There is a hearing scheduled on the sign ordinance at 6:30, but the Planning Commission last night took appropriate, yet unusual action by refusing to send this ordinance onward until they have had an opportunity to review and approve the finalized version, which they have not yet done. (Somehow this got scheduled as a council hearing without the PC's final review and vote.) They also voted unanimously to recommend that the council cancel and delay the hearing pending their review and approval with recommendations. (Good for them.)

An "Emergency" measure to approve repair of the several-year-old repair to the city's backwash, damaged several years ago in the Duvall earthquake. We are uncertain why an emergency currently exists.

A big head's up item (at least, for most non-developer types who rise early and have to commute long distances to Seattle and elsewhere): The council (at the request of the mayor) will discuss eliminating the mandatory 10 PM stop time for council meetings. This means two things: First, meetings would be allowed to continue indefinitely. Until this mandatory time was initiated by Carolyn Eslick, many meetings dragged on until 11, 11:30 and later. Second, we suspect this may be a smokescreen to either curtail or shorten the public comment period to allow more time for the city's "real" business. (Des Moines' Mayor Don Wassen tried that, with disastrous results. He was recently forced to resign amidst charges of corruption and self-interests.)

I think most Sultan residents would probably agree that in the midst of our current politically-charged environment, with a possible change of government pending, now is NOT the time to silence voters' voices. Here are some thoughts on how to shorten council meetings: Professional time and meeting management by Mayor Rowe (curtail meaningless conversation, chit-chat -- Porter's constant water fountain grumbling is just an example -- and limit forays into wild, uncharted topic areas); establish and enforce firm time limits on both public and council member comments; limit the number of issues on each agenda; and last and something that would have the most impact on wasting time, encourage the mayor to achieve organizational control of the meetings, something he either does not know how to do or has been loathe to do.

Most cities seem to be able to end their meetings at a "reasonable" hour. "Reasonable" seems to be an important guiding factor in the law, we hear it a lot. And because the council meeting is nothing more than a "business" meeting of the city, and it's not reasonable for any business meeting to run past 9:00 PM, if any revision to the meeting stop time is needed, it should be to shorten the time to 9:00 PM, not lengthen it.

Due to Comp plan consultant Tom Beckwith's scheduling problems, his presentation and PC discussion on the nearly-completed draft of the comp plan EIS was set for Thursday. The PC also voted unanimously last night to add one other action item to that special meeting: Review and approval of the sign ordinance.

We're saddened that the comp plan process has been so poorly attended by residents. In case you aren't yet aware, this is the basement - the foundation -- for how Sultan will grow over the next 10-15 years. Once the PC has reviewed it, the EIS will move to the council for their action.

This is important. We're hoping folks will be able to attend, listen and give input. PC Chairman John Seehuus echoed sentiments close to my heart last night when he added an opening and closing public comment period to this special meeting to reinforce the importance of the public process.

As most of you probably know by now, the ECI report has been published. A link is on our website. Some will recall the results of the comparisons between cities of their taxable retail sales elicited some strong comments from Editor Kenton Coy several months ago. We've been analyzing this report and "rearranging" those figures to provide a better city-by-city comparison.

As you'll recall, the city's representatives/contributors on the ECI report and EDC (Snohomish County's Economic Development Commission) effort was Grant Coordinator and Sultan's Economic Development/Grant Coordinator Donna Murphy and Real Estate agent/Planning Commissioner Bart Dalmasso.

(As an interesting aside, Mr. Dalmasso's brokerage firm, All Real Estate, was given prominent placement in the ECI report as a resource for business people wishing to buy land or relocate here. And since Mr. Dalmasso has repeatedly accused me of using the term "conflict of interest" a little too fast and loose (stating that I consider it a "conflict" if any activity conflicts with G.R.I.T.'s agenda), I will simply say that Commissioner Dalmasso's various activities on Sultan's EDC, his input on the ECI report, his activities with the Snohomish County EDC, his personal financial contribution to the ECI report, his position as a Sultan Planning Commissioner, and his personal financial interests as a Real estate broker/owner in Sultan, all work together in a happily-synergistic manner.)

