No Loss for Words

I remember the day I made the decision to run for city council in 1988.  I saw a city council making decisions I thought were not in my best interests or those of the city.  I agonized about whether I was up to the task.  After much internal debate, I decided that I would commit to the work for at least four years.  I never thought of it as a start to a political career, rather the continuation of public service.  In order to be elected to office, you have to participate in a political process.  Whether you like it or not, you are a politician.  There are a lot of elected officials that are good politicians and lousy public servants just as there are some that are mediocre politicians and good public servants.  The skill set required to be elected is totally different from the one you need to serve after the election.  Sadly, if you are not good at the first, you often are not given the chance at the second.  Running for office in a non-partisan city election is fairly mild, but can be a little testy.  Partisan positions become more and more complex because of the need for funding a campaign and not having personal intimate relations with the constituents.  Partisan elections are often rancorous. 

For me it was easy running because I didn’t understand the work it would take to do the job.  It was only after the filing did I begin to understand what I had gotten myself into.  I was committed to advocating for the citizens I saw every day in my business.  I wouldn’t let them down.

It is important that city staff have the professional knowledge to manage the business of a city.  It is more important that city elected officials have the common sense to insure that staff is doing the job right.  That requires a commitment to learning about the business of the city.

Everyone comes to the job of City Council Member with an agenda.  We were motivated to run for office because we thought we had ideas that would be of a benefit in some way.  That is not to say the benefits would necessarily be accrued to the majority in the community, but to some in the community.  I only say this because there have been folks who served in the past that had an agenda so narrowly focused that when they achieved their goal they became dead wood.

Each person that runs for office needs to be prepared to do the work necessary to understand the issues with enough depth to know whether management is protecting the interests of the public.  When a person decides to be a candidate, they should feel obligated to learn about the job as if it were a job. 

Cities provide services no other level of government provides.  Cities are the grass root of government.  They take care of Public Safety first, safe drinking water second and dozens of less important priorities after that.  Even though urban planning is not an essential service, it is an important component of the job

Cities vary in the services they provide.  Some are full service with Police and Fire Departments, Water and Sewer Utilities and amenity services like parks.  In addition to the services citizens can see, there are also services the public does not generally see.  Administrative services range from engineering to accounting to planning.

Since public safety is our highest priority, we have to understand what is covered under that umbrella.  Some people might argue about the difference between police and fire services, but what we know is that both are essential.  The fire departments are generally viewed as the “good guys” because they save our lives in ways we can see.  Police departments deal with criminal behavior and enforcing the law so they are not such “good guys”.  The off shoot of police is criminal justice and the cost of prosecuting and incarcerating criminals.  Even though we don’t have city jails like in the old days, we do have an obligation to maintain our share of the facility somewhere.  We contract with Snohomish County to be our jail provider and with the county court system to process our criminals.  Elected officials need to understand the issues regarding police services from basic levels of service, department accreditation and budget up through the jail services contract and the court system.

Our city decided a number of years ago to get out of the fire and emergency medical service business and leave that to Fire District 4.  From an efficiency perspective that worked because one larger department can work better than two smaller ones.  From a control perspective, it was terrible.  The fire and emergency medical system was managed by people not particularly committed to city priorities.  As the political winds blow in the two jurisdictions, the levels of service can vary.  Not a perfect system, but in general it works.  It is important that city and fire district elected officials meet periodically to insure that both are working for the common good.

It is generally assumed that without a municipal water supply, there is no city.  There are many cities that have water departments or a water delivery system without a sewer system.  Water is essential, sewer is not essential if there is adequate drain field capacity to handle the population density with septic tanks.  Managing a utility system requires an understanding of the facilities.  Snohomish is not unique, but it is one of the few small cities with a “water right” on the Pilchuck river that entitles it to draw water from the river for the purpose of a municipal water system.  Along with the right comes the obligation to manage the resource.  If you start at the diversion dam and work your way to the water treatment plant and all its variables to the transmission line to the local storage facilities and then to the distribution system, the water utility requires a significant commitment for staff to stay up to speed, let alone the commitment elected officials need to make to understand what is going on.

In our city, we have a combination sanitary sewer treatment system.  That means we use both mechanical means to separate biomaterials along with the more passive ponding systems.  It requires a larger foot print than a purely mechanical system, but it has lower operating cost.  The science of sanitary sewers changes regularly based upon the standards for discharge into water ways.

Obviously, collection of the sewage presents a range of technical challenges.  Do you have pump stations or can you do all gravity?  Do you have dedicated sanitary system or is it a combination storm and sanitary system?  The sizes of the pipes in the ground have some bearing on the ability to convey effluent.  Capacity of a system is a major factor in determining efficient cost of operation.  City staff and elected officials need to be up to speed on the different variables regarding ranges of services and costs associated with the different choices.

Elected officials develop policy and approve budget in close cooperation with either an elected mayor or a City Manager.  In our city the Manager is the CEO and has all administrative power to hire and develop staff, to manage labor relations with employee collective bargaining units, to represent the city at locations away from the city, to promote the agenda of the city council and insure that the city operate within the law, both in city code and in the state code.

Developing and understanding a budget for a city is a challenge.  State law and financial management policies drive requirements for reserve accounts and other considerations that complicate the process for new elected officials.  Some revenue is required by law to be used for certain purposes.  Understanding the framework for city budget is essential.  There are as many tricks to managing multiple revenue sources and fund balances as there are sources.  It is easy with the budget to throw up your hands in frustration and just leave it to the “professionals”.   I would be reluctant to relinquish my authority to evaluate every aspect of my city’s budget.  It is the fuel that drives all the services we pay for with discretionary funding.

The last significant area where city council people need to be educated is in land use planning.  The State Growth Management Act raised the bar for the planning and community development department.  The act requires that we all have planning policies that drive almost every aspect of city government.  Police services are impacted by the policies along with every other department.  The city does get to develop its own policies, but the effort to do that is often used as a good excuse for adopting some other city’s language.

When you begin to understand the importance of your city’s Comprehensive Plan, you can see the importance of not delegating that authority to staff since if they screw it up, they are not the ones stuck with it after they are gone.

It may not sound too profound, but this last point is the reason we serve.  City managers, police chiefs, public works directors, finance managers and planners come and go.  They are hired guns that come to town to work, but seldom live here.  They are given the keys to the city to manage and manipulate with their professional input, but they do not inherit the legacy of their decisions like residents do.  To suggest that they are in the best position to decide how things should be done is a failure to govern.  Staff should recommend a course of action with a range of options and let council members make the policy decisions with the best information available.  Then monitor staff as they implement the policy.

All too often, elected officials take the word from staff as the gospel and that will get you killed.  Staff members need to demonstrate their professional ability and earn your trust.  If they can’t do the first, they shouldn’t get the second.