* LIBRARY GUILD REPORT
There’s some concern over increased library use, and future library use if we build a bunch of new houses. Our current library doesn’t have room for expansion, unless we want to build upwards. They don’t want to take away parking spaces, and they want to keep the trees too (seems kind of ironic).

Anyway, apparently there is a book sale happening soon. I visit the library probably 2-3 times a week, and I’ve never noticed anything about that (let’s get some marketers on this guild!). They need kids’ books especially, and the money is used for something useful, I’m sure.

* WE GOT YOUR HOOK-UP RIGHT HERE
The utility agreements between Qwest, Puget Sound Energy, Comcast, and the city of MV went through. They’ll dig up trenches by the library and community center and bury their lines. Last week, the council spent the whole time talking about the one guy who lives on the corner, and the staff will have something worked out so he won’t have to pay to hook up again.

* WORD ON THE STREET
During public comments, we heard that Covington is considering closing down the pool to save on parks money. After reading their budget, it looks like the pool takes up about 56% of their parks fund, and about 4% of the city’s total budget. The pool takes in about $340K in fees, but costs around $675K to operate (mostly in salaries).

* INDEMNED IF YOU DO, INDEMNED IF YOU DON’T
I covered the particulars of the potential new Indemnification Ordinance last month (Drop It Like It’s Hot, Jan 19^th), so the quick summary is that this ordinance would provide for the legal defense of a city employee, volunteer, or elected official in case they were named in a lawsuit, and the insurance company didn’t cover them. There are a lot of caveats though, and the council or city manager would have to approve paying for the defense.

New information this week -  Other city attorneys that were asked for real-world examples provided a number of them including sexual harassment claims, retaliation, employee discipline, recall petitions, and volunteers who felt threatened by citizens. Several of them really wanted to impress on the council how important this ordinance is.

The discussion ran about 45 minutes long, with 30 of those minutes devoted to answering Councilor Johnson’s questions. They weren’t very good questions either, and she finally declared the last section reviewed to be a bunch of “gobbledygook” with a “high ‘fog’ factor” after she couldn’t understand it.

What really burns me is that this ordinance is the result of the staff’s efforts for the past couple of weeks. It’s just insulting and irresponsible to say that about someone’s work, unless it truly is unintelligible nonsense. No one else in the room felt that way, so that’s entirely on Councilor Johnson.

Here’s what I really don’t understand: in the 2003 election primary, then-candidate Linda Johnson stated in her bio, “I have 30 years experience as a Contracting Officer with General Services Administration. I spend taxpayer dollars very carefully and daily deal with laws, statutes, and regulations.”

30 years dealing with contracts? Dealing with laws, statutes, and regulations on a daily basis?!? Sorry councilor, but we didn’t see that tonight. You’re going to need a new platform for your re-election campaign, because that experience plus your six years on the council (as a LEGISLATOR) should enable you to understand these things.

* HOSPITAL WARS
During the City Manager’s Report, we were told that Swedish Medical Centers is now in the “pre-application process” for the 9-acre site on 169 and SE 264^th St (the empty lot next to Motorplex). I’m not sure if they are combining the two lots there (for 11.23 acres), but it’s for a 56,000 square foot building that will operate an urgent care center, open 24/7.

You might already know that Valley Medical and MultiCare are in a race for building Covington’s first real hospital, and Swedish is going to join the fray by cutting of their supply of MV sickos. Think there’s a lot of money in health care? Valley Medical just completed a $115 Million expansion to host 60 beds. Yes, just 60 beds.

* STRONGLY WORDED STATEMENT OF THE NIGHT
Mayor Gerken read a prepared statement expressing concern about King County’s foot-dragging on the Donut Hole (I was hoping to get through one update without mentioning it, dang it). The county has until February 20^th to agree to the plan to hand it off to Maple Valley; otherwise the county will handle the zoning, permitting, and collect the impact fees.

I think we need to round up the pitchforks and torches, and camp outside the county council until they pass it. We’re talking millions of dollars in fees at stake here, and control over the shape of the development. Yeah, it’s that big of a deal, and maybe a little political embarrassment could get something moving faster.

There may be some rescue plan, or a new agreement that could pass in March that I’m not aware of, but I don’t hear that coming from anyone.

* ALL THINGS MUST PASS
It’s been a very interesting 10 months working on these council updates, and I’ve really enjoyed this experience. However, I’m going to retire my notebook after this meeting.

This current council looks to be in great shape, and I’m sure they will pick a good person to fill the empty council position. I’ll still drop in every now and then, and maybe my Reporter column will feature some of the city council happenings, but the weekly Plain Talk updates you’ve come to like (or hate) will end after this one.

Hopefully the city council will begin broadcasting these meetings online, and we can all participate in maintaining transparency and being better informed citizens.

Thank you to everyone who has commented on this blog, and I really did appreciate hearing from all of you.

* CH-CH-CHECK IT OUT
Last week, Councilor Johnson pulled out check number 19197 for further review. It was supposed to go to the real estate advisor, for services rendered in consulting for the city’s new City Hall. There might have been some concern over the amount ($77,500) due to a discrepancy in the contract. Sounds like we needed a contract consultant too.

Anyway, the City Manager gave his summary of the issue, and it passed through without any discussion or comments from the council. Even Councilor Johnson stayed quiet, so somebody must’ve filled her in sometime during the week. Pass 6-0, but Johnson stayed silent during the voice vote. Still counts, though.

* D-HOLE ORDINANCE, SUB-AREA PLAN
The pressure is on to get an ordinance passed tonight, prior to the deadlines in the agreement with King County. Councilor Barnes starts off with a written statement, stating that he’ll vote no unless option #2 is modified to a “reasonable compromise”.

Councilor Weaver offers to discuss some changes, and Councilor Johnson says she’ll consider changes if the City Attorney says it’s OK. That’s 3 possible swing votes, so the CA says they should probably discuss changes in Executive Session, due to “potential litigation”.

Ugh. This whole process started in the fall of 2008, and the Planning Commission recommended a plan nearly a year ago. We’ve been discussing this crap during months of planning, public reviews, public hearings, state reviews, etc. The staff guy in charge has been asking for questions every week for the past month, without ANYONE taking him up on it. But now, we’re going to discuss changing the ordinance 5 minutes before a vote on the matter? WTF?!?

This is such an early planning stage, and we’re not restricting the land to R-6, or R-12, or whatever tonight. There are going to be many more layers of planning and development stages that we haven’t even discussed yet. Yarrow Bay doesn’t have anything submitted for what they’d like to do, and if you’ve ever seen what the Brandt property folks are going through to get a zoning change, you’ll know that this city won’t move quickly.

* SHINY NEW COMMITTEE PEOPLE
We got some new folks to serve on the Economic Development Committee and the Planning Commission. I don’t know who any of them are, but maybe you do. You can view the whole list on the city’s website at http://www.maplevalleywa.gov/Modules/ShowDocument.aspx?documentid=1976

* YOU BREAK IT, YOU BUY IT
There were a couple of documents to review regarding the roundabout project on Witte Road (next to the library and community center). Nobody wanted to talk about the documents, but did want to talk about the guy who lives on the corner. The plan is to move the power and cable lines from the utility poles, and bury them in the ground instead.

Well, this guy is apparently going to have to pay to hook himself back up to the power and cable once the utility people finish tearing it up (no free hookups). Several councilors are uncomfortable with him having to pay to hook up (that’s what she said), and may consider setting aside some of the construction funds to pay for it.

* CITY MANAGER’S REPORT

(1) The Empty Seat
The city has received 13 applications for the vacant council position. Interviews will take place on Feb 9^th and Feb 11^th, but we weren’t told where. Should be open to the public, though. Somebody asked me if I had applied, and I said no way; I don’t want to be forced to show up to this every week.

(2) Black Diamond’s Gonna Clog Up Our Roads
MV staff reviewed BD’s “environmental impact studies” and the impact is going to be a whole lot more cars on our roads than they’re telling us. Declaring the study “inadequate”, they’re going to comment at BD’s public hearings so we can establish legal standing, and maybe lodge official appeals. 6000 new homes are planned…

* FTGOTO
(1) The Olympia contingent met with 8 or 9 legislators, and got to wave our agenda in their faces for several hours. Over 300 elected officials showed up for this municipal cattle call, and nearly all of the state people were crying poormouth. After reading about the few billion dollar shortfall in the papers, it seems consistent.

(2) Councilor Allison reported on the Public Safety Committee, and says MV citizens have lots of kudos for the police department.

(3) Councilor Johnson got another solicitor, this one for a tree service. Maybe she should move to Katesridge, where the land was clear-cut before they put crappy trees back in to meet the city’s minimum tree count. The only tree service we need is some actual dirt for the trees to grow in (Quadrant didn’t think that was necessary, and it wasn’t in the requirements). That didn’t come off as bitter, did it?

(4) The Fountain Court senior living center is having a $10-donation Spaghetti Feed, and a Pancake Breakfast on another day. I couldn’t hear the actual dates, and it’s not on their website, but you could probably call them to ask about it:  (425) 432-3352

(5) Councilor Weaver would like to see the committee reports in print rather than just given verbally during FTGOTO time. Make it so!

(6) Mayor and Deputy Mayor met with Sergio Flores. He sounds like a high-end jeans designer, but he’s actually Senator Patty Murray’s King County liaison. He’s going to come out soon, and we’ll give him the standard Lodge-City Hall tour.

I think it would be fun if we could have a random parade every time we get a dignitary. Just sound the air raid sirens, and everyone knows to show up on Witte Road in the next 30 minutes. We’ll have another group gather by a grandstand near the Lodge, and pretend to be completely enraptured by the dignitary, clapping and cheering every sentence. “Wow, these people really love me!” Maybe a VIP reception afterwards, with the youth symphony or high school jazz band.

We’ll need a cool parade vehicle for them to ride in, and maybe dry-erase signs to change the name every time, but these are minor issues. We can make the dignitaries feel special for an hour, and watch the millions of funding dollars just roll right in…..

See you next week!

If that’s enough, you can stop reading now. It’ll be a short one, though…

* OPENING COMMENTS
Normally I ignore these, but it’s always nice to hear the mayor thank the audience for participating in local government. The crowd was pretty big tonight, and I think some of them are focusing on the empty seat.

Don’t worry candidates, if you need to get caught up on council issues, just read the official minutes (just not before driving or operating heavy machinery). If you find them fascinating, then please mention that in your interview. The amount of paper you’ll have to slog through to keep up with city business is daunting, even for avid readers, and if you’re willing to read and comprehend that for the next 4 years, your city needs you.

* PROCLAMATIONS
Happy Tahoma School Directors Day! (if you’re reading this on Tuesday). Sorry, but I didn’t get you a gift. It kind of snuck up on me, you know? The council recognized the work of the school district directors, and a couple of them were on hand for the proclamation.

Wednesday has been declared Tyler Phippen Day in Maple Valley. Tyler is a Tahoma High student who plays on the football team, and also competes internationally in Taekwondo. He recently took the gold in the heavyweight division of the Pan Am Junior Championship in El Salvador. Somebody get this kid on Tahoma’s Wikipedia page, yeah?

* NEW JUDGE IN TOWN
Judge Corinna Harn stopped by to lobby for our city’s vote to secure a new judge. The King County District Court used to have 26 judges, and cutbacks dropped that number to 21. Well, they’re adding them back in, and the South Division could get one of those spots. Judge Harn is willing to be our proxy to support the new judge for our area, or we could send our City Manager. The county pays for the judge, not us, so it’s an easy Yes vote. Pass 6-0, and our CM signed the proxy paper within 20 seconds of that.

* PUBLIC COMMENTS
Bob Castagna visited the Federal Way Community Center recently (his son is on the swim team), and thinks we need to look at investing more in our own community center. Has anyone else been out there?

* NO CHECK FOR YOU
Sorry Allen & Company, but Councilor Johnson pulled your check from the auto-pay list. We weren’t told why, so it’ll remain a secret for now. Maybe you forgot to use the magic word when requesting payment, I dunno.

* PUBLIC HEARING #1: THE DONUT HOLE
Until this D-Hole is finally annexed, I’m gonna keep calling it that. Three alternatives are on the table:  (1) Do nothing, (2) Do something like the surrounding neighborhoods (single-family homes, some public use area), or (3) Joint plan with King County for a bigger development.

Up first! The Yarrow Bay lawyer, who supports option #3, and offered to waive some of their rights if option #3 is picked. For option #2, she doesn’t like the 10% commercial use restriction, which could restrict gathering places like we see in Kent Station. YB would like to work with the city, and offered to show off their Black Diamond development plans.

Up second! The token resident who lives next to the D-Hole. I say token, because he’s the only one who showed up, and every new development has to hear from at least one resident who lives next door to it. I think he has some valid concerns about his property, since the golf course will be going away, and he probably paid a premium to be next to it. He likes option #1, but would probably settle for a bigger buffer between his house and the D-Hole development.

Up third! Stanette, who has concerns about the density due to the unbuildable areas in the Hole, is concerned about public safety needs with more people living there, and thinks that walk-to commercial centers equals more crime. She’d also like a clearer definition of the planned “affordable housing”.

* PUBLIC HEARING #2:  SCHOOL LEVIES
Cheryl Castagna:  Vote Yes.

Stanette:  Reminded us that she’s from the class of ’77, and that she only hires Tahoma graduates. Sorry Kentwood grads, peddle your papers elsewhere.

Bob Castagna:  Reminded us that these are replacement levies, and aren’t new taxes.

* CITY COUNCIL APPOINTMENTS
There is a list of committees that the councilors can belong to, and Hizzoner has revealed his preferences. You can get the complete list on the city’s website when they update that section. It was largely uncontested, except that Councilor Johnson would have preferred a vote on who should be sent to the Suburban Cities Association.

