters.

We're not giving people all of the options that we've come up with and saying choose what works for your county. We're giving people what a majority of the commission wants, and that doesn't feel like it's representing everyone in this county because we are a very diverse county. We have very conservative, very liberal areas, a lot of people who identify as independent and wanna see that in their in their ballots when people run for office. But if we only advance things that people in lockstep with each other's support, we're not gonna get a very good ballot no matter how many amendments are on it. So I just hope everybody really takes that public feedback into account tonight. Rob?

I was gonna say maybe if we could see, like, an Excel sheet with all the proposals that

were put forward,

rather than just the PDF. Not that I don't like the PDF. But

There is one in the in the SharePoint.

Okay. Thank you.

So we we do have an Excel spreadsheet for those spreadsheet people?

Yeah. It's in the it's in the SharePoint.

Okay. Great. Timmy.

Thank you, chair Gaelic. If we have a comprehensive list of everything that has been proposed as well as the vote and what the vote was. Can we please publish that to the website? I have been reached out to by numerous numerous community members who are just asking for clarity on the record of what has been done, what has come before this commission, what it was about, what the votes were, the what how each person voted because the community is tracking the fact that 11 out of the 15 commissioners who were funded in the same way are all voting in lockstep. The community is not stupid.

They do see that. So can we just transparently put that on the website for folks so they aren't trying to reconstruct a record in a secondhand manner because we are not being transparent about what's going on here?

Just I I need a point of clarification. You keep saying that 11 are funded. I I received no funding for my election to this commission. Can you help me out with that?

You should probably check the PDC and see who funded you.

Funded so so not to me. It was an IE? That was unknown.

The the PDC lists who funds

I understand what the PDC is.

Candidate. Are you are you if you're not aware, then I'm telling you that you should check the

PDC I

understand what the PDC see who is funding Right. You. If you're not aware that someone was funding you, you should read on the PDC who is funding you. That will let you understand what the community is talking about.

Patrick?

I had zero campaign expenses. As such, nobody funded any of my campaign expenses. Neither did I receive any funds when I was running, nor did I, have any other spend that I was involved with in any way. So I'm not sure how somebody funded my campaign since I didn't spend anything in since I didn't

Hey, ma'am. We're we're having a discussion as as the commissioners. No. He he fully understands, but we're having a please don't. Amanda.

Thank you. I just wanted to provide some clarity. I noticed one of the public commenters mentioned that it was RegionPAC. I think the confusion is that RegionPAC did contribute their PAC money to something called Concerned Taxpayers of Washington, which is what gave 11 of the commissioners independent expenditures. I found out about it because I got a postcard sent to my house for people to vote for in my district. So you might have gotten that. But I don't know. Some people's partners filter out junk mail better than my family does. But that is what people are referring to. And it is true that it is not a campaign donation, but it is also true that it is $5,000 in most cases saying vote for this person. So I think that's where the confusion is.

Okay. Great great clarification. And let's, have the record note that Dale has walked back from Peru. And, maybe he was a little late coming back, but, he looks like he's he's in good shape. Go ahead. David. I'm just

wondering if perhaps commissioner Gregerson and, the other people that were involved ten years ago could give us just a brief background of how many, proposals there were ten years ago and perhaps how many went to the ballot just as an idea, just as a general info, Jennifer?

I think it was 10. But I can pull up that folder and

Sean, do you remember?

I was gonna say, eight, I thought thought is what we we saw in there. And it was a vigorous debate back and forth, very similar to this to where the public was welcome. We went and met for four months. The public was welcome to come in. Most of the seats were empty, and and we traveled around. We we did more of that then than we did now. Had a similar result where there was a half a dozen people and maybe four or five speakers, and those were very welcome. They're very influential. They had a they had a big say in that. But I I just say that to to contradict the the idea that we have not been open to the public.

Yes. So we had a vigorous debate back and forth. I I'm wide open, a conservative. That's what small business owners quite often are. And and so I do have that leaning. I was on there, and I was in very much the minority at the time. And I don't know why it flipped around this time. I think mainly because fewer chose to run. But, nonetheless, I was pleased with the process, of the of the eight that were on the ballot, I believe seven of them passed. I believe I supported six of those. And so anyway.

Great, Sean. Good. Any other comments on this before we move along? All right. Great.

Let's go to the draft proposals and, just refresh memories here. This stage is looking for a seven votes to move to the next stage, which is the legal review stage. And, and then, in section two, that's already been, legally reviewed. And how we'll run through those is, before talking about each proposal, have our legal counsel give his opinion on each proposal, and then, we'll take on each one at that time. Everyone okay with that those procedures?

Alright. Cool. Let's go ahead and talk about, the proposal related to expanding the county council to seven members. First of all, could I get a motion on that proposal to, to create discussion?

So moved. Second.

K. I have a motion, and a second on proposal four. Let's have discussion on this proposal.

Do we want Heidi to go over her memo first? Her Please. Financial memo? Heidi should be hold on one second. Okay, Heidi. You should be able to unmute now. Maybe? Heidi, can you hear us? Maybe? She can't unmute. She should be able to.

Can you

hear me now? There you are. Yep.

Okay. I'm not sure that I can see that I can turn my video on, which isn't necessary. But I okay. So to go over this memo, this was done in conjunction with the executive's office in in collaboration with their finance team so that we were doing our best to estimate the annual cost going forward. So as you can see on the memo, you see the count the individual years costs for the council member and the legislative aide, which are the two required positions if you were to add a seat.

And that total for two council members and two aides is just over $1,000,000. Then there are the the related facilities costs. So we provided option one, two, and three, and those costs ultimately, should the commission move forward and the public vote on the addition of two council members, ultimately, the county council would need to adopt a budget to, to allocate costs associated with the, facilities work that would need to be done to add those two staff. So option one is the least, amount of facilities work. Option three, keeps all of the offices consistent.

But, again, that would be a future vote, related to a budget appropriation for the county council. So in front of, is what I understand in front of the Charter Review Commission today is, this fiscal analysis here of the individual council member and individual aid is a little over 500,000, and for two, it's a little over 1,000,000. And I'm happy to answer any questions.

Amanda, go ahead.

Thank Thank you. Thank you, Heidi. I was wondering if you had a chance to look at my question about what percentage of our total county budget this would be?

