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“Who can be the mayor?”
At this morning’s Readers Input Group, there was a bit of confusion over who can be the mayor. Jackie Farra, the council member whose conference room RIG was using, put a call into city attorney Art Blauvelt. She quoted his answer: “. . . The council has the power to appoint the mayor. It can be from the council, or a citizen.”
CORRECTED: Art Blauvelt just called the newspaper, apologizing for quoting from memory to Jackie Farra (he was driving at the time). To be appointed mayor, in his interpretation of the state law: “You’ve got to be a resident of the city for a year, and you’ve got to be a registered voter in the city.”
But he did confirm that the appointed mayor does not have to be a council member. Council can appoint “any qualified person. “
Appoint from the citizens not the council! Let the council do what they were elected to do. We need someone with experience managing projects, budgets. Let’s take this opportunity to get someone into the position that will have a positive impact on our community. We do have 90 days.
Again, Entertained is right on. He states “We need someone who is totally out of the loop when it comes to those who have had some input how things have been done since the form of government has been changed.”
How do we do that? We pass ethics rules. We still are not discussing in an open forum the ideas each council member and the mayor have. We never get to see the decision process. We only see the results of closed door meetings. The meetings do not violate the sunshine laws. However, they speak volumes about how they make decisions for Ocean Shores. Let the parties with ideas come forward, speak to council about the idea at the public forum and then have the council bounce the idea around to show they are openly deciding the issue. Then we are all in on the deals.
Entertained is on point in that there are “personal agendas and non-objective bias towards the issues.” It is pretty hard to separate oneself from that fact.
Weatherwax as a wetland bank will garner more money than is owed.
The issue is how the citizens can flush out the “personal agendas and non-objective bias towards the issues.” If exposed, we may get a different result.
The change in form of government really did not change the realities on the ground. Negative cashflow because we did not have the revenue is the reason we are in trouble. Are we doing the right things to change that? No. We are relying on tourism and retirement as our primary businesses. If people have no money, they do not travel. If people do not buy existing new home inventory, builders do not build more retirement homes. We need something beyond the same old formula for Ocean Shores.
Sorry, it will never happen. The council thinks that they can do the job, regardless of their personal agendas and non-objective bias towards the issues. And we have all seen the success that such thinking has had so far! Expect nothing but the same, their own egos will not allow any real changes to occur. Come on, they still think that the Weatherwax is something besides a moss-ridden rat trap that could benefit the City by it’s sale!
I hope the council has enough sense to do exactly that. Oops, did I use “council” and “sense” in the same sentence??? Sorry, my bad.
I totally agree with you Entertained.
We need someone who is totally out of the loop when it comes to those who have had some input how things have been done since the form of government has been changed. We need to start from scratch becuase no one has showed anything that makes me believe that they have what it takes to get up out of the hole that has been dug over the past two years…
“why do we need a mayor and a city manager?”
Because we changed our form of government last election.
The Mayor has to be elected and a City Manager needs to be qualified. (It’s hard finding both in one person.)
Typically a City Manager does the day to day running of the city and is paid more than the mayor even though they report to the mayor, who has the final say of what is placed before the Council.
why do we need a mayor and a city manager?
CAC–Excellent work. Are you planning to forward this info to our city council? Hopefully being that you have done this excellent research, you can share it with the council people that really need it, for they are not aware that this option exists with the statements Blauvelt has made to them.
Just spoke to the MRSC. They said:
1. The council is the only one to appoint a replacement. There can only be municipal elections every two years. We just had them. So, we have whomever they appoint for two years.
2. Can we reduce the salary. YES. It must be done before they appoint the new mayor. They can also create a city administrator position and fund it accordingly. So, we just have to act before the new mayor is appointed. Hope that makes this clear.
As to the salary, it is the position and not the mayor that has the term. That is why the person who replaces the current mayor can only serve two years, the remainder of the term.
Yes, an opinion from the Attorney General would be great. Any council members reading this stuff? How about it? Have you called?
What really ought to happen is that they ought to get a second opinion on this whole scenario other than Blauvelt’s. Several examples of his deviation from the facts are his illustrious re-write of the sign ordinance, and just recently, the question about the qualifications for mayor. It sounds from what I have read, that there could be several interpretations of the law and the constitution, and a simple call from a member of city government like a councilman to the attorney general would certainly resolve any questions.
I believe OS IS a code city however. It appears to me after reading the law over and over that the INTENT of the RCW was to protect a Mayor who may piss off a city council and that council could punish the Mayor by reducing his salary. Since we don’t have a Mayor after Friday – the council should just reduce the salary and not worry about all this other stuff.
voting should not be expensive. i can still make an “X” on a piece of paper.
Very Good, and according to item 6 of 42.12.170, that election would be May.