The SCA appoints its members, not the cities. Councilor Allison volunteered for it, Hizzoner concurred, the Deputy Mayor voiced her support, and Councilor Barnes did too. Maybe Councilor Johnson wanted to be the SCA representative, but I don’t think she would do as well. We gotta send a schmoozer and a communicator, and I don’t know anyone better than Bill.

* SCHOOL LEVIES – COUNCIL SUPPORT
All six councilors are in support of both school levies, and they passed two resolutions to confirm it.

* CITY MANAGER’S REPORT
On Wednesday and Thursday, Councilors Allison and Weaver, Mayor Gerken, our City Manager and our City Attorney will drive down to Olympia to meet with a dozen state legislators, and wave our 1-page summary of legislative priorities in their faces. OK, maybe they’ll be a little more subtle than that.

Personally, I would be more of a risk-taker. These people probably see hundreds and hundreds of people each year, armed with thousands of sheets of paper with their demands and requests. Just like a cattle call audition, you’ve got to stand out somehow. I once made business cards out of leather, just so people would find it difficult to throw them away, and would keep them longer. Maybe if we presented them in a super-nice reusable binder or something, I don’t know. If it were legal, I’d give it to them on a Kindle.

I don’t mean to be critical of their efforts at all; I think it’s fantastic that the council and staff have their top goals ready, and are making the drive to lobby for our city. We’re also wielding that mayor title around like a club again, and I’m glad to see it.

* FTGOTO (For The Good Of The Order)
Councilor Johnson has been hit up by the Penguin Windows people several times in the past 6 weeks or so, and asked about beefing up the commercial solicitation statute the city has. Wellllll, our city attorney says there might be a problem with that ordinance, and she’ll bring it up to the council in the near future.

Until then, we’re going to have to resort to fences, “Beware of Dog” signs, ignoring the doorbell like you do at Halloween, and other strategies.

* REACHING OUT
Mayor Gerken is meeting informally with the mayors of Covington and Black Diamond this week. He and Deputy Mayor Jonas are meeting with one of our state senators as well (I didn’t hear which one), and is doing a Q&A with the local press (Reporter and the Voice). Dow Constantine is speaking at the Rotary on March 12^th. After that, he’ll get the city hall tour, and maybe some drive-bys.

Well that’s it. All that in about an hour and ten minutes. See you next week!

Nah.  Let’s get to it!

ITEM#1 – INDEMNIFICATION ORDINANCE

[knock-knock-knock] “Housekeeping…you need towel?”

Well, we didn’t need towel, but we do need some housekeeping in the form of an indemnification ordinance on the books. I was stunned to learn that the city didn’t already have one.

A policy of indemnification means that city employees and elected officials would be provided with a lawyer/legal defense in case they are named personally in a lawsuit, related to something they did in the performance of their duties. If an employee or councilmember were sued, an investigation would take place to determine if the person was “acting in good faith”. If so, the council could choose to cover the legal expenses of the person being sued.

For example, if a councilmember made some derogatory comments about a developer, and later voted to block that developer’s project, the developer might think it was personal, and could choose to name that councilmember directly in a lawsuit. Whether the developer has a chance of winning or not is immaterial, but the councilmember might have to pay for an attorney out of his/her own pocket (win or lose).

There is an insurance pool that Maple Valley belongs to, called the Washington Cities Insurance Authority (WCIA) which provides some coverage to councilmembers, but doesn’t cover all acts, including land use issues, contractual provisions, and they may also cover only part of a legal defense; not the whole thing.

This was by far the longest discussion area of the night, and the councilmembers brought up a number of questions:

1) Are there any historical instances of MV running into problems like this?
Not that anyone can remember, no.

2) Why would we consider covering punitive damages; not just actual damages?
That’s for the council to decide. WCIA doesn’t cover punitive awards.

3) Doesn’t the WCIA already cover us?
In most cases, but not all. There are some exceptions.

4) What about lawsuits against the police?
They are county employees, and would most likely be covered by the county.

5) What if I want my own lawyer?
You can get your own lawyer and pay for his/her services yourself. You can also have a personal indemnification insurance policy, which would be tapped if the WCIA didn’t cover you. The city’s indemnification policy would be #3 in line.

6) Don’t you have any bigger towels?
Sorry, it’s not that kind of housekeeping.

Indemnification policies are in use at a lot of Washington cities, and our City Attorney modeled this one based on the Sea-Tac, Woodinville, and University Place policies. You can read the whole thing online at http://www.maplevalleywa.gov/Modules/ShowDocument.aspx?documentid=1804

The fun starts on page 3.

ITEM #2 – DONUT HOLE
Amazingly, no one had anything to say about this. Moving on!

ITEM #3 – SOLID WASTE GRANT PROGRAM AGREEMENTS
Our Public Works department folks reach out to the county and state every year to put together the events that haul away the toxic crap in our garages. The city gets about $100K to manage these four recycling events.

You’d think that we could just call up the county or state and say, “Hey, can you guys bring out a dumpster here for a couple of days?” But it’s not that simple. There are 44 pages of Interlocal Agreements between the city, county, state, and a private company that takes this stuff.

Anyway, be sure to use these when they come up. There’s a lot more work that goes into these events than I realized.

ITEM #4 – SCHOOL LEVIES PUBLIC HEARING

Next Monday night at 7pm, come to the city council meeting and give your input on the levies. I just turned in a column on the levies to the Reporter, so I’ll probably stay in my seat.

ITEM #5 – CITY MANAGER’S REPORT
Nothing here to report except for some email glitches for the councilmembers. I believe they are trying to move everyone to the maplevalleywa.org domain name, and away from the ci.maple-valley.wa.us.el.ess domain.

They probably should have picked Postini to manage their incoming mail; it’s a lot easier to administer and cheaper than Exchange, IMHO (I’ve used both).

ITEM #6 – FTGOTO (For the good of the order)
Here’s a brief summary from various concilmembers:
* Kudos on the new website

* The packets that the councilmembers receive are now on the website (yay!)
* We need a strategic planning meeting that helps us operate better as a council
*Advertising for a replacement councilmember has yielded 2 applicants

ITEM #6-B – HE’S WITH DOW
But the best FTGOTO was from Mayor Gerken, who is fully realizing his mayorship. He met with newly crowned King County Executive Dow Constantine for about an hour, and Mayor Gerken got to bend his ear on all things Maple Valley, including animal control, transit, the new police precinct plan, and the Donut Hole. He said they knew each other previously from other regional groups they both belonged to.

He also met with our KC councilor Reagan Dunn, and got to lean on him for a Donut Hole resolution. He then hooked up with the higher-ups at Yarrow Bay, and talked with them about their plans for the Donut Hole in the context of their overall plan including the two Black Diamond developments.

Now that is a textbook example of how schmoozing should be done. Mayor Gerken completed a Donut Hole hat trick in one week, and put a face on Maple Valley’s regional presence. In my first column with the Reporter, I expressed a desire to see MV use the Mayor title outside of the city limits, and drop it like it’s hot in regional meetings. I’m glad to see us finally bring a gun to a gunfight.

Thanks for reading, and see you next week!

1) Public Comments
Stanette Rose took the stand first, and is wondering if Mayor Gerken’s statements of goals last week are his personal goals, or the council’s goals. We won’t know for sure since he didn’t answer her directly, but no one else seemed to care. She’s also concerned about the legacy of the previous council leadership, and wants to make sure the councilors don’t give the staff too much leeway to offset previous accusations of staff micromanagement. Meh.

The Maple Valley Chevron owner and his wife were back to request another look at a drive-thru espresso stand in their parking lot. As you might remember, they were denied by the previous administration when the only drive-thru permit was given to a future coffee stand that has a minimum of 500 square feet of seated space, I think.

2) You Say You Want a Resolution
Well you know, we’d all love to see the plan. Alright, we already saw it last week, and a few rules of procedure for the council were added. Now there are public comments at the beginning of every meeting, which means the same people that always give comments can now have an additional 6 minutes each month. No discussion, Pass 6-0.

3) Oh Dear God, Not the Donut Hole Again
Yes, the Donut Hole. I like Councilor Johnson’s recommendation (last week) that we keep calling it the Donut Hole, since nobody knows what “Summit Place” is. Yarrow Bay calls their developer the “Summit Place 156 LLC”, and I’m willing to compromise with them and call it the “Donut Hole Place”.

If you’re really interested in the 3 options they are considering for action on February 8^th, just send me an inbox message on Facebook with your email address, and I’ll send you the whole thing. There’s a Public Hearing on January 25^th, so if you’re planning to attend, you’ll want to catch up.

Here’s the least you need to know:

* Staff recommends adoption of a joint plan by the council and the county council.

* Nobody wants another strip mall for the commercial part

* “Walkable” type businesses will be encouraged; hopefully a donut hole shop

* Amount of parks and open spaces is not yet known

* King County will probably decide on their part in this mess within 10 days

There was a bit of back-and-forth on the amount of houses versus commercial space, and what about the BPA power line easements and the wetlands, etc. It’s kind of like a half-filled balloon; if you squeeze one end to make it smaller, the other part gets bigger. That wasn’t so hard, was it?

My favorite part of the document reads, “Summit Place 156 LLC’s plans for the density, of residential and commercial within Summit Place is expected to proportionally increase the demand for police and public safety services at levels greater than that which the City has historically experienced with lower density residential development.”

That’s the diplomatic city-speak for, “We’re expecting more crime than we already have at the apartments.” It’s really well-written, though.

4) Legislative Agenda
The council will state its support for the Association of Washington Cities’ agenda, but only the top 3 priorities. There was some discussion on sidewalks for Witte Road, which as you know would be made difficult by the drainage ditches and the cliffside. There’s a proposal for $50K to do a sidewalk feasibility study, and I think I will start a new career of doing sidewalk feasibility studies. Just 2 studies per year, and I’ll be set.

5) City Manager Report
The City Hall move went smoothly, and the Reporter has some photos on their website (taken by Deputy Mayor Jonas). We got a lot of free stuff from the landlord, including having three offices furnished, and other building improvements that you normally have to pay extra for.

There are a couple of requests for the MV Historical Society and the MV Arts Council to put their photographs and art on display in the lobby, which sounds like a fantastic idea. I can’t imagine just putting up art that has no direct meaning to the city, and these groups will provide local art, and all of the displays. Win-win.

Animal control has been extended to June 30^th, and the county will be completely out of all phases of animal control. We should have all listened to Bob Barker and had our pets spayed or neutered, and now it’s gonna cost us. We still will have to come up with $30K to fund animal control operations, or else start a Bubba Brigade to take care of this “problem”.

6) FTGOTO (For the Good of the Order)
* Committee Appointments – Councilors have until next Monday to turn in their homework and pick a committee or two to serve on.

* Recent vandalism at the community center brought up the issue of security cameras again. So all you punks who read the council updates are on notice; you’ll be videotaped starting sometime in February, so you’ll have to move on and become someone else’s problem. By the way, discharging a BB gun at persons or property is a misdemeanor in this city.

* Ixnay on the Indow-clings-way
Sorry councilor, but you can’t advocate for a school levy ballot issue by offering to give supportive window clings away from the dais. It was quite a moment to see the City Attorney reach for the microphone, and all the heads snap to look at her. “Uh-oh…” went the room, “no-no” went the attorney, and “buh-bye” went the window clings.

* State of the City
The Mayor proposed a “State of the City” annual address for early February, featuring Hizzoner and the City Manager at one of the MV-BD Chamber of Commerce luncheons. Sounds like a good idea, but you might not want to pony up the $25 admission fee to go hear it. Maybe they could stream it online for the rest of us, or maybe I could talk them into a repeat performance at the annual Chamber of Citizens Free Lunch For The Rest Of Us. We’ll see!

Have a great week, and let’s do this again next Monday, shall we?

There wasn’t a single item given back to the staff for review. Nothing was punted until another meeting weeks in the future. Interactions between nearly everyone were pleasant and productive.

OK, I say nearly everyone because we had a really weird moment when nominations for mayor and deputy mayor were given. Councilmember Johnson made nominations for mayor and deputy mayor, but the people she nominated didn’t even vote for themselves. You’d think she could at least have a cursory conversation with them beforehand, such as “Hey, I’d like to nominate you for mayor, is that cool?” “Oh yeah, I’d love that. Thanks!” Sounds like there’s a real disconnect there.

Anyway, we have a new mayor, Noel Gerken, and a new deputy mayor, Victoria Laise Jonas. Congratulations to both of them, and also to the two new councilmembers Erin Weaver and Bill Allison. Alright, let’s get to it!

1) Community Group Designation – Maple Valley Youth Symphony
The youth symphony showed up last year for the community service grant funding to request money for a portable outdoor shelter, which was granted (yay), and now they are seeking the “Community Group Designation”, which will give them cheap rent at the Lodge, among other smaller benefits. Everyone’s in favor of it, so that will probably go through next week.

2) Introduction to Draft Contract Policies
This is as boring as it sounds, if you just read the language of the summary, “improve the administrative routing process”, or “clarify contracting procedures”. However, it really has a lot of significance as the first test of the separation of powers.

As regular readers of this blog know, the council represents the legislative branch of the city, and the City Manager represents the executive branch. I’ve written about the separation of powers in earlier columns, and how it seemed heavily tilted towards the legislative branch. The city staff previously had to present their requests in a very passive way, which just wasn’t present at all Monday night. Very refreshing.