I did. And let me pull that up. So, when I was evaluating that, the the caution I would or the disclaimer I would provide is it's challenging to apply the county council's budget to the cost of a general fund council member and an aid to the overall county budget, which includes, substantial, funds that are not general fund. So if we and, again, these are 2028 estimates against 2025, 26 actuals. So they're a little bit apples and oranges, but given that, if we were to do option one, and we're comparing that to the 2026 budget as a comparable. It's point 07%, option two is point 17%, and option three is point two 20 point 2%.

Thank you. Mhmm.

Patrick,

Just for clarification, these are annual costs. Correct?

Correct. Because, the positions would not actually begin until 2028.

And so the The facilities costs, though. The facility costs are onetime costs.

Those are onetime costs.

Could could you could you

Hold on. Patrick has hold on. Patrick has the floor.

I'm sorry. Figured

it out.

No. That was fine. Thank

you. Okay. Robin, go ahead.

Yeah. Point of information.

Thanks, Brooke. Yeah. Yeah. I just wanted to to get that number on option 2 again because it was said very

Heidi, can you verify option two?

That percentage for option number two.

I'm sorry. Let me pull up my email again. It was point 17%. Thank you.

Mhmm.

Any other questions for Heidi? Seeing no hands up. Do you have anything additional, Peter, on this?

Nothing additional from the last meeting. My memos got the research that I did. In fact, let me pull that up. And it includes the research I did on how the other chart charter counties do this as well as the questions that that should we move forward to this need to be addressed. Like, the there's, the charter stipulates vote thresholds for certain things.

And, commissioner Gregerson sent me the the information from ten years ago when they looked at this, which was really helpful because I hadn't considered that there's so many areas in the charter where a number of votes is specified. So I went through and included those in the memo. And then, also, if we do move forward with this, we are gonna have to discuss, the Charter Review Commission because this will change the makeup of the Charter Review Commission. And I've got two in the memo. There's two, kinda two paths forward on that.

Okay. Robin.

I just, so in the requested research, there was a request to, to show the incorporated versus unincorporated percentages in all of the different or multiple different counties. And I thought that population was much more applicable because I'm not really sure why the incorporated and unincorporated really matters. But I did wanna call out that of so I'm look so I'm looking at on the research document that Peter had sent. I think it's the second to the last page. There's a a little table in there.

And so Snohomish County has a population of and this is as of, I believe, February, 844,000 people. Okay? And we have five council members. The two counties listed here that both have seven council members most closely is Pierce County with 930,000 people living in it. So very, very similar to our 844,000.

We're getting there. The other one with seven council members is Whatcom County with 231,000 people, so about a third of our population. So I just wanted to call out that the the other two counties on this table with seven council members have either much a much lower population or just barely above ours. So

Okay. Mark? Peter, could you I think that I heard information about one of those counties. Was it Island County that had, like, seven or nine at some point, and then they went back to three. And

then Yeah. Two counties have have reduced the size of their of their councils. San Juan County went from seven to three a couple years ago, and then King County went from nine to 13. So they went from nine to 13 in their nineteen nineties charter review process. And in their two thousands charter review process, they reduced it back to nine.

And is is Whatcom in the midst of deciding Nope.

Whatcom's been seven the entire time. They've restructured they've they've since restructured how they district. They originally were three districts, and then they elected two from each district. So that's six, and then they had one at large. It's now they have five districts, and they did this with their 2015 charter process. It's now five districts with two at large. So they've been seven since their charter reprocess. I believe that was that was '76 Okay. In 1976. Yeah.

Thank you. Yeah. So it seems like it doesn't I mean, the criteria of population isn't the deciding factor. It's what works best for the county. And then they adjust that as they go through the commission review. That's one of the reasons why there is a commission review, and we've seen that happen either going up or going down. So just just a point to to consider when you're looking at it's not just based on population. And as far as I know, Snohomish County is doing well and with five, and and I haven't heard complaints one way or the other about the number of commissioners that we have. And the distribution seems fair and equitable at this point. I I just don't see any problem in our county at this point.

Timmy, go ahead.

Thank you, Chair Gailey. I actually have heard exactly that, that there are folks who feel that the council does not effectively represent the diversity of population in Snohomish County and that there is not adequate representation. That Council of Five is just not adequate to pick up the numerous different perspectives and lived experiences in the county. So it's very interesting that you've heard that, because I've actually heard the opposite of that. So thank you for raising that point.

Jennifer. What's that? That was a Jennifer. Great. That was a quick Jennifer Jennifer. Oh, okay. To be quick. That was just how he said it.

Well, I appreciate being quick.

I don't like that. Perfect.

I wanted to thank staff and thank Heidi for the financial analysis and the rest of the county staff that worked to present that. It seems, really balanced. We had a similar conversation ten years ago. I really appreciate that there's some creative thinking that there's a a way to make the onetime costs, you know, less of a budget hit. I think that would be a useful tool for the county council to consider if this were to pass and they needed to I know they have every local government has challenges with the budget.

So it's good to see that there's a path that, you know, has some downsides, but something that that that would give them some tools to consider. Well, I don't think it was it was different ten years ago. So I appreciate the work that went into this. It's also just one point of information, and we're not necessarily constituted with the mission to analyze budget and fiscal impact. The voters would certainly I'm sure a lot of voters would look at that, and that would weigh in their decision.

I think that this is an important question to ask the voters. Ask it in '96, and it didn't pass. We're a county that has grown quite a bit since I graduated high school. And I I feel like it is worth I'm really excited to bring it forward. Not a lot of the things I've I've been excited about have passed so far, so you guys have a chance to maybe put one before the voters and see if there's interest in this expansion. To think of all the cities that have seven council members and that the county, you know, is like doesn't deserve that, like, a little more more voices, more ideas, more representation, like, makes sense to me.

Point of clarification. You graduated in '16 or '96?

I said '96.

Oh, okay.

It failed in '96. I didn't make it to the we didn't admit this to the ballot in 2016.

Perfect.

We had a lot of conversation. I feel like the costs were weighed heavily on the charter commission at the time. I disagree that that should weigh heavily in your minds. I think the voters can help decide that, and then it's a decision decision of the county council and and the executive at the end of the day. So but, yeah, '96, the voters said, no. We don't want seven.

Oh, yeah. You know,

I feel very like a different human than I was in '96. Maybe we all do. Of us too.

Yeah.

Yeah. Let's go on, with Jen. Let's go with Janelle.

