By Pat Pepper

City Council

Last spring, Brian Weber and I decided to run for City Council because we wanted to reform City Hall. Now that I’m on council, I would much rather be doing city business than addressing fabricated political attacks.

During the campaign race for City Council, the mayor (Carol Benson) and four council incumbents all opposed us because they liked the status quo. Only council member Erika Morgan stood with us.

The people stood with us too. Almost 70 percent voted for us to reform City Hall.

Brian Weber’s first act when he took office was to have the audacity to question the budget. He and Erika Morgan voted against the budget for many reasons. But their actions were misconstrued and attacked by the mayor and council member (Janie) Edelman.

During one of the council meetings on the budget, Mayor Benson even shouted at Weber and Morgan that “they have nothing to do with the MDRT (master plan development review team) budget”. This statement is absolutely false, and is an indication of how ineffective the council has become in reviewing and approving the budget. In the coming weeks we will all come to see that the issues that they raised were important. I hope to join my colleagues in reforming City Hall’s budget.

At my first council meeting, council member Morgan attempted to offer amendments that the mayor didn’t like to several of the agenda items. The mayor didn’t like them because they would have given the council the authority to create its own committees instead of allowing the mayor to decide their membership.

The mayor violated the council’s rules and let the meeting get out of control. She was extremely hostile. To make matters worse, the city attorney told the mayor that she had the authority to remove items from the council’s agenda. Later we found out that that advice was incorrect according to Roberts Rules of Order. Additionally, each time someone offered an amendment that the mayor didn’t like,she simply removed the item from the agenda.

At that same meeting, Brian Weber tried to offer a motion to reconsider on an item that the lame duck council approved in December.This was the assignment of rights from YarrowBay to the company that recently bought an interest in the YarrowBay development. I learned that Brian didn’t think that the issue had been studied enough, and he felt that the city could be hurt financially, so he wanted to have the issue studied by the council’s budget and planning committees. But before Brian could talk about his motion, the mayor allowed the city attorney (to) offer advice that made Brian believe that he didn’t have the right to make his motion to reconsider.

Brian did have the right to make his motion, and the council did have the right to offer amendments to items on its own agenda. In my opinion, the mayor abused authority and blocked the council from conducting its business in accordance with its rules.

So, acting within state law and the council’s rules, Brian, Erika and I requested a special meeting of the council to consider changes to the council’s rules of procedure. This was our right, and we fully complied with the law. However, the mayor ordered the City Clerk to not issue a public notice about the meeting or about the resolutions that council member Morgan and I had prepared.

The city attorney then sent several memos to council members justifying the mayor’s position.

Based on what I know, the mayor had again exceeded authority and stymied the council.

Without public notice, we could not hold the special meeting, so I requested that the resolutions be added to the next regular City Council meeting. When there was a delay in adding the items, council member Morgan wrote an email to the city attorney asking for step-by-step instructions about how to add an item for a vote of the council at the next meeting. Without any more action on our part,the items were then added to the meeting.

The resolutions were passed, but it wasn’t easy.

A word about the insurance pool. It is a self-insurance system that small cities use through the Washington Association of Cities. The insurance pool has legal resources that work for them.

Well, at our council meeting, the memos from the loss control coordinator and the city attorney were used by the mayor to pressure my colleagues to not approve the rules changes. Confidential memos were cited, but we weren’t able to defend our actions because they were confidential. I think that all of these confidential memos should be made public. Let’s have a full airing of them all. I am confident that our actions to revise our council rules are not only legal and appropriate; they are also good public policy.

Our resolutions do the following things:

First, they revise the council rules to allow the council to set its own agenda and create its own committees. They appoint the City Clerk as parliamentarian and make clear the role of the mayor when she presides over council meetings.

Second, they authorize and appoint a president of the council to work with the mayor pro tem to set agendas, make appointments and do other work on behalf of the council.

Third, the revised council rules create three council standing legislative committees with real authority to review all legislation. Council committee meetings would be publicly noticed and conducted in accordance with the Open Public Meetings Act the same as council meetings. The timing of committee meetings will allow the public to get more information sooner, and have more opportunities for comment.

Finally, our resolutions create a public process to further review council rules in accordance with the following objectives:

1. Transparency and public participation are maximized. Access to records with reasonable and predictable opportunities for public review should be ensured.

2. New policies to improve public notice, access to records, and minutes are considered.

3. Council standing committees and task force committees will be better aligned with council priorities and streamlined to enable efficient participation by the public and staff.

4. Council standing committees are empowered to review all legislation and be more clearly accountable to the legislative process.

5. Council authority to control and manage its legislative duties and functions are simplified and clarified.

6. Council members have effective support for the conduct of their individual and collective legislative authority.

7. Rules of conduct maintain high ethical standards and recognize the authority of elected officials to serve the public to the best of their ability.

I hope that the mayor and city attorney will allow us to conduct our council business without any more interference or intimidation. If they do not, then the council must be prepared to take whatever actions are necessary to do our work and defend the authority of the council to conduct its business.

Four years ago the people of Black Diamond elected a new council to reform City Hall. Almost immediately they were confronted by a controlling mayor, opposition from staff and legal threats. Eventually they either resigned or backed down.

Two years ago the people of Black Diamond elected a new mayor to reform City Hall. Almost immediately there were legal threats,opposition from staff and an aggressive hostile council confronting the new mayor. Eventually the mayor resigned.

This year the people of Black Diamond elected two new council members to reform City Hall. I believe that this time is different. I won’t give in to intimidation and threats, and I don’t believe council member Morgan and council member Weber will either. We intend to truly reform City Hall, and with your help and support we will.