Anyway, here’s what the exec branch is asking for:

* Increase the City Manager’s contracting authority

* Raise the limit on CM’s authority to $35K (up from $25K)

* No maximum limit on purchase of budgeted goods, supplies, materials, etc

* Authority to extend expiration dates, duration, or terms of contracts

* Ability to delegate contract authority to department heads, up to $10K per contract

* Establish public works contract authority policies that comply with state law

* Provide foundation for administrative procedures

It sounds reasonable to me, and it appears to make government more efficient by allowing the CM to make small decisions that don’t cost any more money than is already budgeted for by the council. That sentence is far too long, sorry.

There was some discussion and concern about allowing department heads to make decisions, so we got a good explanation of how many steps and checklist items that department heads have to go through to spend money on a contract. It’s amazing that anything gets done, considering the amount of approvals required to buy a piece of maintenance equipment, for example. I don’t think we have anything to worry about, if we trust the CM to oversee his staff and monitor for abuse of public funds.

We also got a primer on “administrative orders”, which are similar to presidential executive orders. Those have made the news in the last few years as former President Bush came under fire for expanding executive branch powers through the use of executive orders. Apparently, Maple Valley hasn’t been using these orders, which often are used to help staff know what the proper procedures are for getting stuff done.

To put it another way, it’s like we moved into a house we just bought, and noticing that the previous owner never used the toilets. Sure, you can still use the outhouse, but it’s a lot more efficient to use the one inside the house, especially late at night.

3) Planning Commission – Recommendations for Summit Place (Donut Hole)
OK, I didn’t really pay attention here, since there wasn’t a lot of new info coming out. The Planning Commission presented a 26-page draft report to the council, with no major surprises. There were a few questions, but we won’t really know more for a couple of weeks, while the new King County Emperor Constantine reviews the situation and presents his decree.

4) Council Vacancy
The front page of the local papers all carried the news that our former mayor resigned to pursue new activities, and there was scarcely any mention of her except on coming up with a procedure to fill the empty seat. I was kind of expecting a “thanks for the memories” tribute of some sort, but maybe you don’t get those if you resign mid-term. Oh well, maybe we can get a Laure Iddings Day in few months or so after the dust settles.

If you’ve been a registered voter and lived in the city limits for 1 year, congratulations! You are eligible to be on the city council. There will probably be an ad in the local papers, but not much else. It’s an easier way to get on the council than running a campaign, and certainly a lot cheaper. You only have to impress 4 people, instead of 2500. People Who Know Things are already lining up for the spot, so don’t delay, get your resume ready today. And no, I’m not putting one in.

5) Legislative Agenda for 2010
These are some upcoming items for council discussion in 2010. I don’t remember these from the council retreat, but here they are:

* Improvements to SR 169 between 258^th and 264^th.

* Kent Kangley Rd outside of the Donut Hole conversations

* Feasibility study for pedestrian access (sidewalks) on Witte Rd

* Association of Washington Cities agenda; are we in or out?

* Black Diamond & Auburn transportation partnerships

* Feasibility study for using the BN railroad line for DMU (commuter train)

The Kent Kangley Rd discussion will be very new, since we haven’t partnered in the past to deal with traffic problems here. The CM mentioned that we should work together with Covington and Kent to have a real solution from the east border of MV to Hwy 167 in Kent, since this is a well-developed highway. He suggested that we needed diplomacy to make this happen, and judging from the handshakes aplenty with the Covington Mayor tonight, that will probably happen this year.

See you next week!

* MOST INTERESTING ITEM OF THE NIGHT *
From the budget review, the county has confirmed that Animal Control will now be left to the cities to manage, starting at the end of January. The shelters will disappear in late spring. The city managers all raised a little hell about having this dumped in their laps, and Dow has promised to address the transition right away.

In Maple Valley’s case, we’re expecting to need about $100K to fund animal control activities, while only collecting about $65K in license fees. So, the difference will come from other revenue sources. What wasn’t mentioned was a possible fine for not licensing your pet (very effective in Seattle) to increase the compliance rate. A public information campaign might also be in order, and I don’t mean a tiny text ad in the local papers.

I think we need the same kind of effort that we saw in the last election to get the word out. I told one candidate that I would be happy when the campaigning was over, and we could use these “powers of persuasion” to solve our common problems. Right now, the compliance rate is about 30%, so if we could get it up to 50%, it would cover the shortfall.

Getting the word out is a problem for cities in general. I’ll talk about some ideas for better communication in next week’s print column in the Reporter.

* BRIEF RECAPS *
Rather than put you to sleep with an extensive recap of everything that was said, I’ll just hit the highlights for tonight.

1) Lake Wilderness Lodge Fees
The fees for 2011 will go up about 5%. The meeting rooms will stay about the same, so they can remain competitive. The Lodge folks will have a presence at an upcoming bridal expo, and will offer a 10% discount if they book a reservation at the expo. They’re also planning a website discount as well.

2) Park Fees
Fees to rent a picnic shelter are going up a few bucks. It’ll cost you $70 to rent a shelter for ½ day, for up to 100 people, and $90 if you aren’t a resident of Maple Valley. However, if you invite me and provide a well-charred hot dog, I’ll save you the 20 bucks.

3) Planning Commission
The JR Hayes site on the north end of the city sparked some discussion, as they won’t be re-zoning it to Commercial Business (I think). It’s going to stay a gravel pit for the near future, and it’s funny how the council referred to it as a “strike zone”, since the lot looks like a bunker-buster was dropped on it. The strike zone comment refers to the surgical strike they are planning for the potential re-zoning of the property, while not really addressing a change for the surrounding properties.

Some of the council members, the Planning Commission chair, and the Comm-Dev Director had a back-and-forth on the merits of considering the zoning needs of the entire city, and not just this one property. From what little I know of zoning, the overall goal is to make sure that stuff goes well together. For example, we don’t put jails next to the elementary schools, and we don’t put a house in between two warehouses. Seems like everybody’s on the same page, so I don’t really know why we spent 20 minutes on this.

4) Utility Tax
Last week, I complained a lot about the indecisiveness of the council over the utility tax. This week however, Mayor Iddings led off with a great lesson for us all. We’re getting a new patrol sergeant for the police department, and that job will be funded mostly with a permanent utility tax increase of .75%. The Mayor pointed out that it’s irresponsible to create a city job with a temporary tax increase that expires in 2 years, and it was refreshing to hear.

Councilor Jonas had her statement ready voicing her support of the City Manager’s recommendation, and the dittoheads followed suit one after the other. Councilor Barnes tried to add a directive to have the city staff create a relief program for low-income and seniors, but was asked to make that a separate item for next week. Everyone’s on board!

5) Whatever Floats Your Boat
Councilor Gerken asked about saving the proposed boat rental program at Lake Wilderness. We currently have 1 paddleboat and 3 canoes, and there was a $2K proposal to buy a couple more boats and staff the program. It might be offset by rental fees, but since it’s a new program we don’t really know if the fees would cover it. Maybe we could get a local business to buy the paddle boat and have their name plastered all over it.

Get ready for another dumb idea. If I had a pizza place in town, I’d sponsor a boat, have coupons at the rental desk, and offer to have a pizza delivered to the park at the end of your boat ride.

6) Gender Equity Law
This will be brought up next week, but it’s a proposal to make sure that access to parks, ballfields, etc. is equitable for both sexes. It’s funny how we’ve started using the word “gender” instead of “sex”, and we all seem nervous to say the word sex. Even the guy talking about the program said both words rather hurriedly, and with a tiny laugh after saying it.

Let’s get over it, shall we? And let’s amend this law to say that neither sex shall have sex in the park, OK? A park employee came upon a couple in their sunset years getting it on in the bushes this summer, and had to shoo them away. Ewww.

7) Warming Stations
I had to include this one because it made me laugh. We have “cooling stations”, since you can open up a municipal building during the day, and send people home when it’s not hot anymore. However, most people would want a “warming station” at night, and we don’t keep those places open all night long. So, the city has a list of shelters on their website, which I found hilarious. If your power is out, and the heat isn’t working, just go online to find the nearest shelter location. Really? Even if you have web access on your cell phone, you can probably afford a motel for the night, and aren’t scrounging around for public shelters. We can do better than this.

Next week! The final council meeting of the year starts at 6:30pm, as we say goodbye to Councilor Pilgrim and Deputy Mayor Smith, who won’t be returning in January. Make sure you wear your tie-dye socks in tribute.

The head city staffers asked the councilors to do two things tonight:  (1) Review the “program enhancements” to the budget, which includes new staff positions, software, and equipment, and (2) Decide whether or not to increase the utility tax from 2.25% to 3%.

You’ve already read the title of this discussion, but I’ll give you the quiz anyway. What actions did the council take on these two issues?

(A) Had a discussion and made a decision on what to cut from program enhancements
(B) Had a discussion and made a decision on the utility tax
(C) Made a decision on both A and B
(D) Didn’t make any decisions, and asked the City Manager to review the budget again, even though there are less than 5 hours of meeting time this year to make a final decision, and they’ve already had 2-1/2 months to review it and make suggestions.

If you guessed anything but (D), I have to believe this is the first time you’ve read this blog, and you are forgiven. Alright, let’s do this!

The Pledge of Allegiance
I don’t normally comment on this, but a Webelos troop served as a color guard, and one young fellow led us in the Pledge of Allegiance. Everyone was smiling, even the people with permanent frowns. If you don’t know, the Webelos is part of the Boy Scouts of America, and it’s the age group between Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts (I was one). Great job, guys!

Public Comment:  The Twitter Version
Chamber of Commerce: Please don’t raise taxes.
EBT Theater Group: Please come visit our theater.
Cheryl Castagna:  Please don’t raise taxes.

Public Hearing
Tonight was your opportunity to weigh in on a proposed increase in the School Impact Fee. If you’re building a single-family residence, it’ll cost you an additional $414. If you’re building a multi-family residence (condos, etc), it’ll cost you an additional $631.

The most interesting part of the discussion was when the impact fee should be collected. A representative from the Master Builders Association said it would be better if that fee was charged directly to the new homeowner, rather than making the developer pay it ahead of time, then charge interest to the homeowner. One advocate for the schools said that schools need time to prepare for incoming students, and need the impact fee sooner than the day they move in and send the kid to school. I don’t have many facts here, so I’ll leave this discussion for smarter people.

Budget Review (again)
I opened up this discussion with a general overview of what went on Monday night. There are a lot of the details that might make you shake your head, but I’m going to try to keep this to the Executive Summary format.

I think the councilors seemed a little lost on where to begin. There was some brief discussion of reviewing every line item on the Program Enhancements, and also a suggestion to give it back to the City Manager to review one more time rather than suggesting specific areas to cut. The worst idea was to have the staff present several alternative budgets next week for them to decide on.

If you remember the City Hall decision, you already know this is a bad idea. The councilors were presented three options, and voted down all three before the Mayor stepped up and broke the stalemate.

The City Manager gave a very nice speech about how the staff went about creating the budget before the councilors. The goals were to keep the existing government service levels steady, and only expand in areas where demand is increasing (police sergeant, parks help, etc.). He mentioned that historically, Maple Valley has relied on growth, and permit money to fund services and build up reserves. In the third and fourth quarters of 2007, the Finance Director pointed out that expenditures were finally higher than revenues.

That’s why the utility tax is being looked at. Maple Valley’s tax rate is 2.25%, while nearly every other city that has one is at 6%. The councilors are very reluctant to approve any increase, and two of them (finally) suggested that they only increase it .5% and only for two years. OK if you’re into low tax rates, but not good if you’re planning a budget for 2012 (punt).

Since no one in these other cities seems to be complaining about the 6%, it’s probably safe to increase this one without much political damage. I’m not sure what the financial impact is on businesses, but most households would probably pay $3 or so more per month.

Did any of you keep that 3.75% savings from your utility bills over all these years?

Other Minor Happenings
These items aren’t worthy of a full discussion, but here you go:

* Review of Property Tax Calculations
The net effect of the property tax the city gets will go down about 1%. Your results may vary.

* Fred Meyer Update
They’ve been a little slow to get tenants for the small shops next to the upcoming Fred Meyer at 4 Corners, so the project has been delayed until probably February 2011. Hard to believe it, even though the other three of the corners are strip malls already. We don’t even have check-cashing yet!

* City Council Knows Best
Maple Valley has an ordinance on the books that sets the minimum insurance amounts for “right of way” permit applicants (construction stuff). Apparently, we’ve been setting a much higher rate, which appears to be more than double the industry standards. You know, the industry that does studies on this stuff to create standards for everyone to use.

There was some brief discussion on the dangers of these right-of-way projects, how fast cars go by, and that maybe we needed a much higher rate for some reason. No one knows what that reason is, though, so that debate died fairly quickly. I guess we’ll just have to use “industry standards” instead of being special.

* City Hall Improvements
Because we can’t get everyone to agree not to shoot at the police civilian assistant, we’re going to get a cool bulletproof glass window for the police department. It’s going to cost more than originally quoted, but it’ll be worth it. The old location is fairly isolated, and not secure enough for employees there. If you can believe it, the police regularly have to deal with people that aren’t as rational as you and I.

Well, thanks for reading this far. The council doesn’t meet next week, so maybe some of that hair we pulled out will grow back. Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

If you like that philosophy, you live in a great city for that. For example, Maple Valley has one of the lowest utility taxes out of 213 cities in Washington. The average is about 5.8%, and our tax rate is 2.25%.

So, to meet some of the budget shortfall and to pay for some new services, an increase of .75% has been proposed. If your annual utility bill is $6000, your tax would go up about $45 for the year. Since we’re always comparing ourselves to Black Diamond and Covington (sure hope we don’t shower together), Black Diamond is at 6%, while Covington is at 5.5%. If you are a business owner though, .75% is a lot.