Yeah. I definitely feel like a different person than '96. Was a lieutenant in the air force at that time. So, I I think it would be interesting to see I like people bringing up the idea of, like, the population. I know our percentages, Peter, that's based our incorporated versus unincorporated, is that the percentage is based on population or just physical area?

Population.

Oh, it was. Okay. Thank you for that clarification.

Should have included the exact population numbers in there. The population numbers are included in a separate table I made for another amendment, so the information's in the packet.

Perfect. Thank you. I think I know somebody brought up maybe the fact that a lot of our cities have seven, council members to have that diversity of of thought and, you know, having having more brains considering ideas. But, also, our cities, you know, they're part time jobs for most of our Snohomish County cities. We're talking about, you know, like, time salary and benefits for for the added folks.

So that's something that that I'm at least considering. And it does seem that a lot of our cities in Stonemich County are getting larger and providing more and more services to folks. And that's why I was interested at looking and comparing contrast of the incorporated versus unincorporated areas. So

Great. I think I got Sean and then Amanda.

Yeah. I can't help myself but to be a voice for fiscal responsibility and to limit wherever I can because my voice is in the minority by far in this state and in this region to take it easy on the size of government. I know the state of Washington's doubled in size in the last ten years, and most would think we're maybe not as as well served as we were back then. And so bigger does not mean better. Almost universally, it it means the opposite.

And so resist the urge. This came up, and we debated this fiercely 10 ago. And then it wasn't but the next go around, the two of the people that were the most strong proponents for adding two more council seats were running for one of the for we didn't expand it, of course, but they were running for a council seat. And so let's let's resist the temptation to grow government, and and let's just put the brakes on this. I consider that a giant victory ten years ago when we walked out of there with the same number of council people that we had, and they serve us well, and and we're doing just

fine. Amanda.

Thank you. I have a mind towards fiscal responsibility from being from a city that was broke for most of my adolescence and young adulthood. Thankfully, Bothell is not broke anymore. But this is less than one half of 1% of the county budget. It is not going to break us to consider it. And I also think that we should let the voters consider it. Everybody's talking about population, should that matter or not. We're talking about what other counties have. We're not not to sound like a stereotype, but we're not like other counties. We're Snohomish County.

Like, the makeup of this table tells that story as does people who are here for public comment, people who've written to us. We should put it all out there for voters to decide. Because if we have commissioners who have heard that it's not a big deal and who have heard that it is a big deal, why don't we take a look at it? And just to make everyone feel some kind of way, thirty years ago, was in third grade. I was a Snohomish County resident, but I wasn't a voter.

And I have enjoyed the expansion of the services the county offers because there are people like my brother who's on the spectrum, spectrum, who can't drive, who can't hold a job independently, who has a county employee as a job coach that goes with him to work, and he contributes to our community. He makes a small amount of money so he can do stuff he enjoys without having to rely solely on SSI or on me funding it. So our county can expand in good ways. Not all spending is bad spending. And I would say we should let the people decide. We're never gonna come to some sort of is this good or bad here? And I would argue that's not really our job. Is it illegal? That's our job. Is it super harmful? That's our job. Do we like it? That should be up to the voters, and that's what I wanted to say. Thank you.

Thank you, Amanda. Patrick? Thank you, chair.

This really reminds me of the conversation in the Lynnwood City Council when all I heard was, well, it's only a few dollars. It's only a small percentage point. It's only a tiny little bit. It doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things yet. I'm looking at millions of dollars here that we're talking about over the course of time that can be used on alternative things that are much more needed in this county than two more politicians sitting around the stage up here.

There are much better ways to spend this. There there we have so many needs in this county that we're so far behind on that spending this money to put two more people up there is I just it makes no sense to me. Let's spend the money elsewhere where it's much more needed than paying two more politicians. The last thing we need is two more paid politicians floating around the county, causing a ruckus. I I really struggle to understand how it's a good idea to spend taxpayer dollars on more politicians instead when that money can go towards programs that help and benefit people who need those that the county already isn't able to fund. So no to more politicians. Yes. A small decimal point. Yes. Maybe it doesn't matter to you because it's just a point one point something.

But to the people that need services, the people to whom millions of dollars actually mean something, this is not the way we should spend the taxpayers' dollars. We shouldn't spend their money on more politicians. The money should go towards programs that are desperately needed. David.

Just an observation in this county, which is unique. We have two council members that hold two positions, two elected positions. So maybe the counties serve very well because they have time to serve in other capacities. So just an observation.

K. I got Rob as a first timer.

Yeah. I was yeah. I echo what David just said about, the fact that we have two out of five council members that are holding state representative positions kinda leads me to believe that maybe there's not a lot of full time work available. So I guess that might be one main reason why I would be against seven council members.

Jimmy. Thank you. I think that Commissioner Decker is 100% correct in that the public does not want to pay politicians. So if you are a politician, the public does not want to pay you. But if you are a representative of the people who actually goes in to fight for the policies and the programs that the people need, they very much do want you.

And they very much do want to pay you for your work. What I have heard from the public, which seems to be different from what's being heard in some of the other areas, is that they want more representation so they have more access to someone who is going to come into the council chambers and fight for the kinds of programs and policies that the community is asking for. So this is not a a matter of because I I really don't wanna insult the community members that have raised this issue and asked us to bring this this up at this table and ask it to be moved forward. This is not folks arbitrarily asking to add politicians to the system. This is people who are begging us to provide better, more comprehensive, more complete representation of the myriad of great ideas that are out here in our county.

And we have an amazing county with creative people who want access to these these spaces and these levers of policy to help improve the lives of the people. But they've gotta have representatives who are gonna get in there and do that work. And there are people who are asking for representatives, more representatives, who are gonna connect with our communities and who are gonna do this work. And five people, they can only connect with a certain number of people. Seven people can connect with more people and bring more community voices to the table when policies and programs are being evaluated for whether or not we should implement them.

And as far as the budgetary issue, our budget should prioritize representation of the people. If we are deprioritizing representation of the people in our budget, I think that perhaps us as a commission, I think that maybe we are outliers because that is not the sentiment that I hear out in the community when I'm talking to the public. They want us to prioritize expenditures in a way that expands representation, not constrains it. Thank you.

All right. Good discussion. Ben, you have the floor.

Thank you, chair. I'm mixed on this one. I definitely see how bringing people closer to the person who represents them could provide more value. I mean, I think that's why we have 435 US representatives representing people. So there's value there.

