RESPONSE TO STORIES

Response to Who's trying to run the county?

Dear Editor,

posted 05/12/2006
It seems unusual to be lecturing a member of the Fourth Estate on the responsibility to defend the rights and privileges of a representative democracy, but Sharon Kivisto's editorial ( Who's Trying to Run the County) reveals that her bias in favor of the political status quo trumps her responsibilities to her public constituency.

When San Juan County overwhelmingly voted in Charter government together with enlarging the legislative branch to reflect the one-man, one-vote principle, they also voted for the Preamble to the Charter, which states:

We, the citizens of San Juan County, in order to secure the benefits granted to a Home Rule Charter County under the laws of Washington State, and to assert greater control over the actions of County government, adopt this Charter.

The wish to assert more control resulted from the fact that people were tired of the ineffective, inefficient county apparatus dominated by three politicians who too often ignored the will of the voters in favor of their own personal agendas.

The County was addled by personnel lawsuits that chewed up taxpayer money needlessly. There was constant interference with administrative departments who had three bosses with conflicting demands.

The Commissioners could not have a conversation on most topics outside of public session without violating the Public Meetings Act, which meant on-the-fly decisions made without appropriate deliberation, often frighteningly bad. Partisan divisions separated them. Pandering to individual island constituencies consumed them. The collective interests of the electorate were not being served.

Thus was born the Charter movement, the hallmark of which is a separation of powers between the administrative and legislative branches and a reduction in judicial powers, which means that the Council members' jobs have been reduced by roughly two thirds. By far the most time consuming piece, by their own admission, will be taken over by a professional County Administrator. It is a substantial reduction in power.

So far, the actions of the County Council indicate that they are not going into their new roles quietly. Despite the reduction in responsibilities and the fact that those responsibilities will be shared among twice as many as before, they are lobbying for full-time salaries. Apparently fiscal reality has not struck: this County cannot afford to pay six full-time Council member salaries as well as that of a County Administrator, nor was it envisioned by the Freeholders that it would. The idea was that a wider range of talented people who want to perform public service will be able to sit on the Council without having to give up their current jobs - a true citizens' democracy - and be compensated fairly for their work. (In Whatcom County, with a much larger population, the seven Council members each earn $16,000 annually.)

They continue to make decisions that make one aghast: The ADU ordinance that changes weekly, the Salary Commission debacle, the purchase of an expensive property mired in controversy over whether it can or cannot become a recycling site, the exclusion of other key or senior members of the County government - Human Resources Department, the Prosecuting Attorney's office, the County Administrator pro tem - from the first cut of County Administrator candidates on wholly specious grounds, are a few examples. The Council, fighting to maintain power and authority, seems intent upon undoing the spirit of the charter, since they cannot change the reality of it.

Ms. Kivisto believes that they should be left alone to do as they like without criticism or comment, simply because they were elected. She appears to have missed the obvious fact that the overwhelming vote in favor of the Charter government was effectively an equally overwhelming vote of no confidence in the current Council members. She would like the Charter to "stand alone," and indeed it will if her formula is carried out.

I have another interpretation of representative democracy. It is not only our right as citizens to critique our government, it is our obligation. Everyone has equal rights in this regard: though I would love to be able to attend to my full-time job instead of attending Council meetings, I believe I owe it to myself to insist on the government I voted for.

If others oppose that point of view, they have every right to attend meetings, submit letters to the papers, write editorials.

Why those in the Council chamber who are doing all of those things and more are regarded as renegades instead of responsible citizens, is a puzzle only Ms. Kivisto can solve. Surely we are not being paid for our time, we are not running for office, and, metaphorically speaking, we would all rather be sailing and doing what we do to contribute to the community in other ways.

But we did not work two years for the Charter government we gained in a free election to see it founder because those responsible for implementing it are not up to that responsibility. Ms. Kivisto would like us to "let go," although she would like us to "vote, use public access time, write letters, work on advisory boards, etc." which is what, if she hadn't noticed, we are all doing. Where is the "special access" in that?

There is only one way government works successfully: when it has the consent of the governed. That is the difference between power and moral authority. If there is any "demand" in this equation it is that politicians set aside their own personal agendas in order to fulfill their responsibilities to the people who elected and pay them. If it is unpleasant for them to endure criticism, they can seek another line of work.

If Ms. Kivisto wishes to abdicate her responsibility in the once-esteemed Fourth Estate by defending the status quo rather than pointing out its shortcomings, she might wish to find another line of work as well.

Susan Robins

Letter from Stephen Robins to the Salary Commission

Dear Editor,

posted 05/12/2006

The following letter was submitted last week to the San Juan County Salary Commission after learning about testimony from the current three County Council members expressing their desire to have their positions be accorded a salary that would reflect, among other factors, a pegging of their new positions as continuing to be full-time.

Having challenged this matter directly in one form or another during personal discussions and in public session with each of the current County Council members over the six months since the election, I was disturbed to hear their continued pitch for a position evaluation so at odds with the spirit of the Charter that was overwhelmingly approved by the voters last November.

As a concerned citizen, it seemed appropriate to share my concerns with the Salary Commission for the reasons stated in the letter. As this issue is now being taken up in public discussions and in the media, it seems appropriate to share this letter more widely.

I write to you, not as one of the several county officials from whom you are gathering input as you proceed in your mission of establishing appropriate salaries for San Juan County elected officials, but rather as a concerned and involved county citizen who was one of the founders of the Charter government movement almost two years ago and who has made a point of attending virtually every County Council meeting since the election in a watchdog role to monitor how honestly and fully the transition to Charter government is executed.

