Charter Review Commission - Regular Meeting

Okay. So we're gonna call order the meeting of the. 05/13/2026 in Arlington. We'll take.

Here. Here. Here. Harrison? Here. Here. Here.

Decker. Happy to be here. Preston. Here.

Here. Here. Here. Jamie. Here. McGee. Here. Ashley?

Here.

James?

Here. We have 13 English. Okay. We're gonna start off with a leadership update. I think you all should see that between now. Okay. I'll just briefly I just wanna thank chair for his kind words and email to. We wish you the best of luck. He submitted his resignation May 7 effective immediately. He's outranging our rules of procedure.

Vice chair of the committee of the term. We just need to formally accept Brett's resignation. Martin, can we get some more volume on that? Maybe bring that mic back here. It's not easy to hear you. Let's see. Just closer. Let's close. That. Right up there. How's that? Is that better? It's okay. I can go even louder. Is that even better? It's louder. Okay. I'm sparing you. Okay. Do I need to repeat anything?

Are we okay? Good? Okay. I need to ask our attorney if if we need to formally accept chair Gaby's resignation and how we set to go about formally accepting it other than just saying what we just said. Chair,

I'm vice chair, I move that we accept it with gratitude. I'll accept the resolution.

I second.

Alright. There's motion to accept. Any discussion? And all those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Withstanding. Motion passes. Thank you. And the succession to the chair would be by rule. That would be myself, and then

we need need to give that to

the vice chair as our first order of business. And I will take nominations for vice chair.

Chair, I nominate Janelle Cass for vice chair of the so how much so how much? Okay.

The motion is second for a nomination is second. Mister Cass, do you accept that?

Yes. I accept the nomination.

Okay. And then you have a question?

I wanted to also make a nomination.

Oh, okay. Time. Just a quick point of order for our attorney again on the process. Do we vote first one person and then take nominations if anyone else, or do we how do we do that exactly?

There's no perspective method to necessarily do that. Okay. Generally, with the nomination of all brought forward,

nomination. So That makes sense.

Close them and then.

That makes sense. Okay. So what's your name?

I'd like to nominate Jennifer for vice chair.

Is there a second? K. And is mister Gregerson online? Can you hear us?

She's not. I don't see that.

No. She's absent. She's absent. She she she did indicate she'd be a few minutes late because their city council meeting was ending at 05:30. So and she but she did say she would accept the nomination. I spoke with her before.

Was that continue? Or

No. Because I mean, if if she does pop up to do that on her return, she can withdraw.

She can withdraw. Okay. Okay. That makes sense. We can move along that way. Thank you. Okay. So we have two nominations. Are there any others? And we will take a vote. We need to roll call.

I looked back in the minutes from January, and how it was done is we took each nomination was voted on, and you'd simply just say yes or no for each one.

Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. We will call. Roll call. Okay. So commissioner Cass's nominations first. So we'll go through, say yes or no, and then we'll go through commissioner Krayer's nomination. Okay. Does that make sense?

Yep. So we'll do roll call for commissioner Cass.

Troyer?

Yes.

Manny? Yes. Chatters? No. O'Donnell? Yes. Cass? Am I

supposed to abstain with her?

No. No. Yes.

Edgar? Yes. Preston? Yes. Dodd?

Yes.

Maggie? Yes. Maggie? McGee? Yeah. Ezlich?

She dropped off.

James? Yep. One two three four five six seven eight

nine ten ten yes votes. 10 yes votes? Yeah.

And then we'll go on to commissioner Graveson.

And now we go on

to commissioner Graveson, and then it's the roll call

for her. Correct. So this is for commissioner Bergerson. Lawyer? No. Fannie? No. Chatters? Yes. O'Donnell? No. Cass? No.

Decker? No. Preston? No. Dawn?

Maggie? No. Jamie? McGee? Yes. Islip? Oh, she's still

James? Yes. I'm sorry. No. So we have

two yes votes, and then there were 10 yes votes for commissioner cast.

Okay. So it looks like we have a new vice chair. Congratulations, commission cast. Next year, task. Okay. Then I need to hand the mic over and forward to our journey. If you would, Benjamin, come to the mic. It'd be great. And who needs to talk to us about the empty seats? We just thought about this The seat means that it's it is necessary to fill that seat. So there's a couple of different ways to do it and work here on.

Thank you. So Turn turn on.

And hold it close. I'm told that those online are

having trouble hearing, so if

you could hold it close.

I hope this works for them. In our charter under section eight three 8.3, Charter Review Commission vacancy, Any vacancy on the commission shall be filled by the remaining members of the commission within thirty days, provided that within the fourteen days that within fourteen days of the declaration of a vacancy, notice shall be given to the residents of the district in which the vacancy occurs in such manner as the commission in its discretion deems advisable. Selection of the person to fill the vacancy shall be from those residing in the district in which there is a vacancy by a simple majority vote of the commission. You may note that there is a what I consider an obvious and glaring ex exemption from that or something that is missing, and that is how we get from noticing who is going to or who wants to, well, noticing that there is a vacancy and voting on who's going to fill that vacancy. In the interim, they're in that missing space.

It should be how is this commission going to choose how that person that's going to be voted in does that. Generally, there are two things in in the number of councils. When there's a vacancy, they'll do an application of sorts, have have those that are interested fill out an application. I think in this case, if we were to do that, the issue would be that that may take a while for it to get to where we wanna get, considering that it's likely the business of this commission unofficially will end at the end of this month, though the the term still goes through the end of the year. So that was what, commissioner James and I spoke about is, we can't I don't think it's right to just skip over that because there's still, you know, over six months left in this in the term.

Whether or not there will be much continued to work depends on this body and what the the county council decides with the different amendments and proposals that we have. So having said all that, this body needs to determine how we're going to notice that there is a vacancy out to the district from which chair Galey was a member and was elected from. And then two, how this body wants to decide to vote or appoint the the new member of this body. That could be application as was mentioned. It could also just be a notice sent out similar to the public hearing notice or something sent out to that district that says, one of the commissioners from your district has, vacated his position.

And so there is an open position now, and we'll accept applications or nominations for that. And then the council or this commission will decide on a date certain how how we're going to choose who that will be.

Thank you. I would propose that didn't you say chair that breath's resignation was effective on the seventh?

Yeah.

And that means we have to notice within the next three days because it said fourteen oh, till the twenty weeks till the twenty first. Correct. The notes. We don't have that much time here. Correct. So my recommendation is that we keep it fairly straightforward. We noticed on the Charter Commission website, one. And two, we potentially could take out and notice within the paper for that particular district, whatever preamble in press is. Yes. And I don't think there's any hard rules beyond that in terms of how we would notice, given the way we limited budget, That was how we would use more. That seems the most efficient and fair way to get a look visibility into this.

Yeah. I can I can send draft a press release, but I can send that up to the to the relevant media in the district, but we do the county?

Okay. So that recommendation is put a notice out, put a notice to receive people who are interested. We get those people get those names. And then when do we can we do a a Zoom meeting? I mean, how quickly would we do this? Next meeting, or do we need to do it between now and next meeting?

The selection? Yep. We have thirty days. Right?

Yeah. The the notice is fourteen days within fourteen days. And then within thirty days of the of that vacancy, the person needs to be checked.

Yeah. And I'll just say we have meeting on the twentieth next Wednesday, and then a meeting on on the twenty seventh. And that's the end of our regular meetings. So, yeah, we may end up having to have special meeting in June potentially just to handle this. Or if the time gets right, we could do this at our last meeting. It's it's

yeah. That that's the other pieces. Again, it's not prescribed to this commission how long that notice has to be or how long that that process has to take aside from it has to be within the thirty day time frame. So if the notice were to go out Friday and you wanna say, hey. We'll keep it out for seven days or whatever, and then

I mean,

that's that's up to

your time.

One question I got. It doesn't and then you said it's got doesn't have to go out to public notice or what about the other candidates that were on the actual ballot that didn't get it? You voted in. We just but somehow to those individuals will say, this district's strict with chair seat is open. Can we go that route?

So yes. So the the notice piece is prescribed here. Right? The vacancy just needs to be noted. So we send out to the district. There is now a vacancy. How that vacancy is filled can be left up to this commission. So if it is applications, if it is notifications and put your name in the hat, or if it is we have you know, there are a number of people that received votes that did not make it. So the next person in line or the next however, you know, however you want to do that, that is another way that is it's not prescribed, but also not prohibited from from happening. So

Sure. I would think that maybe we needed to do both. I meant that we put that notice out there and stuff in crickets. So I think that we we try to get the word out as as well as we can and then also notify the next six candidates. And and then if they would like to come out, I think we'll get this wrapped up by the twenty seventh in two weeks. So that's my thought. No. No. So Yeah. I appreciate the research. Okay. Alright.

I would actually suggest we push the action as far out as we possibly can because it gives time to people to read the notice, respond to notice, send the applications assuming some type of resume cover letter while they're interested to us, gives us time to redo it in a in a very fair way with without trying to rush through it. So as long as we're within the thirty days that it's prescribed, I would favor the last possible date. I think it may be the twenty seventh for you. We could have a special meeting that somewhere on the sixth or something like that. I just wanna give as much time as possible.

And I

guess that's a good point What would we like from the applicants? When we put the notice over, are we asking for a cover letter, resume, that kind of thing?

Yeah. I would I would think, similar to what we did to the council, I would say a cover letter expressing why they're interested in the position and then a resume. This will be appointed. We wanna look at their qualifications and then their their desire and interest. So I think the combination of a cover letter and then their actual resume would be what I would be looking for. But

Amanda's hand

is up. Amanda's hand is Go ahead.

Thanks, chair. I was just gonna say this is a pretty light duty request for an unpaid position unlike a city council vacancy. I think if we just ask people for a couple of paragraphs about why they're interested, I don't think we wanna make the barrier too high. I also really wanna find a good balance between giving people enough time to respond, but not pushing it out so far that District 5 has only two of their three representatives for most of this process. And I also it sounded like commissioner O'Donnell said this, but, Peter, I think it would be great if you could grab the emails of the other candidates from District 5 and just let them know along with, you know, the district at large. Obviously, they had a marked interest in doing the work.

Sure. I can definitely do that.

Thank you.

Was there

comment? Oh, I think commissioner Dodd kinda wrapped up what I was thinking. I'm thinking of, like, a form that asks some of the basic questions and then gathers some of the basic information that we would need instead of full rest of years.

I think, sir, can just there's two options on the table. Yep. Chair can follow-up with commission to get an a on two options, and we'll go with that.