On the flip side of that coin, though, I do see in the packet 60% of our population is represented by a closer local body like city council. I do have concerns that those people are not as impacted as the rural population that is not represented, and they would potentially get more say, more of a voice in adding more council members. So I live in the North Part of Bothell. I live just inside the city limit, so I get to deal with both city and county issues. I feel like my city government is more accessible.

It's easier for me to go there. It's easier for me to get things done. That that can say that, yes, more representatives of council could be better. But at the same time, I stay mostly in the city, and I don't go into the county section as much. And so I'm less concerned, to be honest, about those unincorporated areas because I don't experience them as much.

So I worry about those people having a say as much of a say as me as somebody living in the city. I also know that two council members are working in additional representative positions, which does beg the question, do they have plenty of time on their hands to do those things? I'm not saying they do or they don't. I'm just saying that they're they're representing people in two different ways. And and, you know, one's a full time job, one's a full time job several months out of the year, and then not. So, I am very mixed on this. I am still thinking through, and that's my thought process.

K. So with that, I would like to, throw out there where do we wanna go with this proposal? Do we want to pass it, kill it, table it?

I think my motion was to send it to legal review.

I'm sorry.

What? I'd like to send I think my intent of the motion was to send it for legal review.

Okay. K. That's the motion.

Not kill it. Okay.

Well, so a a vote against the motion would kill it. Right? A motion, a vote in the positive of seven votes or more would push it forward to legal review, or we could entertain an amendment to table it, to have more discussion the next time around at this level. It's your motion, if if you wish to call for a vote. No. No. It's already The motion's already second. Yeah. Are you calling for the vote? Oh, let's do it.

Yeah. We're voting right now on Motion

push this to legal review.

Really similar to the motions you guys discussed that's what we're doing. Two weeks ago.

Yeah.

Yeah. How is that different?

Yeah. Mine I know

that you tabled this for tonight, and so my intent was that we discussion discuss a motion that is similar to all the votes you took two weeks ago. So it gets it into the legal review stage. If there's a sense that it's gone through legal review because we have all the work from ten years ago

It hasn't. Yeah.

Then

It hasn't.

I mean, like

Yeah. I'm still confused. It seems like there's a thing moving.

Make sure you use your mic.

Yeah. So so so the motion on the floor is to send this to legal review.

Packet says we could either send it back for further study by the coordinator, and I think Peter's done a great job. We have the financial analysis, and we have the legal review that happened ten years ago. So I don't think we need to do that, or vote to move it on for legal review. And so that's why I was just following the next steps that

were in

the And that's the motion. So with that, Peter, roll call vote, please.

Toyer, would oh, hold on.

Oh, Sean.

To be clear, a yes vote means what here?

A yes vote means this goes to legal review. Okay. And a no vote means it goes in the round file. Ready? Go, Peter.

Toyer. No. Vanny.

No.

Gregerson? Yes. Chatters? Yes. O'Donnell? No. Cass? No. Decker? No. Preston? Yes. Dodd? Yes. Mankey? Yes. K Mink? Yes. McGee? Yes. Eslick? Yes. James? No. Kaylee? Yes. 12345678. Nine yes votes.

Alright. We move towards, legal review. Good good discussion on that. We're gonna go to proposal eight, and eight and seventeen are actually Can I combined? And I would, just advise, the commissioners for sake of time to be laser in the discussion, because we took thirty minutes to go through the first one, which is fine. But

Can I speak to this for a second?

No. I know. I know. It was great. Alright. So with that, let's kick off proposal eight and seventeen. Peter, do you wanna Yes. Give us any additional info?

Yes. So two weeks ago, the direction to me was to combine eight and seventeen. Eight, eight and seventeen are pretty much identical with the exception that eight has an umbrella for county employees holding public office, whereas 17 just prohibits, county elected officials from holding another office. So I kept a lot of the language from 17 because I thought it was really well written and covered more things than eight initially did, but the direction was to combine them. So what I did was eight originally included electeds and employees under one umbrella.

I separated it out now. So you have the elected section, which is pretty similar to what was proposed for 17, and then another section which is on county employees. And I made that a little bit more broad based on the discussions that we had. So we can, of course, wordsmith it and make it different, but that was my best effort to combine the two because I do think that the concerns from the first time it was proposed to the second time it was proposed about putting employees and electeds under the same umbrella, I I just don't think it's possible to do that and and get to the point get to what the purpose of the proposal is, if that makes any sense. So

Okay. Do I have a motion on this proposal?

I think we have discussion first because we want to clarify some of it first.

Yeah. If you have some clarifying questions for Peter, sure.

I'll I'll move that we, open proposal eightseventeen for discussion. Okay.

I have a motion and a second. Discussion, David, go ahead.

Think Commissioner Chatters has some comments.

Oh, okay.

Well, Commissioner Preston and I were were discussing this, and I think Peter was very, smart to separate out the employment piece from the elected piece. And I think after commissioner Preston and I discussed, I think we may want to we may wanna to work on the wording a bit, and maybe parse out a bit more around those two groups because it is difficult to treat them the same. So if we are to vote on this tonight, to send it to legal review, which I think would also be a good idea because the other, concerns, have to do with, someone who is employed, and we don't want to get into any kind of territory that could be, where you're, excluding someone from being able to, work for a competitor or, you know, those types of of agreements that employers try to to, have. We don't want to get into that territory. So it would be perhaps nice to advance it for a legal review to help with some of the language around this.

But I think Commissioner Preston and I, are in agreement that we do need another pass through the language before we would continue to advance it.

Thank you. Thank you for your comments. I think actually the appropriate thing to do at this point would be some type of a tabling where we simply don't take action on it tonight and we agree to review this again at our next meeting. That will give time to clarify exactly what you want in here. Take out the employee part. Don't take it out. Applies only elected, etcetera. Get the language set and then bring it back to us. And then if we like the language and and what the intent of the words on paper say, get it to get it to the lawyers at that point. I'm just hesitant to say I wanna advance it or I wanna take it to legal when I'm actually a little bit unclear about the on the fly changes that we're talking about here. So it wouldn't kill it. It would simply say, well, let's just park it and talk about it next time. That gives them time to square things away around a

little bit. So, Patrick, as far as process, are you saying for maybe David and Demi and and Peter to get together to refine the language during that time frame?

Agreed. That's what I'm that's what I'm suggesting.

