CH Rowe Is there anyone else have any comments from the public? If not, then we’ll go into the 20-minute presentation from G.R.I.T.

K. Coy This was going to be a lot longer, uh, but on the advice of counsel we’ve shortened it considerably. When we originally requested the –

CH Rowe We need your name and address for the record.

K. Coy They have it.

CH Rowe I know, but we [unintelligible].

K. Coy I’m Kenton Coy. [address withheld]. When we requested to be allowed to speak on the council agenda, we had no knowledge of the lawsuit that had been filed, uh, for libel on behalf of Loretta Storm, Ray Kistenmacher by Bill Trippett. As most of you can appreciate, uh, I’ve gotta be a little bit careful about the wording and, and what we address tonight, since our intent is honestly not to confuse the issue or provoke more litigation from our reverred—revered and respected Mr. Trippett for others acting on his behalf. What we really want to do is open a channels of communication, what we’ve always tried to do, open a channels of communication between our city administration and the citizens who [are] paying the taxes in support [of] all the litigation that we’re tied up in. As a citizen of Sultan, I’m personally a little bit outraged that by the amount of time that’s been wasted by our administration in the last year, dealing with issues brought up by one party or another that…the amount of money wasted in fulfilling the steady flow, and the time wasted, fulfilling the steady flow of incredibly large record requests that are overwhelming our city staff. I’m personally disgusted with the conduct and tactics of another group of people in our ti—in our city, calling themselves GRIT, and by the fact that our citizenry must allow our elected officials to be tormented and insulted out of fear of reprisal for lawsuits coming from this conduct. And hindsight really is 20/20. There’s noth—another election comin’ up. And I can’t help but sit here today and look at this next election and wonder who we’re going to be voting on. Who, after seeing what we’re putting our people through, our elected officials, and appointed, after seeing what the citizens of this community are allowing outsiders, insiders, other people to put you people through, whose going to come forward to fill these seats on our council next election? Who, who do we know that wants to go through this? We have people in our city administration today who are looking for jobs elsewhere because of this conduct that the citizenry is allowing [unintelligible] put through. I feel it’s time for the leaders and citizens of our community to stand up and inform – as a group – this other group, or this other entity, we’re not going to sit by idly and allow ‘em to run our city into the ground, anymore. To start this process, I’ve taken steps on the internet to block certain internet addresses from accessing our serv—our equipment. There are, at this point, in accordance with federal law, all e-mail being sent unsolicited must contain a return e-mail address and directions for being removed from that mailing list. Throughout the past year there has been literally thousands of violations of this by several people. It’s been brought to my attention on numerous occasions, and because I believe that at heart the individuals committing these violations believed they were doing a good thing for our community. But their address will no longer be allowed to pass through our equipment. And I am taking steps to contact other internet service providers to do the same thing. I have a guest speaker tonight. He’s going to point out a few more issues on this that I might have missed.

E.Boucher My name is [clears throat] Ed Boucher [address withheld], Sultan, Washington. And unlike Kenton, nobody’s suing me yet, so I can just say any damn thing I want. [unintelligible]. Anyway. We’d like to cover a few of the liability issues that’s created by an organized group of people that are intent on grinding city hall and all development down to a halt by any means they can. Uh, item number one that [unintelligible] here is the copying that’s taken place. They have possibly broken the law pertaining to the federal copyright act, Title 17 U.S. Code, covering illegal copying of prints and/or confidential papers. Not to mention the privacy issues on some documents that have been copied. Item number two: File tampering. I’ll give you an example of how this works. After a member of a group had in her unsupervised possession a certain file, a portion of that file disappeared. At two city council meetings after that, her husband accused the building department of file tampering. Then after that, a councilman does their legwork on a Saturday, he know investigating and taking snapshots and looking the situation over on a Saturday. He then uses his influence to bring pressure on planning and the building department to get a stop work order on the property. A full circle, mission accomplished. Item three: harassment. February 29, 2000 at 1207 Gohr Road, on Mr. H. R. Schlicker’s property, a meeting was held with over 30 people in attendance regarding 12 documented complaints at that time, back in February. Mayor C. H. Rowe, two or three councilmembers, five city staff, two lawyers and other concerned people were there. The group had their people there, and one in particular, a man named Kurt Beardslee. Mr. Beardslee tried to dominate the meeting by claiming that the stream in question on the majority of complaints was a Class 2 stream, not a class 3. He was told by Mr. Craig Bre—Bruner of city staff that the stream had just been checked out at the county level by himself and was definitely a class 3 stream. Mr. Beardslee then said that he was the man that classified streams, and that he and his group had reclassified them. His claims were later checked out and didn’t hold water, so to speak. The end result was, "The" group of people were given notice by Mike Jacobs, attorney, that any further unfounded complaints would be considered harassment, and a suit would be filed against them. Mayor C. H. Rowe told them that many staff employees, city councilmembers and himself had spent much time – had spent much too much time, city taxpayers’ time and money, devoted to their unfounded complaint. Mission failed. Except, but – that’s when Mayor C. H. Rowe and some of the city staff, councilmembers, went on the not-so-popular list and things really started happening. Item four: unsupervised copying of documents of the files of city hall. Hidden recording devices [nod of acknowledgement toward black microphone hung from ceiling on a 3-foot black wire lead]…in the, uh, entries of city hall; standing requests for future paperwork which doesn’t even exist at that point, or not even processed or on file, but, uh…never mind [unintelligible]. Announcements on their website of a proposed moratorium on all development several days before a councilman proposed it to the coun—council. Who are these people who are attempting to discredit our mayor and some of the councilmembers? Who are these people that have our city staff, second-guessing every decision they make? Spending a large percentage of their time dealing with this massive paperwork trail, threats of lawsuits and unfounded complaints. Who are these people causing some of our excellent staff that we have right now in this city to consider looking for employment elsewhere? Which is happening. They are residents that live both in the city limits and out of the city limits. Possibly lawyers. Possibly ex-employee lawyers. Possibly members of the planning commission, future members of the planning commission. Possibly city councilmembers. [sound changes here; lots of background noise disappears] And possibly, like me, my neighbor. In closing, I would ask that the city as a whole, from the mayor, city council, staff, even to the receptionist, stop knuckling under to this group who seem only to have self-serving goals in mind. I would also – I also would think a vote of confidence by the city council and their staff, would be in order. Stand beside them, not on top of them. At this time, I’ll turn it back over to Kenton for closing. Thank you. [scattering of applause from support group].