I would like to hear

the two options succinctly. So I will move. I'll make a motion. Yeah. I move that the commission ask potential candidates for disposition, just submit a cover letter and a resume for consideration by this commission for appointment to use the homeless county charter review.

Okay. That's a motion. Is there a second? I'll second. Second. And then any discussion on that?

I'd love to add that we make the final decision by the twenty seventh.

Before the twenty seventh? Said On You said on on the twenty seventh.

On the twenty seventh. Yeah.

So if if I can work on this tomorrow, probably get it up Friday. And then so I submit it. If I put it out Friday, you wanna have the cutoff be the following Friday then, and then that gives us enough time to consider on the twenty seventh. And I will put in that press release or with all that application material that you should probably be at well, you should be at the meeting on the twenty seventh.

Yeah. Would think that we're gonna have them on this at that meeting.

That Does sound true.

We'll do that right at the front.

Yep. Can we put on there that we request them responses via email so we don't

have to worry about. Yes. Oh, yes. Yes, sir. That'd be great. Okay. I have a motion in second. Any other discussion? Okay. And I'll lose it. Know. I think I'm Opposed? Okay. I think that's it for those things. We'll be calling you again in a few minutes.

Alright. We are we are at the approval of agenda. So moved. K. Thanks. There's a movement of second. Any discussion? Okay. Public comment. This is public comment section, and I just need to read a little something.

Tonight is a little different meeting. It's the first one we're gonna have public comment, and we're gonna have public hearing in a couple of items later on the agenda. So I wanted to make sure there was no confusion in the public or with the commissioners on how this is gonna proceed. So let me just read this real quick and make sure we cover our bases and everybody's has the understanding. So please reserve your comments, other comments for that are related to the hearing items, the proposals number five and twenty one for that time frame.

So we don't double up and triple up on on comments that so the purpose of tonight's public hearing portion is to receive public input specifically on those proposals. After we have received public input, we will entertain a motion to forward the proposals to move on. We must cross that eight vote threshold as is needed to be placed on the ballot, and then we'll give direction to our attorney to develop that language. The same thing will happen next week at the meeting with whichever other meeting three proposals that are gonna be discussed this evening make it through. And at our final public hearing in in two weeks, on the May 27, the public will speak to, and we will consider all of the proposals that crossed the vote threshold in their entirety with the proposed ballot language.

So the vote at the final meeting will be to transmit everything to the county council. So with that, we will open public comment. May I clarify something?

Yes, sir. There's two opportunities for public comment tonight. The public comment period right now is for general public comments, not related to the public hearing. Then you will have a public hearing on number five and number 13. Yes.

I hope

that's clear. So right now, we're going to public comment on any item that's not there. Oh, sorry. There's a lot of noise. Yeah. 05:25. Excuse me. Five and Brian, we even work on thirteenth for the week now. So yes. So tonight, the public hearings are on five and twenty one. So if you'd like to speak to five and twenty one, please wait until the public hear. For all other comments, public comment right now is your time to speak. Okay. Does that make sense? Yes. Okay. Clear to that.

But at least

we think it does. So

we'll start with the online. Do you have any online public comment?

If you would like to give public comment not related to '5 or 20 '1, please raise your virtual hand right now. Yeah. I don't answer it.

And just for clarification, what we see up here is this are there any where oh, wait. Is there a?

They're right here. I I see them. So they're not here. Yeah.

So you can see them. I can see them. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Alright. So those that are present in the room for public comment, please come up to the podium, and you have three minutes to talk about the inhibition business.

Thank you. There you go. Thanks.

Good evening, chair, commissioners. My name is Carol McMahon from Everett, Washington. I wanna focus on the pattern of which proposals advanced and which did not. The picture from your own records is clear. In accountability and ethics, the lobbying ban failed.

The dual office prohibition advance in modified form that was then stripped of its core language before the final ballot vote which also failed. In political and candidate transparency, both candidate political history disclosure and campaign finance transparency failed. These are all in the public interest, All public. Not one side or the other by the way. Every campaign finance proposal either failed or was withdrawn.

In civil rights and equity, both proposals failed by the widest margins of any proposals in the process. Both environmental proposals failed as well. At the May 6 meeting, a proposal to expand the county council to seven members failed four to 11 on the ballot motion as did a separate proposal to limit dual office holding, also four to 11. Proposals on office vacancies and even your elections failed as well. So I have to wonder just a little bit why we're looking at some of the other proposals and we'll get to that later.

But why go for a super majority, for instance, when you would necessarily consider expanding the council, but that failed. The vote flipped on the lobbying ban deserves specific attention. In February, under the five vote rule, the lobbying ban passed with eight yes votes. In April, after the threshold was raised to seven votes without a documented prior vote, the same proposal received only five yes votes. Three yes votes were lost between the February and April votes on the identical prop, proposal.

That is not a policy reassessment. That is a different standard applied to the same proposal to produce a different outcome. By contrast, proposal 21, which could require a super majority, and I understand we'll get to that, passed on a 10 to five vote with no community origin. A proposal to adopt ranked choice voting for future charter review commission received only four yes votes on March 25 with 13 commissioners present, well below any threshold. Fiscal and governance proposals favorable to the PAC donor base advanced.

Accountability and transparency proposals did not. As a resident, I'm asking you to acknowledge that pattern and correct it while you still can. That means revisiting at least one of the accountability or transparency measures. The lobbying ban, the candidate history disclosure, or the campaign finance amendment. The people of Snohomish County deserve a charter review commission that lets them vote on basic questions of money and politics and equal treatment under the charter. Thank you.

Thank you.

And if you could please state your name and and city.

I flew back from New Orleans at 01:00 this morning

just

so I can be here to talk with you guys. Say say what?

Your name, Katie.

I'll get there. Okay.

My name is Nadine, and I live in Snohomish. And I wanna speak with you about the decennial nature of the charter review and what it means for the authority granted under Article eight. This is not a routine advisory committee. The Snohomish County Charter guarantees this process once every ten years. Next time we see this, it's gonna be 2036.

That means this is really important. Right? Article eight eight was written so that once per decade, the public could revisit the rules of county government itself. It gives this commission power to propose amendments, but it receives it reserves the final decision for voters at a general election. That design assumes that commissions will air on the side of letting the people decide, not on shutting proposals down at internal thresholds.

What's remarkable about the 2026 record is that the outcome was predicted at the very first business meeting. On January 28, commissioner stated on record that the threshold of five worked very well the last time because of the makeup of the commission. We have a different makeup this time. One of the things that my constituents sent me here is to advance transparency. That cannot happen if an entire population is disenfranchised because of the makeup of the commission.

Her amendment to lower the threshold to four votes was defeated nine to six, and the commission then set a five vote threshold that would later be raised to seven. And every accountability and transparency proposal from the community failed. I know we've said this before, but we whatever. The record of May 6 confirms that commissioner Chad is predicted in January. It's true. Every accountability and transparency proposal from community members failed. The lobbying ban failed. Campaign finance transparency failed. Candidate political history disclosure failed. Every civil rights and environmental proposal failed, and so on and so forth, and we've

said it over and over again.

The one proposal that cleared the 10 vote threshold was a supermajority requirement for tax increases, which originated with the commissioner, not from the community. You still have time to change that. Article eight does not require a seven vote threshold for legal review. That's your choice. You can use your discretion differently for the shortlist proposals that go to the core of public trust, lobbying limits, campaign finance transparency, which we know everybody wants, and meaningful disclosure to holders.

The people who come here for stronger accountability will not get another charter review commission until 2036. Please use your authority to move at least one of these proposals forward so that voters, not internal gatekeeping, has the final say. And then I have one more question because I asked Peter, I believe, to publicly publish the history of the amendment proposals. It was supposed to go up on the CRC site, and it's I know I just got back here. But as far as I know, that still hasn't been published. And I wish somebody could tell me why the voters can't know what that history was. Thank you.

Thank you. Are there any others?

Yeah.

This

is the right time to speak to the team for two people. Just double checking. Well, good evening, everybody. First, let me start by thanking everybody for showing up, giving their time, volunteering. You know, I know I know you get a massive salary and, you know, that well, you don't even get mileage, I think, right? So so and I think I particularly appreciate that it's being held all over the county, not just at the courthouse, you know. It's good to go to the public and not the public have to come to you. So I really truly appreciate that. So I'm here. I'm Brian Sullivan, the Sonoma County treasurer.

And a lot of you know, if you understand my four year history with budgets, starting as a city council member in Muckiltillo and the mayor, that I've always been a, borrow a phrase, but a little bit of a gatekeeper when it comes to tight budgets and having strong bookings. So it's no surprise to a lot of my old friends that I have two proposals, and I'll start with proposal 13. And we wanna thank Sean O'Donnell, my old wrestling partner from the seventies, I might add, and and fellow restaurant owner. So although he's still at it, and I'm out of it. So I'm pretty happy about.

And so we the proposal 13 is an amendment proposal for consideration related to foundational government and fiscal stability. So we actually met with chair James or temporary chair James until tonight, I guess, and and Peter along with the county prosecutor, the courts, both district courts, superior court, the county clerk, the county assessor was there, and and Yeah. And the sheriff was there too. And and so we wanted to you know, we had the the the language from the attorney, and we wanted to try to tighten up the proposal in such a way that it was still effective and, but a little more concise is in hopefully, took out some of the, ambiguity. That's the correct word.

So, so what we agreed to is, we added some language, to the proposed amendment and, which I I'll just let you read through because I know I'm on a tight timeline. And then what we did was is we took out, the word fully fund, state mandated services, including office of assessor, auditor, clerk, executive, prosecutor, attorney, sheriff, treasurer, district courts, and superior courts, and put in and substitute the word prioritize, which may be consistent with the last three bullets which the your attorney said was defensible. So, hopefully you know, and I don't have a a a response from your attorney yet, but, that'll that'll tighten it up, and and we seem to have strong agreement on that. The one thing is that the county executive did contact me late this afternoon and was concerned that public defense was not listed. Was was the opinion at this particular meeting by the county prosecutor, the public defense is included as the office of defense under presently under our jurisdiction is directly controlled by the county executive's office.

And so they thought if it if it was in or wasn't in, it it it it doesn't matter. So but the court seemed to feel strongly about not including them. Know? And I don't know what that's all about. So it is what it is. But but I'd also go to the last bullet where it says core administrative financial functions necessary to deliver these services required by state constitution, RCW, and obviously public defenses in the state constitution. So so I'll leave it at that. That would be a discussion amongst yourselves. But but public defenses are right, you know, that's something I I certainly support. And so I can go either way.

