Shoreline City Council meeting cancelled
Saturday, January 18, 2014
The Shoreline City Council regular meeting scheduled for Monday, January 20, 2014 has been cancelled due to the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday. The next Council meeting is scheduled for Monday, January 27, 2014.
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Monday's Shoreline City Council Meeting may be cancelled all right, but that doesn't mean the City staff have the day off. Let's talk about the Public Hearing that will be held in the State Legislature in Olympia at 10:00 AM Monday morning. In all likelihood, City staff will be down there to testify. Don't look for this story in the Shoreline Area News City Manager's Report for January 13 because there was no report.
Senator Maralyn Chase, Representative Cindy Ryu, and others are sponsoring legislation that will make it harder for a city to assume a water-sewer district (e.g. Ronald Wastewater District) without a vote of the people. It is a safe bet the City Council is fiercely opposed to that legislation. They implied as much last November in a dinner meeting.
SB 6008/HB 2413 would Prohibit "a city or town from assuming the jurisdiction of all or part of a water-sewer district unless voters of the entire district approve a ballot proposition authorizing the assumption under general election law."
This bill was pre-filed for introduction in the Senate on January 10. It had its first reading in the Senate on January 13 and was referred to the Governmental Operations committee. The City Council knew or should have known about this bill when they held their last Council meeting on the evening of January 13, yet they said nothing about it or about the upcoming Public Hearing in Olympia.
Why didn't the City tell its citizens about it? There were at least 9 citizens in the audience that evening who were vocal in calling for a vote of the people on the proposed Ronald Assumption by the City in 2017. 5 of us said so during public comment.
The City wants to deny its citizens the right to vote on this, despite close to half of the voters in Shoreline voting in November for Ronald Commissioner candidates who advocated for a public vote on the Ronald Assumption. This stance is in stark contrast to their stance on their plastic bag ban which goes into effect on February 1. Had opponents of the ban succeeded in garnering petition signatures from a mere 15% of the voters, the City would have willingly held a special election on that issue, according Shoreline's own municipal code.
On November 4 (one day before the general election), the City Council met off-camera, off-mic, in a back room dinner meeting to discuss its 2014 legislative priorities. The staff report recommended that Council "support legislation to maintain cities’ ability to assume water/sewer districts without a vote as designated by the Growth Management Act.
Then, on December 9 (the last meeting of the year), and with no notice to the public, the Council rushed through Ordinance No. 681, formally starting the Ronald Assumption process. They claimed the fire drill was necessary to thwart an anticipated legislative action by the Town of Woodway, though they never bothered to explain how the City of Shoreline's action would offer any protection. Could their real concern have been this state legislation coming down the pike? We may never know.
It is time to reopen Shoreline. It is time to stop the City's practice of keeping its citizens in the dark. Tell your City Council and your representatives in Olympia that you want a vote on the Ronald Assumption. Tell them you support SB 6008/HB 2413. It is your utility. It should be your vote.
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