11/08/2007: "Council Moves Quickly In Response To Election"

In an unusual move, the County Council plans to have a special meeting this Friday. By telephone. According to a notice sent out on Wednesday, the council has apparently been discussing the need to quickly appoint a Council Stormwater sub-committee, and for reasons not explained, have decided it must be done this week.

At this weeks Monday staff meeting, Councilman Rich Peterson noted that no time had been allocated on the future agendas for discussion of stormwater funding, and that there should be some time made available.

The response from the other council members was silence, then Councilman Ranker, the most vocal of the six, inquired as to the reason for Peterson’s request. Peterson said that regardless of the outcome of the election on the funding ordinance, he felt that the council should discuss the issue.

It was decided to place the topic on the next agenda. In answer to a question we sent to Councilman Bob Myhr on his general response to the results of the election that defeated the funding ordinance, he wrote back that "as discussed in our last staff meeting, the Council plans to review the issue as one of the first discussion items at our next regular Tuesday Council meeting." That may be the reason for the meeting on Friday, since the Council will not be meeting for several weeks .

What, when, and how the Council decided to meet by telephone on Friday, instead of waiting for the normal scheduled public meeting, was not explained by the Council press release.

While the Council is required to take formal action only in public advertised meetings, the members do not make all of their decisions in front of the public. Under state and county laws they may communicate to each other in private, as long as the number involved does not constitute a quorum. Another method they use is to communicate to each other by using the Council Clerk to relay their conversations back and forth to each other, thereby avoiding the direct contact that would violate state law.

The framers of the Charter could have prevented this by rule, and while it was discussed at length, in the end it was decided to let existing state law and regulations control it.

As reported, ( Story) the public may attend the telephone meeting to listen via speaker telephone. The meeting will be held in the Planning Department’s meeting room in the Court house annex -next to the post office- but the room is very small and will not hold very many members of the public.