Something has been lost
If you were wondering how some City Council members could boycott their own meeting last week with a fair conscience, here’s your answer: the Council Manual said they could.
So says one councilor, explaining how a workshop on the proposed Ericksen/Hildebrand opening and other business could be canceled at the last minute for want of a quorum. As reported last week, several members were irked that items pertaining to the city budget weren’t added to the evening’s slate, so they stayed home in protest. The administration responded by canceling the meeting entirely, leaving citizens interested in the Ericksen debate – and there were many – high and dry.
Technically, the council members who skipped out were within their rights; the Council Manual and related policies on meeting protocols require only that council members attend their two regularly scheduled meetings every month. Workshops and other special meetings are optional. Moreover, one councilor says, the mayor could have held the workshop anyway even without a full dais.
But doesn’t the public’s interest figure in here somewhere? Aren’t expectations higher? Something has been lost from the council’s culture when members (even lame ducks) feel free to boycott their own meeting because they don’t like the agenda. Try to imagine school or park board members doing the same thing, and…you just can’t. It wouldn’t happen; professionalism and duty would prevail.
Candidates, take note: no one really cares what the Council Manual says is okay or who disagrees with whom over the agenda. Moving the city forward isn’t the council’s business or the administration’s business; it’s the people’s business.
Last week the people expected the council to address Ericksen, and they didn’t get their due.
Points north
Up the highway and west on Day Road, keep right at the fork, third driveway on the left.
Or is it the fourth driveway?
Whatever, just look for the Sound Publishing sign and you’ll find us. We’re still getting our bearings ourselves, as the Bainbridge Island Review boxes up the computers and morgue books for this week’s move to the middle of the island. By the time this edition is in your hands, we’ll likely be on the highway for the trek north.
Why the move? The Sound Publishing empire has expanded into new territories over the past year, with nearly a dozen newspapers and classified advertising publications added to the corporate fold. The Bainbridge newsroom is being shifted inland to our longtime corporate headquarters/printing facility at Day Road, to take advantage of space left with the Sound Publishing administration’s recent move to Poulsbo.
In the day of electronic communication, this poses fewer challenges than it might have in the past; the transom through which you used to slip your letters is, anymore, largely virtual. If you’re trying to send us something by regular mail, the PO Box is the same – 10817 – but for drop-ins, the new physical address is 7689 Day Road West. Phone numbers and email addresses are unchanged.
The Review is maintaining a presence in Winslow, with a workspace in our current office in the Pavilion (the balance of which will become the office of Quinn-Brein Public Relations), and hours will be set once we’ve unpacked.
If you’re heading out to Day Road (and we trust you will), don’t count the driveways – just head west and look for the sign on your left. We’ll be in the big building at the far end of the driveway, the one with the spinning press.