David? Before we do that, I'd like, to get comments from you guys about what you might have seen in it that you what what can we cross out and get rid of and to condense it down? I'd like that input to see if that could help us so that we're more effective when we do talk if we do table it.

Okay. Amanda.

In that spirit, I have some feedback. So I think the first thing that strikes me is I don't see any sort of and and this may be intentional, but any carve out for the Charter Review Commission, which means most of the people at this table couldn't be elected to it unless they were giving up a different seat that they already hold. The other thing that gives me a lot of pause here is there are a large number relative to the small number of elected officials who have a county full time job and then a part time elected job. I know of multiple people who work for Sonoma County who are on city councils, who are on fire district commissions. And actually, there was a Mill Creek council member who was a Sonoma County sheriff's deputy.

I don't know if he's still in office, but, like, that could really impact people. And historically, those have not been considered incompatible positions. So if that's intentional, that's great. But as written, I would have a lot of pause on voting for it.

So if we took the word employment out, would that solve that situation for you?

That that would solve it for me.

Yeah. I think I I have

more nuanced, you know, concerns about just the dual office holding. I'm not at the same place as everyone, but I'm willing to talk about it.

And I

But the employment thing is a is a big hard stop

for me.

I I I feel the same on that. And regarding the charter review, think in that we didn't include it in because we had some other, you know, PUD, fire district, and those other things that wasn't mentioned there. So I don't know if we wanna word it in as make it an exception. Dual office holding in the new language underlined.

Perhaps. Well and I don't think, like, any of the county electeds could hold a a charter like, you couldn't be on the county council and be on the charter review commission. That would be insane. But, yeah, I would say, like, if we don't want people in two positions, just maybe a little more clarity on where it's okay and where it's not. A full on ban, which is how I'm reading this, would include most of the people here.

Okay. And our legal counsel, Ben, needs a needs a moment.

Yeah. Just some of the things to consider from the legal sense is when these drafts come to me and I do a legal analysis, I look at the language. I don't change the language, but I do comment on the ambiguities because that is a huge a huge factor in how the ballot and the amendment itself will be accepted and or rejected or challenged. Right? So the considerations for you to make as you're as you're doing that are where there are ambiguities, things, time, manner, place that aren't specific and could be interpreted by different people in different ways.

Those things, are things that we have to flush out before we send it to the voters, before it goes to county council. Because if if we don't do that as commission, the there are some possibilities that the ideas and the conversations we have may play into how those are interpreted. It won't be necessarily interpreted that way. Right? So the way that you want it to go is the way that we need to make sure to write it. And so we need to try as hard as we can to erase the ambiguities just for, to be concise. So Okay. Go

ahead.

I was gonna ask, so, like, I'm more used to the municipal setting. So, like, if we propose something, our city attorney writes it with our professional staff. Like, we don't have council members out here trying to write ordinances, and we're all grateful for it. When would you rewrite something so that it is valid and correct?

When when it goes beyond legal review, when it's going to the ballot, that's that's when it's my duty to make sure that what is there is, what the the commissioners want and put what the commissioners want into a form that will be accepted on the ballot and in the charter as an amendment.

Okay. And then just so I understand the process, if, our attorney, you were to rewrite it, would it come back to us for final review after that, and then that's when we transmit it?

That's correct.

Okay.

And and that's one of the reasons that those ambiguities need to be cleared. Because if if, you know, I hear the discussion and I say, okay. This is what it sounds like the commission wants, and then I write it and then it comes back. No. No. That's not what we want. And then it comes back. There's a lot of back and forth and a lot of play, which I don't I don't have a problem with. But you may because budget starts to go down and time starts to slip away.

And I don't want you to feel like it's like that TV show where she's, like, just folding the cheese. And we're like, we don't know how to do that. You know? So Right. Yeah.

Let's see here.

Hold on. Robin, go ahead.

Thanks, Brett. Yeah. Just as, feedback as requested, in order for me to support this, I I agree that I would like to see the county employees taken off of it. And I I don't think carve outs for any other elected positions make sense. Like, I think it's reasonable to to hold a single elected office. That's that's great. If you want a second elected office, then you should run for a second.

Thanks. Sean?

Yeah. I I I'm on the fence on this one here. I like the idea getting all of our money's worth out of an elected official. But the idea that maybe, you know, I think it would be probably reasonable for them to be an elected official and then maybe serve on a school board somewhere, a small school board something. So and I know the problem we're trying to address here, and and I think that proposal 24 where we go to the even even year elections, that that resolves a lot of this problem. And so maybe maybe this one here gets kicked aside. And and the am I wrong about that that the even election?

Yeah. Because you couldn't be on the ballot twice.

You couldn't be on the ballot twice. And so, yeah, if you were a state representative running every two years or a council person that's running every four years, the proposal that we have before us, I think, probably has a pretty good chance of making it all the way to the yes in the voters column, that would preclude any of that happening. So consider that, please. Jennifer.

Feedback ideas. I I like the idea of defining what a Snohomish County elected office is and not including charter review.

I mean Yeah.

So, anyways, there you go. That's my thought. Second point, I'd like I'd like you guys to I would recommend considering for the the offices that would be, like, the dual, like, the secondary office to have a carve out for precinct committee officer. I think that's, like, kind of clear in state law already. Maybe it isn't necessary, but something to think about that's usually something that is seen as, like, an okay second office.

Really different from being a state rep or a state senator Okay. Obviously. On the county employee side, I'm not a supporter of that language. But as you further refine it, I I think the I think the language of, like, missing work needs some work. Wonder how we like, what if someone is taking their earned leave?

Like, they take their vacation to do the secondary office or they have a you know, anyways, like, are we I would just want if this advances, like, I don't like it. But if it advances, like, I would encourage you to think about how that's defined. For me, that's a management question. Like, the the within the county organization that if someone can't do their job, their manager resolves that or that moves up through a process. But but, anyways, that's my feedback.

Okay. Thanks. Janelle, I think you had your hand up. Or no? Tammy, go ahead.

Thank you, Brett. This is why I would really love for this to be advanced to legal review. Exactly what our attorney mentioned about how they look for the types of things that might be challenged. Anything where you're dealing with an employment situation, there are so many employment regulations at work, and I do not feel qualified to parse those. I think that the language could be very dependent upon what a legal review finds as far as inconsistencies or problems. So I rather than just sending it back for us lay folks to muddle through, I would really like to see a legal review of this to help guide us in the future crafting of language around this issue.

