Jan. 26th council meeting highlights and lowlights: First, here's the agenda packet that we received late, due to the city's problems with email (in Word, Acrobat). ALSO audio of the meeting, in six different mp3 files, can be opened/downloaded linked to the agenda-only page in html, or in Word. But here's the short version of what happened:
- In a squeaky-close call, former Mayor C. H. Rowe was not appointed to fill Jeff Everett's vacated council seat (Pos. #6), which would have been a cruelly ironic action. Old Guard Rowe associates Dusty Boucher, Derek Boyd and Rob Criswell voted yea, but three votes did not constitute a majority, and no tie vote existed, Mayor Tolson could not vote. Ultimately, Jim Flower revised his nomination of George Schmidt (a gutsy and corrrect decision) to Kristina Blair, who had received a vote each from Bruce Champeaux and John Seehuus. The final vote ended in a tie -- three votes for Rowe and three for Blair -- which Mayor Tolson broke by voting in Ms. Blair. We are heartened that new council members Jim Flower and John Seehuus, as well as Bruce Chapeaux, whose nomination and vote for Blair rather than Rowe was probably grounded in his knowledge of the City's financial needs, did the right thing by refusing to follow the Boucher/Criswell connection's lead to vote in Rowe. Kudos to Flower, Seehuus and Champeaux, with the G.R.I.T. Raspberry of the Week going to the Bouchers and Criswell, who clearly displayed misplaced loyalties to Rowe rather than their concern for the city as a whole. We are, of course, disappointed that the only truly qualified candidate, George Schmidt, will not fill Jeff's seat, but have high hopes for Ms. Blair's performance. Besides, it will be nice to have a woman's perspective and insight on the council. We hope that Mr. Schmidt will run for council in November, hopefully to fill Mr. Criswell's tiny shoes. (Audio of this portion only, 1.5 mb MP3)
- Connie Dunn reported that ground-breaking should begin on two Highway 2 improvement projects shortly: Sultan Basin Road's realignment (with left turn lanes at a cost of $1.6 million) should begin in July, with the start of the 5th Street Signal and intersection improvements estimated for April-May'ish. (This would be a good summer to find a distant ocean or mountain hideaway to, well, hide away from Sultan's horrendous traffic congestion that will be caused by these improvements.)
- The subject of increased legislative pay for new, incoming council members elected in November, was tabled until 2006 budget discussions begin in August to take the temperature of the city's finances before making any decision. This intelligent approach was offered by Bruce Champeaux, following significant verbal flaying about by Rob Criswell.
- Wireless access in Sultan: First, a correction to yesterday's update, which stated a $300 charge to the taxpayers of Sultan to install this equipment. Not sure what I was smoking, sniffing or drinking, but this is the fee the city would charge Ryan Spott to lease city hall rooftop space on which to mount his equipment. My apologies for that misinformation.
- Turk Trail - It looks as if the city has definitely decided to close this trail, despite many students' wishes that it remain open and some fairly easy fixes to security and monitoring of the trail. A student last evening stated the students would stage a "sit-out" if the trail is closed.
- Barmon's Lumber Building Permit: Jim Flower added this subject to the discussion agenda and Dan Barmon offered comments on a problem he's having with city staff in the cost and requirements to construct a new building. Not sure how the staff could misunderstand Mr. Barmon's request for a permit for a 12,000 s.f. building, but Rick Cisar and Craig Bruner both stated that the permit fees were based on a 40,000 s.f. building. Other Barmon concerns included Wagley buffer setbacks, a required Hwy. 2 r-o-w frontage easement and landscaping requirements. Ultimately, Tolson requested that Barmon meet with city staff again to resolve these issues.
- OTHER/MISCELLANEOUS: Bakery owner Wendall Smitth feels joint City-Business-Citizen effort is needed to "resolve" the transient problem (relocate them somewhere else/make it less-desirable for them to be here, etc.); Bob and Teresa Nutke (spelling???) brought a complaint re the appearance of the new VOA building across from their home on First Street, stating it detracts from the value of the homes in the area, and that the city's DRB (Design Review Board) should be used to resolve the situation and others like it in the future; they also requested that the city write a new code prohibiting farm animals inside the city limits (they are having a problem with a neighbor's chickens and horse); Ray Kistenmacher stated that due to Sultan's poor track record of allowing preferential treatment of city officials in their land development deals, he feels Rowe, Dalmasso and Skogland should be eliminated from consideration for the vacant council seat.