At tonight’s presentation about the authority of Council members under the Council-Manager form of government by Seattle lawyer Steve DeJulio, Mayor Debbi Lester and Council members Dave Ward and Steve Bonkowski quickly shut down Council member Bob Scales when he tried to ask questions about the authority of individual Council members to act without a Council vote. Council authority has been a raw question since Lester, Bonkowski and Dave Ward hired a law firm to give advice about firing City Manager Brenda Bauer without obtaining a vote of the full Council. DiJulio’s presence was at Council’s request following the dispute over that issue.
DeJulio gave a crisp one-hour briefing on the laws governing the power and functioning of local government in our state. He told Council it has legislative authority to act by motion, resolution, or ordinance. A significant responsibility is to adopt a budget, also done as a legislative body in open session.
DeJulio explained that, under the island’s Council-Manager form of government, the Council has legislative authority, and the power to appoint the City Manager. State law specifically prohibits the Council from interfering with the decisions of the City Manager. The statute requires that the Council deal with staff solely through the Manager, except for purposes of inquiry, or at public Council meetings.
DeJulio said that, unlike an elected Mayor in our previous “Strong Mayor” form of government, the current mayor is a Council member chosen by the rest of the Council. The Mayor acquires no additional power or authority other than to preside over meetings and act as liaison with the City Manager for planning Council agendas and similar functions. The Mayor is not the executive and has no administrative power or authority to act independently on behalf of the Council.
At the conclusion of DeJulio’s remarks, Mayor Lester asked if Council members had questions. Council member Scales asked whether Council members had authority to act individually or in groups of less than a quorum. DiJulio said Council members have no authority to act without the consent of the full Council.
Scales then asked whether the Mayor has any authority separate from the rest of the Council. DeJulio said the only additional role of the Mayor is to preside over meetings and interface with the City Manager.
Scales began to ask a third question by explaining that the City has had lots of code changes after the change of government. Before he could phrase the question, Lester called a point of order, arguing that Scales had missed the last meeting and perhaps didn’t know they had agreed to leave discussions about the City Attorney and conflicts of interest for another Council workshop. At this point, Council member Ward noted Council’s agreement to discuss “this topic” (without specifically identifying what the topic was) at the next Council workshop. During a brief back-and-forth with Lester, Scales asked that the matter be put to a vote. He then said his question was not about that topic. Bonkowski called another point of order, saying Scales had already asked for a vote about whether he could ask his question. Quickly, a vote was taken and Ward, Lester, Bonkowski and Sarah Blossom voted to silence Scales, with Anne Blair and Scales voting against the motion. (Council member Kirsten Hytopoulos was absent).
Clearly frustrated, Scales commented that the others can’t use Robert’s Rules of Order to silence views they don’t agree with. “I’m getting fed up,” he said. “But I’m not going away, and I’m not going to be quiet.”
After DeJulio left the meeting and was on his way out of City Hall, I caught up with him and asked the question Scales was prevented from asking: After we changed our form of government in 2009, we still have various ordinances and contracts yet to be revised to reflect the change. As a result, some of the language refers to the mayor acting with the power of an executive. Does that language give our mayor an executive power? DeJulio said he couldn’t answer a question specific to our situation because his presentation was concluded. He was willing to say, however, that state statutes supersede both local ordinances and contracts. Under state law governing the Council-Manager system, the city manager is the City’s CEO, and the mayor no longer has any executive power.
Lester and her supporters have suggested publicly that her position as Mayor authorized her to hire an outside law firm without council action.
Whether Lester will allow questions about her legal authority at the next workshop remains to be seen. The ostrich strategy she and the other three are following will not change the law. Their actions are either legal or they are not. If they have done nothing wrong, they have nothing to fear from questions. Ethical public servants want to learn the truth, rather than pretend it doesn’t exist.
Althea, I respectfully disagree with your characterization. The Council decided, as a body, not to discuss past use of outside attorneys at last night’s meeting. Councilmember Scales began a line of questioning, immediately after the DiJulio presentation, that did not respect his colleagues’ decision. The Council vote to end his line of questioning is not a “refusal” to hear the truth, just as Councilmember Blair’s request that councilmember comments be kept to a time limit is not a violation of free expression. Councils, like all deliberative groups, set rules about procedure and content to help them function.
I’m sorry you did not mention the real highlight of last night’s meeting: a terrific presentation, by Westlake Terrace City Manager John Caulfield, that provided great food for thought about department performance measures, budgeting process, and economic development strategy. I, for one, have had my fill of petty, attack style politics and welcome the turn to more substantive considerations. -Kim
Kim–Mr. Caulfield’s presentation was indeed worth news coverage and I have no doubt both of our newspapers will give him adequate notice.
The merits of his comments are not my focus. I have no strong views on any project currently before the Council, nor those that are known to be in the pipeline. Divest the utility, or don’t divest the utility. Look for a new City Manager. Adopt performance measures. Vote the plastic bag ordinance up or down. Beautify Unocal, or don’t. I might lean in one direction or another but these aren’t issues that drive me to my computer at 10 o’clock on a Wednesday night.
What does matter to me is our system of government. What does matter to me is ethics. What does matter is that people in public life understand the laws and rules they have taken an oath to uphold and that they do so. Our Bainbridge Island government is approaching the local equivalent of a constitutional crisis. The foursome have let their ambition and their majority status cloud their judgment and close their ears.
The DeJulio presentation could not have made the matter more clear: the things Lester/Ward et al are doing—not just with the hiring of Inslee Best, but as Scales said, undertaking non-legislative work on behalf of the city, without action of the full council—are prohibited by statute. They have no executive power and yet they are behaving as if they do. They shut down anyone who tries to talk about it with a partisan vote. If they’re really confident of their position, let’s get their reasoning out on the table–respectfully, and based on the actual law—and discuss it in public. That’s why it was so unfortunate the Lester wouldn’t let Scales ask his questions. They had one of the biggest experts in the state in front of them, yet the four suffered from a notable lack of curiosity on the limits of their power.
Ironically, their tactics ignore even the Knobloch memo, that so carefully advised to “use good public process…make sure any changes…become open and transparent otherwise you run the risk of looking like bullies or inept.”
They look like both. I’m not the only one who notices.
Thanks for posting and replying, Althea. I appreciate the forum to exchange our different views.
I think we can agree to disagree about what we want in a councilmember: someone who uses sessions to “out” colleagues, and tell the public about their failings (Mr. Scales’ approach), or someone who saves critiques for off-dais conversations, and uses council time to build consensus around community interests (my preference). I think the latter is more constructive, and it’s certainly more professional.
I’m intrigued by your comment that, because of the mis-deeds of several current councilmembers, we are approaching the “local equivalent of a constitutional crisis.” By my count, Councilmembers Lester, Ward, and Bonkowski have exactly one dumb act on their record, namely, running up a bill with an outside lawyer without getting full council approval. They have been outed, and life goes on. How is this a crisis? -Kim
Any time elected officials ignore the law and their Governance Manual, it’s approaching a crisis. None of the four has acknowledged any wrongdoing or even admitted to error. In fact, contrary to your consensus-building notion, Ward went on the attack, saying he was ambushed by Scales’ revelation of his behavior, speculating in the press that Scales’ motive was to compromise Bauer’s firing (which in itself is laughable–as if Bauer would stay on after the way she was terminated). Last night Scales referred to a city grant application being worked on by one or more of the group of four without discussion by the full council. You cannot learn from mistakes if you don’t think you’ve made any. That’s why this problem is still very much a crisis.
cri·sis
NOUN
1. dangerous or worrying time: a situation or period in which things are very uncertain, difficult, or painful, especially a time when action must be taken to avoid complete disaster or breakdown
2. critical moment: a time when something very important for the future happens or is decided
Yeah, I am with Merriam-Webster on this one.
As usual, Althea, you’ve hit the nail squarely on the head. The issue right now is not the current projects, but the fact that we have a majority that is either displaying willful ignorance or is so unethical that they believe they do not have to follow the rules of governance. I’m not sure which is worse, but we are, indeed, approaching crisis.
Considering the actions, attitudes and behaviors of Council members Blossom, Bonkowski, Lester and Ward, I think the following statement by former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandies is quite fitting: “Our government… teaches the whole people by its example. If the government becomes the lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy”. The current crisis of mistrust initiated and now fostered by the Cabal of Four has the level of contempt felt and expressed by this community increasing. Their reckless behavior does not bode well for this community … or themselves.
hic venit in novum bulla idem vetus bulla
May we all assume that we can united behind our Police Chief’s outrageous management practices? Can we assume the members of the Council were not corrected by our City manager when she was updated about the actions of the policemen as outlined in the Seattle Times? It would be an interesting fact ck.
Did our city manager tell the elected leadership that their understanding of the facts was wrong? Who decided it was not important to do anything to correct the public view?
I am confident our Manager will explain this can’t be discussed in public b/c of the lawsuit, ok put that legal action aside, its quite reasonable and right to discuss the question about hiring processes, responsibility to inform the public etc.
It will be interesting to hear the council members response. Attempts to fix the police dept has been thwarted (interestingly using Roberts Rules of Order), now how will others feel about the timing of fixing this situation.