Others have been providing you with detailed input regarding the various tasks and responsibilities of the various positions you are evaluating. My comments will be limited to those positions that are new to the County - specifically the new County Council members - and how your evaluation of those positions for salary purposes relates to the "big picture" transition to Charter government in San Juan County.

I offer several points for your consideration:

1. Separation of Powers and Change of Responsibilities. The shift from County Commissioners to County Council members was probably the most fundamental change proposed in the Charter and approved by the voters. The driving force behind this change was to effect the all-important separation of legislative, administrative and judicial powers that were previously all held by the County Commissioners. It was this very lack of separation that frequently produced the dysfunction that over the years brought about the level of frustration that manifested itself in the landslide approval of the changes called for in the Charter. With the hiring of pro-tem County Administrator David Goldsmith, a considerable portion of the activities and tasks previously handled by the legislators has moved to this new position. In just a few months we have seen what a professional administrator can do to create many of the efficiencies in county government envisioned by the Charter.

2. Part-time vs. Full-time. Perhaps the most significant move the Council members have made against the intent of the Charter has been their ongoing campaign, announced within the first week of being sworn in, to hold on to the notion of their jobs being full-time. This theme has continued unabated up to and including their presentations to you last week as they made their case for their positions to remain full-time. What was quite remarkable was how well their self-evaluations of their tasks and responsibilities so ably expressed Parkinson's Law - "Work expands to fill the time available."

For reasons that are not too difficult to surmise, they made their pitch

" despite the removal of a substantial portion of their duties to the County Administrator

" despite the simple arithmetic fact that whatever workload they are left with after handing over previous responsibilities to others will now be shared among six Council members rather than just the three of them

" despite the extensive proceedings of the Freeholder discussions (all in the public record) expressing the clear intention to make the positions part-time and thus feasible for citizens to offer themselves as Council member candidates without having to give up either their current employment or businesses or indeed retirement as the price for offering their talents in the cause of public service

" despite the clear intention of the Freeholders when drafting the Charter that its implementation be revenue (or rather cost) neutral, funding for the County Administrator to be balanced by reduced funding for the legislators as a group (and each of them even further by the sharing of their "pool" of funding among six rather than three).

What also appears to be missing from the Council members' pitch is a full recognition of another key element of the change from three to six members. In their new positions, they no longer have the entire county population as their constituents; instead they now each represent essentially only one-sixth of the population by virtue of their being elected only from their own geographic district. This significantly reduces not only the scope of their constituency demand but also results in less need and time for travel among the islands in that activity.

3. Resistance to Change. Most of us do not generally welcome change, and this has unfortunately proven to be very much the case with our County Council members. Their resistance to the change called for in Charter government was very apparent in their opposition to it before the election. Regrettably, despite the Charter's landslide endorsement by the citizens of San Juan County, the three incumbents have continued to resist the many changes called for by the Charter. Even more concerning, this resistance has grown rather than lessened, despite multiple conversations, meetings, correspondence, negative editorials in all the county media, and personal pleas, both in private and in public, to help rather than hinder the transition. Time and again the incumbent Council members have demonstrated an unwillingness to adopt both the spirit and letter of the Charter. They have continued to parse the words of the Charter in ways that seek to undermine its core intentions, all the while protesting that they really are in favor of a smooth transition. Details of all this have been covered in the Journal, Sounder, sanjuanislander.com and islandguardian.com.

4. Resistance to Loss of power. The degree to which the County Council members are lobbying for a full-time salary is of particular interest, given that two out of three of them have their previous salaries "grandfathered" to remain unchanged. The third, in having to run again in November, indeed has to contend with the salary of the position, should he win re-election, being potentially quite different from that he currently enjoys. However, while financial compensation for two of the three resisting Council members was protected in the Charter, their previous powers were most definitely not. It is thus reasonable to conclude that what we are observing is essentially a resistance to loss of power. History is replete with examples of how the threat or reality of loss of power causes politicians to use all the means at their disposal, even at the expense of the common good or overtly expressed wishes of the voting public, to hold on to their power.

6. Why the Charter was approved. Not too surprising then that we are seeing history play itself out again, this time on the local governmental scene. As suggested earlier, this is essentially "normal" behavior. But it was primarily such over-reaching of previous County Commissioners (and of course all the current incumbents were previously County Commissioners, grandfathered into their current positions as a "courtesy" by the Freeholders when writing the Charter) that brought about the Home Rule or Charter Government movement in the first place and its subsequent resounding overall endorsement by the voters of the county.

7. Ignoring the words and music of the charter. Any of the above changes called for by the letter and spirit of the Charter would be grounds enough for the three incumbents to understand how untenable their pitch should be for continued full-time employment. That they overtly ignore not just the words but especially the music of the Charter is even more unfortunate.

IN CONCLUSION:

You, the members of the Salary Commission, hold the very success of the transition to Charter Government in your hands. By law, whatever you come up with in the way of salaries for the County Council members is binding. This is one of the few situations in which the County Council members cannot do what so often they tend to do - simply veto anything they personally do not like - for whatever reason, spoken or otherwise.

The essence of your task, as elegantly expressed at your first meeting, is to determine a salary for these positions solely on the basis of what their value is to the citizens of San Juan county, in accordance with the letter and spirit of the Charter. How you calculate that value, a key task of any salary commission or compensation committee, will in effect establish the true scope of those positions and how large the pool of candidates willing to respond to the call of public service will be.

The voters of San Juan County have called for significant change in the way they wish to be governed. They are all now looking to you to ensure that their wishes are honored as you go about your critical task.

Thank you for your attention - and for your commitment to this important civic contribution and the spirit of citizen government on which this country was built.

Stephen Robins

SAN JUAN ISLANDER © 2008

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