Monday, June 8, 2015 -- Proceedings of The Eleventh Meeting of the Charter Review Commission

The eleventh meeting of the Whatcom County Charter Review Commission was held on Monday, June 8, 2015, in the East Whatcom Regional Resource Center, Maple Falls.

Vice-chairman Joe Elenbaas called the meeting to order at approximately 6:40 pm.

After the flag salute (to an image on Richard May's laptop computer) and roll call, a new item on the agenda, commissioner comments, were heard.

Commissioner Mackiewicz clarified the nomenclature surrounding Proposed Amendment 1, by Joe Elenbaas, Shall the Charter be amended to provide for election of council members within the council district from which the candidate was nominated? The commissioner pointed out that the text of the amendment colloquially referred to as "district only voting" actually specifies a hybrid model, in which the voters of each district would get to vote for two representatives from their district, and one at large.

Then the floor was opened to public comments. Proposed Amendment 1 received the most attention from the public. The remarks were mostly opposed, and the talking points were consistent with the messaging from previous calls for "all hands on deck" from the progressive community. It appears the amendment 1 proponents didn't get the memo this time, so it was pretty one-sided. 

Most of the audience left during the recess that followed the open session period. Ben Elenbaas observed with regret, the fact that the hostile witnesses read and believe the negative coverage by various groups and individuals, and the newspaper, show up for the open session, and then leave without observing first-hand what actually transpires in the meetings. 

Commissioner May moved and Commissioner Ryan seconded, that the commission reconsider Proposed Amendment 1. The motion failed, 7 to 8, and would have required a 2/3 majority to pass. 

Commissioner Bell moved to reconsider Proposed Amendment 6, from Ken Bell: Shall the Charter be amended to apply term limits to the County councilmembers? to change the term limit from thee terms to two. The motion passed to reconsider, but commissioner Bell's subsequent motion to change the council term limits failed. 

For new business, Commissioner Bell moved, and it was seconded, that the commission add an amendment that would include the County Executive Officer in the term limit discussion. 

Commissioner Bell moved, and it was seconded, for new business, to discuss proportional voting such as the type proposed by Stoney Bird.

Commissioner Mutchler moved, and it was seconded, for new business, to discuss an amendment for giving the county executive a line item veto of specific budged items, while giving the county council the ability to override the veto. 

New business will be discussed at the next meeting. 

Chairman Elenbaas expressed concern that we are fast approaching the August deadline for putting amendments on the ballot, and so he invited informal discussion of proportional voting with County Assessor Debbie Adelstein present, to explain how such a scheme would be implemented in practice.

Ms. Adelstein responded to questions from the commission, and described the current process. She expressed doubts about whether the equipment we currently use could handle it. This might give rise to extra costs. Also, this would require two ballots, since only Whatcom County elections would be proportional. All the other ones would remain the same. This might also create confusion among the voters. There might also be state or federal approval and certification difficulties. Compatibility with proposed state requirements for uniform equipment could be a problem. A number of other complexities, trade-offs and possible mitigations were discussed.

A few other issues were discussed, including a public document request by Sandra Robson, for commissioners to turn over all emails regarding commission business (including commissioner's private accounts). Commissioners also briefly discussed an article that was published in the Bellingham Herald attacking the commission for an amendment that they had already considered and rejected. Several commissioners wondered at this time, how this was news. Finally, Jill Nixon announced that the County Council is looking for volunteers to write the pro and con statements about the proposed charter amendments for the November ballot. 

Here is the audio from the full meeting:

Ben Elenbaas adjourned the meeting at approximately 9:20 pm.