The Snohomish City Council just adopted guidelines to “rein in” council members who make inappropriate comments during council meetings. Those would be comments that are not consistent with the majority point of view.
The guidelines discourage council members from making personal or disruptive comments. The guidelines were developed and adopted to “force” councilmember Swede Johnson to act more civilly toward his council colleagues.
It is probably true that Johnson lost patience with his council mates and blew his cool on a couple occasions. But when you are dealing with inexperienced novices; that is understandable. I think Swede could have crafted more civil language that conveyed the same point, but he got caught up in the moment. Sometimes acting outrageously is the only outlet when dealing with folks who are closed to outside ideas.
It seems that since council member Johnson is the only member of the body with the experience and knowledge to recognize bad government when he sees it and then point it out in a public meeting, he is being “put in his place” by Hamlin and his posse.
Swede Johnson has more experience in government than Hamlin and the majority of the council combined. His knowledge about how government works and the substance of our local government makes him uniquely qualified to offer insights his council colleagues have not even imagined. Most of the majority have made up their minds that they don’t really care what Johnson has to contribute so they take positions opposite his without really considering the content of his comments. The arrogance of the majority emboldens them to push forward with their agenda, hoping that the public will never know about their errors in judgment.
It really annoys them when Johnson asks questions that are embarrassing to council members or staff when they cannot be answered. It doesn’t seem to bother most of them that the staff managers are not prepared to answer more than most basic questions. Council members are elected to ask the tough questions. It is their job to protect the interests of the citizens by making certain the issues are thoroughly discussed and possible outcomes have been assessed.
I would hope that every council member comes to every meeting prepared to hold the feet of staff to the fire. Responsible council members do their home work and look deeper than the cover sheet on agenda bills. They take the time to know the material and are prepared to take the staff to task if the material is not complete enough to make a good decision. It is clear that some council members take their responsibility more seriously than others.
I don’t live in the historic district so the people I listen to seem to have a different spin on this effort by the council. Comments I hear suggest the average citizen views the Snohomish City council and city management to be a bad joke. And I believe the council is oblivious to it. Unfortunately, that is typical of people convinced that they are the only smart ones in the room. They are so full of themselves they are not listening to anyone else’s input.
I am not suggesting that Swede Johnson is the only one with good questions, but he has quite a few. His many years of experience would suggest he is not a crackpot. His ideas might have some merit.
On the other hand, the lack of experience and knowledge of Hamlin, Guzak, Schilaty, Clemans and Randall suggest they could use all the help they can get. But they don’t like the tone of his input.
Bad decisions by city councils are often not detected until significant time passes. Some are evident right away. Sometimes, bad decisions are as simple as not holding staff accountable for their mistakes. The current crop of rookies is confident that the city manager and his staff will prevent them from making too many bad mistakes. They think staff has their back. It is my opinion with the council we have and the staff we have the blind are leading the blind.
Over the years we have had some pretty decent department heads; finance managers, planners and engineers. That is not my view today. I cannot remember a time when I felt the city was in such jeopardy because of a lack of substance on the council and with city staff.
In difficult times, we hope we have capable leaders and managers to protect the interests of the city. At this time, I have no confidence that our city will have the ability to avoid the pitfalls and capitalize on the opportunities that might come around. Council members aren’t digging into the issues deep enough to be prepared for the tough choices that have to be made or sharp enough to recognize the difference between the two. If they are counting on staff to cover their back side, they are in deep trouble.
Swede Johnson has been a respectable member of the school board and the county council. It is only when he drops back to a city council position that his credibility is called to question. How can that be? I have known Swede Johnson for forty years and he is not the one whose credibility should be questioned.
Council members are not comfortable with Johnson’s input. The truth is often uncomfortable. Dealing with it is often painful. But, council should listen because there is substance in his comments. If nothing else, his questions and comments should serve as a “heads up” to lead them to questions of their own. Sadly, arrogance and ego won’t let them.
Respect is something you earn with your deeds. Swede Johnson has paid his dues and done the work to earn the respect of his peers and his constituents. All I see on the Snohomish City Council is a bunch of whiners who think they can demand respect with a council motion. I’m sure Swede Johnson is quaking in his boots in fear of these intellectual giants.
I am proud of Swede Johnson for having the courage to stand up for the city when it would be very easy for him to sit back and do nothing. I can assure you that based upon the actions of most council members doing nothing is the only thing they do well.
Let’s hope that a code of conduct helps them with those tough choices and good luck with that respect thing!
No Loss for Words 
I’m Dreaming of a Dry Christmas!
by Steve DanaExcuse me for taking the past month off for the holidays. It is not like me to be at a loss for words. In spite of that, there is no doubt that things have been happening.
On the morning of December 13, 2008 we received a fresh blanket of snow that started a month of bad karma. Here in Snohomish County we received the longest and coldest snow storm in most of our memories. There were some of our customers that talked about snow fall in their yards a couple feet deep. Thankfully, in town the snow was only a foot or so deep. For those among us who wanted a White Christmas, their wish was granted. We had fresh snow for Christmas. For those who needed to get around for holiday functions with family and friends, the snow was a pain in the rear.
For the most part, the snow limited our mobility and restricted our customers’ ability to get to our restaurant and that left me cool. You know what happens when Steve’s customers cannot get to The HUB, Steve gets really cranky.