Okay. Great. Amanda?

I'm wondering I really appreciated what Commissioner O'Donnell said because we are considering proposal 24 later. And I'm wondering procedurally well, and if there's support for something where we move it to legal review, but then it's tabled and it would only be legally reviewed if '24 doesn't proceed because that would, like, that would solve a lot of the dual office concerns if we move to even your elections. So but the procedure is escaping me on how that can we table something so it's in legal review but not acted on yet?

No. I think I think I think the appropriate thing, I think that there's some work that still needs to be done on this. So why don't we look for a tabling and and and that additional work being done to refine some of the wording that that's been suggested here, and then we bring it back, in two weeks. Patrick?

Just from a procedural perspective, we had a motion to have the discussion today about this one. And then there is actually a motion, and that was approved, and we handled that. There was all now a motion to table, which is what you're discussing.

I I there's no motion to table it yet. Suggest it. I'm suggesting a motion for that. If

I actually thought I made that motion earlier that we table this for discussion at the next meeting, giving them time to kinda wordsmith it.

I I did not I'm sorry, Patrick. I that's on me. I didn't recognize that as a motion. Correct.

It wasn't it wasn't recognized, but Okay. It was put out there. Are you making that motion? We're making that motion again. Yes. To table it. Table it until next week to give the proponents of this particular amendment the opportunity to wordsmith it, to prepare it, to take to legal. I actually would rather it didn't go to legal now because legal would be then trying to guess exactly which of the sets of language, what's what we gotta include, what we don't wanna include. I'd rather we kinda baked it and then send it to you. We have we have time to do that. There's there's plenty of time for that still.

Okay. Point of order from legal.

If I'm not mistaken, there's already a motion on the floor Yes. To move it forward.

Correct.

Right? Sorry. The motion sorry. The motion was to open for discussion here. Pretty clear. Right? It was not to move it forward just yet.

Okay. So it's it it was simply a motion for discussion.

Okay. Okay.

Because the well, I guess either way, if you're moving for discussion, what was the point of a motion?

I thought the motion was to move it to legal review as well.

We treated the motion made on the last proposal as As a motion or not. Right. And it was kind of the same process now.

So That was

my understanding. Yeah.

So Yeah.

So I have a motion right now to table this motion for further work.

Can can I clarify my motion? I was assuming that we were using the same format that we used when we evaluated these, proposals on the eighth. So I did not use the exact language motion to advance to legal review, but I assume that opening the issue for discussion was the same process that we engaged in with the other proposals. And that's

my assumption. And that's what I wrote down as well.

So So but I have a motion now to table this to do a little extra work. Do I have a second on that motion? I have a second on that motion. Speak on the on the amendment, please. I

just wanted to clarify if the staff has authority to work on legal review on a tabled motion without if we make if we pass the motion to go to legal review, then we know we're paying for the legal review. If we table it, then we're not paying for the legal review.

We're not

paying Okay.

Ben's not getting any money off of this one yet.

I was not implying.

Okay. So I have a motion to table, proposal eight slash 17. All those in favor?

My my my understanding of Robert's rules of order is that commissioner Chatters has a motion first. Yes. So unless she withdraws that, need we to vote on her motion first.

A motion and a second. So they both would need to withdraw. There's a motion and a second. So that motion and the second would need to be withdrawn.

To table it? Yes. No.

To table the item. So it needs to be voted on before the next motion Correct. Takes place.

Yes. So we'd have to vote on commissioner Chatter's motion first and then No. However that goes.

I think that we would vote on tabling it, and then her motion is still alive for the next meeting.

But but not tabling a motion. You can table the conversation, but if you table the motion the motion's already been made that needs to be voted on first. Correct.

And it's not an amendment. The amendment if it were an amendment, it would go

I'll withdraw my table motion and let's just go forward with what does the what does the Charter Commission wanna do with regards to the motion which the intent of the motion was for this to be carried forward and for legal to review it. My comment to that was I want them to refine it before it goes illegal so we're not spending money on something that's half that's not fully baked just yet. So I think we should vote on that.

Okay.

Risk Go of ahead. At the risk of, drawing ire, I wonder if I could offer a friendly amendment that directs commissioners Chatters and Preston to work with Ben on the legal review so that he has the proper scope in consideration should it move forward. So just amending commissioner Chatter's motion to put a little more direction on

this one.

Do that.

I'll second that.

Okay. So we have an amendment to the original motion.

I'll I'll accept that as a friendly amendment.

I don't I don't want a friendly amendment, this thing. I wanna I wanna actually vote it. So okay. So your your amendment is say again, Amanda, please.

So so I think the concern was that our legal counsel would not have exact direction because of the discussion. So my amendment is that commissioners, Chatters, and Preston take their proposal and work with legal counsel just a quick sync to outline what the scope is after the discussion.

Okay. And I do have a second from Janelle on that. Any discussion on that amendment, Patrick?

I think the the commission as a whole should view the language before it goes to legal. I don't think that let me say it differently. I think if I were to huddle up with any of you and say, hey. We're just gonna we kinda put something in front of you, but, you know, we're gonna go talk to legal and work something else out and bring it back to you. I'm not sure that would be viewed favorably or as a transparent type of an engagement. It should be reworded, wordsmith, brought back to the commission. The commission can look at it and say, yeah. We like that. We now, as a commission, wanna spend legal funds for them to review that. I just think that if the role's reversed and I just wanted to huddle up with somebody and go talk to legal, then there'd be quite the outcry about that.

I'd I'd like to call the vote.

Okay. Call for the vote on the amendment.

Dwyer? No. Danny?

No. So just to clarify, we're voting on Amanda's amendment

Yes. To

have two people go to legal and vet this out with legal.

K.

Yeah. Okay.

Dawn, how did you vote? No. K. Gregerson? Chatters? Yes. O'Donnell? No. Cass? Yes. Decker? Preston? Yes. Dodd? Yes. Mankey? Yes. K Mink? McGee?

Yes.

Eslick? No. James? Gaily? I'm a no. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. I believe amendments need eight, so that fails.

Okay. So back to the original motion.

Can you restate it, please?

So the the original motion is to push proposal eight slash 17 to legal review. Robin?

Can I just ask a clarifying question? At this point, if, Commissioner Chatters chose to withdraw her motion, could she then make a motion to table so they could rework it and bring it back next I

like that.

