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Town Council Regular Meeting - August 26, 2002

by Dixie A. Walter

     Citizen’s comments were at the top of the agenda during the regular meeting. First to address the council was Planning Commission Chairman Steve Lind.
     *Lind stated, “Those of you that were here during the study session heard me make a formal objection to the form in which the study sessions have been held. I did it at that time to preserve standing on it after going through a training session and having an attorney sit here for a very long time talking about open public meetings, etc.
     “You sit in this audience and you listen to some of the discussion that goes on among all the council members, etc. You’ll hear things like, ‘well, what should we do now, etc.’ and you hear consensus building going on. There are decisions that appear to be being made during the study session.
     “And when you have decision making going on you have to have an open public meeting. You have to have a place where citizens can make comments, etc. And there’s been a policy here that citizens cannot make a comment during the study sessions, which I believe is a violation of the open public meetings act.”
     Going further Lind told the council, “I know it’s hard to sit here to talk and study, etc., without crossing the line, but sometimes, to this person, it seems like the line is crossed. I know that for a while these were open public meetings. The appearance is not good here. You start getting tough on it and sometimes it looks like it may be because there’s some bias.
     “Those are the reasons these laws came to be in effect. So I would urge the council to re-examine the way they conduct their study sessions and the rules they are under. I think it’s important to the town so that we don’t get in trouble. Thank you.”
     Speaking on behalf of the Chamber of Commerce, board member Mike Jeffries explained, “One of my tasks is to try to keep the Community Action Plan going. If you take a close look at the plan, there’s a large number of items within that plan that are the responsibility of the Chamber of Commerce to make happen.
“Things such as trying to attract business. One of the things that was said in the form was trying to develop a theme and some other things along that line. Much of this falls back on the chamber, not necessarily on town council members, and things that shouldn’t come out of administrative budgets and one thing and another.”
He continued, “Much of it requires the cooperation and support of the town council to make it happen. One of the key items was for the town council to basically look at the center of town with the idea of perhaps developing a plaza. Looking at the overall business structure, street improvements, trees…much of this has already happened. A lot of things have been moving along in that direction.
     “There’s still a lot that needs to be done by the chamber, with the support of the town. You’re going to see more action on that in the future, and more emphasis. And hopefully more of revitalization on the chamber efforts. I think people got a little burned out in the development of the community plan, and they are taking sort of a breather.”
Jeffries went on to say, “One of the goals supposed to be set is for the chamber to go out and try and attract basically environmentally friendly business. It isn’t something that’s been developed, and then dumped back on the town. The chamber is supposed to be following through with this, and they have a lot of responsibility there, with the support of the town.”
     He assured the council, “You will see some action on that. And you will see the chamber coming back to the town council asking for their support, and clarification, basically on how we can best implement these types of things. It’s not a thing where it’s all up to the town council to do all of this. The chamber will come through and will be doing much more in the future.”
     Only one resolution was brought before the council. Resolution 2002–Y, “approving authorization to bid Washington Avenue sewer upgrade project.”
     Public Works Director Jamieson Van Eaton explained, “This project is identified in our sewer comprehensive plan and it’s fully funded by a Pierce County block grant. We have $300,000 to spend on projects such as the sewer upgrade. We’ve identified this particular project as being the Washington and Mashell Street project.”
     According to Van Eaton, “This is the project we are trying our best to get completed by the end of the year. It looks like we’re in the process of readying to go out to bid. That’s the basis of this resolution, to have the council approve going to bid on this project.”
     Van Eaton invited the council to “direct any questions to our consultant Allan Maas who is in the audience.” Maas is with Parametrix, Inc. “Consultants in Engineering and Environmental Sciences.”
Council member Pat Hamilton asked, “When you open up for bids do you tell them we have $300,000 to play with?” Van Eaton answered, “Not at all.” Hamilton wondered, “If the bid comes in at $250,000 or less, what happens to that other $50,000? Do we have to give it back?”
     “I would rather cross that bridge when we get to it,” Van Eaton stated, adding, “We can reject the bid. I think Mr. Maas will explain that we have alternative options in the bid so that we select one of the options that’s within our budget and not slow down the process.”
     Maas updated the council on the sewer upgrade, “There’s some flexibility here. On this project what we have is a series of bid items.” Maas said the bigger concern was going over budget. If that were to happen he explained, “We will decrease the linear footage of sewer that we are going to replace to insure we stay within in budget. If we’re faced with the other problem we can always add some additional pipeline. We certainly don’t want to give grant money back.”
Council member Mike Gallagher asked the location of the upgrade. Maas told the council, “We’ve titled the project Larson and Washington. A lot of the project is going to be in the alley between Washington and Mashell, from Center Street East to Larson, then we do a little jog on Larson and go south again on Washington. That’s about 1,100 feet of pipe.”
     “How far below ground?” Gallagher wanted to know. “It varies,” according to Maas, “On Center Street I believe it’s about five feet deep, then at the other end it’s about nine or ten feet deep.”