Later, there was a discussion on the property tax increase, which the city can choose between two options. We can raise them either 1% or some other slightly smaller number, which yields a difference of about $61,000. Divide by about 10,000 households or so, and you’ll end up paying $6 more or less per year, depending on which option is chosen. And yes, one councilmember did express that in Latte Math Units (2 per year).

Alright, let’s get to the proceedings in order of appearance:

* * * VOIP PHONES * * *
City Hall is moving, but the phones will be left behind. A brand-new VOIP system will be installed at the new location, which will really minimize downtime for the city’s phones. It’ll run us about $70K, and hopefully that figure includes installation.

VOIP stands for Voice Over Internet Protocol, and very basically means we’ll be making calls over the Internet. If you use the Vonage phone system, you already have something similar. When I moved my company from Tukwila to Kent, I found it was cheaper to buy a new phone system and have it up and running, rather than try to move a slightly dated system and have a lot of downtime. I didn’t go with a VOIP system, due to ongoing security maintenance concerns, so hopefully the city won’t have those issues.

We might save $6K off of that $70K figure if we don’t go with the accounting software that monitors phone traffic and gives reports. I paid for this software with my phone system, and I almost never use it.

* * * SIF * * *
The School Impact Fee is up for discussion, but there wasn’t a real serious debate. The amount charged is calculated with a formula based on square footage and student population, which also takes into account the current bond rate. So, if the bond $ is high, the School Impact Fee is low. Right now, we have a very low bond rate, according to the unnamed Authority Figure who explained it to the councilors. I think her name was Lauren.

The only other interesting fact that came out of this was that we have between 78 and 85 portable classrooms in use in the Tahoma School District. Wow. Maybe we should start encouraging more homeschoolers if we aren’t going to build bigger schools.

* * * DECISION TIME! * * *
Just kidding. We don’t usually get actual decisions here. But the council does just have three weeks left to make some budget decisions. Three weeks sounds like a long time, but the reality is, they’re only meeting for about 9 hours to decide everything.

Last week, the discussion revolved around General Fund dollars, and tonight was about Capital Improvement Plan dollars. The plan is a 6-year plan, on how to spend about 65 Meeeelyun dollars. This money goes to parks, transportation, community facilities, debt payments, surface water management, and a tiny slice for the golf course.

The scary part? We rely on grant money to fund just over 30% of this. Yikes. We need our Schmoozer in Chief to go get that money, along with our savvy City Manager & His Staff. Well, they’ve got 6 years to get it, so good luck everybody!

The Park Impact Fee (PIF) came up again, and there are two dollar figures proposed for this. This fee is collected when a developer builds something like a house, or a commercial building, but I think commercial buildings pay more; not sure there. One figure is about $2700, and the other is about $3600. The larger figure would give the city some spending cash to buy up land if something became available. The councilors gave mixed opinions on this, but they didn’t have to decide today.

The property tax discussion came up next, and I referenced this earlier. After it was initially brought up, Councilor Johnson laid it out for us. We should only spend what we’re taking in, and should stop going to the taxpayers to fund the city goals. Cut staff positions, since that’s what Covington did this week (again).

The City Manager responded that we can’t use Covington, since they’ve overextended themselves with debt, and now they have to cut staff in order to pay off that debt. Maple Valley isn’t in a bad debt position, due to our fiscally very conservative nature.

The next question to him was, if there was no utility tax increase, what would he cut? Answer: Parks, and maybe a building inspector.

* * * MAINTENANCE FACILITY * * *
Regular readers of this blog might have heard me complain about the Public Works department having to store their equipment in the parking lot at Lake Wilderness Park. Well, there’s $250K in this year’s budget to come up with an interim solution, which is a steel building on city property next to the Summit Pit ballfields project. According to the PW Director, it would meet the bare minimum of federal standards we need to comply with by 2012.

There isn’t enough money for a new permanent building at the moment. The Tahoma School District recently completed one for about 4.7 Meeelyun dollars, and we don’t have that much available. The latest idea is to get a couple of roommates to split the cost, and create a joint facility with Black Diamond and Covington. We’ll probably also have to pay for a label maker to make sure that Maple Valley doesn’t eat Covington’s sandwiches out of the community fridge. Although, it would give us another forum to fully express our passive-aggressive nature, such as “OK, sommmmmmebody left the mower out in the rain and sommmmmmebody forgot to clean the grass off the blades. I don’t want to name names, but their initials are Black Diamond”.

* * * BUILDING INSPECTOR ON THE CHOPPING BLOCK * * *
If you are a building inspector for the city of Maple Valley, stop reading now. Really. OK, if you insist on continuing to read this, be aware that your job today is like a game of Keep Away. The city staff is holding your job like a football, and some of the councilors are running up to take it away, while the staff passes it from one person to the next. The Hot Seat had more butts in it than a Sir-Mix-A-Lot video, while each of them took turns defending the usefulness of having a 3rd building inspector.

The case for the inspector is, we are using them to conduct the surface water management inspections, which is required under federal guidelines. If we lay off the inspector, we’d simply have to contract with an outside inspector to do the work. Plus, we’ve got Fred Meyer coming up next year, which is going to need a lot of inspection.

Several councilors expressed concern about raising any taxes, but cutting the building inspector position was the only straightforward suggestion. The non-specific attitude of “man, we’ve gotta do something to cut this budget” won’t work too well if we only have about 9 hours to find a solution and no other real suggestions.

QUESTION FOR DISCUSSION: Do you think we are overtaxed, undertaxed, or taxed just right? Are you willing to give up some services like park programs for lower taxes? Is there something specific in the city budget you would cut? The public hearing didn’t get much action, but you can always rant in here.

* * * COUNCIL RULES OF PROCEDURE CHANGES * * *
There are five suggested changes for council rules:

1) Inclusion of language clarifying the rotation of who leads the Pledge of Allegiance (the Mayor names who will lead the Pledge of Allegiance).
No one seems to think we need to change how it’s currently done. Everyone seems happy that they are getting to lead the pledge regularly enough. I think if you wanted to lead it, and you weren’t selected, you could just say it faster than the person who was. I’ll try this out next week and let you know how it goes.

2) Adding language to ensure that Public Comment is used for comments related to the business of the City and not personal attacks.
That pesky 1st Amendment gets in the way here. Our City Attorney reminded the council that Public Comment isn’t required, after bringing up the free speech issue.

3) Clarify expense policies for Councilmembers and duty to provide adequate cancellation notice.
No discussion on this, just a lot of head-nodding.

4) Adding additional Public Comment opportunities to the agenda of either Regular Business meetings or Study Sessions, or both.
Most councilors are in favor of Public Comment every week, and not just at the business meetings. This will probably happen, giving the Usual Suspects another 6 minutes per month to speak their minds.

5) Term limit of two consecutive two-year terms for Mayor and Deputy Mayor.
Only one councilor likes this, and not the one who put it on the agenda. This won’t happen.

* * * NEXT WEEK * * *
If you don’t read the Paper of Record, or you couldn’t find it in there, here’s your Unofficial Notice of Public Hearing. Next week, you can give your opinion to the council regarding the School Impact Fee. My prediction? Two speakers, no real opinions, meeting closed.

See you next week!

So, I’ve decided instead to offer the councilors a handy guide to surviving the vicious attacks I’ve unleashed, which are slowly tearing the city apart (if you believe my bad press).

<><><><><><><><><><> CLIP HERE <><><><><><><><><><><>

Councilor’s Guide to Surviving Public Criticism from Ryan

The first advice I’ll offer is the old adage, “keep your friends close, and your enemies closer”. It doesn’t hurt to buddy-up to the people who criticize you, and sophisticated politicians know this very well. You’ve got to outmaneuver your critic, schmooze him or her a bit, and help them see your perspective. You can agree to disagree, but still have a healthy respect for the opposition. This simple civility will reduce direct attacks, since your critic now understands you and knows you personally. Many people claim to hate George Bush or Barack Obama, but if they ever met them in person and spent five minutes with them, they’d sing a different tune for sure.

Digging your heels in and trying to ignore it never works. Your critic will only continue to score points while you try to pretend you’re not playing the game. I don’t mean to say that you should always respond directly, but you have to find opportunities to get your point across (online, letters to the editor, etc.). The critic doesn’t have the burden of decision-making, so you can only counter the criticisms. Attacking the critic rarely works, unless the critic is way off-base.

Image is everything in politics. Citizens want to know that you have their interests in mind, and you’ve got to show them that you really do care. You can cover up the times you don’t care by employing some of these time-tested responses to criticism:
CRITICISM #1: Councilor Spendthrift voted to buy something stupid and is wasting money.

Good Response: “This was a long-term decision, and we won’t see the benefits right away. However, this was the best decision we could make at the time, given the information we had. With today’s information, I would have made a different decision.”

Bad Response 1: “Ryan is just misinformed.”
Bad Response 2: “The city staff screwed up again.”
Bad Response 3: Ignore it completely; hope it will go away.

CRITICISM #2: Councilor Meanie is mean to the city staff.

Good Response: “At times, the discussions between the council and the staff can get heated. We’re really all working towards the same goals, and sometimes we have different ideas on how to get there.”

Bad Response 1: “Ryan is just misinformed again.”
Bad Response 2: “The staff has their own hidden agenda. We can’t let them be in control.”
Bad Response 3: Ignore it completely; hope it will go away.

CRITICISM #3: Councilor Dingdong is indecisive and doesn’t think proactively.

Good Response: “Running a city government is different from private enterprise. We’re restricted from taking reckless, unplanned actions because they impact so many people. For example, we can’t just throw down a road anytime somebody wants one. It could cause massive traffic headaches that would cripple the city. Careful planning is required to make a city that will run smoothly for decades.”

Bad Response 1: “Ryan has only been around 6 months. He doesn’t know anything.”
Bad Response 2: “I know you spent a year on this report, but can you do it again?”
Bad Response 3: Ignore it completely; hope it will go away.

These are just a few examples of suggested responses, and are not meant to be a complete guide. There are many other areas of criticism I’ve left out, such as passive-aggression, excessive attention to meaningless details, bullying, sloppy record-keeping, always saying “no”, etc. If you have a particular criticism you need help with, just message me on Facebook, and I’ll help you draft a response (seriously).

One thing that hasn’t been asked of me is WHY I’m picking on the council. Let’s face it; Maple Valley is a pretty ordinary city, and in some cases we’re below average. We don’t have delegations from cities around the world coming to Maple Valley to see how wonderfully we do things here. We’re not a model for other cities to follow. Rather, we’re waiting to see what happens in other cities first.

Regionally, we’re regarded with disdain and shaking heads. I know, because I’ve heard from regional leaders who’ve said as much (if you’d like a suggested response to this criticism, just let me know).

Very soon, we’ll be a city of 25,000 people, and the rules will change. We’ll have to start paying for things like roads that we didn’t have to completely cover before. After 12 years as a smaller city, we’re entering adolescence, and the transition to a grown-up city will be difficult.

So, why do I bother with this? Our time here on Earth is brief, and I’m not content with being ordinary during my short tenure. We can all live extraordinary lives and create something worth talking about, if we are willing to overcome our fears of failure. I want Maple Valley to be the greatest city of its size, and to be a model for other cities to admire and envy. We can be remarkable, but we can’t half-ass it.

Thanks for reading. See you next week.

* * * PARK IMPACT FEE (PIF) * * *
First up is a proposed impact fee to pay for parks and park improvements (we don’t have one right now). Buuuuut, since the Transportation Impact Fee (TIF) is getting cut in half, we’ve got some extra room for taxation. However, we have to balance a possible School Impact Fee (SIF) to make sure we’re not overdoing it. So – if the lift from the PIF doesn’t short-shrift the TIF, we can gift the SIF without it looking like grift, so developers won’t be miffed. Got it?

Based on a study originally presented in April, the council has two options for a PIF.

1) Improvements-driven: $2,852 fee per dwelling unit

2) Standards-driven:  $17,366 fee per dwelling unit

You can probably guess which one we’re going to get. Rather than bring the city up to recognized standards of park facilities per 1000 residents, we’re going to go with the cheaper option of improvements to the immediate area. The choices are sort of like being asked, “Would you like a handshake, or a punch in the face?” Nice to meet you, sir.

* * * 3^RD QUARTER FINANCIAL REVIEW * * *

You’ve heard most of these numbers already, if you’re a regular reader of this blog. I’ll make it easy on you, and we’ll do bullet points:

* Our fund balance is $15,305,334 which is about $235K over this time last year.
* General fund balance is about 30% over expenditures
* Council rule is to keep that number 10% or higher, so we’re doing good
* However, that money is there because we’re not spending it to build stuff
* Golf course is now projected to lose less money, under $60K (by cutting hours of operation)
* We’re collecting 10% less than we forecasted
* We’re spending 12% less than we forecasted

* * * OPTIONS TO REDUCE OUR $220K SHORTFALL * * *
The city staff has presented five options for the council to consider:

1) Reduce General Fund Sales Tax contribution to Capital Fund
We now send 25% of the sales tax collected to the Capital Fund (used to build stuff). The finance director suggested that we cut that to 10% for the next 2 years. This is the 5^th time he’s brought it up since I’ve started attending meetings, and it’s the number 1 option in the 5, which probably isn’t a coincidence. IF YOU ARE ON THE CITY COUNCIL AND YOU ARE READING THIS, I THINK THIS IS THE OPTION THE STAFF WANTS YOU TO CHOOSE. I think the finance director is going to have to learn how to make flashing red arrows appear on the PowerPoint presentation to make this point clearer.

