Report Submitted by Joe Beaver, Citizen Advocate in Gold Bar:

 JOE'S CITY COUNCIL MEETING NOTES

TUESDAY DECEMBER 19, 2006

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 21, 2006

The following are from my notes taken at the council meeting.  They are not intended to be minutes of the meeting.  My comments are in italics.

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 19

Tuesday was a regular council meeting.   All council persons were in attendance except for Richard Norris who called in sick.  Laura Kelly was also out sick, her duties were taken by Denise Beaston.  John Light was in attendance, but Chief Rutchy was not.

AGENDA APPROVAL

Crystal asked to have the continuance of the Public Hearing on the budget added to the agenda.  The agenda with that change was approved 4-0.

MINUTES APPROVAL

Minutes for earlier meetings were not available due to Laura's absence.

WARRANTS APPROVAL

Vouchers were not available due to Laura's absence. 

MAYOR’S REPORT

Crystal thanked the staff for their efforts on the tree lighting activities.  She also thanked Dorothy and Lonn for their work on this.

Crystal reported that the UGA Approval was going to the County Council for a final vote.  She said Gosset and Somers were against it, and Sievers was on the fence.  She suggested that council members call Sievers and voice their support for the expansion.

She continued on that the lack of sewers was the primary reason for the hesitancy for the approval of the UGA.  The Planning Commission overruled the Planning Services on this issue.  Jerry asked about grants for sewers.  Crystal talked about the sewer report and said that grants were politically charged.

STAFF REPORTS

There were no staff reports.

COUNCIL COMMENTS

Dorothy asked about the status of the City Clerk/Treasurer position.  Crystal said interviewing would start the end of the first week of January, with a report for the council at the second meeting in January.

Dorothy then said that the current warrant formats are hard to read, and wanted to go back to the old way.  There were some payments that had one check number for multiple items.  Crystal took a look at one of them and explained that the check was for multiple petty cash line items.  There was a discussion of accounting formats, with the general conclusion that the current presentation had too much detail.  Dorothy summarized by saying she would like to have the warrants formatted the way that was done when Hester was here.

Lonn showed the US2 - Fix It Now bumper sticker.  He noted that Gold Bar had several high priority positions with the upper valley ranked high for attention.  He noted that the US 2 Safety Coalition's needed donations to hire a lobbyist for next year's session in Olympia.

Lonn asked about duplicated checks.  Crystal said that the current software does not let you delete a check, even if it was never written.  The checks noted by Lonn had not been written and their amounts were not included in any financial summaries.  The State Auditor will come back in February to help resolve this.

Lonn estimated that 120 people came to the tree lighting ceremony.

Jerry said it would be nice if there was money for a new city laptop computer for John Light with recording capability.  John said it would help anyone who goes to meetings.  Robert said $ 1,000 should cover this cost.  Crystal said that additional money had already been added to the budget.  Jerry said we have to revisit the budget again anyway, so it can be adjusted then if needed.

Robert said that he had been selected as an Alternate to the Community Transit Board and that he would attend their retreat in March.  He said that Snohomish Cities and Towns were making lobbying plans for RTID and US2 projects.  Plans are to go to Olympia and lobby for RTID and Sound Transit votes to be combined.

Robert said he talked to John about putting in two street lights a year in Gold Bar.  John suggested developing a procedure.  Lonn questioned the additional cost of electricity for them.  Crystal said not to use a specific quantity.  John said to have a mechanism defined for determining who should get a street light.

PUBLIC HEARING ON BUDGET

Donna Strom had a concern that there was enough money to handle flood problems.  She discussed the recent flooding of May Creek Road and noted that the flooded area is also a school bus stop.  She noted that the flooding was creating potholes and undermining her driveway.

Crystal said the Council did set aside additional funds to work on this.  Denise said they did try to backflush the drain in question and thinks it might be plugged.  Crystal said the city is planning to replace the gravel lost in her driveway.

There were no additional citizen or council comments.

