General Legislative Session - public_hearing

Good morning, everyone. Snohomish County Council is called to order for our public hearing agenda. Today is Wednesday, June 24th, 2026 at 1030 a.m. We're meeting in the Jackson boardroom and also remotely. I'll read the script for providing public testimony and then our clerks will take role. So public testimony will be opened on each agenda item. Public testimony will be limited to those listed on the agenda. Public testimony will not be taken on the amendments proposed by the Charter Review Commission previously submitted to the auditor's office and incorporated in approved motion 26-224. or any other matter at this hearing not listed on the agenda. So we'll take public testimony beginning in person and then remotely. On Zoom, you'll click on the hand icon to raise your hand. If you're calling in by phone, press star nine to raise your hand and star six to unmute. Each speaker will have three minutes to speak, and please start your testimony with your name and city of residence. Next is roll call.

Chair Dunn. Here. Vice Chair Lowe.

Present.

Council Member Neering.

Here.

Council Member Mead. Here. Council Member Peterson.

Here.

Chair, we have five members present.

Thank you. We have two action items today. First is Ordinance 26-022.

Council considers Ordinance 26-022 relating to the 2025-2026 budget, making an emergency appropriation in Fund 100 to increase expenditure authority for the prosecuting attorney to cover unanticipated loss of revenue.

Morning, Council Members. For the record, Jim Martin, Council Staff. proposed ordinance provides emergency budget appropriation and special revenue fund 100 in the amount of $140,000. This appropriation is a contingency should the state not provide sufficient funding in fund 118 for the victim witness advocate. This fund 118 does not have adequate fund balance to cover a shortage of revenue. While special revenue fund 100 community impact fees does have fund balance to cover the expenses but lacks the budget appropriation. Requested action is to move to council for consideration.

Thank you. Any questions from council members? Okay, seeing none, we will open up public testimony on this item only. Was there anyone wishing to speak to this item? Use the podium in the center of the room or online. Please raise your hand. So we have no one in person. Anyone raising their hand? No hands online.

So we'll close public testimony. Hand raised. Prosecutor Cummings is on the line. Okay. Okay.

Welcome. Did you want to provide public testimony?

I just wanted to let you all know that I am available. I'm at a conference right now, but just logging on to answer any questions if you have any.

Okay. Then we will close testimony on this item and turn to counsel. Were there questions for the prosecuting attorney or any comments? Okay. Doesn't sound like there's questions. Is there a motion?

Move to approve ordinance 26-022. Second. Second.

It's been properly moved and seconded to approve ordinance 26-022. Any discussion? Hearing none, we'll have a roll call vote. Council Member Mead?

Yes. Council Member Peterson? Aye. Vice Chair Lowe?

Yes.

Council Member Neering?

Yes.

Chair Dunn?

Yes. Ordinance 26-022 passes 5-0. Next, we'll consider ordinance 26-023.

Council considers ordinance 26-023 proposing an amendment to the Snohomish County Charter Establishing a mandatory candidate political history disclosure requirement for the offices of county executive and county council.

Good morning, Heidi Bezizo for the record. Article 8 of the Snohomish County Charter allows for council-initiated charter amendment proposals to be submitted to the voters with a minimum of four affirmative votes. The council participated in discussions on possible charter amendments and ultimately set a time and date on Ordinance 26-023 for today. If transmitted to the county auditor and approved by the voters, Ordinance 26-023 adds a new Section 4.16 to the Snohomish County Charter. Candidates for the offices of county executive and county council must submit a candidate political history disclosure statement to the county auditor at the time of their declaration for candidacy. The details of the disclosure are included in Section 4.16.2. The amendment also includes requirements that the auditor's office independently compile and validate two of the required pieces of data provided in the candidate's disclosure. The information would be published in the voter's pamphlet. The charter amendment includes information on an appeals process should the candidate not agree with the auditor's information and also requires the county council adopt implementing ordinances within 90 days of the effective date. As a note, this 90-day requirement is unique to this section of charter. Charter already requires implementing ordinances be enacted 180 days after the effective date. That includes my staff report, and I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you. Questions from council members? Questions online? I'll just state I brought this forward because voters deserve clear objective information about candidates who are asking to lead the kind of government it's based on a submission from the Community to the Charter review Commission. For me it's about transparency, it gives voters access to the public record information. in one clear place. It uses the same standard for every candidate. And if voters are concerned about whether county offices should be nonpartisan, then this is especially important so that voters have access to basic information about a candidate's public political history. And nonpartisan should not mean less informed. So that's why I brought that forward. Any questions? Okay.