On proposal 14, this one gets a little more it got a lot more complicated than I thought it would. I thought it

was the more simple one.

And 14 is the amendment proposal for consideration related to the county budget stabilization fund. And I'll you Peter has

a packet to pass out.

And we can talk about that more.

Get to an agenda too.

Oh, okay. And so is this part of the public hearing? Yeah. Oh, I thought it was just five and twenty one.

We'll have our discussion on thirteen and fourteen in later on

in the agenda. Oh, I'm sorry. I apologize. You're fine.

Okay. So I'll just real briefly, again, I did meet with the county executive later this afternoon, which I'll talk about, when we get to the agenda. My apologies. So but we I I I'm just gonna give you

a short story, and then we

can talk about it in more detail, and this will allow

you to go open your packet. But we have what we

call a reserve fund and or in the old days, we called it a cash carry forward, and we have the rainy day fund. And so in 2009, I passed an ordinance as a county council member because I worked on the state rainy day fund, which is, I think, 4 or $5,000,000,000 today. Long story short, we put $10,000 as a growth stake in it once I got it passed, and then also And then we took our, you know, our our reserve fund, which is where we pay all of our bills out of. So we can't we carry forward about 11 to 13% to the following year so we can pay all of our bills before taxes come in in April and October. It's absolutely required by law.

It has to be maintained at 15%. So so, so we just absolutely wanted to add some teeth to it in 2015, and we did that. And because of the teeth and the requirements, it's there's now, as you'll see in your packet, 15 and a half million positive net fund. It takes a super majority to spend it, and then I'll get into the details later. Yeah. Okay. And if anybody have

any questions for Brian, we can take those and get the agenda.

Yeah. Yeah. That's it.

Sorry about that. No. You're all good. Alright.

Thank you. Any other public speakers? Yes.

Alright. Apologies. It's been a long day.

Okay. Hi.

Thank you, chair. Now is it Patrick Becker? Is this chair? Yes. Congratulations. No. Marcus chair. Marcus chair.

Okay. I just have a lot.

You said it's been a long day. Okay. My name is Catherine Lundowski, and I live in Arlington, Notca City, out in the about five minutes out in outside of town. I want to speak to you tonight about what's being called the public hearing tonight and what the record shows that phrase actually requires. Your own attorney stated on the record at the February 25 meeting that this commission is required to hold three geographically distributed public hearings in the south, east, and north of the county.

That statement is in your transcript, and section 8.4 governs that. Tonight's meeting is not a public hearing in any procedural sense. It was not noticed as a public hearing before the proposed submission deadline closed. It was not agendized as a public hearing during months when proposals were being introduced, debated, and voted on. Every substantive vote this commission has taken on lobbying bans, campaign finance, transparency, civil rights proposals, expansion of the county council, and dual office limitations was taken before any meeting was designated a public hearing.

The commissioner's own public announcement is correct on May '27 meetings as designed to solicit feedback on draft proposals. That language is an acknowledgment that these sessions come after the decision. Feedback on lock outcomes is not a public hearing. It is a common period on a finished product. The same announcement stated that proposed amendments will then be transmitted to the county council for additional public hearings, hearings treating the county council stages where the real hearings will occur.

If the commission's own communications treat the county council process as the public hearing stage, then what is happening tonight does not satisfy the requirement. The commission's attorney confirmed in February. Three public hearings are now in the calendar, May 13 of here. Let's see. I'm not gonna put the address in. You know? And then one in Mountlake Terrace and one in Monroe. All three are set for 05:30PM. None is held in Everett County seat in the largest county. Residents who work in Seattle or Bellevue or commute north are still in transit at 05:30. Residents without cars who

depend on

transit routes terminate in every phase of secondary trip to reach any of these locations. Public testimony public testimony is being accepted via Zoom, which helps but does not resolve the access gap for residents who do not have reliable Internet or simply expected to be able to walk into their county seat and speak. I'm asking this commission to acknowledge in the record that tonight's session was not noticed or conducted as a public hearing before the submission deadline and voting process con concluded. I'm also asking the county council when it receives this to verify whether the charter required public hearing process was satisfied before placing any proposal on the November ballot. And I also wanna say that at the last meeting, it seems I got the impression that a pub a public hearing, y'all were gonna be, like, presenting, like, giving us a presentation on your proposals and then asking our input.

And, I don't think that's what's happening. This appears so far to be just like a regular meeting. I understood that maybe these would be a place for you to showcase the work you have done to the public and then ask our input. I'm not seeing a lot of consistent work or work that's been actually able to do something, and that's frustrating to me. Also, at the last meeting, some comments were made about let's pass things and not have it going to effect until the next charter review period comes up.

But if something is a problem now, postponing the actual putting it in place for ten more years, That just seems inconceivable to me. I guess it's because of where I come from and where I have to work. I have to make snap decisions or people die. Okay? So you gotta have a little bit of accountability for the work you do. Thank you very much, though. Okay?

Thank you. I think there's another. Yeah.

My name is Janice Green, and I live in Everett. So chair and commissioners, thank you for hearing this. Can you hear me? We can't hear you. You cannot hear me. Okay. So I'm gonna talk about the access problem that started before the first proposal was it was submitted. At

the February 11 meeting, a

member of the public stated stated on the record that the commissioner's website had no way to contact you, that the individual emails were not published, and that no collective email existed for the Charter Review Commission specifically that is documented a documented failure of basic public access at the outset of this this this process. April 1 proposal deadline was not listed on the county's public facing charter review page. The first widespread notice many residents saw was on a local newspaper article on March 18, just days before the final introduction meeting. That's not a meaningful outreach for a charter process. Every public pro every public proposal had to be sent directly to the coordinator's email address with no alternative intake.

And the rules required a commissioner sponsor to sponsor anything that moved forward if it was done in advance. One voice Snohomish County proposals were acknowledged only after follow-up. There was no automatic confirmation that submissions had been received or law. And at the close of the February 25 meeting, the coordinator confirmed on the record that zero community submissions had been picked up as as and sponsored despite force sitting in the county SharePoint. Agendas were not posted until the day before the meetings as members of the public noted on the record on April 20 at the April 22 meeting.

A community member said directly that the that late postings made her feel wary, that there was an appearance of nontransparency, or that the commission did not want people to weigh in. The internal rules then changed midstream. The commission started with five vote threshold, then asked for a seven vote threshold for legal review on March 25. After several proposals had already been cleared with the earlier standard, So you change the rules in the middle of the game. The March 11 record contains no motion, no vote, and no prior decision.

A commissioner challenged this at this on the record at the March 25 meeting, calling it a conversation with zero new information. As of May 6 of the May 6 meeting, a comprehensive list of proposals submitted to the commission has still not been made public despite on record request from commissioner chatters at April 22 meeting and multiple public records requests dating to March 25. So there's still time, I think, to do better post full proposal list so they can be publicly viewed, that we can see what's going on and make every remaining deadline, rule change, and proposal status visible on the county website. And I think residents deserve a charter review process that they can see and that they can understand. And to be honest, I think that a lot of the lot of the community are feeling left out of this process.

It's like everything seems to be predecided, and it and and and voting has a block. So and I think that I think we can do

better. Thank you. You. You too.

If I might ask, this is the third, maybe the fourth time for some of us to come here to talk with you. You guys, you all listen very patiently, and then nothing ever happens. We don't seem to get I'm

so sorry.

I just

I would like an answer.

This is the time for public comment.

Not Commission is not

We can't get any answers.

Not not not at this time.

When can we get them?

You can email each commissioner individually or as a group.

Good evening, charter commissioners. My name is Kara May Hester. I'm the chief budget officer for Sonoma County Executive's office. It's nice to actually get to see some of you in person that I've chatted with. So I just wanted to mention that this evening, as you were going through the proposals, we heard, oh, we can't hear.

It is rare that it is suggested that I am too quiet. So this evening, as you were going through proposals, we had heard during the last meeting that there was a desire to have some information from the budget office or from the finance office on some of the proposals. I just wanted to let you know that I am here. Thank you to thank you to treasurer, Sullivan for kind of paving the way on how we can speak to each of these items. The, executive did provide you all with a letter with some of his thoughts.

It was emailed fairly late in the day after getting some getting some feedback from, Trevor Sullivan. It's really fantastic of him. I do have six printed cop copies. That's enough for everyone. In addition to the fiscal sustainability task force report that was done earlier in the year, that was a task force that was brought together to look at the fiscal conditions in Snohomish County and really look at our structural deficit and some of the things that, need to change or some of the, challenges that we need to take on during our budget process that is upcoming and are highly related to some of the proposals that you all have put forward.

So, I will, provide those letters to folks. And if you wanna take a big sheet of paper, you're more than welcome to. Otherwise, you can find those in your email inbox, and please don't hesitate to call on me for some

of the proposals

tonight. Week. I'm up. Thanks so much.

Alright. Thank you very much. And are there any other members of the public that we can

Yeah. I can I may? Yes. I wanna address some of the things that were said tonight. The list of submissions is on the website. If you go on there, it is linked on

the website. Point point of information. Yes. I think that the public is asking for not just the list, but the actual submission. And while there is just a list, there are no links to any of the language of the actual submissions. So the public has asked for that repeatedly, and that is not there. So

Okay. I I would also like to say that there have been things said tonight that I have not been responding to emails, not been responding.

It was my understanding that there was not Listen

the vicious let's do the vicious comments first. I respond to every email I

have received. In fact, I think I had a conversation on the phone with one of the one of the commenters tonight to make sure that the information that I was providing to her is the information that was needed. I didn't read her back if there were additional information that you wanted or things like that.

So I'm

sorry. I called you back, and I

asked you when was that going to up on the site.

No. This is not a discussion.

I just wanna clarify that because I've sat here for months and listened to people make actions.

This this seems out of order. I thought there was not going to be a back and forth on this, so it it either needs to be allowed to go back and forth. It cannot be one-sided.

I will. Okay. Thank you for your comments. Alright. We're gonna move on to the approval of the minutes, next item on the agenda.

You. Alright. Now we're in a new territory with public hearings this evening, and I need to read this into the record, and then we can proceed with our proposals. So I'd like to now assess the regular meeting of the Sonoma County Charter Review Commission and open the public hearing on proposals five m 21. The purpose of this hearing is to take public testimony regarding this notice pending charter review proposal number five, concerning making the offices of county executive, county prosecutor, and county council member non nonpartisan.

And proposal 21, considering requiring four affirmative votes of the county council to raise taxes. The testimony received during this hearing will become part of the official record and will be used by the commission by making its final decisions on these proposals. The ground rules for the hearing are as follows. Everyone who wishes to speak will be given an opportunity to do so. Each speaker will have three minutes. Comments at the hearing should be to read to the subject of proposal five and twenty one in order to be part of the record. So we will now begin taking testimony. We will start with an in well, start with online speakers, and then we'll go to the in person at the podium. Chair, a 21 question.

Yes, sir. This is a single public hearing, or are these two separate public hearings you said?

It's a public hearing on two different proposals. Two separate public hearings. Okay.

And so the first hearing, we're going to be hearing only from individuals who wanna compliment on proposal five. Anything outside proposal five would be out of vote. Yes. Thank you.

Thank you. And you'd like

to comment on proposal five virtually. Please raise your hand. I see you have a few people. Karen Chase, you should be able to unmute yourself.

Thank you so much. Excuse me. My name is Karen Chase, and I'm a South Snohomish County resident in Edmonds, actually Esperance. And I'm here to participate in the public hearing on the, partisan label, proposal. So chair and members of the Charter Review Commission, I urge you to oppose the proposed amendment to remove partisan designation for Snohomish County offices.

Political parties already play a central role in our elections and removing party labels from the ballot does not remove politics from the process. It simply removes useful information from voters at the moment they're making decisions. You know, party affiliation provides voters with an important and widely understood framework for evaluating candidates' values, priorities, and governing philosophy. And party designation helps voters make informed choices without requiring extensive independent research into every candidate. Eliminating that information risks reducing transparency rather than increasing it.

And Snohomish County voters want transparency and this change moves in the opposite direction. You know, county government decisions are not politically neutral. Decisions about public safety, taxation, land use, labor standards, housing, environmental protection, public health, criminal justice, and budget priorities all reflect underlying values and policy philosophies. And voters deserve clarity about the perspectives candidates bring to those decisions. You know, it's often argued that nonpartisan elections reduce polarization.

And in practice, candidates still receive partisan endorsements and support from local political organizations and ideological backings. Campaigns don't suddenly become nonpolitical because that ballot emits a party label. Instead, the system can advantage candidates with greater name recognition, wealth, institutional connections, or access to insider political networks while making it harder for everyday voters to distinguish between candidates. I firmly believe that party labels strengthen accountability. When candidates run openly as Democrats or Republicans or Independents, voters have a clearer understanding of what they are supporting and can hold elected officials accountable for governing an alignment with those values and commitments.

You know, removing partisan designation may also reduce voter participation and engagement by making ballots more confusing and less informative. Transparency is essential to democracy, and voters should have more information, not less. And for these reasons, I urge the commission to reject the proposal to remove partisan labels from these offices and preserve the voters' ability to make real informed decisions at the ballot box. And I thank you for your consideration all the work the commission does. I know there's a lot of hard work and that you're taking all of our comments very seriously. Thank you for your consideration.

Thank

you. Anybody else on? Fifth? Betty Johnson, you should be able to unmute.

I think I just did.

There you go. We hear you. We hear you.

Yay. Something worked. This is great. Hi. I'm Betty Johnson. I live between Mayes Pond and Mill Creek in unincorporated Snohomish County. I'm a PCO with the 44th Legislative District. Let me say, first of all, Karen, oh my god. You did such a good job. I'm gonna really suck at presenting basically the same information that you did such a terrific job at at stating.

Commission, I'd like to understand why you wanna do this. I think we all know many voters don't do much or any research into individual county, candidates, especially at low for local elections. They get the ballot. All they see is a list of names. Unless they recognize a name, they just kinda go, Yeah.

They may have a idea that, hey. I I'm just gonna do all Democratic or all Republican because I have no other information, and they'll do it. And unless you want to eliminate that tendency, I'm not sure why this what you're trying to do helps. People tend to absolutely rely on party identification, name recognition because many of these candidates don't have big budgets to do TV ads, blanket, you know, all the literature we get in the mailboxes. Facing those odds, they're likely to just not vote those ballot line items, which is not what we want to encourage.

So I just wanna go on the record saying not having this information on the ballot, I think, is a bad idea. I strongly oppose this, number five. That's it.

Thank you. Are there others online? Yes.

Jenny, you should be able to unmute.

Hi. Thank you. Are you able to hear me?

Yes.

Alright. I am agreeing with the other two ladies. I think that this amendment or this proposal should be voted down. I I think if you're running for office and you can't stand by your values and let people know where you stand, you probably shouldn't be running for office. I mean, you firmly believe in the values of one party or the other, then you should be willing to put that your name behind that and so voters can understand where you're coming from. Especially nowadays, it's very important to be able to know where people stand when they're running for public office. And that's all I really have to say. Thank you.

Thank you. Is there anybody else that would like to give a virtual public comment? Please raise your virtual hand.

From Everett.

There's no one. Oh, she she said she's from Everett.

Oh, yeah. Okay. Alright. Well, that's it for the online. Thank you. And then the person. And we have three minutes to address proposition proposal item number five.

Again, my name is Dennis Green, and I live in Everett. Tonight at the first this first public hearing, the commission considers proposal five, which would relabel county officials as nonpartisan. I want to explain why that way that proposal was written is a problem for voters. Under current rules, candidates' county counts county offices already have the freedom to declare themselves independent if they have no party affiliation. Partisan labels are not forced on anyone.

They exist because voters use party affiliation as a practical shortcut for understanding what a candidate is likely to do in office. Proposal five does not simply relabel offices. It removes any requirement that the candidate the candidates disclose their party affiliation. A candidate who is an active member of a major political party could run without telling votes. That is not transparency.

It's not an improvement. It's a reduction in information voters have at the ballot. The purpose of this reduction was stated directly on the record on the record at the meeting on the April 6 meeting. I'm I think it was anyway. So when commissioner noted that proposal five is furious party affiliation, Vice chair James responded, yes.

It does. That's the purpose. That exchange is in your May 6 transcript. The commission is being asked tonight to place on the ballot a proposal whose stated purpose by one of its sponsors is to prevent voters from knowing the party affiliation of candidates seeking public office. The problem extends beyond elections.

When elected official leaves office during their term, the county council appoints a replacement. Under a nonpartisan framework without disclosure rules, the council would could appoint appoint someone who does not share the values of that that elected prior officer's health. Voters in that district would now have no recourse until the next election cycle. One voice in the Homage County brought forward a proposal that would would have required all candidates to disclose any party affiliation regardless of whether a position is labeled partisan or nonpartisan, that proposal was rejected. Now this commission is holding a public hearing on a proposal that creates the very problem we ask you to fix after the fix has already been removed from consideration.

Commissioner Dodd asked directly, how did the how the argument for more information is in one context whereas with taking information away in another? That question has not been answered. Most voters deserve more information, not less. I'm asking you to reject proposal five as written or, at

a minimum, amend it to include

a mandatory a mandatory disclosure requirement before it moves forward. Thank you.

Thank you. Do you have the next?

I'm still doing five.

Five. Yeah. Just number five.

Good afternoon. Good evening, I guess. Chris Gardner, Marysville, Washington, delegate, PCO, former candidate for this board. So I have a little bit of interest in this process. Before I get started, I'm just kinda noticing a trend of a lack of transparency, at least from what I've heard from policies that are being put forward, and so that is kinda showing me a little bit of concern.

But let's go through proposal five. I'm I'm I'm not gonna be as eloquent as everybody else, but I'd like to speak in opposition to proposal five. Believe our local elections should be transparent and honest. Voters have a right to know who they're voting for. Voters deserve to know what their elected officials stand for and what their agenda is. Our elected officials should be able to clearly communicate the policies and decisions and what they plan to put forward without hiding behind a nonpartisan label when they clearly have a

partisan intention. For this reason,

I stand against the votes by. Thank you. Anybody else?

Yeah. Again, I'm Katherine Lubanowski, apparently, Arlington about Arlington, Washington. And I also against this proposal. Look. I can understand why some people might not want to let people know what party they're affiliated with currently.

But and, also, to let people know who might be listening, you know, you can actually, like, call people up, like, for even for, like, proposals, and I I I know I'm weird. I've actually done that. Looked at the people who have supported certain proposals, you know, that we're voting on and called them up and said, please tell me more about this because I don't get what you're doing. Anyway, we can all do that. But, honestly, most voters don't, and so they do use that information to hopefully, vote for people that align with their values. So, hopefully, people need to be accountable to putting their values out in front of the electorate. Okay? Thank you.

Thank you. Okay. I'm not sure the boarder would close the public hearing, but before I close the public hearing, do we need to hear our attorney on those points, or is that after the public hearing is closed? I can We'll be used by the commission in making a final decision on these proposals. And now we can go to Question, chair?

Yes, sir.

Sorry. I have my microphone on. We received quite a bit of email this week for and against these proposals. I assume all of those emails are available for public record as requested. Yes. Those are part of the public record and can be requested. We did receive it the way. Okay.

Alright. We will now open the hearing for proposal 21. And the testimony received during this hearing will become part of the official record. It will be used by the commission on these proposals. And again, you have three minutes to address specifically proposal 21. And we'll begin taking testimony with all that.

If you would like to speak to proposal 21, please raise your virtual hand. One more call. If you'd like to give testimony for proposal 21, please raise your virtual hand.

Chair, we have none. And then we'll go to the in person testimony. Anyone in person. You might have to lock the microphone, and we have three minutes to address specifically proposal 20. Thank you. Please state your name.

My name is Nadine Shanti, and I live in Snohomish. And I would like to apologize for getting angry. You don't deserve that. Regarding proposal 21 and fiscal flexibility, I wanna speak about proposal 21, which would require four out of five affirmative county council votes to raise any tax and which this commission passed on the ten five vote on the May 6 meeting. The data on supermajority revenue requirements at the county level show a consistent pattern.

When costs rise and the budget needs adjustment, a high voting threshold makes it slower and harder to act. Services that depend on predictable funding face interruption when a tax increase that would pass the simple majority is blocked because one vote is missing. The fiscal risk extends to the county's credit position. Bond rating agencies evaluate a jurisdiction's ability to raise revenue when budgets come in distress. A charter level restriction requiring four votes to raise any tax signals reduced fiscal flexibility that can affect borrowing costs and capital project financing across the county.

At the May 6 meeting, the commission also heard from legal counsel about fiscal impact memo prepared by Aaron Manning Hester from the executive's office on proposal 22, which addresses financial transparency. The commission table proposal 22 because commissioners had unanswered questions from Ms. Mahester. A similar fiscal analysis should be on the record for proposal 21 before it moves to final language. Passing a super majority tax restriction while tabling the financial transparency proposal on the same evening sends an inconsistent message about this commission's approach to fiscal accountability.

This proposal was brought forward by a commissioner, not by the community. The community transparency and accountability accountability proposals that went through this process with broad public backing were rejected. A proposal that restricts the county's fiscal options without community origin is moving forward. That imbalance is worth naming. I'm asking this commission to apply the same scrutiny to proposal 21 that it applied to community proposals on lobbying and campaign finance transparency and to ensure a complete fiscal impact analysis is part of the public record before the final vote.

Thank you. Thank you.

Anyone else? Proposal 21.

I don't I I I only wanna say is that you have to have three out of the five, which is 60%. Isn't that already a super majority? And I just leave it at the

Thank you. I

just think I have to repeat my name, but I I kinda have to agree that by passing this mega majority thing you want to do, you're going to be tying your hands, or other people's hands that are going to follow behind you. I don't know that that's necessarily fair to do. There's already avenues, I think, that restrict increases in taxes and for people to recall, but, you know, change that if taxes are passed that they don't agree with.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening. Karen May Hester with the Snohomish County Executive's Office. I just did want to comment on so you will find in the letter that was submitted by the executive some comments with regards to the, fiscal implications with regards to proposal 21. And, I can confirm that super majority vote will risk the county's bond rating, would increase borrowing costs as the county undertakes capital projects, and it will it will create practical challenges for effective county governance. So I did want to, confirm those things for folks here tonight.

We do have a very excellent bond rating in Snohomish County, which means our bonding our bonding, excuse me, our rates have been maintained and are fairly low. We we have that ability because of the fiscal the fiscal work that has been done by the county to ensure that we do have flexibility in do have flexibility in increasing revenue and making changes based upon the economic conditions of at the time. So I do want the commission to really take this into account. We are very lucky that we have such a high bond rating, and we would like to avoid impacting that in in any way. I think that's where I'm going to leave this for now, and I'm assuming that the executive's letter will be in entered as part of the public record.

I have not seen it yet. You have It cost

I will provide copies here. It is in inboxes, and I will make sure it makes it to the correct inbox for a public record. Thank you.

Oh, if you guys are asking that

Yeah. Around.

Somebody could forward it to me too, please. Thank you. Yeah. Please. Thank

you. And if there's anybody else, go ahead and move your way up to that person.

I can read this way.

Hello, Chris Gardner. Mary Giselle. From the speakers tonight, it kinda sounds like, you know, I was trying to make sense of the positive and negatives of making this change. And from what I've heard, keeping things the way they are seems to be working, giving us a good bond rating, and changing things seems to have a negative effect. So with that with that said, I would just say that, I'm against $12.21. I'm not in favor of changing current rules in favor of super majority vote. This is an unnecessary change that would hamper the basic function of our district. It's part of some tactic that will have negative economic effects on our community. For this reason, I stand in strong opposition

to this proposal. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else?

Hi. Carol McMahon, I just wanted to say that it seems quite odd to me that I agree with your counselor regarding the thought process that went into this information or developing this proposal. You guys really haven't thought it through. Really is a lot of work to get it done to where you are prepared to do something like this. Secondly, I alluded to earlier that we should probably have more city council or excuse me, county council members than than just working it through the five that we have. The county has grown by over 80,000 people. Yes.

We did reach a proposal.

We're not speaking about the county council. Pardon? We're not speaking about the county. The

county is grown by 8,000 people. That's a lot of people they have to represent, and that's just in the last ten years. It's projected to grow equally in the next ten. So I believe that we're focusing on something different than what we should as far as reducing the ability of the council to act by increasing the number of people required. There's fewer people representing more people and it just it does slow things down quite a bit. The simple majority referred to by the councilor makes sense to me at this point and I don't think you're ready to pass it right

now. Thank you. Any others? Anybody else? Okay. We will we will close the hearing on the public hearing on proposal 20 '1. I'm gonna close the legislative public hearing on '21, the the whole '21. All testimony received this evening being a part of the official record by the commission. We're making final decisions on these proposals. And with that, now I'd to resume the regular meeting of this motion of HR commission.

And I will call up our attorney who is going to address some of the final language on both of those proposals, and then we can open for some discussion after that. Thank you, chair.

So you'll notice in this handout that I prepared and handed out, there is some information about both proposals and then proposed draft language for both of those proposals toward the back. Again, because this is draft language and this has neither of these have moved on to ballot language, this is a proposal similar to what it would look like. You may notice on the nonpartisan office proposal, there is an omission where it says new section, section one one dot zero nine zero. I did not add in there the county prosecutor. I was so focused on the odd year elections that I didn't put that one in there.

So that that would go in that spot so that that office as well as the other two that were met or the other offices that were mentioned would be nonpartisan.

Ben, I'm sorry to interrupt, but this is a hybrid meeting. I would love a copy of what the rest of the commission has access to.

And you can that that was emailed. It was emailed late today, so it is available to the public. I made copies to the public. I asked the coordinator to also add that to the agenda. And like I said, it was late, so I don't know that he got to do that before this meeting was was done. It was probably 03:30, 04:00.

I don't have anything from the coordinator today.

I've seen it was after I left the office too. Yeah. I will forward it to you. Thanks,

Peter.

So I'll I'll move first with proposal number five of the ballot language and and the way that I got to this language. Basically, making all the county elected offices nonpartisan, it does necessitate necessitate sorry, a provision, for transition period because the current holders of office were elected in a partisan office. So the two things that would need to happen, one, they would need to be able to fulfill those the terms that they have currently as a partisan elected official. So because of that, part of this language and the amendment would change the periods. So candidates for the county council member representing Districts 2 And 3 and candidates for county executive in 2027, so this next year, would go on the ballot.

If this is approved, would go on the ballot without a political party designation, and those offices will then be considered nonpartisan. And then candidates for county council members representing Districts 14, And 5 in 2029 shall appear on the ballot without political party designation, and those offices will be considered nonpartisan at that time. And then these specific sections would expire in 2030, and I actually now will make that 01/01/2031 because the prosecuting attorney because that position is up for election this year, It'll be another four year term, and so it won't take place until 2030. And then beginning 2031, would would that position be a nonpartisan position if this is passed?

Then on proposal

number 21.

Sure. Right.

Yes. Should

be pretty.

So five. What would what would the goal of elected PCOs be in filling vacancies if this were to go into effect? Because currently, elected PCOs have a role in filling those big vacancies. So would this eliminate participation from PCOs in that process?

It would not eliminate PCOs in that process. The part of part of the way that it's written right now because the way that it

was

passed, that is not mentioned in this proposal in the amendment. So then it is excluded from that specific amendment. The because the well, let me backtrack on that. I should say the way that it is written right now, all county elected officials sorry. So including PCOs that would be elected county officials, would be nonpartisan.

So, the way that that works specifically is the I think it's contrary to how the state has the PCOs set up because they're specifically as a specific party nomination. Right? You have PCOs for Republican Party, PCOs for Democratic Party. So if those are not mentioned, then it's going to really dilute what that PCO role does in terms of a specific party designation, which, I mean, essentially, one could run as a PCO, but they because it's not a a political party designation, there really isn't a point in being able to do that. I mean, it it would bear probably zero fruit unless someone had some idea to try and run as a PUCO and pretend, if you will, to be for a Democrat or Republican and and not fulfill that duty as a PCO.

So, essentially, it's it has kind of washed washed away the the ability for a PCO to do what the PCO is designed to do for a specific party without mentioning that.

So to clarify what you said, it would eliminate the PCO's current role because PCOs are by as defined in our statutes, partisan positions. Therefore, they they could not play the same role in filling a vacancy. Is that what you're saying? That they would be then, therefore, eliminated from participating in the filling of this role because our statutes define them as partisan.

Right. So I I would not say it eliminates because it's still there, but it does dilute the ability for one to do that for a particular party.

And and can I also follow-up on what you said about the fact that they are also an elected position? And so are you saying then that there could no longer be elected PCOs for the parties as is defined in our states, our CWs.

I I think that would what that would do essentially is the the elected position of a PCO would then be a nonpartisan position. So someone could still say, I'm running for PCO, but it's not gonna have a a political party designation, which very much confuses the process of having a PCO. Right? Because the PCO is either Democrat, Republican, or if there's another party that wanted to have a PCO. But in the way that this is proposed and written and the direction that I've received is is going to to dilute very much what that position does, not eliminate it because it's it's still there.

But not having a party designation on that specific position is going to really dilute what that position does, if that makes sense.

Bruce Lee Edwards.

Thank you, chair. Looking through the notes, and I can't remember. But I know that during discussion of one of these proposals, we had specifically excluded the PCLs from inclusion in the governing language of the proposal, specifically for something along these lines. I don't know why we would want to exclude. And does anybody remember which proposal

that was? I'm certain that we discussed. That was for not dual elected office.

Can I hold dual elected office?

That was a carve out. That was a separate post. I mean, so we have

a precedent where this commission has already said PCLs need to be treated differently from other county elected officials. I think a very simple mitigation for this is to simply add language stating that this does not apply to PCOs for all the reasons that you spoke to, and then that would then eliminate the concern about diluting PCOs because PCOs represent any specific part. And then I have

a Yeah. Question about that. Already, this governor's county elected offices, PCOs or state elected positions or state districts. This would not cover PCOs.

I wanna clarify. My question was around the participation of PCOs in the filling of a vacancy and whether or not PCOs would be removed from that process. And it sounds like you are saying, yes. They would be removed from that process. You're ready.

So okay. So to answer that specific question then, a PCO, if and and you're talking so if there's a vacancy on the council. Right? County council, there's vacancy because those positions are now nonpartisan positions, assuming so this is that's where I'm going, right, in answer to this question. If this were to approve, the nonpartisanship of that position would not exclude them or eliminate them, but it would not give deference to that political party.

So someone that's a PCO could certainly still, assuming the council decides, well, for this vacancy, what we're going to do is, accept applications, put up notice, and accept applications for this position. Right? Whoever wanted to within that district could still apply. That does not mean that it would only be a Democrat or Republican that applies as it stands partisanship right now. Nonpartisanship, anyone would be able to apply that lives within that district, whether they're a PCO or not PCO.

And there would be no difference given to a specific political party in that nomination or appointing of that vacancy. Does that

make sense?

It it does. So just one one more follow-up to make sure I'm understanding it correctly. So then does the PCOs act as a measure of protection for the public? For example, in District 1, May Nearing is the council member in District 1. If something should happen to council member Nearing and his seat were vacant, the PCOs from his party, he is a Republican, the PCOs would put together a slate that would go to the county council, and the county council would make a decision from that slate, which would help protect the voters in that district to ensure that the representative chosen had some reflection of the values of the person who was in that seat before.

Whereas it sounds like what you're saying is that protection would be removed. So for example, if the county council has a democratic majority, they can simply decide to appoint a democrat to a seat in a community, that had elected, to have a republican hold that seat because that is where their values aligned politically. So are you saying that that protection then would be effectively removed to ensure there was some continuity of values during the appointment process for a vacancy?

I I don't know that I can answer that fully because there would be no, democrat or republican Well,

I mean, the parties still exist.

Right.

They the label the label is one thing. Mhmm. The still exist. Right. They don't pull away because the label changes.

And and so the county council or I I even say those specific parties, any party, could still form that delegation and and send those names if they wanted to do three names, eight names, however many, and send those names to the council to be chosen. But I think as what you're getting to is that the specific party, whatever it was, whether it was Republican or Democrat, that party would not have the upper hand, if you will, in protecting that seat because the nominations that would go to the county council are not specific to whatever party was sitting in that seat.

Each. Okay. Amanda. I'll do that. Commissioner Dodd.

Thank you. I raised my hand quite a while ago in the discussion. I think commissioner Mankey covered this a little bit, but PCLs are defined in RCW, not the county charter. There is nothing we could do as a county to make PCLs nonpartisan. It it was alarming to hear you go into that a little bit. So I'm just can you confirm that that is not what you were trying to say was your legal advice on this?

Yes. Yes.

Okay. So I just wanna really emphasize commissioner Chatters' point that the rules of engagement with county council seats have always been that if a Republican or a Democrat is in office and they resign, that party gets to nominate the people that the county council chooses from. There will be no such requirement. There's no such thing as a gentleman's agreement in this charter. So, yes, if a republican resigns and there are a majority of democrats in office, they could put anybody in that seat.

And the same is true if a democrat resigns and there's a majority of republicans in office. So I do hope everyone will sit with that. There's been a lot of discussion amongst this commission about the fact that a lot of people are independent, but none of that is the same as what the consequences will be when there are appointments, which happens quite a bit on the county council as people tend to vacate in the middle or near the end of their third term when they're about to term out. So please understand the consequences of what you're setting your district up for the next time there's a vacancy. Thanks.

And

and I I will say also, to that point, the the the way that those appointments happen up until those dates that are in that I specified in the amendments, all the terms so the terms that will end in 2029, each of those if one of those persons were to not, run or vacate their seat, the procedure still stands that the the party that they were elected to would nominate whoever it is that's going to take their place until all of those, positions are nonpartisan positions. So because that is the contract with the voters. Right? The voters have voted in, a Republican or a Democrat for these specific terms. Once those terms end, any appointments after that will then if this were to pass.

But I'm I'm basing all of this on this is the amendment that's moving forward. If this amendment moves forward, all of those positions that then become nonpartisan will be chosen. If there's an appointment,

it will be chosen that way. Mister Justin?

Is there a way where it that makes sense to have if a to see if

they can get by death, disability, or retirement, they could could go to the voters over the next November election or a special election. You You can vote in person. Right.

Right. Well, in in terms of the way that things are right now, yes, with the amendment going forward, the charter, if I am not mistaken, specifically, the way that the charter is written has that the county council will be the one that makes that appointment. Right? So if the county council is the one that makes that appointment, they will receive and however they do that. Right? That's that's really the purview of the county council. That's the charter leaves that to the county council to make that decision on how that process plays out if it is a nonpartisan position.

Okay. Anything else?

Just when it comes to the positions that would still be designated with the partisan label, and we're talking about appointments, if if there's, like, an overwhelming majority, the voters are voting. And if they do vote to make them nonpartisan, doesn't that kind of show that they're willing to allow those other like, when it's time for an appointment? Or if should that come up? I mean, it yeah. Maybe they voted a couple years ago for that partisan position, but now the voters are saying, we don't want partisan positions anymore. So doesn't that kinda just wipe the slate clean, and we can just have one way of filling appointments going forward?

It it does not because what that does is that changes the contract in the middle of the contract, and it's not the same With who? With between the voters and the representatives. It's it's not the same voters necessarily that have voted to going from the partisan piece to the nonpartisan piece.

Doesn't the representative, if they're let's say they're stepping down, they they've actually canceled their contract with the voter. I mean, it's statement contractual.

Yes. But in the legal sense, that is the the the now the the word is slipping my mind. Pardon me. The the way that it has happened is just that way that what happens is the position that is a partisan position until only until and only until that is no longer a partisan position, it still acts in a partisan position. So if if there is a council member that is elected this year, I'll just throw 2026, and next year, the the body decides we're going to to put this in place.

For those next three years after that year, that person still continues to be, in a partisan position. And so because they're still in that partisan position, any appointments that would that would take place after that will continue to be in that partisan position. At the end of that specific term, then it would be nonpartisan. Yes.

I was just gonna say, Commissioner Cass, it might help to understand that when someone is appointed, it's not a new term that they're taking over. A very short term is to finish out the existing term. So whatever was voted on when that term was originally voted for, that still applies.

Proposal five. If not, wanted to just bring we got yeah. We all got the letter. It's been so long ago now. I want to make sure it's a record that it was recognized, and it was from a group of community leaders.

It was nine of them assigned it on the back, and just want to bring that back to your memory as we go to our final vote. And just to really summarize what they said in their letter, which you probably all regret. Currently, most county positions are nonpartisan, Extending this structure to include these other three offices will strengthen civic engagement, foster broader participation for electoral processes, and encourage a more representative pool of local candidates. And it focuses on local issues and constituent interests. So voters in nonpartisan elections are encouraged to evaluate candidates based on qualifications, issued positions, and community efforts, which align electoral focus with local local priorities rather than party affiliation.

Once that letter that we all received back, it was back in February. And I just had a thought today that I wanted to put forward, Susan. Just again, just I gave this a lot of thought, and wanted to jot down my thoughts and and just share them with you today. So making the offices nonpartisan is like putting the blindfold on making justice. It stops us from automatically picking aside and forces us to actually look at who is better for the job. That just kinda summarizes my views on on this particular Yeah. Can you move that? Yeah.

And it was a while ago. I don't recall seeing extra landed in my email. Can you tell me who those community leaders were? There's a few few folks on that list.

F Efferboulter, Bob Druell, Dave Irvin, Tom Holden, Leonard Kelly, Van Acuno, Tom Lane, Angie Sleepers, and Bill Okay.

Thank you.

Okay. Any other comments? Yes. We should take

You're still on proposal five? Yes. We're about

to take a vote on that. Thank you.

So my comments really quickly here are public comment today, an individual stated that candidates should firmly believe in the values of one party or another. I was on the city council, most of the issues we dealt with were not proxy. So there would be no way for

me to firmly demonstrate my belief in one party

or the other. And, actually, to be honest, there's a lot of things about both parties that I strongly disagree with. So having a letter next to my name does not mean I'm going to follow neither party line. In fact, it's just the opposite. I tend to resist that pressure from above. There was another comment that a party label can be used as a shortcut for what candidates will do. I didn't check to that also. I had no way that the letter next to my name, although city politics are nonpartisan, so there was no letter, but any of somebody had attributed the letter, there was nothing about the letter that was a shortcut for what I would do. And my voting record, I think, is pretty clear on that. It's open public records.

You can go look at that. There's also a comment that Most voters don't contact candidates and vote for those who share their values, their values, which was left unsaid with a letter next to

the name represents that value.

Frankly, if voters are voting strictly on a letter, I ever run for office again, they'll vote for me. I do not want people voting for me based on the letter next to my name, assuming that I'm going to act or vote in a particular way because of letter that's assigned to So those are my comments for for number five. I think candidates should I think voters should do their own work. I think candidates should represent themselves. I think we have a very active election process, and all of those presidential candidates are thoroughly vetted by the press, having gone through that grind many times.

And they're also vetted by candidates' opponents. So transparency, it's out there. All that information is available and is being readily available either on websites, newspapers, mailers that go out, and newspapers. So there's no dearth of information. I just really opposed to someone judging who I am and how I would vote as representative based on the letter next to me.

Yeah. So I, you know, I think that if if you don't majority align with a GE or an Homer, you should absolutely put that eye next to your name. I think that's fantastic, and that's a tool that is available to everybody. I think hiding the fact that you majority agree with the GE or the R party by not allowing people to have that next to their name is is a problem. There's a lot of folks who do they get their voters' pamphlet.

People are busy. They're working. They have kids that they have they're trying to get marriage together. They travel. They're busy, busy people. And you get your voter pamphlet. You get your your ballot, and you sit down with your coffee or wine or whatever you sit down with, and you're flipping you're flipping it open, and you're and you read I mean, I read what everybody wrote, and I don't care what it says next to their name. So I wanna vote a vote because I do wanna know what people are saying. And as a dean, everybody in this room knows I'm a dean. I voted for an honor class election, and that's okay.

I don't have to always just go with my party gut. But I look and I and I try to figure it out, and and you vote based on what are my values. And if somebody has a v next to their name, they probably align more with their values than than somebody with an r next to their name. That isn't always the case. Right? And that's where that the order of Gantlet narrative comes in. That's where the PDC information comes in. That's where the the Herald comes in and gives more information. But but to obscure information intentionally by this charter to say, we we think this is a great idea that we take this off. And that's what we're saying.

We're not saying, let the voters decide like it's on the ether. We're saying, we recommend that we take this off and that we obscure this information. I think that's a problem, and I think everybody who doesn't wanna put that to your arm next to their name should absolutely put an eye next to their name. Thank you.

Okay. Go ahead. We'll see.

Okay. My comment is short. I've spoken to this one several times now. I won't repeat the prior things that I said. I just wanna reiterate this came forward from think I it was nine originally nine for the fifth of the county for us to consider. Two of us picked up on and said, hey. Let's look at this a little bit further. A little of any other ones that originally had two members of this group before we combine them together and say, hey. Let's let's take a look at this. As we looked at it, we got a lot of positive feedback originally.

We're navigating some comments against. It's pretty pretty mixed, which tells me that it should go to the voters for a decision. We're voting tonight to decide whether this goes to the ballot. We're not saying it's gonna happen. We're not saying it's not gonna happen. We're saying this is a question mark for our community. We're hearing from both sides, yes and no. So let's let everybody decide. We'll only get to do this every ten years. Other counties that have considered this have made the decision. We've never brought this forward before for consideration. So let's bring it forward and let the voters decide what they would like, and that's what we're voting on tonight. So I will continue to support this tonight just as I have here. Mhmm. Mhmm.