2) Change the Fund Balance Policy to a Number Less Than 10%
This balance is essentially our savings account, or rainy day fund. It’s now at 30%, and we’re going to dip into it in the next few years by all projections anyway.

3) Increase the Utility Tax
A 1% increase would raise about $300,000. Ten years ago, it probably would have been $150,000, but a lot of you have really upgraded the sizes of your televisions. Seriously, these things suck up a lot of power, and they are offsetting the gains from the EnergyStar program.

4) Loosening Up Assumptions of Anticipated Revenue/
This would mean that we “guess high” on how many permits we’ll issue. That’s sort of like you saying, “I think I’m going to make $400,000 this year”, and then using that figure to buy a Ferrari. No one really likes this option.

5) Staff Reductions
Probably won’t happen, especially since a recent consultant came back with a report that said, “You need to hire more staff.” On a side note, the finance director mentioned that we haven’t added any police officers, and we’ve actually lost one when we stopped paying for a school resource officer. I think he needs to talk to Jim Flynn, since Jim says we’ve quadrupled our officers, and the Voice printed his comment with the precursor of FACT (yes, with all-caps). Hopefully Jim can straighten out the finance director, the city manager, and the police chief before the budget is voted on, since they apparently don’t realize how many officers we really have.

* CITY MANAGER’S RECOMMENDATIONS

1) Permanently eliminate the Assistant City Mgr position
2) Create some staff positions to eliminate higher-priced consultant arrangements
3) Raise the utility tax .75%, which would raise $225,000

Councilor Barnes took on the utility tax idea Latte Math-Style, and figures that this utility tax increase will cost most households about $30 per year, or almost one latte per month. I’ll talk more about Latte Math in a different forum next week.

* * * 2010-2015 CAPITAL PROJECTS * * *
For what we have planned, the total tab will cost around $65 Million. With our current funding sources, we’re going to bring in about $23.2 Million. Where will there rest come from?

* PIF – $2.1M
* Bonds – $4.2M
* Grants – $19.8M
* Voter-approved Bonds – $15.5M

Yep, that’s right. Voter-approved bonds. 2010 is set to be a banner year for voters to tax themselves, with school, fire, and city initiatives set to arrive on the ballot. We’ll have plenty of time to discuss the pros and cons of these once the details emerge.

* * * PROPERTY TAX LEVY * * *
Every year, the city gets to take a look at the levy they charge for property taxes. Due to state law, the city can raise the property tax amount by 1% or the Implicit Price Deflator (IPD). The IPD is based on the inflation rate for the most part, and this year we had DE-flation, which means we can raise it a max of .99152 instead of 1.0.

Throw in a couple of other numbers, and the final result is that your 2010 levy will now be 1.28% instead of 1.08% in 2009. Your house value went down about 16%, but your tax rate went up 19%. Don’t sweat it; you’ll pay just about the same amount in actual dollars.

* NEXT WEEK: There’s a public hearing on the proposed budget for 2010. If you want to tell the council members what choice they should pick to balance the budget, show up next Monday at 7pm to tell them in person.

See you there!

Speaker #2 was Jerry Ward, who said he’s lived in the city a really, really long time, and this year has been the worst for negative campaigning; worse than all other years combined. Maple Valley has had 10 contended races in 5 previous elections, and this year we have 3. Weaver vs. Pilgrim doesn’t seem too negative; Flynn vs. Allison might have some, since they’re mostly arguing about the facts, but there aren’t the allegations of “conflict of interest” that there were in the 2007 Flynn vs. Barnes race. So, I think he’s mostly referring to Jonas vs. Rose, which has had lots of negative press, and is only missing an October-Surprise sex scandal to make it a smashing success.

These races don’t hold a candle to early American elections, though. In the 1800 presidential election, Thomas Jefferson was accused of being a weakling, a coward, and a “mean-spirited, low-lived fellow” of dubious ancestry, while John Adams was accused of having a “hideous hermaphroditical character”. Lyndon Johnson’s group created a children’s coloring book featuring his opponent Barry Goldwater dressed as a member of the KKK, and also infiltrated his campaign to steal copies of his speeches and strategies. Oh well, there are four council seats up for grabs in 2011, so let’s get more creative, people!

* * * UNOFFICIAL NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING * * *
The November 9th council meeting will have a Public Hearing on the budget, so if you want to weigh in on how the city should spend your money, show up and speak your mind. If you don’t, then no complaining until next November. Capiche?

The “official” notice will be in the Voice of the Valley, probably somewhere between the school lunch menu and the engagement notices. I think they should put it right in the middle of the police blotter; easily the most interesting section, and that way more people will see it.

* * * THE MYSTERIOUS CASE OF CHECK #18714 * * *
The Audit Committee requested that Check #18714 be pulled from the Consent Calendar, and placed under “New Business” so it can be discussed later. It wasn’t mentioned who wasn’t getting paid. Hopefully we don’t incur any late fees.

* * * CHANGE TO THE LWGC DRAINAGE POND PROJECT * * *
The council was asked to approve the use of some leftover money to fix more water drainage problems at the Lake Wilderness golf course (it passed 7-0). Some water has apparently re-routed itself and is moving towards Witte Road. Water always seeks out the lowest point, and we keep trying to trick it to move to a different lower point. Everyone in the room seems to have confidence in the Person in Authority who spoke about the project.

* * * CONGRATULATIONS! YOU LIVE IN A 1ST CLASS CITY * * *
Next up was a housekeeping project from the City Attorney, who recommends that we repeal R 97-48, which is concerned with the city “purchasing rules”. The city has been using a state law on purchasing rules that no longer apply, since we officially have over 20,000 residents. We now get to use the “1st Class City” rules. Way to go, breeders! Pass 7-0.

* * * CITY MANAGER’S REPORT * * *
Our CM has been in disaster preparedness meetings, with fire department officials, police, etc regarding our readiness, and a goal to be NIM-certified (National Incident Management System). If you want a 152-page document on the topic, go here: http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/NIMS-90-web.pdf . We still need to pick someone to manage this system in Maple Valley; to be the National Incident Management Regional Operations Director. Any volunteers?

* * * OBSCURE DISCUSSION OF THE NIGHT * * *
There was a brief, Members-Only discussion involving the Suburban Cities Association, the King Conservation District, and funding source changes for the latter. From what I can gather on the KCD website, they want to renew their $10 per parcel assessment on your house for the next few years. For that $10, the KCD will:

#1 – “Engage landowners to achieve community-based stewardship” (tell you to stop dumping trash in your woods)

#2 – “Improve the sustainability of working lands” (fix drainage problems, attract spotted owls, and keep those nasty developers away)

#3 – “Extend the district membership through strategic partnerships” (to pay for schmoozing dinners for mayors who won’t sign up for the KCD).

We’re going to have to play harder-to-get if we want to get in on those schmoozing sessions. See you next week!

On with the proceedings! A good number of the crowd was in attendance for the results of the Community Service Grant Funding requests, but first, we’ve got a few housekeeping items to take care of…

1) Amending Resolution R-07-532 – Council Rules of Procedure
Councilors will now have to disclose their associations with a community service group that has a pending application for grant money, and they will excuse themselves from the room when the discussion is to take place. It was clarified that a councilor must serve on a board, or have some similar official association with the group to require being excused from the room. Merely serving as an occasional volunteer for a group would not require them to leave during discussions. PASS 7-0.

2) Ordinance O-09-394 – Amendments to Multiple Use Zone
This was covered in previous meetings, and is finally being adopted. This mostly affects just one property (the Brandt parcel), and deserves more discussion than I can give here. PASS 7-0.

3) Repealing Section 12.10.080, replacing with Section 12.10.085
This concerns the Public Works Director being allowed to grant variances, which was covered previously. The staff came back with language adding that the PWD will advise the city council on variances that were granted. Everyone seems happy about the compromise. I’m pretty sure this one passed, but these three items went through so quickly, it was almost a blur!

* DISCLAIMERS
Because the public hearing tonight involved the city’s funding of community service providers, each of the council members were asked to reveal any affiliations with these service groups. When it comes time to vote on who gets what money, council members with affiliations will be asked to leave the room. Based on the disclaimers, it sounds like Councilor Jonas might wanna bring a book to read. She’s involved in so many community service groups (more than all other councilors combined), that she’ll be spending a lot of time out of the room, so as not to influence the discussion. Good for her!

* DISTRACTION #1
The first distraction was from the Save Habitat and Diversity of Wetlands (SHADOW), which is a nearly 10-year-old effort to preserve a 92.5 acre wetlands area that borders Maple Valley, Covington, and Kent. A couple of people from SHADOW showed up to introduce themselves to the city council, to make themselves available as a resource for conservation efforts, etc, etc. They have lots of corporate and community group sponsors like Boeing, Starbucks, Scouts, and so forth, and bring in lots of school groups for habitat education.

Personally, I usually dismiss these efforts as wishful thinking, but after listening to the man as he gave his presentation, I really wanted him to succeed. I sat right behind his wife, and she is almost mouthing the words along with him and nodding her head at key points during his speech. It was a great moment to see how much she supported her husband and his passion for conservation, and I wish you all could have seen it.

* DISTRACTION #2
The second distraction was on the Lake Wilderness Lodge interior project closeout. The checks were mailed, the paint is dry, we spent a little extra $, but not enough to be an issue. There were a couple of complaints about the parking lot (repaving, resealing, & repainting the lines). It might happen in the spring. Ehh, whatever. I think we’re all tough enough to suffer a little inconvenience until it’s warm enough to do this work.

* THE MAIN EVENT
I won’t bore you with a lengthy discussion on what’s 5% up and what’s 17% down in the capital improvement plan and the 2010 operating budget. Let’s just skip to the highlights.

Several departments got to present a wish list of things they’d like for their department:

1) PUBLIC WORKS #1 – $250K to move the Public Works Equipment to the Summit Park site. The money would cover the survey, site prep, steel buildings, and moving costs. Right now, a lot of PW equipments sits in a carport near the Lake Wilderness Lodge, and doesn’t meet NPDES standards (national standards for this stuff). The new site would be compliant, but is meant to be a short-term solution. Councilor Barnes brought up a possible joint PW storage facility with Covington possibility, but no one has any specifics on that. It doesn’t sound like enough people on the council are in favor of this.

2) PUBLIC WORKS #2 – Unspecified $ for a new speed trailer. The current one is old, and only shows you what your speed is when you race by it. Plus, it only goes up to 99 MPH, so I never could figure out exactly how fast my Vette was going (I sure miss that car). A new trailer would show you the speed, and record it as well, making it useful for saving $ on traffic surveys. We could drop this trailer in place to do these surveys, and eliminate 3 contracted jobs (whoops, an unfortunate side effect). No one seemed enthusiastic about getting a new trailer, and I don’t think we’ll hear of it again.

3) PARKS – The Parks Dept. didn’t really ask for anything, and talked mostly about the $24K left to spend at the Den (the youth center next to the community center). That money will probably be used for a video security system, art project, and some street signage. There was a brief discussion on the parapets atop the Den, and that it would likely cost a five-figure sum to correct the perceived design flaw. That kind of money could be used to make the membership a lot cheaper, instead of the $35 it is now, but there was no discussion on that.

4) NEIGHBORHOOD REINVESTMENT PROGRAM – This program of granting funds to homeowner groups will likely continue with its same funding.

5) PUBLIC ART PROGRAM – Expected to continue.

6) LEGACY SITE – Expected to start serious planning in 2010.

7) CITY OFFICE STAFF – They’d like to increase the Recreation Specialist from .5 to .75 LTE (Limited Term Employee). They’d like to add a admin assistant who would “float” to different departments depending on who needed clerical help. They’d also like to add an in-house network administrator. I didn’t get to see the numbers on how much they spend outsourcing this work, so I can’t comment to its savings benefit. However, it would probably save our City Clerk many hours each week from “I can’t connect to the Internet?”, or “How do I print to that printer over here?” You know what I mean.

POLICE – Our police chief made her pitch to add a patrol sergeant to the police force. That would allow the chief to spend more time on community relations and bigger picture items, and give the patrol officers a full-time supervisor in the field. Right now, we have 8 full-time patrol officers, 1 storefront officer, and the police chief.

Quite frankly, I’m surprised that there isn’t a request for 3 new officers, given the increased population we have, in addition to a 101.4% increase in major crimes in Maple Valley in the last reporting period. 101.4% means that crime has doubled, folks, and I can’t believe that anyone would find that acceptable. In my view, the #1 priority of government is to provide for the safety of its citizens, and that’s a job that we cannot do ourselves.

If you have any opinions on the proposed 2010 budget items, this Monday night is a great time to speak your mind during the public comments section. Get your thoughts together, condense it down to a 3-minute speech, and get there on time. The meeting starts at exactly 7pm, and public comments usually starts around 7:05.

City council meetings are held at the Tahoma Central Services building, which shares the parking lot with Rock Creek Elementary on Hwy 169. Hope to see you there!

* * * MU LOVE-FEST
After about a year and a half of many discussions, meetings, and public comments, we got to hear some progress on the MU zoning changes before the council. Next week, the council will get an action item regarding these changes, and tonight there was a public comment session available for all of us to give input. Tonight, most everyone was all smiles, thanks yous, and we’re finally (almost) there.

If you’re not familiar with the MU zone (multiple use), it’s supposed to be a mix of office, commercial, and parks, and maybe residential uses. There are two areas in Maple Valley that have the MU zone designation; one is a city-owned parcel that is likely to be rezoned, and the other is a 50 acre parcel near Hwy 18 that’s referred to as the Brandt property. The partnership that is planning to develop the site has been lobbying for some tweaks to the zoning rules, to make it feasible for a new development.

