Clyde Hill News: City to hold public meeting on changing form of government
Listening in response to petition momentum; also, continued questions to Administration on code enforcement problems
The next City Council meeting, on June 14, will dedicate time to listening to residents about a petition that’s gathered more than 115 signatures from the community. An update about this and more after our disclaimer.
One more item before our disclaimer: if you find this newsletter useful or interesting, please forward it to your Clyde Hill neighbors and friends. Thank you!
Disclaimer: while I am a councilmember on the Clyde Hill City Council, I write this newsletter in my capacity as an individual resident. Any opinions expressed are my own and not necessarily the position of the City. The information and references here are from public sources. I welcome email responses — and if the topic is about City business I will respond from my City email account.
Tuesday night’s Council meeting ran mostly smoothly.
Petitions: “Big ears, little mouth in June”
From a resident point of view, the item of most interest involves a petition gathering momentum in the community. The petition became a topic at the meeting because residents have reached out to multiple City Councilmembers about it:
Petition proposes change
The gist of the petition involves placing an item on the November election ballot, asking Clyde Hill residents to choose whether
to change to the same form of government used by Medina, Mercer Island, Kirkland, and Bellevue (“council-manager”), or
to continue with the current form of government (“mayor-council”).
Currently, Clyde Hill’s City Administrator is accountable to the part-time Mayor. The Mayor is elected directly by residents of Clyde Hill.
The proposed change would result in the City Administrator becoming accountable directly to the City Council. The Mayor, as in Medina, Bellevue, and other council-manager cities, would be a councilmember selected by the City Council. The role of the Mayor is to run Council Meetings and attend other meetings on the City’s behalf.
Listening ahead — “Big ears, little mouth”
At Tuesday’s meeting, the Council agreed to dedicate time to listen to residents on this issue at the June 14 City Council meeting.
The City will accept emails and letters from residents in advance for residents who cannot attend the meeting. My understanding is that emails should be sent to cityhall@clydehill.org and council@clydehill.org.
If you’d like more information about the petition or to sign it, you can email the residents working on this at ClydeHillCouncilReform@gmail.com.
Councilmember Steve Friedman commented:
“My feeling is there’s a lot to be discussed in an issue like this and there’s a lot that’s not understood and if we can have an open discussion, understand what the public thinks, what their issues are, and learn more about the consequences of this type of a decision, it might help us make a better decision.”
Councilmember Kim Muromoto emphasized the importance of listening, recommending an approach of “big ears, little mouth” for the City. “I certainly, certainly, certainly want to listen to the input from our citizens,” he continued.
Also: Pet Chickens
Another petition going around the community, available online here (link), involves legalizing chickens in small numbers as pets.
Clyde Hill is somewhat unique in disallowing chickens as pets. Medina and Bellevue, for example, allow them explicitly. Hunts Point and Yarrow Point city code do not discuss chickens; there were no resident complaints about chickens as pets the last time I called to check.
Progress!
The City Council passed an ordinance requiring City Council confirmation for the position of City Administrator. This change brings Clyde Hill into the norm for Mayor-Council cities (link). Also, the Mayor committed to solicit and listen to feedback from the Council regarding the City Administrator’s performance (link).
The City Council finished reviewing draft text for its by-laws (the rules and procedures for getting work done). This is relevant for residents in terms of codifying consistency and fairness in the process of appointing residents to commissions and filling any future vacancies, among other changes.
Code Enforcement, Unchanged :\
City Council and residents have been clear and consistent in their feedback and concerns regarding unclear and inconsistent enforcement of City code.
At Tuesday’s meeting, Cm Steve Friedman asked plainly: “What does the administration plan to do to resolve these [enforcement] problems now in advance of the planning commission’s work,” work that will be in progress for the next two years.
He asked in context of yet another “example of the inconsistency of enforcement and our codes, as well as the lack of information to assist residents in making appropriate landscape decisions,” according to a write-up he sent to the City over a month ago for comment (available here, link).
The plan right now is that there is no change to City enforcement policy ahead of the larger Title 17 / Planning Commission review process that is expected to take about two years.
Back on April 12, Councilmembers Friedman and Hachamovitch made a similar request — “We are looking to City Administrator to tell us what adjustments to the code enforcement policy make sense in order to serve the community better.” (link)
Tuesday night, the Mayor conceded that “We want to do things that can right here and now maybe make an impact until we eventually get to those [code and enforcement] changes down the road,” and that “We need something now while we're waiting for something going forward in the future.”
All Councilmembers agreed about the problem and the need for action sooner.
Cm Muromoto was clear his “request would be to have some visibility into what you're [the Administration is] going to do” with respect to enforcement so that the City can avoid being reactive to calls and complaints about inconsistency and unfairness. Cm Bruce Jones agreed with Cm Muromoto that “if we can get a better understanding of how you're going to deal with the rules and handle the enforcement in the short term until we get 17.80 [Title 17’s enforcement section] nailed down, that would be very beneficial.”
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Dean Hachamovitch