I just like to say ten years ago, as the the last charter review, changed it to make five of

the county elections. It's not part of meeting things. So that's just the

Okay. Sorry. For clarification, the the vote

is voted for that change. Correct?

It was that we were ten years ago. Was Maybe six. Yeah. Sure. Sure. I

would like to to say what I have to say on this particular piece since I did not. I was just simply asking questions of our legal team. So with with regard to to this, this is about transparency for the voting population. And if if we are all being honest, we know that the primary tool used in all of our communities when votes cast a vote is the voters' pamphlet. That is a primary piece of information that voters use.

This deliberately obscures access to what is it is indeed a shorthand for the values that a person is representing because every single party has a platform, a public policy platform that is associated with that party. So when a voter looks at whether or not someone is part of socialist party, a communist party, the workers' rights party, the Republican party, the Democrat party, doesn't matter what party. Each of those parties has an articulated public policy platform, And voters wanna know what that platform is because that does indicate how an elected person is going to move while they're in office, how they're going to, what they are likely to do, what they are likely to support. That is a key piece of data. And this commission is saying, we are going to deliberately obscure that.

And so two issues are being conflated here. The issue of nonpartisanship, which every single person in our voting public expects every public official to behave in a nonpartisan way and that they expect to be represented by that person. Whether you're whether you're a district council person is a republican or a democrat, you expect them to serve the needs of the community in a nonpartisan fashion, meaning what is best for the public good, what is in the interest of the public good. However, party positions are real. Party platforms are real.

And so we're we're saying we're gonna take away that information and not allow people to even know that and then say, well, it's nonpartisan. So we could easily make these decisions nonpartisan if we wanna keep with the spirit of just making it clear that all public officials are expected to serve all people in the public and also require transparency. Those things are not mutually exclusive. There were multiple community organizations, a coalition of organizations. I know there was a letter with nine people, and we're talking about multiple community organizations that collectively represent thousands of people in this county that came together and brought forward a fix for this amendment, which would provide that transparency piece to give voters information about party affiliation of whomever they're voting for.

And that is what the public has asked for. They've asked for transparency. This proposal deliberately obscures. It deliberately eliminates transparency and then says, oh, well, you can go find out if you really want to, knowing that the primary tool that is used is the voters' pamphlet. So I would be voting absolutely no. This is not respectful to the community. There was an opportunity to fix this language. I really don't care if the physicians are partisan or nonpartisan with the exception of the vacancy a filling of vacancies and the way that that disenfranchises PCS. That, do have a problem. But as far as the spirit of things being nonpartisan, I don't think anyone would disagree with that. But obscuring data from the voters, I consider that uncomfortable, and I will be voting them.

Thank you, mister Chavez. Okay. We're gonna move this entertain a motion to move this forward. Remember, keep in mind this must cross the eight vote threshold that's needed to place it on the ballot, which then triggers our termination of the ballot language. Sure.

Can I

can I make a

motion to table this so we can hear if there are more people who want to speak to this for the next two hearings?

I don't think we'll entertain that motion. This is this is that's been this this particular proposal has been bumped at least, I don't know, five times already.

Well, I need a motion, and maybe there's no second. But Second.

Take a moment. Alright. I'm gonna take a take a roll. Clear? Absolutely not. Fannie?

No. Chatters? Yes. McDonald? No. Cass? No.

Decker? No. Preston?

No. Dawn?

Yes.

Maggie? No. Jamie? James? Three yes votes. Nine yes votes. Okay.

The motion fails, and we will move few motions to move this forward.

I move to.

Second. We have a motion in a second.

Okay. Yes. Betty? Yes. Chatters?

Absolutely no.

O'Donnell? Yes. Cass?

Yes. Decker?

Yes. Preston? Yes. John? No. Maggie? Yes. Kimmy? Yes. Abby? No. James? Yes.

Nine. Great. That motion passes on. Your attorney will we're gonna go back to the final valid language. We'll take it back in the twenty seventh.

So if if I may, chair, because that's moved on to the ballot, I prefer to have you know, look at the ballot language that's currently there. I can adjust with those additions that I talked about so that this comes forth next week to make sure that the ballot language is good. If it needs change, then I can make that change for the last meeting on the twenty seventh. Does that make sense? I I think because I think it could be quick to to do that, but I wanna make sure that the final language that we send is is what is

It just wanna make sure that we're not meeting the three issues that we still need to talk about today are not even at this point. Then we have one chance to get out. This this would just hit next week and have that final on that Friday, the twenty seventh. If you need to have some changes, then the commissioners email you with changes and suggestions. Is that would that be the best way to do that?

I I would suggest emailing Peter so he can kind of compile those. That way, I can just take those and if if they're by a date certain, that I can take those comments and try and if there are any, mesh those into what I have written right there. Okay. And then So comments would

be related to the valid language, not whether I was asking this is going through to valid. Correct. When you comment and support those computer that is about the specific dollar language changes or suggestions that we have. Okay. Alright. So we're moving on to '21.

It's a is it? '21. Oh,

yeah. Amanda. It's Amanda.

Okay. We're sure you're done.

Thanks. Just a point of order, chair. You haven't been calling for discussion on motions. That's a required part of Robert's rules. Unless somebody moves to call the question, we're supposed to discuss motions.

Thank you for that.

We actually discussed this prior to the motions. So we have a motion in that discussion. So the discussion actually took place within Robert's rules. Just.

Okay. Cool. We'll try to do do it that other way. Think that's what I should see. So please forgive me and have patience. Thank you. Is is there any other comment before we make before make sure sure that that we we cover cover it? Everybody? Okay. Okay. Thank you. Alright. Moving on to item number or proposal 21. We're requiring the four affirmative votes of their town council to raise taxes. We'll go with that for discussion. So,

Jerry, if we can, I I will make the slight presentation that I have? And then if there are specific questions for me that anyone has, feel free to ask those, and then you can take

it back and do what you need to do as as shared.

So with the requirement for a fourth fifth super majority vote to raise county taxes, as as I've said many times, the state constitution gives wide latitude to this commission, this body to to develop a legal or legislative governance as long as that governance does not conflict with state law in most instance instances. So state law regarding county legislative governance is quite clear that a simple majority is required to pass most legislative action. So that's the minimum. While three fifths majority vote is required for certain decisions, those include things like authorizing bonds, tax levies that require voter approval, and taxing districts that are not school districts. So having kind of laid that foundation out, there are some legal considerations, I think, that need to be made with this, specific proposal.

One is the interaction or the possibility of interaction with the Libby lead lift rules because Washington's Libby lead lift process already requires voter approval for certain tax increases. And four fifths vote from the council on top of those requirements does create a double barrier that may be redundant or internally contradictory to state law. And that's the from the legal perspective, that's more my concern is the internally contradictory to state law. And so if both of those things are required, where state law says one thing, the commission and now the charter, if this is voted, says something that may work, but it steps it up a little more than state law, that is not legally defensible generally.

So this is gonna

get reading down the weeds here. I think it's gonna get very confusing, so I wanna start by getting real clear here. And it's question to you. Levies are voted on by the people Mhmm. And they're passed by the people, and there's no county record there's no county representative official that weighs upper down on the limit. Correct? Correct. Correct. So what we're talking about here isn't that all tax increases across the county must have a four fifths majority. That's not what the point of this is.

The point is that any legislative action taken by the county council members to increase taxes requires a four fifths majority. So can you explain how there would be any contradiction with the levy, which is strictly voted on by the people and has no county council member legislative action at all then. They seem very separate.

Yes. And they are very separate. The it's used specifically as an example of what may happen if there is a mandated a state mandated tax or levy that comes, to the county, which the county then has to has to provide, but has to mandate in the county. So this this is a hypothetical situation that may occur. Sorry. So

But the county would not be passing legislation. They would simply be accommodating legislation that was passed elsewhere and doing as that legislation required them to. So the county would not be taking legislative action. It would be taking county officer action, which is very distinct.

But if it has to do with an increase, like a tax increase, specifically in here, the as you'll see the language that I put, the the language that was in here was a tax increase or public charge. I specifically took out public charge because that actually has a legal definition, which does has nothing to do with that. But this moves toward anything that's similar to that a public charge. Only if it's county

Correct. Yes. Exactly. That's just I guess I would maintain that anything that's pushed to the county by the state or the federal government in terms of, hey. You have to you have to have this charged. It's called a tax or charge a revenue or whatever it happens to be. If it's pushed to the county, the county's not taking county legislative action on it. So that would not run into conflict with this because there's no county legislative action. They're simply doing what they're being told. And this is specific to saying the county council cannot take legislative action to raise taxes without a four out of five votes. So I don't think there's a conflict there. I really don't see a conflict with any levies, which are 100% people who afford the county as a way to say it. So I think I'm disagreeing with you, which

is okay. Yeah. That's because that's fine. And that's the the point of the the legal analysis is this is what I'm presenting whether you agree or not and take the risk that may come with that. You you see at this point that there likely is no risk. I see that that there is some focus. Yeah. Yeah. And so that's yes.

Okay. To clarify, for me, in the most simple terms that I I could come up with, I'm I'm reading this, is three council members are needed to send it to the voters to decide for an increase in tax. Four council members, what we're asking for would be for the councilmanic sort of action without letters to bypass the letters, four council members that are. Three council members that's that's still in in effect for moving this without to increase your taxes. We see that happening. So is that true? Is that am I reading that correctly?

I I don't think I'm understanding what what is this that you're

A tax proposal comes before the council. They discuss it. Three of them say this is great, but they don't get the the four. They can still put it to the ballot, do a three. It goes to the ballot. The voters can vote whether they wanna be taxed or not. Right. Yes. That's gonna be the case if this passes. It's the case now. So that's not changing. But if we vote this in, what will change is that we'll have four voters or four council members that could then bypass the will of the of the voter and just make a councilman act shows up.

I I don't think in that same process that you're talking about, no. Because what you're what you're saying now, I think, is that three fifths will take it to the voters. Right? In that same scenario, four fifths would do the same thing. With this if this passes, I think, is what you're saying, if this passes rather than having to go to the voters, then it just zips through from council. Is that

is that what you're understood it. What's that? That's how I understood it. So I was asking you a question. So

I don't have a microphone anymore. His son died.

Man, it sounds good. Okay. We answer that so that we can do anything.

I I I still don't think I understand the last part of what you're where you're saying that. So the explain again that the last part of of what your question is, if you will.

