Charter Review Charts Major Changes, Finalizes Recommendations

Orcas citizens express reservations about CRC recommendations

The Charter Review Model shows the tone and decisions of the discussions held weekly on Saturdays since January.

The meetings of the San Juan County Charter Review Commission (CRC) to be held the next month will finalize some of the recommendations the 20-member group has arrived at by consensus since they first started meeting in January.

Last week, at the meeting on Orcas Island, members of the public addressed the Council to register their disquiet at decisions about the number of Council legislators and the blurring of the distinction between County Legislators’ duties and that of the County Administrator and staff.

According to a schedule decided upon at the March 3 meeting, the CRC, composed of members from Lopez, Orcas, San Juan, Shaw and Waldron Islands, agreed that the group would finalize its review by the end of May so that the County Prosecutor would have time to revise the language for legal purposes before the ballot measure is submitted in August.

Last month, the elected group stated that their mission was now threefold:

1) to confirm, modify or discard CRC draft recommendations
2) to determine “layman’s” language in setting forth the recommendations
3) to modify that language for legal purposes

The basic recommendations thus far include:

1) county-wide voting for all County legislators
2) a 3-member (full time) legislative body (council or commission)
3) more council involvement in staff operations, including that of the County Administrator (with a name change to County Manager).

During public comment, Diane Berreth and Art Lange addressed the Commission. Berreth prefaced her comments with the observation, “One of the hallmarks of a good organization is being flexible and fluid as new information comes into play.” She urged the group to reconsider their finding that a 3-member Council would be more effective, and asked that they consider not only fairness, but the perception of fairness.

Art Lange also spoke in favor of a larger-sized council that would better represent the constituents. He said, “Sometimes one-on-one dialogue [between people] with good intentions is extremely valuable.”

Lange also spoke against the recommendation to hold county-wide voting for legislative representatives, saying, “The present system is more responsive to the constituents.” He also said that it is more likely people will seek to address their representatives in the current system. He went on to address the changing roles of the legislative body and a county administrator. “I would caution against merging those lines… if you get the wrong people in there, you’ve got three or six heads telling the department[staff] what to do.”

Following the public comments, CRC Chair Gordy Peterson remarked that the group had “deliberated a lot and our results are contained in the findings online. ( at www.sanjuanco.com/committees/charterreview)

At the next two meetings, the CRC will review and draft the revisions to the Charter. (Update: the April 21 meeting has been canceled. See https://www.sanjuanco.com/calendar.aspx for calendar updates).

At the April 14 meeting, the CRC first heard from Kevin Ranker, State Senator for the 40th District, who has served as a County Commission on the 3-member board and as County Councillor, when the charter increased the number to 6.  Ranker reportedly advised the group that a 3-member legislative body was preferable, and cautioned that personality is the most important factor in successful county operations, and the least definable.

The CRC went line by line through changes to the Charted suggested by the Drafting Committee. They hit bumps on issues such as whether to include “County” in the new title of “County Manager” and on who would deliver the “Budget Message,” which has been delivered by County Administrator Pete Rose for the past six years. An additional discussion ensued as to whether the Council or County Department heads should approve and/or  hire department employees, and the group decided to send that section back to the drafting committee for re-writing,

Ralph Gutschmidt of Orcas Island echoed Ranker’s words, saying, “We’re trying to control individual personality with wording — it’s impossible.”

Members of the public are encouraged to attend the meetings and to contact any member of the Commission to voice their opinions (e-mails sent to crc@sanjuanco.com will be received by all of the CRC members).

Minutes of previous meetings are available online at https://www.sanjuanco.com/committees/charterreview/crcminutes.aspx