      As for traffic problems Maas predicted, “In the alley I don’t think we’ll be interfering much with traffic. But once we get on to Larson and Washington there will be some traffic affected. I don’t imagine the construction is going to take more than a few weeks.
     “We’ve given a five-week period for the project but the first two weeks will probably be involved with paperwork. We’ll have to review what’s going to be used for pipe and materials. Once that’s approved they’ll actually be ready to start digging.”
     Gallagher questioned if the weather played a factor in the sewer upgrade. Maas said, “Some of the soils are a bit questionable. What we’ve done, rather than delay the project, is basically take all those out and bring in soils that aren’t going to be a problem compacting in wet weather.”
Resolution 2002–Y passed unanimously.
     Van Eaton also gave the council an update on the AT&T project. “AT&T and other contractors from Montana and throughout the state met this morning in council chambers to discuss their construction schedule through town. They are scheduled to begin work around September 5 or so, and they should be constructing for approximately two weeks.”
According to Van Eaton, “The town stands to benefit in a number of ways from this project. Their route will be coming from the vicinity of the Mashell River bridge east, down Center Street and right along Washington Avenue North to out of town.
     “They have agreed to place a crossing across the Mashell River bridge which will allow the town to provide electrical service to a new subdivision that’s going to be placed just on the east side of the Mashell River bridge.”
Van Eaton explained, “Although that territory is not in the town’s corporate boundaries, it is in the town’s service territory and therefore eligible for power provided from the town. This project won’t cost the town anything, the developer will pay for it.”
     As the public works director explained further, “Another benefit the town will see is that the AT&T folks will place two two-inch conduits for 1,100 feet from the Mashell River bridge in a westerly direction for our use in the future. This is with no cost to the town.
     “Additionally, I met with AT&T this morning specifically to work out a crossing to Eagle Glen Court. We need to do an underground cable upgrade on that street due to aging and failing cable. They are going to make that possible for us at a savings to the town of approximately $8,000. And we will be retiring two overhead poles because we will be going underground.”
     Regarding the loss of the court Hamilton said, “We are dropped as far as the district court in Eatonville. So from now on anybody who has court proceedings has to go clear to Tacoma. I’m not trying to influence anybody’s vote, but I just want you to know that Judge [Paul] Treyz fought against moving the court the best he could all the way. And the very people who are running against him now, as I understand, were the county council members that voted to ban the Eatonville public court so that they could themselves apply for the job.”
     Council member Chelan Jarrett commented on the council study sessions. “It is an open public meeting and I was trying to avoid a free-for-all discussion. I think if the public wants to comment they should be recognized by the chair. That’s the point I was trying to make [during the study session].”
Jarrett continued, “I also think as a council we do need to consider Mr. Lind’s comments. I think the point is well taken and we just want to try and keep order in our meetings. If people are going to comment from the floor they need to be recognized and at the mike. So I guess the council needs to revisit our policy.”
     Gallagher said he was “really curious” about the [school] sidewalk project. “We’re only seven days from school opening and there’s been absolutely nothing done.”
     Van Eaton responded, “We’ve really advanced this project as best we could. One of the things that fooled us was the fact that we needed to have a joint aquatic regional something or other, an environmental review of the body of water on Lynch Creek Road that feeds into the Nisqually watershed. And we had to involve federal [and state] agencies…and other departments to allow us to advance through the project.
     “Before we could do that we had to do a biological assessment, and I had to do a determination of mitigated non-significance. All those things took time…We’ve got to finish it by October, that’s our deadline. We’re late in starting, but we still think we’re going to meet our deadline.”
     Regarding safety of school children Van Eaton stated, “Our building inspector, Tim Lincoln, will be inspector of that project. He’s going to be in charge of requiring these folks to do what the contract requires of them, which is to provide a safe lane for our school children on Lynch Street…so they will be protected with barriers from traffic.
     “Certainly the chief of police and I will be out there to do what we feel needs to be done for the safety of the children. It’s not a perfect schedule, but one we think is viable.” Construction is slated to begin the week school starts.
Jarrett commented on the “Great turnout we had for the class on local planning that Carrielynn [town clerk] arranged for us. We had an extremely good turnout of the planning commission. I was a little disappointed in the turnout of council members.” Two of five council members attended the class.
     This statement was followed by a discussion about whether or not council members could attend because more than four members constituted a quorum. Town Clerk Carrielynn Loffelmacher said it was an open class, and had been posted, so all council members could have been at the class.
     Jarrett drew laughs when she said, “We had a lot of public participation which I think was excellent. And it was more than just my relatives.”
     Council member Gallagher asked for a bi-monthly report from public works.

*RCW (Revised Code of Washington) 35.27.280 – Town Council – Quorum – Rules – Journal states, “The council may establish rules for the conduct of its proceedings and punish any members or other person for disorderly behavior during any meeting.”

"Pity the poor kids who grow up in a big city. They miss the little things that made growing up in a small town, ah, so wonderful."
~Tom Morrow