If this passes, right, what we're what we're saying is that it would take four instead of three because three now is the way it runs, right, for passing new taxes on Correct. To the to the people. As far as understanding, there's some taxes are problematic. There's property tax increase at 1%, but they wanna do it at, you know, 3% and they don't have that bank, then they have to go to the voters. In order for that to happen, it would be four votes. Otherwise, they couldn't do that. They would have to take their votes up. So what we're really doing is kinda capping just, you know, to them doing what they've been doing and giving a little bit more security to the voters and to the public that they're concerned. Is that is

that correct? Am I understanding that?

I I don't know that I can answer that. That sounds more of a policy question. The what this effectually does is if there is a tax proposal that is going to be is presented to council that's going to increase taxes, There is a supermajority four fifths supermajority requirement if this passes. That's that's what this is saying.

I have a point of information on this. Like, this is pretty important. A property tax levy lid lift is the councilmanic action that you're talking about. So when we're talking about levy lid lifts, another commissioner was talking about voter approved levies. Those are another area where a government can ask voters to approve an additional tax through a levy. But what we do as city and county governments every year in most places is review a property tax levy lid lift. And I took the memo to say that this conflicts with state law on that property tax levy lit lift. So that clarification seems very important because everybody is already talking about this like they're two different things.

So when we're on the council, was councilmatic. It was not legislative action. It was councilmatic.

An ordinance as the council. That is legislation.

K.

When you vote, it becomes an ordinance or a resolution. It doesn't just it's not just a vote. It's becoming governing policy.

And and the specific language in this proposal stated that it was an ordinance resolution, anything like that that led to an increase in taxes. So that's why this was brought up as the being contrary or the possibility of being contrary to or con I shouldn't say contrary conflicting with state law.

So I really appreciate you bringing, yes, some of these areas of concern. So does that mean that we can just maybe I mean, if there's language that is state specific or if it's a a vote or a levy lid lift and it's gonna go to the people, that could still remain three fifths as long as the people then have a choice on the matter of the taxes. I mean, that that seems like I mean, just kind of a baked in way of making sure that every you know, voters have some say in what happens with the taxation. But so, I mean, could we not work on language to help alleviate some of the the conflicts? I mean, we've seen before it's like a big broad stroke, but to help alleviate these concerns?

It yeah. Any of the concerns that I've brought up with with legal I shouldn't say any of them. Most of them could likely be brought up with adjustments to the language. Again, that that piece is the policy piece for this commission to do. That's that's not my job as as legal counsel to to draft the policy piece. My job is to bring to you, here are the issues that I see. Here are the the legal issues that may not be defensible for the county and bring liability to the county.

Mister Dunn? Chatters. Oh.

I did have my hand up. Were you calling on me or or commissioner Chatters?

Go go ahead, commissioner.

Was gonna say commissioner Cass, I I think it is important to take a look at I would recommend MRSC, the Municipal Research Service Center, and to look at RCW to understand the types of taxes that a county council can levy, what they could do councilmanically now, and what already has to go to the voters. There are already there have been in the time I could vote and actually before, a lot of initiatives that limited the ability to raise taxes. So understanding what's possible now and then what is meant to be limited by this amendment would be really helpful. I think what's what's been kind of painful on this is maybe not having a broad understanding of all the different types of ways that a county council can and can't tax people. Because this property tax levy, lid lift, is a is a very basic thing, but it results in an ordinance that the county council passes.

And I think just that governance knowledge is something that we might need to make a list of and then kind of attack with with that amendment here.

Okay. So it seems like there's a lot of questions on this and maybe other one. Oh, I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. So one of my questions is about the language, and I haven't had a chance to read through this all the way because we just got this. But let's see. Where it addresses section 6.15, it says if less than five council members are holding office, the approval of the tax increase shall require a super majority vote. So are we defining supermajority in two different ways?

It seems to be being used the same verbiage that you use, but there has to be a different connotation. Because three out of five, if we're defining by percentages, that is a supermajority of 60%. A three out of four would be a 75% supermajority. A four out of five would be 80% supermajority. So it seems like the same word is being used in multiple it's doing a lot of work here, and there's not a lot of clarity around that. So this is the newly recommended language. I was hoping to get some greater understanding of that.

So, again, this comes as draft language. That last sentence is only in there because there was nothing that dealt with the issue if there are not four or if there are not five commissioner or council members. So if at some point there were not five council members, then none of this would would work because of four out of five you can't have if there are not five council members. That's why this language was put in there strictly to bring that to the commission to say, this is something that needs to be addressed.

Thank you. My my second question is about initiative ten fifty three back in the day. Folks may recall there was a lawsuit on that, League of Education Voters in Washington, which challenged that super majority initiative, and that was struck down as unconstitutional. And I was hoping to see an analysis of that particular case in regard to this issue, but I did not see that analysis included in the legal analysis. Do you have thoughts to offer on that?

Would you be willing to go back and do an analysis that includes that particular case and that matter and helps us gain a greater understanding of how that ruling would impact something of this nature, because we certainly would not want to enter into an expensive litigation process because we did not analyze. And my understanding also is that it was ruled unconstitutional. And at a county level, we don't have the although we have broad authority as a home rule, that doesn't give us the authority to act in in conflict with what has been found unconstitutional in our state.

Yes. I I can certainly draft up some analysis for that particular case so that

you can base a decision on on that. Appreciate it.

Okay. So with that, I think that makes this more a item rather than moving it right through the development, which is too many questions. There's a a legal question on the table as well that needs to be answered.

Move to table proposal 21.

There's seven. Second.

Alright. We have a motion in the second. We will open discussions. Will go. Doyer? Yes.

Annie? Cheddar? Yes. Cheddar? Cass? Yes. Decker? Yes. Preston? Yes. Dawn?

Yes.

Maggie? Yes. Jamie? Yes. Maggie? Yes. James?

Yes. Alright. Yeah. Okay. On the next week, we're gonna discuss and Yeah.

What happened? I mean, like, from. Presentations from the. The bonus of after each one of these, we need to move it to. I'm gonna show back to Oregon.

Alright. We'll come back from break. Oh, back to Oregon. The next the next section, we're gonna be talking about Yeah. Oh, okay. Alright. So Of course.

We're gonna go

ahead and open the discussion with proposal number 22. The proposal to increase county financial transparency.

Actually, I think it's just kinda interesting. It's that so I tried to come up with some language that would be a little more higher higher level and suitable for charter and was able to speak with Kara a little bit today on some language that would be doable from from the administrative side of things, but then paid homage to having the importance of physical transparency on the ballot. Okay. And you guys wanna have coffee because it's kind of the

shorter Yeah.

So thank you. Thank you, commissioners. So on proposal 22 with regards to public transparency. So first, hopefully, you all received a fairly lengthy response that we provided from the county that actually was put together. Well, it had my name on it. Let's be clear. I'm not that sort of IT wizard. It was put together by our IT department based upon all the data sources that are available already on the county's website. So the county does strive, and and the executive is incredibly supportive of transparency. I I just wanna make it clear.

We are not living with modern day data systems in the county. So things that may be easy for you all in your business life or even, frankly, in my personal life are not easy with our county systems. And so what you do have from a transparency dashboard standpoint really is because of the limitations of our back end systems. So when we provided that response to you on proposal 22, there was a there was a fairly meaty chart in the back and had a bunch of different options. The options that were effectively options for and above, so the $45,000 option and less, are all things that can be done in current systems we have.

Those are fairly real numbers for you all. So beyond that, you cost significantly more money. And I think what I wanted to mention is that the more specific you become on this chart of retention, the more extensive it will become. I just wanna be super honest. The more specific you are about all the data elements you want, there is just that reality that we will have to create a system in the future.

Now that being said, one of the really amazing changes that makes this more doable is really thinking about how where where this is in the second in the second paragraph. The county shall make available more reasonably practical for existing systems with future modernization efforts. That really will help the county make this a future goal for transparency instead of having to vastly change systems that we currently have. So that is much appreciated. The other thing I will mention, so it does say here that this will be provided at no cost to the public.

Totally totally understand if that is how the commission would like to go. I just want to make it very clear that there will be a cost for any of this work. Anytime you add an item to an RFP or a bid, it will ensure that this cost us more money. So there will be a cost to the county, and I think you all have heard clearly about the county's financial position currently. We are facing an incredible structural structural deficit.

So I just have to put that out there and say something else we'll have to give out of the general fund because that's where this money will come from. General fund is 76% law and justice and public safety. So that's how that that that is where the reactions will have to be because that's what most of the general fund is. So, anyways, I'm happy to take any additional questions you have. I do note that you did read.

We are modernizing the systems that lead to this sort of data. So in a couple years, I will have much different answers for you on how we can do this. We just don't know what we don't know right now with regards to that new ERP system, and it is an Oracle system. We are we are putting in kind of we're not putting in the Cadillac, but we're putting in industry standard, which should make us much further down the path of easy data access, therefore, leading to easier transparency. Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you, Karen. Yeah. So this part, we'll through, and we cut the language back. It's just that sentence you read. Would that strengthen what's happening with the county right now and give give the public a little more insecurity knowing that that you have to and I know that that you already are. Everybody works in the county. I'm sure I mean, it affects everything. So is that possible without because you said the more words we have, basically, the more to two, we say these are

More specification sounded. Yeah. So kind of the rest of that paragraph is a lot of specification. Specification. A A lot lot of of specifications. I think if you were to keep it fairly high level about transparency and contract contracting and finances and and and keep that language in, I think I think it would be easier to manage too and the again, it's the charter sets the expectation. That's The actual, you know, council can create an ordinance or a motion that says what this should be. Yeah. Would it

be helpful to have something like this? Very, very

I think we could we could definitely be more supportive of change like that over the case. Questions? Yes, mister Jacks. Could you help me understand with the new modified language, this grid that has options one through seven where the dollar signs increase quite a bit as we go up through that those options. Where does this new language fall on this expense chart?

So the new language would so, effectively, the first four proposals that goes to $45,000 would fall within the new the new lang the kind of the new language that stops at the sense. The difficulty with the system we have right now is I cannot get you all the data out of the single sys excuse me. I cannot get you all the data that's further in the list with the inexpensive options. And we would so skip all the way down to the very last line. I can't remember which option it is.

Number seven. Line number seven. Once we have our ERP system in in a couple years, then we would a be able to head towards item seven. So the $2 sign. The problem is I couldn't get my IT department to define what $2 signs was because they said it's gonna be expensive, but not as as expensive as having to do it right now while we were trying to make our effectively, we're replacing our.