K. Coy This group of citizens call themselves "GRIT," and they are rather abrasive. But they aren’t GRIT, and they never will be. [holds up an official-looking document with a seal on ivory-colored paper] And the State of Washington says so. There is a legitimate organization named "GRIT," Governmental Responsibility, Integrity and Truth," and they are no part of it. We have a good staff. The people for years in this community have worked together to open channels of communication. And I can disagree with the mayor or Robert Criswell or Perry or Bob Ostrom, Carolyn, but I don’t have to insult your integrity. I can walk away from it with the same respect that I address the issue with. And know that I’ve retained the same respect from you as when I address you. The name-calling, standing up calling our officials, both elected and appointed, and paid city administrators or employees, a liar, discrediting them, slinging mud, has to stop. And the only way it’s going to stop is when the people stand up and insist that we treat our elected and appointed officials with the same respect we gave them when we asked them to run for that office. [smatter of applause from support group].

CH Rowe Thank you, both you gentlemen.

M.Raney Mr. Boucher stated something that I believe cast some dispersions. And I would like to clarify –

E.Boucher Pardon me?

M.Raney I’d like you to clarify your comments about something being posted on the website days before --

E.Boucher Several days. Before one of the council brought it to the council that there should be a complete moratorium on all building in the city of Sultan, yes.

M.Raney And are you referring to my recommendation?

E.Boucher I’m not referring to anything except that line, whoever among you that brought up a complete moratorium on the building of Sultan, would be the one that I’m referring to.

M.Raney I guess, that there’s an update that I have been publishing since I took the council seat that goes out before council meetings, or after them, whenever there are enough issues to talk about. It’s a matter of public record. It’s been posted until June on Sky Valley Online. And it’s available to anybody who has given me an e-mail address. And I –

E.Boucher I, I’m sure –

M.Raney [unintelligible] – referring to, I’d just as soon have names out and I – because it doesn’t sound very good. It sounds like there’s somebody on the council that’s in some sort of collusion or something and you’re intimating some things there that seemed –

E.Boucher Let me –

M.Raney -- [unintelligible] -- seems to, is the same sort of behavior that you guys are objecting to right now, and that’s all I want to –

E.Boucher That’s absolutely true. And there’s a lot of people that appear that they were working on a side of whatever. I’m not going to stand up here and accuse you or Perry or anybody else, uh….simply if the shoe fits, wear it. Were you out, inspecting, doing their legwork on a Saturday?

M.Raney Personally, I have been out to various sites around the city with a camera, taking pictures of things that in my opinion there were concerns enough about that either weren’t being enforced, needed additional attention to, and personally, I don’t think that’s a problem. I would just as soon not have to do that. I have plenty of other things to do with my time.

E.Boucher I, I agree.

M.Raney But sometimes there are questions about enforcement. And sometimes it’s difficult to find somebody who can get those questions answered by. And so I think that –

E.Boucher [unintelligible] –

M.Raney -- [unintelligible] – council people –

E.Boucher [unintelligible] being contacted to go do a little something for somebody works out.