Has anyone seen this?
RCW 42.12.070
Filling nonpartisan vacancies.
A vacancy on an elected nonpartisan governing body of a special purpose district where property ownership is not a qualification to vote, a town, or a city other than a first-class city or a charter code city, shall be filled as follows unless the provisions of law relating to the special district, town, or city provide otherwise:
(1) Where one position is vacant, the remaining members of the governing body shall appoint a qualified person to fill the vacant position.
(2) Where two or more positions are vacant and two or more members of the governing body remain in office, the remaining members of the governing body shall appoint a qualified person to fill one of the vacant positions, the remaining members of the governing body and the newly appointed person shall appoint another qualified person to fill another vacant position, and so on until each of the vacant positions is filled with each of the new appointees participating in each appointment that is made after his or her appointment.
(3) If less than two members of a governing body remain in office, the county legislative authority of the county in which all or the largest geographic portion of the city, town, or special district is located shall appoint a qualified person or persons to the governing body until the governing body has two members.
(4) If a governing body fails to appoint a qualified person to fill a vacancy within ninety days of the occurrence of the vacancy, the authority of the governing body to fill the vacancy shall cease and the county legislative authority of the county in which all or the largest geographic portion of the city, town, or special district is located shall appoint a qualified person to fill the vacancy.
(5) If the county legislative authority of the county fails to appoint a qualified person within one hundred eighty days of the occurrence of the vacancy, the county legislative authority or the remaining members of the governing body of the city, town, or special district may petition the governor to appoint a qualified person to fill the vacancy. The governor may appoint a qualified person to fill the vacancy after being petitioned if at the time the governor fills the vacancy the county legislative authority has not appointed a qualified person to fill the vacancy.
(6) As provided in *RCW 29.15.190 and 29.21.410, each person who is appointed shall serve until a qualified person is elected at the next election at which a member of the governing body normally would be elected that occurs twenty-eight or more days after the occurrence of the vacancy. If needed, special filing periods shall be authorized as provided in *RCW 29.15.170 and 29.15.180 for qualified persons to file for the vacant office. A primary shall be held to nominate candidates if sufficient time exists to hold a primary and more than two candidates file for the vacant office. Otherwise, a primary shall not be held and the person receiving the greatest number of votes shall be elected. The person elected shall take office immediately and serve the remainder of the unexpired term.
If an election for the position that became vacant would otherwise have been held at this general election date, only one election to fill the position shall be held and the person elected to fill the succeeding term for that position shall take office immediately when qualified as defined in *RCW 29.01.135 and shall service both the remainder of the unexpired term and the succeeding term.
[1994 c 223 ยง 1.]
Notes:
The question still is: Does the law allow this to happen? Maybe you should talk to Art the attorney. Maybe the MRSC has the answer.
An election is a few grand. What would be better–to play pot luck and not have a mayor elected by the people and not have a city administrator or to have an elected mayor and the opportunity to change the salary structure and have both a mayor and a city administrator?
One month of the mayor’s salary that would be saved waiting for the election would pay for the election. It would also give time to pass the ordinance for the new mayor’s salary, the city administrator’s salary, and interview and hire a city administrator prior to the election. Why rush into a situation When you can spend a little advance planning doing it correctly? That’s been one of the problems with this city-jumping off a bridge without looking to see if there is water in the river.
No money honey!!! The election would cost money. I think they can’t do that either. The options are appoint or let the county appoint. If the county does it, it will be like receivership.
Has anyone thought of scheduling a special election? That could eliminate the problem they are having with the salary. To meet the 52 day requirement, one could be scheduled in May.
Was there any consensus from the group? Did they list any traits, abilities or qualifications people are looking for now that we are on the rocks of a financial disaster? Citizen? Who would step up? What vetting process will be used? Will we get resumes that are more fluff and no content? Who will verify the statements made? What do we need right now? Will we return to the old power struggles of the past? Will we get someone that is able to layoff people? Will they be able to make the hard choices? Will we just get someone that wants to raise taxes to cover the expenses? How will they raise taxes? Will it be special levies or excess levies? Those protect the exempted people but pass the burden onto the non-exempted. Should we all share in the cost? If so, we must do Lid Lifts that are specific and also identify in those the money that is freed up in the budget. Since there is nothing for the IC and Library, it is simple. However for EMS we will free up General Fund money. If so, we have to know how it is being used. We need to know where it is going in the budget and what the city will do with any money gained from a turn around in the economy. We need to live on the property tax and spend the other revenue based on it’s source. If building returns, then we spend it on that department. However, if the economy falls again or building falls we need to be able to eliminate those expenses immediately from the budget. No waiting. That needs to be telegraphed to those that are hired if we become flush with money. Then we can control our expenses rationally.