I'm not okay. I so I guess I this deals with an issue of employment, which which has a lot of laws around it. And and I I I understand the desire to want the language in front of you before before you move it on to the next phase, but I really believe that the crafting of good language is highly dependent upon some feedback from someone who has expertise in employment law. And so while I am not opposed to working with commissioner Preston as laypeople, as nonlawyers to continue to craft language around an employment issue that has a lot of laws. I'm not opposed to trying.

I don't think that that is a I I just don't think that that is a a good, process for advancing something that has a lot of technical legalities around it. And and I would like this commission to consider the the duty that the public is asking of us to try to produce good policy and whether or not that really aligns with asking commissioners to write language on a highly technical issue around employment where there is a whole body of law as well as a lawyer that can provide feedback to help us craft some better language to then bring back to this commission. I would remind us that we are not advancing it to the ballot. We are just advancing it for additional consideration. So I'm a little baffled by the resistance to allowing this to have a legal review.

Okay. So your motion stands. David.

I agree with commissioner Chatters and commissioner McGee. And I think with eliminate I'm in favor of eliminating the word employment in there. So I think that would solve some of the issues that you're bringing up, commissioner Chatters, and, that we could get it weighted down with some of the feedback that we've got and then get it a little more viable to send to legal. Don?

No. I agree right there. That's exactly what I was gonna say. I I still think we need to get that employment name word out of there just to clarify it. And I don't to me, I just don't wanna waste some money going back and forth to legal review for something simple.

Janelle?

I just wanna say support what commissioner Chatters was saying when it gets this technical, and this is exactly why we have the expertise, you know, on staff and employed to help us figure out those questions. So I would support it going to legal.

Patrick, did you have a comment?

Yeah. I have a question. Do the two of you are the two of you completely aligned on what the intent of the motion is?

I'm sure there would be some slight variations.

Well, you wanna remove employment from it. Right. And are you interested in removing the word employment from it?

I would be interested in hearing a legal perspective on the implications of those types of phrases within something like this. I would like more additional information from someone who has the technical expertise to help us determine if that's the best pathway forward. So my point is that the proponents of the proposal are not aligned on what the core one of the core tenets of a proposal reasonable conclusion. I think that we are very aligned in the intentions of the public that is asked that this be brought. We we may we may approach it differently, but we are aligned in trying to trying to take what has been brought to us by the community and translate it into good policy.

And we are saying because of the the technical legal aspects of a concept like this, some assistance from an actual qualified legal expert would be very useful in crafting good language that we would then bring to this commission for further consideration. We're not going to the ballot with with an advancement to legal, review. It's it's simply just that assistance.

Alright. David.

I've I've never done this. Could I do a friendly amendment that we remove the word, employment and then the commission vote on just that piece there? Then we extract that from

You mean that section?

Discussion.

Yeah. It's not a word. It's a section.

Like, just removing the word employment, does it?

Yeah. There's a sec that section entitled county employees holding public office. Yeah.

So what I'd rather you do instead of a friendly amendment, I don't understand those, is actually do an amendment to the original motion striking that paragraph, if that's what you wish.

I move that we remove the last paragraph of what was produced in our packet. Starts with no person may simultaneously hold employment with Selmer's County and hold elected public office that may negatively affect the performance of their duties as a county employee. This includes, but not limited to, and the remainder of that.

Second that. Okay. So I have an amendment to the original motion to strike the last paragraph, everything after county employees holding public office. Is there any discussion and I have a second. Is there any discussion? Can we do a roll call vote,

please? Toyer?

Yes.

Fanny? Yes. Gregerson? Yes. Chatters? Yes. O'Donnell? Yes. Cass?

Yes.

Decker?

Yes.

Preston? Yes. Dodd?

Yes.

Menke? Yes. Kamink? Yes. McGee?

Yes.

Neslik? Yes. James? No. Gailey?

Yes. Okay. Sounds like that motion passes. Let's go back to the original motion. I dare ask for more discussion. No. Don't. Amanda, go.

I'd to call the question.

I would love it. Peter, go ahead. Toyer? Yes.

Fanny?

Yes.

Gregerson? Yes. Chatters? Yes. O'Donnell? Yes. Cass?

Yes.

Decker?

Yes.

Preston?

Can you restate the motion, please?

The motion is to push this forward to legal review. Thank you.

As amended.

As amended. Yes.

Dodd? No. Menke? Yes. K Mink? Yes. McGee?

Yes.

Eslik? Yes. James? Galey? No. 123456789101112 yeses.

Alright. Proposal moves forward to legal review. So let's go to proposal 10, proposal related to the qualifications to serve as an executive department deputy. Peter, would you like to give us any info?

I would like commissioner Decker to talk about this because I think there were some misunderstandings from the last meeting. So I'll let him talk first.

Thank you. So the reading the advice from legal from Ben, he pointed out very correctly that there's a nope. That was the other one. Sorry. Oh, I'm sorry. Yes. We're on on ten, not eight. I was looking at eight in front of me. Ten, this deputy must be a resident of Sohomish County. I actually mentioned in the last meeting that I am willing to agree to language that the deputy doesn't have to be a resident to serve as a deputy, but must be a resident in order to be moved up to the executive role where the executive to no longer be in office.

So that was a compromise I was willing to go to that said, yeah. It's fine. The deputy can be outside the outside the county while they're serving as deputy. But if they wish to be, moved up to the executive role, they would then have to be a resident of Snohomish County.

And I'm I guess I missed that at the last meeting because I didn't

Or maybe I didn't say it clearly. I mean, the commission may okay. Good. So Didn't dream it.

Yeah. So in the emails I I had with commissioner Decker today, right now, the charter says that to be appointed, you do have to live in the county. So it's kind of already in there. However, it does say you have to live in the county for three years. So if that's the direction that we'd like to take it, my suggestion would be to go we go back to the drawing board and amend that section.

Sean?

Love what Patrick's doing here, but I think this is a good example of cleaning up the ballot, and and this is, redundant of what we already have on there. So we wanna keep it trim. This is one to go.

Okay. Do I have a motion on this proposal? So moved. And the motion is to push this forward to legal review. K. Do have a second?

Second.

Do you have a second?

Patrick. Sorry. Quick discussion. I'm not sure how I was not aware that the there was already that requirement for the deputy that's kinda came out during this week rather than earlier when we're looking to. So if the language already says you must be a county resident in order to advance from deputy to executive, then I see no reason for this amendment at all.

