When you go before the Bainbridge City Council – or any city council, for that matter – you don’t always expect to get your way. But you do expect that your comments will get a fair hearing. Even when the weight of public sentiment isn’t persuasive, it’s still integral to the deliberative process by which our laws are crafted.

So it’s hard to know what some council members were thinking when they worked out a legal settlement that would obligate the council to change city ordinances with scant – if any – regard for public opinion.

As reported elsewhere in this issue, the council tonight will be asked to ratify a legal settlement between the city and various south-end property owners over a now-defunct moratorium on dock construction in Blakely Harbor. Claimants several years ago filed nearly a dozen lawsuits against the city, calling the moratorium a “taking” of their property rights; the lawsuits have since made their way through the courts, with each side claiming victory by turns and appeals continuing to this day.

Under the settlement, the city would pay out $150,000 for claimants’ legal fees, put another $100,000 toward improvements to Blakely Harbor Park – and then change the local ordinance governing docks on the harbor. Smitten would be references to new, private “community docks” (two are currently allowed, under certain circumstances), allowing instead construction of an unspecified number of “shared neighborhood docks” by groups of four or more private home­owners.

And if the ordinance changes aren’t approved, it’s back to court for the city.

One can make a case for or against new docks on Blakely Harbor, and we’re not sure its unspoilt beauty – the mantra of South Bainbridge preservationists – is the most compelling. Folks should be more concerned that there’s no particular limit on new docks’ length. The state standard is that where a dock is permitted, it can be long enough to float the “appurtenant vessel” of whoever’s building it. The city bases its own standard on water depth at the end of the dock, but with the gentle tidal slope rolling out from the south side of Blakely Harbor, new docks might stretch halfway into the harbor to accommodate a boat with a deep draft.

If permitted, those docks would impede the navigation of the many sailors and kayakers who use the harbor, in essence usurping vast swaths of the water’s surface – a publicly owned and managed resource – for the enjoyment of a few shoreline homeowners.

That is perhaps a debate for another day. What’s immediately at hand is a legal settlement directly tied to ordinance changes for which islanders’ opinions are, by design, of little relevance. Yes, hearings will be held. But suppose public sentiment is overwhelmingly against the easing of Blakely Harbor dock restrictions? Would such comment make any difference, given the council’s implicit and overriding interest in seeing the lawsuits resolved?

By tying a legal settlement to changes to the city code, the council presupposes an outcome for legislation that the public is supposed to have a fair say in drafting and debating. It’s introducing an ordinance for which the outcome is foregone.

That’s quite a precedent.