M.Raney Right. But I don’t think it’s fair to cast council people or a city official in any sort of bad light for serving the community and doing what they feel is the best job. If that job includes things like continuing dialogue and getting things to the table.

E.Boucher Well, then let me say this about that. I apologize if I have, if you feel I’ve singled you out as the main, uh, connection here or something. It’s only a reference to how…uh…suspicious knowing what’s coming up at a council mem---meeting – a moratorium, something like a moratorium – knowing that several days ahead of time. And –

CH Rowe Actually, this is actually [unintelligible] comment –

E.Boucher Anyway, I’m not trying to single out any single person towards any single thing.

M. Raney I just don’t want to leave that on the table here, because nobody gets any inside information from me or anybody. It goes out as a public document. There’s no discussion about it with anybody and that hearing it from me, that people are intimating.

E.Boucher Well, there’s a lot of transmissions. It’s a high-tech world, and some people really know how to use this high-tech world. And I’m sure that, uh, you know, there’s a lot of communications go on, and I’m not, uh, as you notice, I didn’t use any names. I’m not – I used the word "possibility" a lot of times, because I fully probably expect to be served by tomorrow. By somebody. [laughter] You know? That’s just how it works. I hope it ain’t, you, Mark, ‘cause I’m not tryin’ to, to [unintelligible].

M.Raney Chico, the problem is, I’ve watched this happen in another community. I moved from North Bend partly because this happened. I don’t want to see it happen here.

E.Boucher My closing statement was, "Let’s stop it." Let’s stop this B.S.

Male Right.

Male Okay.

CH Rowe Thank you, Mr. Boucher, Mark. With that, we will move on to the Consent Agenda [here ends this portion of the public comments section]

CH Rowe Is there anyone else?

K. Coy I have one more thing I’d like to add. I’m Kenton Coy, again.

CH Rowe [unintelligible] Did you fill out this form? [laughter]

K. Coy I was going to say the same thing that Andy did in so many words. Something else that was pointed out to me a little bit ago is that I understand that members of this other group have solicited and may have received contributions from the public. If you have, or anybody you know has, received or made contributions or have been solicited for contributions, that’s fraud. Contact the state Attorney General’s office.

CH Rowe Thank you. Anyone else? Okay. If there’s no more comments, we’ll close this portion of the meeting.

[Excerpt: Closing comments from council members]:

Male Mark? What do you have?

M.Raney Just a couple of things. First the, uh, the presentation we had earlier tonight, I, I think was ill-advised. And I would just suggest in the future when there are things that are in litigation or potentially litigious that those just not come in front of the council. I think that it risks escalating things. There are not opportunities for people to respond appropriately, and there’s a great forum with a full house for people to put out information that’s partially true, or not true at all. And by the time people have a chance to respond, there’s nobody here to hear it, and so then it gets passed off as fact.

Porter Sounds like he’s talking about the Everett Herald.

M.Raney Well, uh, and you know, there was – what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. And I just think if we’re really good stewards of this community, then escalating things with emotional, uh, overtones, it’s just not wise. And I think that we saw something here tonight which is really not helpful to the process. Now when there are opposing opinions about things that are passionate, I think that any reasonable person would agree that that means that those people probably have reason to feel that way. Now, they may not be correct in their delivery of it, and Ray and Loretta know how I object to how some of their material’s been delivered, but I will always fight for their right to have a place at the table [unintelligible]. And to present information that in fact is valid sometimes. The other thing that was put out was the potential for city staff or officials leaving. And what that failed to recognize was that, was that we have lost officials and city employees and elected officials who objected to how things were run. And this is a Democratic society, or at least a representative Democracy of sorts, and I think that that got left out there as if, thanks to GRIT, these people are planning on leaving, which in fact several people – and I’ve met with some of the people who have left the city’s employ, not including our former city administrator, -- but regular employees who left because they have concerns about how the city was enforcing the laws and doing business. And yet that was not brought up and it was left on the table to be sort of a problem of GRIT. So that’s part of my concern. And the other one was without Chico actually pointing out his concern, I believe that what he’s talking about is one of my updates that went out on a Friday as I normally do or Saturday. And there was comments on the web over the weekend prior to committee, or the council meeting, that I had made proposals, or at least wanted discussion about a potential moratorium because I had concerns about several issues. And it’s well documented. And many people in this room received that document in the mail, or e-mail, prior to there being any comments on the website about it, which, and I, I’m just going to chalk it up to maybe not knowing how the internet works and how these discussion forums work. But that was something that went to most of the people on this committee if not for all that had e-mail and many of the people in the community. That will be the end of my comments.

CH Rowe If I might say something here, Mark, the people you talked to that left here because they didn’t like the city, the way the city was run, it must have been quite some time ago.

M.Raney It’s been within my term.

CH Rowe There’s one, one that left here that I think it’s because she didn’t get appointed city administrator and there was the ex-administrator resigned – there’s one other guy.

