Mayor Tolson, formerly DEAF, DUMB AND MUM
RE a $30,000 "donation" from Sultan developers, finally goes public:
Transcription: Excerpts Feb. 8, 2007 Council Meeting
Sultan Resident Ron Fejfar My name is Ron Fejfar [pronounced "faver"]. I live at (Address withheld). Good evening, everybody. I'm kind a new at this so I hope you'll cut me some slack. I've never done this before and so I'm going to try to get through this as quickly as possible, but, uh, if you cut me a little bit more time, I'd appreciate it. Is it a normal, everyday occurrence for a town this small to get a cash donation in one lump sum of, say, $30,000 or $40,000? Does that happen all the time? [pause] Shall we start with you?
c/m Derek Boyd Well, it's very seldom.
Ron Fejfar How about you?
c/m Kristina Blair [extended pause]
Ron Fejfar Is this a normal, everyday occurrence?
c/m Kristina Blair I couldn't comment on other cities.
Ron Fejfar No, no. For this town.
c/m Kristina Blair For this city?
Ron Fejfar Yeah.
c/m Kristina Blair During my time on council, uh, as a donation or – no.
Ron Fejfar Your [unintelligible]?
c/m Jim Flower That was why I moved, uh, the consent agenda item up to action so we could discuss that very issue. Because I –
Ron Fejfar I'm just asking the question. I'm not –
c/m Jim Flower I'm wondering the same question.
Ron Fejfar Okay. And would you say this is a normal occurrence?
c/m John Seehuus Not since I've been here.
Ron Fejfar How about you, mayor?
Mayor Tolson This is a new one.
Ron Fejfar How about you, Mr. Graf-Graafstra?
Attorney Thom Graafstra I don't have any idea –
[two brief simultaneous comment by Graafstra and Fejfar.]
c/m Derek Boyd Did he bring a check with [unintelligible] tonight?
Ron Fejfar [To Ron Wiediger] How about you? [no verbal response heard.] I'm just trying to get some quick answers so we can move along here.
Ron Fejfar Yes or no?
c/m Steve Slawson No.
Ron Fejfar How about you?
c/m Bruce Champeaux No.
Ron Fejfar So not including a big donation that came in within the last several months of about $30,000, as I understand it, can anyone here recall when was the last time a lump sum of, say, $30-40 Grand came in at one time in this City? As a donation, contribution, whatever you want to call it? Anybody have any memory of that?
c/m Derek Boyd You're talking [unintelligible]?
Mayor Tolson I'm gonna – I'm going to have to ask you to proceed a little faster.
Ron Fejfar Well, I'm trying to move fast.
Mayor Tolson I, I understand. You—you've had your answers, though.
Ron Fejfar No, I haven't. I just asked a second question and nobody answered it.
c/m Derek Boyd Are you talking grants, when you talk -- ?
[simultaneous comments]
Mayor Tolson The is---the issue with this, though, is this is public comment. Not question and answer. You come and ask a question, and then the next person comes and ask the question. The council then, when they have their response to public comment, responds back. That's how this format works.
Ron Fejfar Okay, so, so at this stage of the game, you can't ask these kinds of questions?
Mayor Tolson You don't ask – you come and--and make comments. This is how the for—forum works. You ask a question. The next person comes up and asks the question. Then it comes the councilman's time to respond. That's how the—the for—the format works.
Ron Fejfar Is-is there, is there a, is there a forum where citizens can ask questions such as this?
Mayor Tolson Where we have a community meeting. Like we had one a week ago Tuesday?
Ron Fejfar Okay.
Mayor Tolson Um, and, and I…familiar with what you're alluding to. We are going to be addressing that issue.
Ron Fejfar And when would that be?
Mayor Tolson Uh, that – well, Action Items four and five tonight will be part of it. And, and the – I will even comment toward it in the, uh, response that councilmen have, 'cause I have a chance to comment [unintelligible].