There was a brief discussion of adding the drive-thru coffee allowance to the MU zone, like the council did for the Sawyer’s Village development, but that was shot down by the staff as a “not a good idea right now”. You know, public comment, impact studies, etc.

There’s really not much to add to this, and the time for the public to provide input on this has passed. If you want to be super-informed on the issue and the public testimony regarding the Brandt property, just sift through this Google search: http://bit.ly/gb6Ju

* * * BALLFIELDS FUNDING
Councilor Gerken (again) brought up the discussion on how we’re going to pay for the ballfields at the Summit Park site. He noted that the council recently learned that Covington funds some park projects through an increase in their utility tax, while earlier discussions had a mention of a Park Impact Fee. The city manager says that the issue will come up in November during budget discussions.

* * * THE $62,000 QUESTION
The council approved a settlement of $62,000 with Trinity Land LLC over a real estate problem on Witte Road. Unfortunately for those of us who are uninformed and can’t listen in on executive sessions, it isn’t made clear whether the city is paying $62,000, or receiving $62,000, or what the problem is regarding. I couldn’t find any info on past council meetings either. Any of you city insiders know the answer to this?

* * * COMMUNICATION BREAKDOWN
This is really about the candidates for the “Summit Park Master Plan Citizen-At-Large” positions. There are two positions available, and the mayor and deputy mayor interviewed 2 of the 3 candidates for the position (the 3rd was out of town). Both candidates were rated as excellent, and the 3rd person’s resume was so good, the council decided to approve a 3rd citizen’s position.

Councilor Pilgrim expressed his dissatisfaction that only three people applied for the two spots, and several agreed with him. The positions were announced at the Town Hall meeting on August 31st, which wasn’t well attended. Other than some “well, that’s too bad” muttering, no solutions were offered to increase awareness of city happenings and improving responses. That’s the communication breakdown; between the city government and its citizens.

To give you another example, the Economic Development Committee recently had a invitation for “branding the city” (don’t get me started), and received 12 responses. When asked how they solicited input from citizens, I heard “well, we ran two ads in the Voice of the Valley”. That strategy might have worked in 1981, before cable TV, the internet, and cell phones, but it’s different now. That’s not how people communicate in 2009. The standard arsenal for mass communication includes outlets like Facebook, text messages, Twitter, and a website.

Our city needs to find a way to take advantage of modern communications, and start the conversation again. One common complaint that I hear from council members is that citizens don’t show up to give comments at public hearings, but then they complain after something has been implemented. I believe the main reason is because the city isn’t communicating to citizens in the way that they want to be reached.

However, due to restrictions on what government employees and elected officials can say, this is a job that is probably better left to an independent group. I know a couple of city council candidates have some proposals for improving the city’s communication, but in the interests of not being “campaign-y”, I’d like to ask the candidates to please leave your suggestions on your websites, and for the rest of you to please let the city know how you want to be notified.

* * * (it’s fun to stay at the) YMCA
Councilor Jonas recently visited the YMCA in Newcastle, which was build for $20 million, and the city of Newcastle kicked in $1.3 million of their money. She pressed the council to reopen the discussion with the Y, and see if there are possibilities for Maple Valley to get one.

* * * UPCOMING LEVIES
Get ready for a blitz of local levies and potential tax increases next year. In particular, the Lake Wilderness Elementary is going to propose a $118 million levy to tear down the existing school and build a new one. The technology levy is expiring, and there’s a long list of needs for the schools.

I’d love to hear from all of you regarding your communication preferences. Email? Twitter? Facebook? Website? Text messages? Direct mail postcards? Ads in the local papers? Let’s discuss!

* * * ROAD VARIANCES
The more I hear our Public Works Director Steve Clark speak, the more I like him. He’s been on the job for less than a year, but he’s got a great eye for pointing out dumb or redundant policies (like storing the PW equipment in an open carport near the lodge).

Tonight, he pointed out the discrepancy in the policy of allowing “road variances”. Very basically, if there is an engineering decision that needs to be made so that a road doesn’t cause safety problems, the PW Director gets to make the call and approve or disallow the variance. However, there’s another 4-part policy that has more to do with “land-use” decisions, and those two policies conflict with each other to where the PW Director can’t approve anything.

He asked if the council would consider rewriting the policy to end the conflict. The mayor responded with a good recollection of why that secondary policy was created. To me, it seemed more like a band-aid response rather than an in-depth policy discussion and good planning, but it was a different time with a different PW director. Steve Clark certainly seems to be proactive in making sure his department has good, clear policies, and the council supported his effort.

* * * LAKE WILDERNESS LODGE – Project closeout
The paint had dried, the cake was served, praises were showered on the key people, and the project came in $20,000 under budget. Success! There were still a few sub-contractors to be paid or that had claims in, but that’s the contractor’s problem. Project closed!

* * * BALLFIELDS – A SEMI-FICTIONAL RETELLING
SCENE 1: Bids are being solicited from several developers, as the planning and design stages are in the works for the 20+ acre Summit Pit ballfields site. Everything is proceeding well, just as pla-

(pssst….…how much money is in the park development fund?)
(I’m not sure, let’s ask Tony…)

“Tony, how much money do we have in the park development fund?”
“Enough to pay for the design, but not enough for ballfield construction.”

(pssst…….how are we supposed to pay for these fields?)
(aaahh, jeez, I dunno, aren’t we soliciting donations for that?)
(no, we haven’t actually added any significant money to the fund in the past few years…)
(let’s ask Tony or David about a park impact fee…)

“Guys, uh, what about the park impact fee idea we’ve been kicking around for the past 2 years?”
“We just finished the transportation impact fee study. Park impact fee is next.”

(um, should we really be paying for designs when we can’t pay for the fields?)
(no, we need the designs to sell the idea of a park impact fee to the public.)
(yeah, let’s stop wasting time and just do the designs.)
(can we get a commitment to approve that fee, so we don’t waste money on designs?)
(let’s ask David what he thinks…)

“David, what does the timeline look like for the park impact fee?”
“It’s part of your overall budget discussion for 2010, but isn’t something that is quickly thrown together. The park impact fee would create a more stable revenue source than our existing model, which is to solicit donations, and it’s necessary if you want to create this park.”

(oh, stop fussing about the fee…just approve the design funding…we’ll do it)
(we punted this issue for 2 years now…we need commitment this time)
(I’m going to voice support for proceeding with the design phase…)
(out loud? OK, me too…)
(me three…)
(me four…)

“Alright, fellow councilors, thank you for your input. We’ll proceed with the design phase.”

Get ready for the sales pitch. No pun intended.

* * * NEW WEBSITE
We’re going to move our city’s website to maplevalleywa.com soon, and it would appear that either Jim Love or the Maple Valley Astronomical Society is willing to part with it. I’m not sure why we don’t use maplevalleywa.gov, which is available. Plus, .gov websites are trusted more than those with .com (a recent survey shows this to be true).

See you next week!

Tonight’s council meeting primarily focused on 2010 budget projections. The extremely short version is this:
* We’re taking in less money than we used to.
* One of our 3 main sources of revenue (real estate excise tax) is down 63% from 2006.
* Some expenses are up, some are down.
* Property tax revenue will probably go down, since house values are off 15%
* The Maple Woods annexation saved our a___, and will add about $480K in income
* Still, we need to make a permanent cut around $220K that won’t show up in future budgets unless we change a couple of things.

I know the official city council minutes will cover the budget details for those of you who want to know more, but I’d like to focus on what wasn’t said.

I’ve attended a lot of council meetings this year, and I tend to pay a lot of attention to the dynamics of the people; not just the facts. What’s particularly bothersome to me is the very passive arguments the city staff has to make to get their ideas across to the council. I don’t blame them for having to speak this way; it seems necessary if they want to keep their jobs, and I might do the same thing in their position.

To give you an example, the last item in the list above is the possible permanent cut of $220K from the budget each year, for the next 6 years. That shortfall could be made up if we redirected some of the sales tax money from the capital fund to the general fund (right now, 25% of sales tax goes to the capital fund, per council policy).

A couple of months ago, two staff members gently suggested that “maybe” we “might consider” reducing the 25% redirection down to 10%. It wasn’t well received by council members. Tonight, the always excellent finance director made the same gentle suggestion, after a perfect setup question from Councilor Gerken (did you guys rehearse that? ). He explained that if we sent half of that sales tax money to the capital fund, we wouldn’t have to make that drastic cut.

Another example is the exchange between the city attorney and the mayor on August 24th, when the subject of community services funding came up. Each year, the city gives grant money to local community services, like Vine Maple Place, the MV Food Bank, the community center, etc. This year, the application was delayed a bit, while the city attorney worked to make sure that the application criteria passed the muster of state law. Essentially, the city can’t give money to organizations that use the money to promote a particular religion, and the money has to be used to fill a “fundamental purpose of government”.

For example, Vine Maple Place is a Christian organization that provides temporary housing to women and their children who are escaping a dangerous situation. The city has to do its due diligence to make sure that the money they give to VMP isn’t used to promote Christianity, but to care for the poor and infirm. It only takes one angry atheist to sue the city, and cause a lot of problems if the grants look sketchy.

Anyway, the exchange between the two was very tense, with the mayor becoming visibly upset at the city attorney for not creating an educational program to go along with the revised application. The mayor also complained that the city attorney was only creating problems and not offering any solutions. It sounded like she was expecting the city attorney to make house calls to the major recipients of these grant funds, create a pamphlet on how to navigate state law, and hand-hold them through the new application. The city attorney was stating that it’s her job to help council members create policies that comply with state law, and that she would continue to bring up any potential pitfalls with the grant applications for 2010 (the council denied the application change request, but will bring it up next year).

This is the difference in speaking dynamics that I’m referring to. The city attorney is forced to resort to a much more passive speaking style, while the councilors’ questions are very direct, usually emotional, and at times accusatory. The finance director is forced to make his suggestions in a “well, you might want to think about maybe doing that possibly” manner, in the same way that the parks director, the public works director, and the community development director have to.

It’s a shame, really. We pay good money to hire very, very excellent city staffers with college degrees in their field, and lots of experience, but we can’t let them have an independent thought lest our almost-volunteer council members get offended or be contradicted. I would love to see honest and real discussions about the city staff’s ideas, and for once hear one of them say, “I don’t think that’s a good idea, and here’s why”. Perhaps we should let the staff sit on the elevated platform in the highback executive thrones, and let the council sit in the lower level with the bourgeois stack chairs the rest of us use.

I have to give credit to the new city manager, who showed the first signs of reestablishing the executive branch of Maple Valley government when he gave his presentation for the proposed city hall move. He bared his teeth in defense of the good work conditions for the staff, while openly chiding the deputy mayor on the employer’s responsibilities to its employees (sorry Glenn, but he took you to school there).

Hopefully, he’s not getting fired soon. The council retreated into Executive Session again, to discuss the performance of a public employee. The last time they did that, the previous city manager resigned to “spend more time with his family”. I don’t believe that for a minute, but that’s his story, and he’s sticking to it.

My guess is, the vultures are circling around our brilliant city attorney, and her “performance” (read: independent, contradictory thought) is under scrutiny. Given what little I know of the separation of powers in a council/manager government, I thought the city attorney’s job should only be under review by the city manager. You can read what I did online at http://www.mrsc.org/Subjects/Governance/PreventingConflict.aspx if you’re interested in more on the subject.

Well, I could go on, but I’ve got to get up early and buy up all of the pitchforks and torches in town, to head off the angry mob that will no doubt be forming outside my door tomorrow. They’d have to go to Covington to buy them, and Lord knows they won’t do that.

See you next Monday.

* * * SWM Fees * * *
Yay! Action taken! After a unanimous vote from the council, we’ll all start contributing an additional 50 cents per month starting next year to help build up our Surface Water Management fund (used to fix local flooding problems, etc). In 2011 it goes up $1 per month, and again in 2012.

Avid followers of the council meetings will note that the item was first brought up in June, that our SWM fund would have a big deficit in 2020 if we didn’t slowly start raising fees now. The Public Works Director had originally proposed a 10-year plan to build a healthy balance for the fund, but the council was very wary of approving an increase for that long. They sent him back to make a 3-year plan, and he responded.

Politically, it’s just safer to make a 3-year decision than a 10-year one; no surprise there. Councilmember No and Councilmember Barnes led the charge on that one, so be sure to thank them with your vote in two years.

* * * Construction Contract * * *
The council approved a construction contract to repair a pond discharge problem at the Lake Wilderness Golf Course (owned by the city). After a very brief discussion, it passed 7-0.

It must be noted here, and was pointed out by the Mayor, that both items were approved in less than 10 minutes. I don’t know what the record is for consecutive actions, but maybe we should hold more council meetings at the Lodge.

* * * For the Good of the Order * * *
During the councilors’ Open Mic time, a lot of good stuff was brought up:

1) Lake Wilderness closure
As you might know, the lake has been closed to swimmers due to unhealthy levels of algae blooms. King County sends someone out to test it once a week, and they found the blooms to be within acceptable levels during their last visit. They’ll test it once more this week, and will let us know if we can reopen it.

2) Trail discussion
Councilmember Gerken brought up some possible improvements to the Cedar River Trail, including a bridge make passing the railroad tracks easier. The Public Works Director took to the mic again to explain that we received a grant for about $148K in 2006 to improve that, but that only would fund a design for the bridge, whereas construction would likely cost up to $750K. We also have a $58K grant from King County that hasn’t been earmarked, but is restricted to trail improvements only, I believe.

3) Planting Strips
Several of the councilors aren’t happy at all with the planting strips maintenance, especially the 4 Corners area. It is an ongoing concern with them, and they’ve asked the Public Works Director to look into solutions. He mentioned that they do plan to replant in some areas, and are looking into irrigation options, but those are likely to be expensive.