Our analysis should be released sometime this weekend.

TOMORROW'S MEDALIA CLINIC RALLY! Don't forget! Show up and show support in Medalia's parking lot at 3 PM Thursday. Hopefully Sultan will get some first-rate media attention on a serious problem that will affect everyone east of Monroe. Encourage your elected city officials to attend.

GIRL SCOUT'S MOM-AND-DAD'S-NIGHT-OUT VALENTINE'S DAY BABYSITTING SERVICE (What a brilliant idea!)

Here's a message from them:

Evergreen Fairgrounds Long House, 14405 179th Ave. SE

Come and give input to the county on YOUR VISION of the way the county should develop (and, perhaps, not develop). During the Highway 2 Safety Coalition meeting on January 21^st, John Koster said the county was slated to grow 300,000 between now and 2012. Those population figures, based on recent data from the county, appear to have been significantly exaggerated.

The first 75 minutes of this event will consist of an "open house" forum with presentations/Q&A to follow. The last county "open house" that was locally held -- for the county's gravel/mineral resource plan last year -- was a bust, and the Q&A period a sham. Questions were either not answered, or sloughed off for individual consultants or county employees to respond to after the Q&A. The problem with these most-recent government public input process du jour is that everyone cannot hear what is said by all. I'd like to see this type of forum stricken as a legal fulfillment element of the public process.

We spoke with lead County Planner Tm Niemann on January 22^nd to determine the status of the county's mineral resources (gravel) comprehensive plan.. He said they've been working closely with the consultant and public works trying to focus on how to solve transportation issue conundrums to arrive at some meaningful solutions rather than going forward with the plan designations without knowing how to address the impacts. (Considering major problems in Granite Falls deteriorating road infrastructure and Route 2's capacity problems, they've really got a full real-deal-meal on their plates to digest!)

With the county's revision of their Comprehensive Plan coming up this year, a key decision that will have to made shortly is whether or not to write (or, even, if they can write them in time) the implementation codes to accompany the next iteration of the mineral plan. If the timing works out as anticipated, the Plan and accompanying codes could be sent to the county's PC in March for a hearing. But if they're unable to develop meaningful ordinances soon, they'll just wait for the county's 10-year GMA update process this year and review/approve/deny them at that time.

We've done a timeline on these events and will post it later today. It's our assertion that the city made misrepresentations during the short plat process, compounded in the appeal hearing. Because of that, all city costs and fees charged to the homeowners should be waived (approximately $4000-4500), as well as reimbursing the residents for their own attorneys fees. (And put this in your "Big Surprise" category: Despite numerous advisements to the City of BMP violations (Best Management Practices) that have been occurring on the Boucher Short plat duplex construction site since October, they just don't seem to "get it." As you know, this short plat is one of the three main legs of "The Boucher Triangle" area which has seen significant political and environment upheaval over the past couple of years. It's simply a head-scratcher for us that other jobsites and communities comply with these laws, yet this particular area of the city always seems to receive the equivalent of a "Get Out Of Jail Free" card.

Many are already aware that Ray's brother, Al Kistenmacher, is a Level III sex offender scheduled to be released in April of 2003. We have any information currently known to us on our website (left-hand menu item, "Kistenmacher") and will post updates as we receive new information. We are meeting with his Community Corrections Officer (parole officer and relocation oversight contact) next week and should have more information then. We encourage anyone wishing to speak to us directly on the issue to call us. We also encourage everyone who is aware of this situation and is internet-capable, to distribute this information to others to spread the word. As with all things in life, we are all better off when we deal with fact than rumor or fiction.

I wish everyone a productive and pleasing week.

Loretta Storm

360-793-6683