Clyde Hill News: Mayor seeks to increase budget, clerical staff
Also, August election, and how to meet Clyde Hill’s Chief of Police
First, please remember to take the time to vote this primary season… here’s the envelope that registered voters should have received last week:
There’s a ballot drop in front of the library in Bellevue as well as many other locations.
Also, it’s not too late to register to vote; you can get more information on that here: link.
From Clyde Hill Police Department’s Sentinel newsletter (sign-up here, link), a reminder that you when you see Clyde Hill police officers at Queen Bee
Feel free to come up and say hello! We enjoy having the opportunity to chat with people and connect with our community.
Per the newsletter, “You can find Chief Kolling and some of our Clyde Hill officers some weekday mornings around 8am at Queen Bee Coffee” on Points Drive.
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.
City issues update
Looking across recent Council meetings and this week’s Administrator’s Report (link), here are some topics of interest from a resident’s point of view.
Budget amendment: more clerical staff
The July 26th Special Council Meeting will include a “2022 Budget Amendment & Staffing update.” From the Mayor:
I would like to go to post on a second assistant city administrator and we would prepare to talk about what that would mean in terms of FTE and position and budget at our July budget planning meeting.
The Mayor made that statement to Council at the June 14th Council Meeting during a discussion about working better together. You can watch her entire statement here (link). For context, it’s not clear what recent events or reprioritizations the Mayor refers to at the beginning of this response.
The Mayor also stated:
I hear the level of frustration that we’re not able to make as fast headway as possible but like I said we are strategizing internally how we can do a better job.
Other expenses
We don’t know what other expenses the proposed budget amendment will cover. There are no confirmed public details. Some candidates:
$125K consulting fees. The Administration hired a consultant to help address the backlog of work around the Comprehensive Plan and Land Use Code Review. The amount hitting the budget here will depend on an expected state grant to help pay some of that amount.
Legal fees. The City’s previous legal firm quit on very short notice in December after questions from the City Council revealed that the firm’s work had been going on for years with no approved contract. The City had no choice but to secure interim legal coverage; as with most short-term fixes, it was expensive.
The higher interim legal expenses continued longer than expected after the Administration’s proposed City Attorney was rejected by the City Council, 5-0, because of clear conflicts of interest. The Mayor and Administration initially proposed a currently serving City of Bellevue Councilmember as Clyde Hill’s City Attorney.
The work on the stormwater problems at 17th Street will likely be part of this budget amendment as well, based on other public documents. More on that below.
Getting a clear answer
Good administration requires clear answers and agreeing on facts.
To illustrate, consider the issue of Public Records Requests (PRRs). By state law, the City has to produce records (e.g. emails) in response to requests from the public. For example, Clyde Hill residents (and often their attorneys) have requested City emails regarding building permits, code enforcement, or investigations.
At last week’s meeting, the Administration provided details on its workload and throughput on PRRs and a comparison with Medina. Councilmembers expressed surprise at why Medina appears to be faster and more effective at responding to requests.
During the meeting, Cm Steve Friedman dug in to the numbers (link) to understand the Mayor’s claim at the June 14th meeting that the Assistant City Administrator is spending 90% of his time on records requests:
We have so few resources within the city to accomplish this…. I know it sounds like an excuse but when you’re faced with the city administrator and… an assistant city administrator whose role is pretty much 90 percent dealing with public records requests, and is unable really to do a lot of the leg work and the busy work… um we are not getting our work loads done at a pace and an efficiency that we have been used to and would like to do.
The Assistant City Administrator agreed with Cm Friedman that “roughly half the time” (link), not 90%, was a more accurate assessment. The Mayor disagreed; I struggled to distill and summarize her statement, which you can watch here:
17th Street Stormwater and other topics
Some good news: the 17th Street project “is on track to be bid as part of the 2022 Drainage Program.” Staff anticipates “project advertisement next Tuesday 7/19, with bids due on Tuesday 8/2. This should allow the contract to come before Council for review and award on 8/9.”
According to the Director of Public Works, progress here will depend on securing easements with the property owners.
Voters’ Pamphlet for Ballot Measure
Clyde Hill residents will see a ballot measure in November regarding a change to the City’s form of government. The City Council chose committees (from the residents who volunteered) to provide the pro/con statements in the Voters’ Pamphlet.
Comprehensive Plan
The City’s website now has a page on this topic (link). From the July 15 Administrator’s Weekly Report announcing this:
The City has recently created a web page on the City’s website dedicated to the ongoing Comprehensive Plan process. This page will be maintained over the next two or three years as the process moves forward. The City will soon be seeking input from the public on the Plan’s “Vision Statement.” This is the same deliverable that both the Planning Commission and the City Council have already provided input. This represents the third and final type of input for the product before a draft “Vision Statement” is brought before the Council for informal review and approval. Website and social media communication efforts will be made to solicit input from the public.
Thanks for reading! Please forward and share with your friends and neighbors, and if you are not already getting this newsletter, subscribing is both easy and free.
Dean Hachamovitch