M.Raney Might be willing to talk to somebody privately about it, but I have their confidence about what I’ve heard from them.

CH Rowe Okay. I’d like to discuss that with you if I’m in the confidence. But anyway –

R. Criswell Hell, no, you’re not.

G. Weed I’d like to make a comment, if I could. I’ve been asked previously by other cities that I represent, where do you draw the line between recognizing someone’s First Amendment right of free speech and, uh, censuring in public? And the advice that I’ve been relating, generally giving, to other cities is that the public comment portion of a meeting is there for citizens to comment on items that are not specifically on the agenda that are of public interest , and particularly if they’re relating to legitimate city business. The public comment part of your meeting is not there – it shouldn’t be there to allow parties to litigate their claims publicly. There’s another forum for that and that’s the courthouse. Your public comment part of your meeting’s not there for people to take, uh, uh, shots at one another, to defame one another and so forth. It should be oriented toward discussion of legitimate public issues relating to the city of Sultan. So it’s certainly within the Mayor’s discretion to gavel someone during public comment if they get too far astray from, from, from, uh, legitimate city business. And unfortunately, there’s not always a clear line between those things that are legitimate city business, and that are, that are not, and people tend to wander and stray and kind of go in and out of comments that might partially be appropriate and partially not be appropriate. But it’s a difficult, difficult challenge to determine when a person steps over that line and say, "Okay, you need to [unintelligible] and to address your comments that pertain to the city." And some of the comments made tonight may not have been directly relating to city business, and, and, and many of them may have been, but my, my advice is to Council and to Mayor in accepting public comment, it needs to be made known to the public that you’re here to listen to comments from the public that are relating to, uh, City of Sultan business.

Male Kenton Coy.

CH Rowe [unintelligible]?

Perry Before we get going on down the line, I got one more – I’m just curious as why one person, you know, would have, be limited to three minutes and then another person would be limited to 20 minutes. That sounds kind of strange to me, especially when I have no idea who was, uh, coming up. It doesn’t make – everybody has the opportunity.

Male (Mark?) There seemed to be a disagreement between two different organizations.

Male Yeah –

Male -- businesses or whatever, that have no place in this forum that that, in that amount of [unintelligible].

Perry But it seemed like to me it should have been the same limit as everybody else. If we’re going to give everybody 20 minutes, then everybody that has a comment should be 20 minutes. If we’re only giving them three minutes, they should be three minutes. It should be said on our agenda that way.

CH Rowe You know, the only reason I didn’t question it was awhile back we had that fellow that asked for the – I think he asked for 15 minutes on the –

Perry Well, that was on the schools.

CH Rowe -- on schools. That was the same thing.

Perry But I think that was a completely different category.

CH Rowe Well, it might have been a different category, but –

C. Broughton No, it wasn’t.

C. Broughton Well, just so you know, it wasn’t.

Perry That’s neither here nor there. What I –

C.Broughton [talking over Perry] No, it wasn’t. Okay. Well, just so you know, it wasn’t.

CH Rowe Yeah. But anyway, that’s why [unintelligible]

Perry Everybody should be treated equally and they were not here tonight.

CH Rowe The only thing I thought was that these guys asked ahead of time, I just assumed they’d asked. Roy, Roy or somebody –

C.Broughton Well, they could’ve just as easily then asked to be put down for presentations and then it would have been allowed.

R.Bysegger The, uh, council needs to make a firm policy on, on this, whether or not there is a special, uh, uh, interest or special thing that a person or group is advocating, whether or not there’d be special consideration for them, or if it’s just everyone is going to have a three-minute limit. And if you have a three-minute limit, then adhere to it.

B. Ostrom You know, one of the things that I think that in this presentation is the same with the school is that you’re talking about issues that maybe don’t affect the city,

Male Right.

B. Ostrom [continuing] This one sounds – with the more people--[unintelligible] people with a lot of finger-pointing and maybe a veiled reference to a councilmember. But I had the same feelings that the rest of you have. This thing’s gotta be limited to three minutes and treat everybody exactly the same. And if it’s not city business, [unintelligible] that’s one thing I think that the mayor should use a gavel. I know this is not something that we can [unintelligible].

CH Rowe I works for me. I can cut ‘em off at three minutes.

Perry I think they should be –

Rob Start bangin’ on those guys over there, will ya?

CH Rowe Okay. You’ve got it, Rob.

G.Weed One thing I might suggest to Council to consider would be to adhere to your three-minute rule is that if a person approaches the council at a meeting and gives a legitimate reason to ask for time beyond that, the council can decide on the spot if there’s some special circumstance like the school district wanting to make a scheduled presentation, the Council could make an exception to that. Otherwise, adhere to your time limitation.

CH Rowe Okay. All others, three minutes.