Ron Fejfar Got it. Okay, then one other quick comment. Actually, two. Mr. Graafstra, I agree with Mr. Gibson: You are demeaning and insulting to the citizens of Sultan, and what you're doing [unintelligible] around here, I don't know. If you worked for me, you'd be gone. One final thing. A number of citizens that I have talked to seem to be of the opinion that there is some sort of covert effort afoot to get rid of the police department in this town and farm out the job to the county. I don't know whether that's true or not. Um, but—but the opinion seems to me of the people that I've talked to that this is probably the advice of members of this council, and some of the Old Guard/Old Boys of this community have some, some sort of grievance they've had with the police department going back years and years and years [ago]. It's my opinion that this is a very bad, very short-sighted idea. Um, you don't farm out such a critical component as police protection unless you're a dying town with no hopes and no dough and no prospects. You don’t farm out police when you're a growing community and you may double in size in the next ten years, five-ten years, and you've got a complete infrastructure in place with good police officers, a well-known, well-respected police chief. To farm this kind of a job out is, is – [short laugh] – is about as dumb as anything I've ever heard. To even be contemplating it is pretty silly. And I would venture to say that if this council votes to do such a thing, I would not be surprised if you would see a firestorm of political backlash, citizen backlash, citizen activism, the likes of which none of you have ever seen. I think you have opened Pandora's box and I don't think you're going to like what you see in there. That's just my opinion, but I've been wrong before.
Mayor Tolson: [Responding to Ron Fejfar's comments] You brought up the question, Mr. Fejfar, regarding dollars being given to the City. I'll broach the subject. A few months back, uh, the council, we were in the process of hiring, a…[pause]…consultant to help us work through some of our long-standing issue with our comprehensive plan. The decision to go that route had been made. And, yes, there have been some developers say, "Hey, we like this. We would like to…pay the bill." That came to the City, in that [says either "form" or "forum"], I asked for legal counsel on that, uh, in the last couple of weeks for direction. We will be making some determinations in the next few weeks to exactly follow through with it. Is it a normal process? I don't think so. Do they feel that it is going to benefit there? I would imagine so, but I don't believe that, from my perspective on this that we wouldn't have done anything different.
Ron Fejfar Really? [unintelligible].
Mayor Tolson: Because we were hiring Reid Shockey anyway.
Ron Fejfar That's a little scary. That's a little scary.
Mayor Tolson: That's, that's your opinion to hold And you're—you're welcome to that. However, the issue for us is to get the best people in line to help us in line with the Comprehensive Plan. That is our, our—our desire, because we do have issues with that comprehensive plan that….we needed extra help there. So does that help answer that question for you?
Ron Fejfar It—it—it raises more questions.
Mayor Tolson: Well, that's fine, then. I'm, I'm more than open to talk with you [and] most anybody else, you know, wants to –
Ron Fejfar Well, I—I tried to talk with you –
[simultaneous comments]
Mayor Tolson: No, no, no. I'm talking in another forum, okay? And I'm willing to do that in—in another forum if you'd like to make an appointment. [unintelligible].
Ron Fejfar Well, I think it'd be – probably if we did it in a public forum.
Mayor Tolson: Well, that's fine as well. So. With that, uh….
[C/M Steve Slawson then asks Mayor Tolson to advise citizens of the next Town Meeting, 6:30 PM, March 15th at Sultan's Middle School Commons. Interestingly, Tolson promised citizens at the end of the January 30th Town meeting that the Mar. 15th meeting would be dedicated specifically to the subject of police, and citizen-police dialogue and communication. HOWEVER, as Tolson did with last year's August town meeting – which was set for the express and exclusive purpose of discussion of police issues (in anticipation of the police levy), but later changed by Mr. Tolson to provide him a forum in which to present financial and budgeting constraints, especially as they relate to the cost of police, Tolson is apparently going to do the very same thing with the March 15th Meeting. In response to C/M Slawson's request, Tolson gave the date, time and place, then said: "We will address some of the questions raised this last meeting, as well as provide the financial information that people were wanting, and some of the misinformation that was out there regarding the cost of the police levy and what it was going to cost, when some people thought it was going to cost them fifty bucks a month on $180,000 home. So we're going to try and help people understand what the actual, uh, tax dollar implications would be on those areas."]
Immediately following that exchange:
Ron Fejfar When can members of the public ask about this $30,000 in an open forum? When can that occur?
