Coming: Time permitting, we will be posting the audio of last Saturday's SPECIAL Gold Bar Council Meeting called by Robert Amenn, Dorothy Croshaw and Jerry Wood, the form, content and result of which has become a Medusa's head.

New - How to increase public participation and public noticing? Here's one unique way, being used in England. RELATED STORY: The City's website is, finally, begining to look like a "real" website. It now has listserv capabilities for public notices. Yahoo! (This is an expression of glee, rather than a reference to the internet giant, on which our website is hosted!)

New - 1/19/06 Herald article on U. S. 2 Safety Coalition legislative funding efforts.

New - Correction on our story below regarding the council's "decision," made during the discussion agenda item to disband the Plng. Commission: While listening to this section of our audio, we heard a weak, though opposing, view by Councilwoman Blair, that if the PC could be "effective," its continuance would be a benefit to the city. (In my "defense," a train was passing, and Ms. Blair's comment was quite low, and the tone of her statement sounded as if she was agreeing with the majority of council members. Our microphone picks up more than I can hear sitting in the front row.)

New - Transcription of Prothman Report presentation during Jan. 11th council meeting (in Word, Acrobat)

New - LEGAL Jan. 16, 2006 DNS (Determination of Nonsignificance) Proposal to revise Sultan's code for citywide lot size requirements and multifamily; reduce minimum area requirements & setbacks, increase lot coverage percentages (i.e., impervious surfaces on more land), and estabilsh incremental lot size requirements for multiple family units. (Once again, this notice is available in pdf format only, as the City has not forwarded this notice to us directly. This is a worrisome, and ongoing trend by the City, despite its legal requirement to share such information with "parties of interest," of which we are one.)

New - Notice of Application for Twin River Estates (22 S.F. homes south of Foundry Drive and the RR tracks) by Dan Ramirez. A map of the location of this development is part of this file. This information has been presented in pdf only as the city has once again decided to withhold distribution of its legal notices from us. This proposed development will require an amendment to Sultan's CP and CFP because the the owner/developer must have a sewer line approved and installed underneath the BNSF railroad tracks to his property, paid by him personally, as stated publicly in at least two public meetings by Mr. Cisar. Of course, that "requirement"/information is not contained within this Legal Notice. (This could get interesting....)

Ongoing - Herald article re Sultan's Prothman Report and the recommendations made within it. (See below link to the complete text of this report.)

New - Gold Bar - January 14th's "Special" Saturday council meeting called by majority Councilmembers Robert Amenn, Dorothy Croshaw and Jerry Wood -- a meeting that coincided with the Seahawks' playoff game and was not adequately posted -- resulted in several motions related to previously-redacted (refused) emails written by former GB Mayor Colleen Hawkins before she ever took office. Gold Bar has previously spent many thousands of dollars in legal fees defending the City on this issue. These emails are being requested (again) by Allyson Sonsteng, wife of the Hawkins-fired building official David Sonsteng. She is continuing her search for "evidence" on which to base another legal challenge for the firing of her husband. (Her first lawsuit died after receiving an unfavorable summary judgment last year.)

The stated purpose of this meeting is contained within the Gold Bar notice (in Word, pdf), but the agenda for, and actions within, this meeting far exceeded the council's authority or the special meeting's scope. Examples: The Amenn-Croshaw-Wood motions (passed unanimously, and under the guise of "saving" the city legal fees), authorized an in-house council review of the redacted emails; authorized the council to set policy regarding legal expenses; authorized Robert Amenn to be the city's liaison to the city attorney (promised to donate his $100/month council salary to cover certain legal expenses); and other such motions. We attended this meeting and recorded it. It was stated in the meeting that Councilman Richard Norris was out of town, and that the first news that Councilman Lonn Turner was given of this meeting was Friday night. There were no notices posted on the front or rear doors of city hall and no notice on the GB U. S. 2 events sign/"billboard." (To those of our readership who wonder why we would be involved in this issue, we "purchased" the right when we spent several thousand dollars in legal fees in the summer of 2004 to ensure that several personal and private emails I had written to Ms. Hawkins during this time period were not released. GB and we "won" the case; however, it carried an "expiration" date of December, 2005. It now seems clear that both we and the City of Gold Bar must fight this battle once again.)

Ongoing - The Final Prothman Report as forwarded to us by the City (over 3 mb in Word). The first half of this file is comprised of 30-or-so pages of the Prothman Report; the second half consists almost entirely of the auditor's report, which is Attachment C. For our slow-pokey friends who are still on dial-up, we are providing here a smaller pdf version (576 kb) of the first half of the Prothman report, which does not include the 30-odd pages of auditor's findings. You can access the auditor's report via our link below). NOTE: There is also A VERY IMPORTANT ATTACHMENT to the Prothman Report we are also providing in a smaller pdf file -- Attachment B (pdf, 86 kb) depicting both the current and proposed city organization, in org chart form. Audio of Prothman Presentation (3 mb, MP3)

At Jan. 11, 2006 Sultan Council Meeting: