SULTAN
TOWN MEETING - 7 PM, Thursday, August 17, 2006:
Re
Police Service/staffing levels, city's finances and 1400 new homes
(If you want an audio CD in MP3 of the entire meeting, contact us.)
INFORMATION RE CITY'S FINANCIAL WOES:
2004 State Audit report & findings
SUMMARY
Mayor Ben Tolson, Interim Sultan Finance Director Gordon Hey and Police Chief Fred Walser -- as well as every council person -- were on hand August 17, 2006 to present info on the city's shaky financial situation and why a levy is needed to finance police services and equipment.
The Mayor used a neat new tool from AWC (Association of Washington Cities) by which instant feedback -- via a remote control voting device given to citizen meeting participants -- can be obtained on survey questions. (See below photo, which shows how the assembly receives these results isntantly via overhead projection. The idea for use of this voting tool was brought to council by Councilmember Kristina Blair.
Unforutnately, only 50 or so folks attended this meeting. Of those, only 33 in-city residents were allowed to give their opinion and vote -- on any survey subject -- despite the fact that the Sultan PD is the first response agency in the event of an emergency if the County Sheriff will be delayed) and several vote on the Mayor's creative and potentially positive concept of creating a REGIONAL park district (which includes residents outside Sultan). Additionally, the City's long-term addiction to, and dependence on county, state and federal grant dollars -- the source for which comes from all taxpayers, regardless of where they live -- means every person at that meeitng had a stake in the survey results.
We will attempt to get the survey results from the City to post here.
Here's a G.R.I.T. flyer-handout mailed first-class to 113 of Sultan' newer residents, trying to alert residents to this poorly-advertised public meeting (in Word, pdf)
INFO ON POLICE STAFFING LEVELS (in a squeeze play with City's continuing financial woes): Here's a couple of handouts distributed during the June 29th council meeting:
- Unattributed article (i.e., source unknown) which we found immensely educational on this subject, especially for folks with zero-zilch-nada-zip education on police issues (This article was given to us by Interim City Administrator Lee Walton.)
- March,
2004 article from Public Management
Other Information of interest re Police:
- DRAFT ORDINANCES (in Word, pdf) re Police Levels - One ordinance gives two options for amending Sultan's comp plan to either delete police LOS from the Plan or revise the Plan's definitions. A second ordinance would delete the offending SMC (code) section re police concurrency.
- Here's DNS (Determination of Non-significance) Notice and the SEPA document associated with these draft ordinances.
Sultan
Police Chief Fred Walser at Q&A during Sultan's 8/17/06 Town Meeting.
Hear a 2-minute MP3 sound bite of the Chief explaining by the Cops-in-School program is so important: The cop in Sultan's schools is "the most important cop...."
(Seated at the table are Sultan councilmembers, all of whom attended this event (left-to-right): Bruce Champeaux, Steve Slawson and Jim Flower; seated next to Flower is Mayor Tolson next to the podium)
Mayor Tolson giving results of a survey question (re possiblity of establishing a regional park district) during the Aug. 17, 2006 Sultan Town Meeting
Remaining Council Members (sitting on the right side of the room: Left-to-right: John Seehuus, Ron Wiediger, Kristina Blair and Derek Boyd (Not a great photo, but the best we could get, sorry.)
As you can tell from these photos, the city did not do a good job of getting the word out on this important meeting. In fact, it was Fred Walser who was instrumental in printing out the City's flyer (which was posted only at city hall) and walked it around to several local businesses, the owners/managers of which were civic-minded enough to agree to post it prominently in their businesses. I saw these flyers at the Red Apple and Dan's Restaurant, and I'm sure other businesses agreed to post them.
But we do not understand the lack of civic participation by other local businesses that did not post this flyer. A bi-partisan issue such as a strong police force is in their -- and everyone's -- best interests. Another question: Why wasn't this info posted on the School's reader board and readerboards owned by local businesses well in advance?