[long pause]
c/m Derek Boyd Well, when can I ask about it?
Ron Fejfar There seems to be a big mystery about this [unintelligible] grant, and I—I—I'd just like to – I'd like to bring it out into the open. Wouldn't that be good?
Mayor Tolson: We can make it a point of discussion following the, uh…. Actions this evening.
Ron Fejfar Hear-hear. Let's do it.
c/m Jim Flower: Mr. Mayor, it was my intent to discuss that during Action Item five.
Mayor Tolson: All right. That's fine. It's on the docket.
c/m Derek Boyd: All right.
Councilmember Jim Flower's Closing comments:
c/m Jim Flower The reason that I brought this discussion forward is that really none of us knew what this was about. It was time to air this, what the $30,000 was about. It was only brought to my attention this week that we had a structure in place for accepting this. Again, to air it, so that when these questions come up, is this "clean" or is this tainted, then the public is involved with that discussion. That procedure has not been followed. And now we have to backtrack and go over several donations that were not given that treatment. My apology for us not following that procedure. I wasn't even aware of it.
Ron Fejfar That's—that's scary. Scary.
c/m Jim Flower Yes, it is. Mr. Fejfar, let me remind you, as I said earlier, we don't go to – we don't go to, uh, Councilman University for 16 years to find out how to be here for $40 a meeting. We're all business owners or we are – we punch a time clock somewhere. The reason we are here is that we're members of the community just like you, that have sat out there that got P.O.'d enough to finally say, "Okay. I'm going to do it." And get up here and go, "Wow. What is all this stuff? Oh, and I still have to run my business, too?" And so we rely heavily on staff to provide us the information, give us a cover sheet, pat us on the back and say, "Don't worry about it. This will be fine." Sometimes when things come up a little smelly, we are the one to take the heat on it, and we are the one who have to go back and fix that. This is one item that we will definitely have to shine a light on. Because I don't want anybody pointing fingers at me in newspapers saying –
RFI couldn't imagine you would.
c/m Jim Flower Because there's nothing you can… To me, in a small community, there's nothing more valuable than your word and your reputation. A similar situation happened in Monroe earlier this year by someone that is close to me, and it baffled me why that councilman did not fight for his name when he had the resources to do so. He decided to settle. That one I just cannot understand. Uh, it takes a lifetime to build up a reputation and it takes a rumor to kill it. Unfortunately, that kind of is happening here right now. Should it have been addressed more quickly? Probably. Should it have been addressed in a more formal way? Well, apparently we have a procedure in place to do that, but did not follow it. So we should definitely do that. But I appreciate you coming, and expressing your passion for these issues. And don't be a stranger. If you'd like my card, I'll give it to you after the meeting and we can talk some more.
Ron Fejfar Did I do a good job?
c/m Jim Flower Yes, you did.
Mayor Tolson Closing Comments
Mayor Tolson There've been a lot of heated emotions this evening. And I can appreciate being out there because I was out there once with a lot of….assumptions on how things happen. It is different on this side. Does it make it right? No. Is it frustrating at times? Oh, absolutely. In, in regards to, uh, the terminology in the newspaper of accepting a bribe, I do believe a bribe needs it has to be for personal gain. Um…I, uh, probably a better term to use is trying to buy influence. Did—did I get upset with the comment? Yeah. Did I seek out legal advice? Yeah. As an elected official, you ain't got nothin' you can do about it. And that's—that's just the reality of it. And—and I wished council to not respond because it wasn't worth responding to. So that's basically the –
Ron Fejfar Who gave you that advice? Him [referring to Thom Graafstra].
Mayor Tolson I cannot – I cannot…. You know, you're—you're—you're bordering on, you know, just totally disrespectful, you know. And that's, it is not appreciated.
Ron Fejfar I'm [unintelligible] with Mr. Graafstra there.
Mayor Tolson No. No, sir, you're not.
Ron Fejfar Giving him a compliment?
Mayor Tolson No you're not. And so, um…
Ron Fejfar This thing gets more bizarre.
Mayor Tolson I'm sorry, this –
Ron Fejfar It gets more bizarre all the time.
[end of transcription]