Just a comment. I appreciate you bringing this forward. I think you would used the word, but I think one of the most important words that we've been using in politics over the last few years, sometimes overused, but I think you've hit the right balance, is transparency. I think it's really important that voters have as much information as possible. I think this would be objective information. This is what the candidates' own history, politics are. So I think it's important that people have a good understanding of of where candidates stand on any number of issues beyond just what happens on the campaign trail. So, I appreciate you bringing this ordinance forward, and I will be supporting it. Thanks.

Female Speaker 1 Thank you. Other comments? I'll repeat, also, I'm willing, I'm open to any amendments that would strengthen the neutrality or make the implementation any clearer if council members want to consider any amendments or bring any forward. Is there any other discussion? Okay, hearing none, we'll open up public testimony on this item. Did anyone wish to provide public comment? You'll come to the podium. We have a sign-in sheet. Oh, okay, sorry. We do have a sign-in sheet, so our clerks will announce who was first. Okay.

First on the list is Nadine Shante, followed by Lisa Utter.

Why do you guys set this up for tall people? Good morning. Thank you for having us here today. And I really appreciate what I'm seeing here today in terms of actually requesting information from private citizens. My name is Nadine Shanti and I'm a resident of Clearview in unincorporated Snohomish County. Although I am a member of two grassroots organizations who are concerned about transparency in our county's political process, I am speaking as a private citizen today. After observing firsthand the CRC process and issues involving party affiliations, I want to state that Ordinance 26023 is the first of several very necessary steps to address the lack of transparency in our political process. And our current client that I can see that there are people who want to hide their political history.

This is a mistake.

Citizens want to know candidates' history and affiliations. It is an indicator of stances on issues, and that is something we deserve to know and we want to know. In the past months, I have watched many barriers being put up in order to slow processes down or cause confusion. and dissension, and most of those were based on party affiliation. This is information that citizens need to have, making us have to do research to determine this history is just another barrier being put up in place to slow us down, and it is not fair. This is just the first step moving towards transparency that is absolutely necessary. in Snohomish County. Thank you for allowing me the time to make this statement. I really feel this strongly, and I appreciate this opportunity.

Thank you for your comment.

Next speaker. Next speaker is Lisa Utter, followed by Janice Green.

Hello. My name is Lisa Utter. I'm the president of the League of Women Voters of Snohomish County, and I was under the impression that we could comment on the whole process, so I'm I'm going to ad lib here a little bit. But try and stick to your instructions. Let's see. Our league has an adopted policy on citizen participation, which in brief states, support of citizen participation in local government by advocating the county and local government branches provide adequate notice of proposed actions, hold open meetings, and make public records readily accessible. So this includes robust public outreach and consideration of public input. We had suggested that this hearing be open for all the proposals that were summarily kind of dismissed by the Charter Review Commission. We really appreciate the fact that you at least picked one. We obviously are in favor of knowing as much about candidates as easily as possible. And so I think that this particular proposal is a good response to one of the other proposals, which is to make these elections positions nonpartisan. And so we hope that you will consider it and that you will make a robust process clear for the next Charter Review Commission that when they meet, this doesn't happen again.

we feel like there was a true failure to get public input thank you thank you for your comment next speaker and the last speaker on the list is janice green my writing but that's okay hi i'm janice green i live in the city of everett and thank you for holding these hearings and am i understand we have three minutes okay uh so i am a resident of snohomish county and i am here to speak in support of ordinance 26 which would require candidates for Snohomish County Executive and County Council to disclose their political history to voters. Voters have a right to know the political history of the people who are going to govern them. That's not a partisan idea. It is a foundational to the informed voter. The ordinance is narrow and specific. They ask candidates to disclose objective facts from the previous 12 years, party preferences on declaration of candidacy, formal party endorsement, service as precinct committee officer, and contributions of $500 or more to political parties or party-aligned PACs. This is all reported in Public's Disclosure Commission. This information already exists in the public records. The ordinance puts it in one place. in a uniform format in an official voter materials. The safeguards matter. It does not require disclosure of voter registration, current beliefs, or private association. It does not bar anyone from running for office or disqualify anyone from holding office. Political history is for voter information only. I want to call out the role of the county auditor for party preferences and reportable contributions. The auditor independently compiles the record directly from Washington's Secretary of State and Public Disclosure Commission sources and publishes it alongside the candidate's sworn statement. No later than the date primary ballots are mailed. Endorsements and precinct committee service remain self-reported because those are not in the state records that the auditor can pull. Each candidate sees the compiled record before publication and has a fair process to correct any factual error. This matters now. In the recent charter review process, independent expenditures funded 11 of 15 commissioners at $5,533.33 each. a total of $60,000, more than $60,000, all traceable through the Published Disclosure Commission filings. Residents noticed the pattern and found it hard to see who was connected to what. This ordinance would give voters a clear standardized record before the election rather than after the question comes up. It also provides a balance in the county Moving forward in the nonpartisan office proposal, removing a party label does not erase candidates' history. The ballot may give voters less shorthand or voters less and have some shorthand, so the voter pamphlet should give them more facts. And I respectfully urge the council to support Ordinance 26. and that the people of Snohomish County vote in November. So thank you for your time.