CITIZEN COMMENTS

Bert McClelland says he supports adding street lights where needed, but first take care of lights that do not work.  He noted that some street lights do not have baffles around their photoeyes which can turn the light off when autos drive by, their headlights triggering the photoeye.

He brought up that the dog license requires proof of rabies shots, but takes the person's word on neutering.  Crystal said that was the way the ordinance was written.  The discussion continued on various dog subjects until Crystal brought it to a close.

Ray Coleman suggested a digital voice recorder for meetings which is cheaper than a laptop computer.  He noted that FEMA had established a disaster recovery station in Building 501 at the Evergreen Fair Grounds in Monroe.

He reported on a "ton" of cardboard left by the railroad tracks during the power outage.  He first thought this was a theft of materials from trains, but tracked it down to the packaging for power generators that Burlington Northern maintenance had used to maintain train signals.  Ray noted that he had cleaned up the mess.

Robert said that he had been talking to other cities and that overtime and storm costs could get reimbursed from the government.  He asked if the county would do this, but neither Crystal nor John knew.  Crystal said that there were very little in the way of costs to Gold Bar, that most of the costs were picked up directly by the county.

Denise asked Ray to email the emergency response data he had to her.

Jay Prueher said there was a potential disaster on the north end of his property.  An original railroad grade had been washed away and the berms put in by the Army Corp of Engineers were eroded and damaged.  There is FEMA money available, but he said they would be more amenable to this if the City Council  approached them on this.  Crystal noted that the area in question was outside of the city limits.  Jay said the priority is who asks first and asks most often.  John, Jerry, and Crystal were to meet with Jay after the meeting on this.

NEW BUSINESS

CITY ATTORNEY CONTRACT

Robert said he had just got the contract right before the meeting.  Dorothy said she would like to wait and review the contract before making any comments.  Crystal suggested tabling the contract to the next regular meeting and the council agreed.  Robert asked about minimum usage, Crystal said we had not used the minimum of 8 hours per month for the last several months.  Robert suggested changing the minimum to 10-12 hours per month.  Lonn noted that the item had been tabled and discussion ceased.

FIRST STREET SPEED BUMPS

John said he had a hand-drawn map to present.  He wanted to place the speed bumps closed enough together in order to minimize signage.  He suggested putting one hump south of Lee's house and before Lewis Street and the other between Grand and the bridge.  He noted that the $ 1,000 allocated would not cover the cost of the humps, the earlier quote being based on humps that would not cover the width of the street.  He said both humps should be done at the same time to minimize costs. 

Robert said to allocate the extra money now.  Jerry said to meet code, go all the way across.  John said he would accelerate the work next year with an exact budget.  Jerry said since we don't know how much it will cost, can't put it into the budget, just decide to do it.  Robert wanted to put the money in now, Crystal asked how much.  John discussed an additional $ 2,000 for all additional costs.  Robert asked for council consensus on this, Lonn said he was totally against

speed bumps.  There were three yeses for adding the money into the budget.

(These are the two speed bumps discussed earlier in the year that would cost      $ 535 each, not counting cost of signage, painting, and labor for associated items.  The speed bumps were described as costing the city no money, as they would be paid for with a $ 1,000 donation.)

POLICE SERVICE

Robert made a presentation on options for police services with the new contract.  He proposed revenue sources to add an additional officer.  He thought that an additional levy lift and a special levy for policing could produce enough new revenue for this.  (An additional sheriff's deputy would cost the city approximately   $ 142,000 per year.)  He cautioned that this was a preliminary evaluation.  He discussed the previous sheriff contract and the potential of contracting police services through King County.

He proposed having him and Richard work with the City Attorney, the County Auditor's Office, and the County Assessor to fully evaluate the revenue sources. He proposed making a report at the first meeting in February.

