I think there is something in the air at the Lodge meeting rooms. Tonight’s city council meeting was barely longer than 1 hour, and the last council meeting in that room was also right around an hour. I might have to retract all of my complaining about excessive meeting times, and blame it solely on the school district meeting room.

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!