If the snow had been the extent of the bad news, we all could have been okay with it; there were not too many seriously adverse impacts from the snow. The unfortunate thing was that was only the half of it. The bad stuff was yet to come.
Everyone looks forward to the melt after a snow event. We can’t wait for the slush to clear and the roads to get back to normal. After snow plows and shovels moved great quantities of the white stuff around, there were some really big piles of if left. Even today, there are residual piles of snow from the last snowfall around Christmas.
I have been critical of Snohomish County in the past, but when the snow falls, our County public works crews are saviors. My friend Doug F works for the county in the equipment maintenance section and he works his butt off to make sure the snow removal equipment is ready if and when the snow comes. His work paid off this year. There is no doubt that the county equipment did a marvelous job during the snow event this year. My hat is off to all those workers who went out to face the storm to make life better for the rest of us.
Much criticism was leveled against almost every city for their failure to clear snow from city streets. It seems that citizens look for their government to solve every problem that comes up. Having been one of those city officials myself, I can tell you that budgeting for snow removal is a really low priority. When it happens at the end of a budget cycle, there is no spare dough lying around. In addition, most small cities have limited budgets at the start of the year and most don’t have capable snow removal equipment.
As a citizen, I was frustrated with the snow. As a former elected official, I understood that there were limited options. There were a couple times when I saw a city truck with a snow blade and a sanding box that wasn’t blading or sanding. Even if the truck is heading across town, blade the street on the way.
If we are lucky following a snow storm, the temperature stays low at higher elevations preventing the mountain snow from melting as well. This was not one of those years. Sadly, the warm rains that came following the thaw compounded the troubles of a normal melt.
Near record “snow pack” for us low-landers and wave after wave of huge warm rain systems assaulting our beaches set the stage for a real catastrophe. Flooding has always been our nemesis in our low lying areas. This year brought incredible amounts of rainfall in a very short time frame. Some areas were getting sustained rainfall of 1.5 inches per hour for eight to ten hours at a time. Some of the areas on the coast expect “rain forest” type numbers, but most of us are not prepared for them.
I have talked about flooding on a number of occasions. For many of us that have lived in this area for a long time, we can look back at different years and remember certain aspects of a flood event. In 1975 we had a flood that was devastating to a lot of people since the high water caused a catastrophic dike failure at the French Creek pump station. The breach blew out the dike around the flood control facility and so quickly swept across the valley to the east it allowed no meaningful warning to residents. The resulting flood killed thousands of farm animals and destroyed millions of dollars worth of property. In my mind I can still see what seemed like hundreds of dump trucks filled with dead cows in a convoy to the landfill. That was a tragedy!
In 1990 there was another catastrophic dike failure near Stockers farm on the south side of the river. The water level was record setting in height already. The dike had been built many years before and had not been properly maintained over the long term. Critters had burrowed through the dike over the years creating a network of small tubes. All it took was for a few of them to erode together to cause a small path with incredible pressure to quickly wash away the section of dike. The resulting flow of river water into the valley created a new river with devastating force as far west as the Bicycle Tree. Springhetti Road was washed out and SR-9 was nearly washed away as well.
There is no doubt that dike failures cause significant damage. The force of a great volume of water gushing into and through an area is perilous. The greatest fear during a flood event is a dike failure.
What we all hope during a high water event is that our plans and infrastructure improvements do their jobs.
For the flood of 2009, the Snohomish River overtopped the dike in a number of places, but it did not fail. Clearly thought, the Pilchuck River made a statement this year. The only tributary to the Snohomish River poured humongous volumes of muddy destruction down its’ course this year. Some residents had probably forgotten how surprising the Pilchuck could be. A good deal of the water filling the valley to the east came from Pilchuck river flows.
The Western Washington area in general suffered greatly during this years’ event. Urban flooding demonstrated how poorly prepared our cities are for flood. Rural areas being consumed by development aggravate the problem by reducing the natural systems that have historically protected us. Urban development along with poorly devised forest practices has created dangerous conditions for flooding in our drainage systems.
We need to use the information we gather to better plan for the future in our flood prone areas. That information might suggest that we ban development in the flood zones. It might also suggest that we look at better flood control measures.
One suggestion worth considering addresses two problems at the same time. Building a dam on the Snoqualmie River would create storage capacity for King County drinking water in one role and serving as a flood control device in another.
Since the Snohomish River is formed when the Snoqualmie River and the Skykomish River meet southwest of Monroe, this idea could play a big part in protecting investments in our area.
Sometimes we need to step back from devastating events like floods to look at the big picture. What are our priorities for the future? Should we be planning for future floods by banning development in floodway fringe areas and flood plains or should we be looking for ways to control flood waters before they reach the river valleys? Clearly the erosion control measures relating to development and forest practices need to be considered and improved regardless of the more controversial issues associated with a dam. My hope is that we can have a discussion about the larger issues to consider all the aspects of the choices.
Another thing to consider in our area is dredging. Failing to maintain flow capacity in rivers compound the problems when events occur. Dredging does not need to be a negative thing. We need to look at everything.
What do you think?
Posted in Environmental, Snohomish County Political Commentary | 1 Comment »