Thank you for your comment. Any other speakers to this item? Are there any hands raised?

There are no hands raised. Okay. Janelle Cass has raised her hand.

Good morning County Council. My name is Janelle Cass. I'm a resident of Edmonds. I'm also one of the Snohomish County Charter Review Commissioners. And this proposal did come before the commission and was discussed. And I just want to give an opportunity or take this opportunity to I urge you to vote no on forwarding this amendment. We all definitely strongly agree that transparency is important in elections. And a lot of this information, as you just heard from Ms. Green, is available on the state-run PDC site. I think duplicating this kind of effort at the county level is just going to create added bureaucracy and cost to the people. And one of the things that I propose that would help bring some transparency to the voters would be to add a page to the voters pamphlet. You could have a QR code and a website link about the PDC and maybe some instructions. So instead of recreating, you could just amplify the information that already exists. And I've noticed even on the Snohomish County election site, there is no link to the PDC. So there's a link to League of Women Voters, but no link to the PDC. So if we're looking for transparency, I think there's some smaller steps at a much lower cost that can be implemented. I think the voters would be really happy to be able to see how much money candidates get from special interests and PACs, um, or if they've incurred already from the PDC, any kind of, uh, reprimands or have misstepped with the PDC. And that includes some of our current County council members who have, uh, received that as well as, um, uh, Yeah. Other candidates you can look up if they've not reported in a timely fashion. I mean, it's already a very rigorous process. Anybody who's run for office knows that you have to pay to have a treasurer keep you in compliance. I can't even imagine how much more it would cost to a campaign to comply with this proposal. And that just makes it even harder and boxes out newer candidates. So, again, I would vote. I would. I urge you to please vote no on moving this to the ballot. Thank you.

Thank you for your comment. Are there other hands raised? There's Paula Townsend.

Thank you. I am very pleased that this was brought forward today by Councilmember Dunn. I thank you and the Council for considering it. I think it's really important for those of us that did watch the process through the commissioners that barriers and obstacles should be minimized when it comes to getting voters to vote, getting voters informed. And I think as we start to send voters elsewhere and make them go do all of the research that could so simply be provided as this motion, this ordinance does, is an opportunity to get it right the first time. We have a real issue with informing voters, with getting people engaged. And I really applaud you for bringing this forward and taking the opportunity to put it to the voters. What do they want? How did they see transparency best served for them? I am disappointed that a commissioner who had the opportunity to do their work inside of that process would come over and try and work within the county council's process and interfere here. I think you folks are doing the right thing by talking about it and bringing the public to the table today. to listen to our concerns, to listen to our desires, and I really appreciate your efforts, and I urge you to vote yes on this ballot. Thank you.

Thank you for your comment. Other hands raised? There are no other hands raised. So was there any other online public comment you need to signify by raising your hand? Okay. Okay. So seeing none, we will close public testimony and turn to council for discussion. Any comments? Councilman Peterson?

Not made my comments. I would move approval of ordinance 26-023. Second.

It's been properly moved and seconded to approve ordinance 26-023. Is there a discussion? I'll just reiterate again that if there's any members who support the transparency goal but have concerns with the mechanics, I'm happy to work through those concerns right now. Is everyone comfortable moving forward? Okay, not hearing anything online. Again, I'll just state I believe elections are stronger when voters have clear, consistent, and accessible information, and for those reasons I'm supportive of voting for this today and also proud to bring it forward. Other comments? Councilmember Peterson?

Thank you. I think just one more thing is in this age of information and misinformation, what I appreciate about this ordinance is it will be coming from the auditor's office, a trusted source of information that can vet things that have been instead of the, you know, Previously today, we talked about data centers and the amount of information that is flowing, especially when it comes to elections. So having a trusted source of information, I think, is critical to this process. So appreciate that thoughtfulness that was put in the ordinance. Thanks.

Other comments? Okay. Is there a motion? Did we already have a motion?

Yep, it's been moved and seconded.

So it's been properly moved and seconded. We'll now have a roll call vote.

Council Member Peterson?

Aye.

Council Member Mead?

Yes.

Vice Chair Lowe?

No.

Council Member Neering?

No.

Chair Dunn?

Yes. So according to our charter, this requires four votes, and so the ordinance fails three to two. That concludes our agenda, and council is adjourned for the day.