4) Expanded Bus Route
Councilmember Gerken noted that Metro Bus Route 168 is now going to run eastbound all the way to 4 Corners (it previously stopped at Timberlane). Westbound, it goes to the Kent Station and the transit center, where you can pick up the 150 to Southcenter or downtown Seattle. That’s great news for me, and I’ll probably start using it every weekday. It’ll give me plenty of free time to hassle the council even more, so after reading this, they will probably rethink their recommendation.

After the meeting, the council did go into Executive Session to discuss the performance of a public employee. Hopefully, it’s just a performance review, and not another “somebody’s getting fired or asked to resign” kind of session. We’re never really told what those meetings are for, so you’ll just have to get yourself elected to council if you really wanna know.

Next meeting is September 14th, back at the school.

The title of this discussion post was originally going to be “4th and Goal? We’d better punt.” Two decisions were brought before the council, and they requested more information (again) before making a decision.

Except when the discussion turned to the location of the new City Hall, it turned bizarre, and a decision was FINALLY made. Thanks to some 10th hour compromises by the mayor and several other council members, the council decided to accept the City Manager’s recommendation to move City Hall to the DCS/Windermere building (next to the post office). Jim Flynn said it was the strangest council session he’s ever been to, and he’s been to almost all of them.

* * * MOST INTERESTING ITEM OF THE NIGHT * * *

By a wide margin, the discussion on where to put City Hall is probably the most interesting of the year. The City Manager summarized his case again, reviewing last week’s presentation on why they picked the DCS/Windermere building. Earlier, during public comment time, we heard from the Capstone building owner, some guy from the Chamber of Commerce reading a letter, and a rep from the Hagen Plaza. I don’t think Hagen Plaza served themselves well by sending that guy. He’s too young, doesn’t speak the language of Old Maple Valley, and had too much condescending Bellevue attitude. Many of you know what I’m talking about, so I won’t elaborate.

Here’s the councilmember breakdown on where they stood during the discussion:

1) Noel Gerken – Wants the Capstone building, DCS second, and Hagen is not an option.

2) Dave Pilgrim – Hagen all the way, $ is the main reason

3) Layne Barnes – Thinks over 10 years, Hagen will end up being the most expensive. Likes DCS

4) Glenn Smith – Concerned about the money, thinks employees would still be OK in Hagen, but will be voting for DCS/Windermere.

5) Linda Johnson – My favorite one. Wants to delay the decision and get moving cost estimates, thinks the City Manager isn’t providing answers, thinks fire suppression system idea for Hagen is ridiculous, and is ready to loan $200,000 to cash in on the 7.5% interest loan that Hagen’s landlord is offering to the city. It’s funny, because she said she wouldn’t borrow money to buy Microsoft stock from its 1985 offering, even though the rate of return has been far higher than even the worst credit card rate.

6) Laure Iddings – Wants to stay in Hagen. Blames the staff for this mess, and thinks it should have been done under the RFP (request for proposal) process, shielded from public scrutiny. Is she right? I dunno. I always like transparency. She’d also like to fast-track the Legacy Site to build a permanent municipal campus.

7) Victoria Jonas – Thinks the mayor’s fast-track for the Legacy Site is unrealistic, since the city has been working on the 4 Corners sub-area plan for 4-1/2 years, and still doesn’t have one. She supports a 10-years lease, is concerned about the visibility of the DCS option, and favors the Capstone building.

On a side note, the Capstone building expense was reduced by the elimination of the council chambers (2400 square feet). Neither of the other two buildings had a council chamber space, and now the Capstone building is comparable to the other two in expense.

So, after the discussion, it’s 2 for Capstone, 2 for DCS, and 3 for Hagen.

LET’S VOTE!!!
Vote#1: The motion is made to move City Hall to the DCS/Windermere building. Gerken, Barnes, and Johnson vote for it, the other 4 said no. MOTION FAILS, 3-4.

Vote #2: The motion is made to keep City Hall in the Hagen Plaza. Gerken, Smith, Pilgrim, and Iddings vote for it, other 3 against. MOTION PASSES, 4-3. But wait! Councilor Gerken didn’t realize he was voting FOR Hagen Plaza, and after a brief lesson in parliamentary procedure, the vote is taken again, and Gerken votes how he intended to. MOTION FAILS, 3-4.

Vote #3: One option left, and the motion is made to move City Hall to Capstone Plaza. Gerken, Johnson, Jonas vote yes, and the other 4 vote no. MOTION FAILS, 3-4.

I can’t imagine having been the Capstone owners sitting in the audience, watching Councilor Barnes break the tie on this one. He bobbed his head back and forth, made sort of an “ehhhhhhhhh” sound, and stalled for what must have seemed like a full minute before voting no. Maybe the Capstone owner should have offered to call it the Barnes Building. Heck, Barnes was sitting so evenly on the fence that waving his favorite candy bar in the air might have been enough to tip the balance if he reached out to grab it.

After some “now what do we do” moments, Councilor Jonas states that the council should stay in session until the issue is resolved. What none of them stated openly is that there are only two swing votes; Jonas and Barnes could probably be persuaded to favor the DCS or Capstone building, whereas the rest of them are fairly fixed in their positions.

Another 15 minutes of restating their favorite parts of their arguments, the Mayor decides she’s going to end this stalemate, and directs the Deputy Mayor to create another motion to move to the DCS/Windermere building. This time, it passes 6-1, with Councilor Pilgrim being the lone holdout. It’s an election year for him, and he’s got to keep voting for his base, Old Maple Valley.

That’s something we never talk about too much; it’s the white elephant in the city that no one will point out. The divide between Old Maple Valley and New Maple Valley. I get to live in both sides, with family that has lived here for over 40 years, while I’ve only been here for 11. I did visit a lot before then, and have rented videos from Flynn’s, remember what it was like before the McDonald’s got here, etc. I get to see and hear the perspectives on both sides, and I’d like to eventually see that wall torn down. More on that in the future.

The other council items paled in comparison to this one, and the other two major issues were punted until September 7th, so I’ll bring those up when action is finally taken. I hope to see you all at the Town Hall meeting on August 31st, which is also the city’s 12th birthday.

TONIGHT’S HIGHLIGHTS
* City Hall Lease
* Zoning code amendment for drive-thru espresso
* Zoning code amendment for city hall
* Change in transportation impact fees

*********************
CITY HALL LEASE
*********************

I wrote out about three pages of notes on this, but I’m going to give you the “executive summary” only, and post the entire list of pros and cons in a separate discussion. It’s far too long to fit on here!

The lease at the Hagen Plaza is up, and the city is renting the space on a month-to-month basis. We don’t have the Legacy Site built yet for a permanent City Hall, so we’ve got to rent again, for at least the next 5 years or more.

There are three options for places to rent:
1) Stay in the Hagen Plaza
2) Move to the DCS/Windermere building (by the post office)
3) Move to the Capstone building (by the KFC)

————————–

JULY 20TH HIGHLIGHTS
Three main topics tonight, which was a Study Session (no voting, please). Only Glenn Smith was absent. I think he’s teaching somewhere, but that wasn’t made clear.

* Finance Report
* Dude, Where’s My Roundabout?
* Goal-Setting for 2010

* * * FINANCE REPORT * * *

Earnings are less than forecast for 2009. The two significant downers are:
* Real Estate Excise Tax (REET) collections are down 50%
* Sales Tax collections are down 16%

We’re not building as many houses, so that money isn’t coming in. Sales tax could be worse, but the new law from last July that requires the sales tax to be “destination based” means that the tax on the stuff you order from SilverSuperstore.com and have delivered to your home will partially go to Maple Valley, whereas before it would have gone to Kent.

So see, all you have to do is have Costco, Target, Lowes, Office Depot, or Home Depot deliver stuff to your house, rather than going to Covington to buy it.

* * * DUDE, WHERE’S MY ROUNDABOUT? * * *

This wasn’t an agenda item, but came up during the Goal-Setting 2010 session. There’s a planned roundabout on Witte Rd and SE 248th St (community center & library intersection), which should make it much easier to turn onto Witte Rd from the park and the library.

However, we’re probably not going to see construction start on that until late 2010 at the earliest. Why? Councilor Johnson was grilling the Public Works director about the delay, and he explained that the $1.2 million federal grant has to clear a Puget Sound Regional Council committee first, among other processes. That may happen by the end of 2009, which means the city can solicit bids in early 2010.

We can’t solicit bids until it’s “regionally approved”, because it’s federal money being used for a local road project. The good news is that the PSRC is adjusting their Transportation 2040 goals to accommodate us (very nice of them to do that).

I think Steve Clark did a great job of calmly explaining the processes to the councilors. He seems very thorough and precise, and I think Maple Valley is lucky to have him.

* * * GOAL-SETTING FOR 2010 * * *

The top priorities for the city staff and council to work on are (drum roll, please):
1) Economic Development
2) Transportation
3) Parks & Social Services
4) Community Facilities
5) Annexations
6) Quality of City Services

With the exception of #5, I’m sure these will be the goals for the city for the next 10 years as well. Looking back on campaigning statements from as far back as 1999, the goals are pretty much the same. I won’t expand the discussion of those goals from the meeting, since not much was accomplished other than a review of things we’ve talked about in previous posts.

The City Manager hasn’t been here too long, but he’s spent some time reviewing what the city has gone through in the past 12 years, and he thinks we need to take a breather. We’re only 12 years old, but have had to grow up fast due to a doubling of the population during that time. He would like to pause, plan, and get ready for the next upswing. By planning, I believe he’s mainly referring to the Four Corners subarea plan, Legacy Site, and the impact of new Donut Hole development.

I like what he’s saying, and it appears to me that he would like to plan in terms of decades, rather than the next year or two. Refreshing!

* Thanks for reading this far, and I hope to see a few more of you at the next council meeting! I’ve annexed too many donut holes this morning, and I’m going to go walk them off.

Another interesting night at the city council. The main discussion or at least the topic that had the most fire behind it was again where to have city hall located.

Issues arose and the audience was somewhat divided; some suggested we move to the Capstone building while others said they should stay where it is.
I think our discussion needs to be around what is best for the city?

We have 23,000 people living in Maple Valley as of the end of July. Does our city hall reflect that or does it reflect a city of 5000?

Let us know your thoughts.

The fight is gearing up! Close followers of the city council meetings would have noted the presence of an attorney from Yarrow Bay (the developer) warning council members and the planning commission members about the Interlocal Agreement and the Pre-Annexation hearings. She’s been completely ignored, but warned both groups that the Donut Hole zoning issues are not valid under the terms of the sale.

I predicted that they are positioning themselves for a lawsuit, but a recent letter from YB’s project manager suggests that they will not buy the Donut Hole at all if King County signs the Interlocal Agreement.

So what does this mean? It’s a chess match, for sure.

* MOVE #1
King County and Maple Valley draft an agreement giving Maple Valley the right to determine the zoning (how many houses, how many business buildings, where to put them, and MV gets the permit fees).

* MOVE #2
Maple Valley authorizes the city manager to sign it if King County does, and Yarrow Bay is not included in the discussion. King County Council needs to sign it hopefully before their August recess, so the city can start the work before the end of the year.

* WHAT IS YARROW BAY’S NEXT MOVE?
Yarrow Bay has been locked out of discussing the zoning. They appear not to trust the city council to make good choices for them, and quite frankly I agree. Several council members would prefer that absolutely nothing is ever built there, but unfortunately that’s just not realistic. So, they have a few options:

1) Persuade the King County Council to change the agreement with Maple Valley to their benefit (the lobbying move).

2) Threaten to not buy the property, and get their $1.75 million deposit back, and cost King County $51 million which they desperately need. King County has an estimated $90 million shortfall for 2009, so they will be listening to this argument (the leverage move).

3) If they really, really want this property, they may consider a lawsuit. However, this possibility seems remote, since their “remedy” under the terms of the sale is to simply back out of the deal in Section 3.1.8. (the lawsuit move).

If I were betting on this, I’d say they will go with option #1 and #2, and they will probably convince enough people on the council to say “no” to the agreement with Maple Valley. They only need a majority.

Why? King County has $51 million coming their way, and if all that’s standing in the way is an agreement to give Maple Valley all of the zoning rights and permit fees (instead of King County), forget it.

This is my personal opinion, of course. We’ll just have to see how good our council leaders are at chess.

-Ryan

P.S. The Reporter has a fantastic article on this, including copies of the back and forth letters this past week: http://www.pnwlocalnews.com/south_king/cmv/news/50309307.html

Read the Purchase and Sale Agreement here: http://www.ci.maple-valley.wa.us/donut_hole/PSA_SummitPlace.pdf

Tonight’s meeting was a study session, which means that councilors get to read packets of info, get a briefing from staff members, and have the opportunity to ask them questions. They don’t vote on stuff.

In the interest of keeping this forum somewhat interesting, I’m not going to post a summary. This was probably the most tedious and boring council meeting I’ve ever been to, and that’s saying a lot! I passed the time by watching a very large spider on the floor wander through the crowd, and wondering whether it would crawl up Jim Flynn or Tony McCarthy. It ended up choosing Tony’s jacket sleeve, but he shook it off.

About the only spark of life was a discussion of finding a new home for the Public Works maintenance equipment. You might have seen that stuff at Lake Wilderness Park, occupying those two houses and the open shed with the cones and road signs. One of the employees told me about an hour-long search for a screwdriver (it’s that big of a mess).

More on that when there’s something interesting to talk about. I’ll post the link to the official council meeting minutes when it’s available.

Here’s what was discussed tonight:

1) Should the city amend the zoning code to allow a drive-thru window for a coffee stand in the Sawyer’s Village development (across from the Pla-Mor tavern)?
* Doesn’t seem like too big of a deal, but the owner of the Chevron station on the corner was miffed that they weren’t considering his application for a drive-thru espresso stand from several years ago. Planning Commission voted 5-1 to recommend the Sawyer’s Village application, and ignored the Chevron station owner’s request.

2) Should the City Hall be allowed to be placed in zoning areas such as Public (PUB), Office (O), and Parks, Recreation, Openspace (PRO)?
* The biggest limitation is “public assembly”, to make sure that these places can handle a crowd when they turn up for public meetings. Other concerns are a future need for a court, or a jail, and should those things be near a park, for example? Planning Commission voted 6-0 to approve the city staff’s recommendation, which is to allow City Hall to be placed in those areas.

3) Donut Hole (Summit Place) – Planning stages
Ty Peterson presented a schedule of what needs to happen, and when. The big date to remember is JULY 29TH, when the Planning Commission holds a public hearing, and you can give your input.

HERE’S THE LEAST YOU NEED TO KNOW
* Yarrow Bay can put in a minimum of 945 houses
* Through “incentives”, they can put in up to 630 more houses
* The city will use these incentives as leverage to gain quality of life areas
* Incentives include things like Yarrow Bay building trails, keeping old trees, planting new trees, building playgrounds, ballfields, senior housing, small houses, etc.
* If you have input on what you’d like to see, show up on 7/29 to tell the PC

HOW THE INCENTIVES WORK:
For example, if the developer put in trails, they can add 2 bonus “development units” (usually houses) for every 1/8th mile of approved trail, up to a maximum of ___ miles.

All of the other incentives work in a similar fashion. If the developer agrees to put in this feature, they will be permitted to build ___ # of extra houses on top of the 945. The Planning Commission has to fill in blanks like this, and they are free to create their own incentives to suggest to the City Council, who will vote on their recommendations by the end of the year.

ONE LAST THING
Again, Yarrow Bay sent a person from their legal department who objected to the Interlocal Agreement, stating that it wasn’t allowed under the Purchase & Sale Agreement between Yarrow Bay and King County (which Maple Valley isn’t a party to). The Interlocal Agreement is a deal between the city and King County, saying that the city gets to decide the zoning and gets the impact fees.

They aren’t stating it directly, but the speech has keywords laced in which indicates they are likely posturing for a lawsuit to prevent Maple Valley from imposing its zoning restrictions. This may be an issue in a couple of years, when they actually begin development, submit a permit, and then it’s rejected based on the zoning.

I don’t know whether they actually have a case or not, and I haven’t seen the Purchase & Sale Agreement to know for sure. I have to assume that our city attorney has reviewed their claims and dismissed them, since the City Council and Planning Commission have so far ignored these speeches.

So what kind of features would you like to see? If you’d like the complete list of incentives, just let me know, and I’ll post them.

* * * ADDED LATER:  There’s a copy of the suggested incentives on the city’s website at http://www.ci.maple-valley.wa.us/donut_hole/PCDraft_Joint_Plan060109.pdf

* MOST INTERESTING – Donut Hole Plan
The council had until June 30th to ratify an agreement between Maple Valley and King County over who was going to control the development of the Donut Hole (We’re supposed to call it “Summit Place”, but I like Donut Hole better). If the city council and King County council votes “yes”, Maple Valley gets to control the zoning, and gets the impact fees. If it’s a “no”, then King County gets control. King County is in favor of it, but hasn’t ratified it yet.

Each council member got to give comments on the agreement with King County (the developer is not part of this agreement, but they really want to be). These are my impressions of what they said, you’ll have to read the official meeting minutes for a more accurate telling:

Dave Pilgrim – Concerned that there’s too much density and commercial space. Says he’ll vote no.

Glenn Smith – Doesn’t understand why the language isn’t more concrete (words such as “should” instead of “shall”). Ty Peterson explains why it’s intentionally vague. Mr. Smith also wants less commercial space, and doesn’t like the agreement. Will probably vote no.

Victoria Laise Jonas – Would like to see less density, but will vote yes, because the process needs to move forward.

Noel Gerken – In favor of the agreement, wants to proceed.

Layne Barnes – Says we’re damned if we do, damned if we don’t. Doesn’t like the amount of commercial space, but will vote yes.

Linda Johnson – Doesn’t want to see any development at all, but will vote yes, so the process can move along.

Laure Iddings – Happy that the residential units are down from 2000+ to a maximum of about 1600.

Glenn Smith speaks again, and says he will now vote yes on the agreement. They took a vote shortly after, and it’s 6-1 (Dave Pilgrim votes no).

The commercial space is limited to 25 out of the 156 acres, in case you’re wondering (the rest would be parks and residences). What’s funny is that many of the council members say they would like more jobs out here, but I don’t know that they also want the kind of office and retail development required for people to have a place to work.

* OTHER ISSUES
1) Destination Imagination Team Day – June 23rd, 2009
Tahoma Learning Community took first place in Operation Cooperation at the Global Finals: http://www.globalfinals.org/

2) Arboretum agreement
The council approved a 5-year partnership agreement with the lake Wilderness Arboretum Foundation, a non-profit group that has operated the arboretum since 1965. The agreement basically says it’s going to stay like it is, and both groups have to approve any other use for the grounds.

No meeting next week! See you at Lake Wilderness Park on the 4th!

Well this had to be the shortest council meeting I have been to yet, the general meeting was out shortly after 8 pm.

Not a whole lot to discuss in tonight’s summary except for the King County transit issue. King County is wanting to cut some of our transit services (bus routes) even though Maple Valley is a growing community. In fact it looks as though King County is not taking into consideration the additional need for increased transit services in the area with the development of the donut Hole.

Throw in your thoughts and ideas on the issue.

1) Middle Green River Coalition presentation
2) Stormwater utility rate discussion

#1 was short, so I’ll briefly review. Maple Valley is one of a small number of cities that support this group’s efforts, whose main statement is “Preserving the Best of the Last Wild Places in King County”. State law protects a 12-mile stretch of the Green River Gorge, and this group is dedicated to watershed conservation, and keeping these areas for passive use (hiking, biking, etc). They also acquire property adjacent to these areas whenever they can. Website is http://www.mgrc.org, but only a small part of the site has any content.

#2 – Stormwater utility rate discussion
One of the city’s big responsibilities is to keep the excess stormwater from flooding the streets, and to make sure it drains properly. Plus, the city needs to comply with the federal requirements (NPDES). Somebody’s gotta pay for this service, of course, and it’s an issue today because the fund that MV uses to pay for it is expected to run out of money in 4 years.

So, the staff has recommended that the city increase the utility tax rate that is used to pay for this stuff. The increase for 2009 would be 50 cents per Equivalent Residential Unit (ERU). 1 single-family residence would equal 1 ERU. Right now, the rate for residences is $7.09 per ERU, and for 2010 would rise to $7.59 per ERU. The staff also recommended increasing the rate by $1 per year through 2014, and by 5% for each year after that through 2020.

Nobody likes tax increases, but the good news for Maple Valley is that we have the lowest utility tax rate in the area. Covington’s rate is twice ours (over $14 per ERU), and Black Diamond is almost twice as much (over $13 per ERU). With the above increases, we would catch up to Covington’s 2009 rate in about 11 years.

The larger amount would come from businesses, which pay a rate depending on how much “permeable” surface they have, and how big the lot is. If it’s all paved, they’ll pay a higher rate that a business with lots of grass on the lot. Businesses would still pay over 20% less than equivalent businesses in King County.

Most council members didn’t want to increase the rate beyond 1 to 3 years, and would prefer to have yearly reviews of the status of our stormwater expenses, projects, and tax rate.

So, what do you think?

I made my first public comment yesterday (May 26th, 2009), and used it to rant about the restaurant’s budget problems. I’ve pasted my notes below, and left out a lot of other tidbits, just to keep it under 3 minutes. For example, the advisory committee was suggested two years ago, briefly discussed, but not acted on.

I can’t type as fast as Irvalene, so please feel free to post your public comment transcripts as a discussion.

**************************

Here’s what the council talked about tonight:
1) Puget Sound Regional Council presentation (traffic + transit)
2) Neighborhood Reinvestment Program (grant money)
3) Suburban Cities Association Transportation Issues Discussion (more transit)
4) City Manager’s Report, Lobbying Update (money from the state)
5) Good of the Order (open mic for council members)

MOST INTERESTING – Item #2
The most interesting ended up being #2, the Neigborhood Reinvestment Program. If you don’t know, the NRP is a grant money program where neighborhoods can submit proposals for improving their area.

Glacier Valley II wins the grant money sweepstakes, and gets $15K from the city to enhance their playground. They are also contributing over $11K of their own money.

What made this the most interesting was the discussion of the Lake Wilderness Preservation Association’s proposal for two dog stations. The stations would hold plastic bags for dog owners to pick up poop with, and would have two garbage cans next to them.

That started off a lengthy discussion of dog poop among the councilors, and how people collect it, such as:

1) Dog owners need to bring their own bags, and why should the city provide them.
2) The cans shouldn’t be next to the bags, since dogs aren’t likely to poop next to the cans.
3) But if we only provide bags, dog owners might just toss the poop bags into the bushes
4) Why would dog owners bother to pick it up in the first place only to toss it in the bushes
5) Just put in more cans, and dog owners can bring their own bags
6) Who is going to pay to replace the bags (LWPA said they would)
7) There could be potential liability for providing these stations
We already have dog stations in the park, so what is the difference in liability (I’m assuming that if the LWPA replaces bags with ones that aren’t safe, maybe the city gets sued, since the LWPA is just a volunteer organization).

It wasn’t really resolved, other than asking the Parks people to look into it further.

OTHER ITEMS SUMMARY
#1 – Puget Sound Regional Council report
The presentation was a brief review of the Transportation 2040 plan. As you might have guessed, they have various plans for solving traffic issues (different levels including more highways, more buses, more transit, bike paths, etc). You can read the executive summary online at http://www.psrc.org/projects/trans2040/alternativesexecsum.pdf

#3 – Suburban Cities Association Transportation Issues Discussion
Glenn Smith and Noel Gerken spent some time talking about this group. They meet with other suburban cities to talk about their transportation problems. To an outsider, it seems more like a gripefest about how the smaller cities are getting screwed. You can read more about their public policy decisions online at http://www.suburbancities.org/public_policy/index.shtml

#4 – City Manager’s Report – Lobbying Update
We’re lobbying for money from the state. What we’re lobbying for isn’t entirely clear from the minimal discussion. From the tone of their voices, we’re not satisfied with what we’re getting. Hopefully, this can be made more clear in future meetings.

#5 – Good of the Order
National Night Out will now be in our neighborhoods, rather than one big park event at Lake Wilderness, due to poor attendance.

Ryan Ryals (me) had complained about the golf course restaurant in the public comments section, and how we need to assemble a citizen advisory committee made up of restaurateurs and entrepreneurs to make recommendations. Council will get a report on June 8th discussing the restaurant issue and its money problems.

**** I know these are really long, but I’m still working out the best format for these summaries. Bear with me, and please send me your suggestions for improvement!

The first part of the meeting was to discuss the annexation of the Maple Woods and Maple Ridge neighborhoods. It was “public comments” night, and people could sign up to speak about their thoughts on annexation. If you didn’t already know, those two newer neighborhoods are in unincorporated King County, and aren’t part of the city (even though a back road connects them to Safeway!).

Three people spoke at the hearing, and two were in favor of annexation. The third person was concerned that the city might pull resources from existing neighborhoods to work on the new one, but seemed to generally be in favor of it as well.

That went quickly, so the council moved on to the budget hearing. Tony McCarthy gave a good presentation on what could have been extremely boring. The short of it is, the city will be able to get through 2009 without big budget problems.

2010 though, we’re expected to be short about $625,000. Now, the staff has already put through over $400K in cuts (the biggest by not hiring an assistant city manager), but they needed to do a few more things.

The biggest suggestion was to use money from the capital fund’s sales tax collection temporarily (currenty 25% goes to capital, and they would cut it to 10% for now). Another suggestion is a 1% utility tax, since we have very low utility taxes according to Tony.

Now, if the Maple Woods/Maple Ridge annexation goes according to plan, the city stands to gain about $500K per year that used to go to King County. The services the city will provide will probably amount to less than $5K per year (street sweeping, snow plowing, etc).

Money from issuing permits is way down this year, with only 35 expected to be issued this year (the city planned for 100). There was some brief discussion of the Fred Meyer project, and whether the city would get much sales tax revenue from it. The grocery business would probably just siphon from Safeway, QFC, and Red Apple (Maple Valley Market). However, many of the other things Fred Meyer carries can’t be found in the city, and we’d likely take that business from Covington.

The other pleasant increase is from the Streamlined Sales Tax Initiative (SSTI). I’ve known about this since July, since I sell most of my stuff online. The sales tax rate is now “destination-based”, instead of being based on where the retailer is. For example, if you bought a book from Amazon.com, the sales tax would have gone to the state, and the city where Amazon’s warehouse was. Now, the state gets their cut, KC gets theirs, and now Maple Valley gets the city’s cut. So, keep on shopping!

The last thing I’ll bring up was the Lake Wilderness Golf Course. The golf part is profitable, but the restaurant loses money, and is projected to lose about $120K this year. Everyone seemed satisfied that the loss is less than expected, but restaurants that lose this much money usually end up on Gordon Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares TV show. Why? They need radical change, but nothing like that was suggested. Can you imagine how packed the restaurant would be if the Olive Garden took it over? We like eating out, but for some reason we don’t like eating there.

So, what do YOU think?