I have no concern about the three year language that's already in there. What I wanna make sure was that whomever was in the executive seat lived in the county, had skin in the game, and was representing the people appropriately. So I think at this point, if everybody agrees that that's the way it currently reads, then I would withdraw this amendment entirely as it's superfluous and is already covered by language within the charter. That's a discussion. Does somebody see that the language in the charter doesn't currently reflect that?

Yeah. Just point of clarification, who or what was the objection to the deputy being in the county? Because that was the part that was you're saying was changed. I think that's a great idea if we're gonna have the deputy included in this, but we don't have to. I'm okay with rescinding the whole thing. But if the deputy is going to be included, what was the objection to them, you know, or or the allowance to have them reside outside of the county while they are serving as deputy?

That would have been simply a misreading or a miss on my part of the charter as it stands.

Okay.

Because I did not understand that there currently is a requirement that when they move from deputy to executive Executive. Yeah. They be a resident of the county. Because that's yeah.

It does. It kind of. Kind of. It if somebody lived outside the county and became deputy if if they were the deputy treasurer and they the treasurer's seat would become vacant and they lived outside the county, they would not qualify for that position as the charter states now. You have to have lived in the county for three years. So that's why I'm saying if we want to amend this and do this, we need to get rid of that three year requirement.

So that was there was nothing about my original action that was addressing that three years. Mhmm. And I have no intent at this point to try and rejigger this whole thing to address that three years at this point. I think we're too far down the road. I'm confident that the charter says if you are deputy and you it still has the same control. In order to be in the role, you have to be in the county. That's the control I was looking for. I'm happy to withdraw this amendment as I think it's I think it's superfluous. If somebody else down the road wants to take the three year limitation, great.

They can do that. I don't want to. Okay. Done. Motion is withdrawn. I'll open the floor to another motion if anyone wishes to push this forward. Seeing none, proposal 10 is dead. Proposal 14, proposal related to the creation of a budget stabilization fund. Peter, do have anything for us on that?

Nothing new on this one from the last meeting.

Okay. Do I have a motion on it?

Motion to advance to legal review.

Second. Okay. I have a motion and a second to advance proposal 14 to legal review. Discussion, please.

I

am hearing nor seeing any discussion. I think that means we'll call for

the vote, Peter. Toyer? Danny?

Yes.

Gregerson? Chatters? Yes. O'Donnell? Yes. Cass? Yes. Decker?

Yes.

Preston? Yes. Todd? Yes. Mankey? Yes. K Mink? Yes. McGee?

Yes.

Neslik? No. James? Yes.

Galey? Yes. That proposal looks like it moves forward. So let's move to

14. Yeah.

Let's go with proposal 14. I'm sorry. 21. We're going by football numbers here. Related to requiring a supermajority vote of the county council to raise taxes. Peter?

Yes. So at the last meeting, we introduced this one. There were concerns about bond ratings of jurisdictions, entities that have put this in place. I did some research, and it looks like, yes, the state of Nevada and the state of Arizona had their bond ratings downgraded. They Moody's listed, the super majority threshold to raise taxes as a part of it.

However, I will say there was a whole host of reasons why their, bond rating was downgraded. This was listed though. Currently, about half of states have a super majority to raise taxes at the legislature, including Oregon. The last thing I'll mention is I couldn't find any examples of a bond rating being lowered on a local jurisdiction that has put this in place. Only the state ones moved that that I found on Moody's.

Alright. Thank you, Peter. Do I have a motion on proposal 21?

So moved.

Second? K.

Motion from is that from Rob?

Yeah.

Okay. And a second to, push forward to legal review proposal 21 discussion. Patrick?

Just a quick question. Thank you for the good work on the research there. Did you find any jurisdiction where AIM changed to super majority where there were no other factors related to a lowering in bond and the jurisdiction only went to a supermajority and that action resulted in a lowering of the bond rating? No. So there was nothing that there's there's no correlate there's no apparent causation between going to a super sorry. Not acting a question.

Yeah.

In my

view answer that.

I do not see a causative effect between going to a supermajority and an effect on a bond rating. I see a correlative where there were multiple factors related, and Moody's actually bears that out. They're they listed many things that were relevant to their downgrading of the of the bond. So I'm actually in favor of this. And, also, my concern my concern last time was related to rec center fees and park fees and some of these minor fees and such as that.

But in rereading the way it's written, it actually is specific to a county council action. So it requires a super majority for the county council to make changes to fees and permits and those types of things, but that actually wouldn't go to a rec center because the county council is not gonna vote on raising fees of the rec center from $5 to $5.25. So there are areas which the county council has already delegated those costs to entities within the county where the county council is not taking action. So that delegated authority would remain, and we wouldn't be hamstringing all of those other subentities from being able to do anything because they couldn't get a supermajority to raise rec fees by 50¢.

I'll also say at the last meeting fees were included, but there was an amendment from the commission to remove them. So they're out yeah.

Fantastic. They

were removed. Robin.

Thanks, Brian. So, curious, Peter, when you said that there was and I think you you said Oregon and one other place where there were already supermajorities, required for some taxes being raised. What was that super majority? What was that percentage? Do you know?

I think it's just a traditional super majority, which is 60%.

Okay. So we're already at 60%. So I would I would argue against this because we've already imposed the super majority on our council given we have five council members. I don't know if we're gonna move it up to seven. If we do, it should be 60%. And so I do agree it should be a super majority of 60%. If we move up, then, yes, then we should go ahead and move that up. But, sitting at five council members, three of them voting in the affirmative is already 60. So I think we're already there, and this is one additional thing to ask people to vote on. Anytime when they get their ballots, something we already have in place. So it's kind of a waste of waste of ballot space.

Don, do you have comments? You're on mute, Don. Chanel? Oh.

Yeah. Thank you so much. So I did a little research too about, you know, bond ratings and having the higher or more stringent like, first off, you know, you're gonna be bonded based based off of your existing revenue, not necessarily your ability to get future potential tax revenue. And with having four out of five, that would instill more fiscal discipline, which could actually cause ratings, I think, to to go up. You know, people are talking, well, we've already got a supermajority.

So then I guess that would mean that this shouldn't be an issue when it comes to the bonding. And having having the four means that you're gonna have that very robust discussion about raising taxes on on people. And and I think this is just an excellent one to put as a vote of the people so that they can decide because they've been feeling the pinch, I think, often of a lot of these taxes going up.

Jennifer.