While it quickly became apparent on election night that voters don’t want a mayor in City Hall, it’ll likely take a week before the head office is passed to the new city manager.
According to City Attorney Paul McMurray, the transition to a council-manager government takes affect on June 3, when Tuesday’s election is certified by the Kitsap County Auditor.
Mayor Darlene Kordonowy, at that point, has the option of becoming a eighth City Council member until her mayoral term ends in January. The council would then revert to seven members.
Kordonowy is open to a seven-month council term.
“If there’s going to be a change, I want to continue to be apart of (the new government), and I’d be willing to serve,” she said on Tuesday, shortly after early election results showed the council-manager measure was passing by a wide margin.
City Adminstrator Mark Dombroski will automatically become the interim city manager when the election’s certified. Dombroski and the council have six months to renegotiate his contract for the new position.
The council can select a mayor from its ranks to serve a mostly ceremonial role, McMurray said, but the day-to-day administering of the city would fall to the city manager.
McMurray is preparing to update city code to reflect the new form of government. He predicted that much of the work would involve swapping the word ‘mayor’ for ‘city manager.’
“I’m still trying to figure out if it’s going to be a large job,” he said.
Dombroski, council members and members of the Vote Council-Manager ’09 campaign held several private meetings on Wednesday to discuss the new government.
The meetings, which were held at the home of a council-manager campaign member, drew criticism from some residents because they were not advertised or open to the public. Some residents contend that the meetings run counter to council-manager campaign promises of a more open and transparent government.
Dombroski stressed that the deliberations were informal and were broken up into several gatherings to avoid a quorum of council members. The meetings would have been subject to public notice and attendance had four council members been present at one time.
The meetings focused largely on campaign members’ advice for city staff and the council, Dombroski said.
“They spent an enormous amount of time on (the ballot measure) and wanted to convey what citizens said were the problems of city government,” he said.
Puposefully evading a public meeting by rationing out City Council members while colluding with a campaign committee has nothing to do with what the voters wanted. To me, it’s a very bad and deceptive start.
CITY COUNCIL – BUSINESS AS USUAL
Many of us were excited that the change of government vote would welcome in a new era of openness and transparency by our elected officials; a rejection of the past’s perceived closed-door access to the decision makers by only select special interest groups. Wasn’t that the main theme of those promoting the change – openness and transparency? Not so fast. The ink wasn’t even dry, when most of our Council members quickly agreed to and held closed-door, no-public-allowed meetings with just such a special interest group – the Political Action Committee (PAC) Vote Council-Manager ’09 Group promoting the switch to a Manager-Council form of government. The meetings were held at the home of a Council-Manager campaign member and were broken up into several gatherings to avoid a quorum of council members. The meetings supposedly focused largely on campaign members’ advice for city staff and the Council on what this particular group learned during the campaign. A special interest group giving “advice” to our elected officials behind closed doors. Looks like we’re just substituting one privileged special interest group with another. So much for the new age of openness and transparency. And, the argument that what they learned was “too sensitive” for public exposure just doesn’t wash. Almost everything discussed had already made it into the public arena through blogs, emails, newspaper articles and campaign literature. And even if there was “sensitive” information brought up, doesn’t the public have a right to know? If this Council is indeed committed to openness and transparency, then start acting like it. Looks like Pogo continues to be right.
If you have just read the above letter, be sure and see Althea’s comments on the exact same letter that Leaping Bill posted on the Notebook.
How about for a change we see a variety of citizens come forward to serve. Most of the time someone is anointed (ala Peters, Snow and Franz) where the race in not contested. The insiders figure out who will keep the agenda safe and that person gets the fix. Shame on us for not fielding true choice, true change.
I hear friends say that Mr. So-and-so or Ms. Such-and-such are running so there is no need to step forward. This is precisely how Bainbridge gets to be one dysfunctional big-spending group think.
We can’t afford the bid spending give-away we have in place.
Find good people and get them to step forward.
We want CHANGE.
We desperately need dedicated out-of-the-box thinkers to step forward to serve our very sick democracy.How about for a change we see a variety of citizens come forward to serve. Most of the time someone is anointed (ala Peters, Snow and Franz) where the race in not contested. The insiders figure out who will keep the agenda safe and that person gets the fix. Shame on us for not fielding true choice, true change.
I hear friends say that Mr. So-and-so or Ms. Such-and-such are running so there is no need to step forward. This is precisely how Bainbridge gets to be one dysfunctional big-spending group think.
We can’t afford the bid spending give-away we have in place.
Find good people and get them to step forward.
We want CHANGE.
We desperately need dedicated out-of-the-box thinkers to step forward to serve our very sick democracy.
And by the way, the private meeting between special interest/mafia and COBI stink. Paulson’s (Notebook) attempt to parse the private problem away also is pathetic. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.
The new boss is the same as the old boss.
Why don’t you step up to the plate Mr.Scrooge McGrinch? You blame and whine more than anybody else on the Island, so why don’t you put up or shut up? It’s easy to point fingers and assign blame, why don’t you try doing something constructive and worthwhile for a change? I’d love to see the numbers in that election!
Trying to Help makes an excellent point! Can’t wait to hear the response.
Jim Olsen, I have just returned from town (3:45 PM) and I counted no less than 7 of your negative nono signs along the way, some with ‘bravo’ bumper stickers attached, but I didn’t see one single Yes! sign anywhere. A hearty ‘Thank You’ to the civic minded citizens who promptly took down their signs. When are you going to stop gloating and fulfill your civic duty,Jim Olsen? To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, “Mr. Grinch, take down those signs.”