12/21/2006: "CC Discusses Hiring A Consultant"

Now that there are six members of the CC (County Council) representing the citizens, the discussion of what the Council priorities should be has itself become a Council priority. So far in the discussion the idea of asking the citizens what they think those priorities should be, has not come up, except as passing peripheral musings along the lines of: The voters elected them to make the hard decisions.

When the topic of priorities showed up on the agenda on Tuesday, Councilman Rosenfeld, one of the self-described "newbie's" to the Council, rhetorically asked it they would be able to add their ideas to the list too, and then suggested "affordability" should be included.

Some of the Council members were, while not against it, not quite sure what sort of things one might find within such a priority. But another Council newbie, Gene Knapp suggested that since the voters had turned back the affordable housing measure by "a large margin, I have concerns about including that on the list".

This then led to an observation that ferry fares have to do with affordability, and that in turn, took the Council into how best to influence the State Legislature on issues that are council priorities.

Rosenfeld suggested that perhaps individual council members could be given "a generous per-diem to make if more worthwhile for them to do it (travel to Olympia on County business).

County Administrator Pete Rose, with years of experience in such matters, suggested that the council may want to consider hiring a lobbyist who has an expertise in an area of Council concern.

Myhr said he had reservations on hiring a lobbyist to represent the County. Rose responded he was not suggesting the Council hire a fulltime lobbyist, or one that would deal with additional topics, but only one who would take on a particular issue, and who had the right connections and qualifications to be effective for specific issues of concern, such as the loss of the Capon Funds.