Lonn said this was a good idea, and asked how King County support would work in practice.  Crystal asked where would things be prosecuted, would everyone have to go to King County for this.  Lonn said to drop the King County thing and asked if Robert had talked to anyone in Sultan about their recent police levy vote.  Robert said that everyone in town wants an additional police officer and we could use the King County quote as a negotiation tool with Snohomish County.  Crystal asked that Robert work with the City Attorney only.  Robert said he needed to talk with the county directly in order to get the latest data, they he would limit his work with them to technical issues only. 

There were various discussions, then the council approved the letter by consensus.  ( A scanned copy of the letter is available should anyone want a copy. )

COUNTY HEALTH DISTRICT BOARD

Robert said that currently, four cities (Snohomish, Sultan, Gold Bar, and Index) have a common representative on the board.  He proposed circulating the seat among the cities.  He asked for authority to talk to the cities about this.  Crystal said that Jim Flowers had asked for our support to continue on as the representative on the board.  Robert wanted to propose Jerry now instead.  Crystal asked if Jerry had talked to anyone about this yet, he said no.  Robert said he had talked to Index, Snohomish, and Sultan.  Other discussions ensued about how the board operates.  Crystal asked Jerry to speak about this.  Jerry said he would like to do things the same way it's been done.  He would go to each city and see what health issues they have.

Dorothy asked if Flowers had brought anything on this.  Crystal said no significant information from Flowers, mainly the representatives go to quarterly meetings and rubber stamp things.  Jerry said we could get more communication about outbreaks in other towns with him as representative.  Crystal and Lonn both said that the Health Department does this anyway.  Robert said he would expect members to support their legislative actions.  John said he supported  Jerry.  Jerry then brought up a potential railroad wreck with a chemical spill.  Crystal said that Robert should poll the cities involved with proposing Jerry as the representative. 

BUDGET ORDINANCE - FIRST READING

Robert asked to add $ 2,000 for speed bumps, to a budget of $ 3,250.  Dorothy said the museum support was $ 2,000, she wanted $ 2,300.  Crystal said the discussion was for half of the rent ( $ 3,600) and utilities ( $ 300).  Dorothy was OK with $ 2,100.

The budget was adopted for first reading as amended by a 4-0 vote.  The second reading was scheduled for Thursday in order to meet the 24 hour notice requirement and to beat the Christmas rush.

My summation of the adopted budget is:

                        Expected City Revenues                $    853,855

                        Expected City Expenses                 $    716,474

                        Expected Water Revenues             $    346,800

                        Expected Water Expenses             $    311,203

                        Expected Tank Grants                     $    261,150

                        Expected Tank Expenses               $    250,000

                        Expected Bridge Grants                  $  1,549,230

                        Expected Bridge Expenses            $  1,549,230

CITIZEN COMMENTS

Ray Coleman said that the city's flat bed truck had a sanding box, but that he saw John and Richard shoveling sand by hand.  John explained that the sand box uses a mix of sand and urea for flow purposes and is only used for long stretches of road.

Ray said he supported Jerry's efforts on Health and Emergency Management.  The Fire Department was offering certification on this if 10 people would sign up.  So far, only 2, Ray and Jerry, had signed up.  John said he would look into having city staff sign up and will report on this later.  Ray said a partnership with the Fire Department and Burlington Northern made sense.

Chuck Lie said a truck accident would get Washington State Patrol attention, but was not sure on what a train accident would get.  He said the level of the Wallace River was scary and that houses outside of the city limits (e.g. Moonlight Drive) need to be handled by a larger entity.

John explained that due to environmental regulations, neither Fisheries, Corp of Engineers, or the Department of Emergency Management could do anything until the Snohomish River hit flood stage in Snohomish.  Then they could do work on an emergency basis.  John noted that there were several big trees upstream on the Wallace that were in danger of being swept away with the next flood.

The meeting was adjourned until Thursday, December 19 at 7 pm for the second reading of the budget ordinance.

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 21

All council members except Robert were in attendance.  The second reading of the budget ordinance was made and the budget was approved by a 4-0 vote.