Congratulations!
You're elected!!
What now?????
This is a continuation and expansion on the article with the same title appearing in the Winter 2003 issue of Municipal Research News.
WELCOME ABOARD!
There are many things for you to be concerned about, to learn about, and to be able to inform your constituents about. You have some clear ideas of things you want to accomplish for your city or town. You have some specific things you hope to see change at city or town hall. As you'll quickly learn, a city or a town is a very complex organism. And sometimes, change is very difficult.
This is written for cities and towns since by statute their elections are held in odd numbered years. Those just happened in November. Counties have their elections at the same time as presidential elections, in even numbered years.
Finances. This is probably going to be your biggest headache. Since the passage of Initiative - 695 several years ago, scarce resources has generally been the case for cities and towns. The impacts on local government budgets have been significant. As one of the elected officials of your city or town, your responsibility is now to bring your wisdom, experience, leadership, educational ability, and representative vote to bear on serving as one of the board of directors of the municipal corporation you call home. It's your responsibility to provide for the needs and wants of the people who elected you. One very important element of your new responsibility is going to be your role as a teacher. You will need to help your constituents understand how your city or town is financed, and what can and cannot be afforded in the way of services. And that those services must be paid for. In short, there's no free lunch.
There may still be a few cities and towns in which your constituents -- those who elected you -- have an expectation that there are sufficient reserve funds to keep services somewhere near what they've come to depend upon and expect. You'll quickly be finding out that many of those "reserves" are simply not there, are very limited in amount, or are so restricted in how and for what they can be used that you won't be able to touch them, even if they do exist.
Following are some random thoughts and comments about a few of the things that you're going to become acquainted with. These are primarily aimed at newly elected officials, but hopefully may also be useful reminders to veterans in elected office.
That Mayor! Like it or not, you're going to have to get along with her or him. If you don't, and you display strong feelings, especially at council meetings, those meetings are going to run very late. Do you really want your council meetings to become known as the Monday night fights? (Or Tuesday, Wednesday, or whatever time your council meets). Were you really elected for that? Will that really serve a positive municipal purpose? That doesn't mean that you and the mayor should always agree. Even agreeing to disagree in a polite or sensitive manner is possible if you both work at it. And chances are if you do, the public will respect both of you for it. The mayor has one clear role. In all cases, it is to chair the council meetings. Depending on the organization and classification of your city, it may also be to serve as the ceremonial "chief of state." Or in mayor-council cities and towns it's to be the chief administrative officer. You need to become knowledgeable about the role of the mayor in your organization. That understanding will help both of you. If you are that Mayor, you also need to remember that you share the leadership role, the spotlight, and the responsibility for elected office, with the members of the city or town council.
Those Councilmembers! You may like most of them. Or maybe you don't. That is not the issue. The issue is -- you have one vote, and each of them has one vote. You'll have to take on a crash course in consensus building. The others won't always all agree with you, nor will you always agree with them. Your job will be to educate and convince them. And you'll have to do the same with your constituents, too.
Those County Commissioners! You simply don't understand how they can so often be so wrong! In quite a number of instances you'll be competing with them for scarce public dollars. Those public dollars are probably even scarcer for them than they are for you and your city or town. It won't get you anywhere to just swear at them. If you're wise, you'll soon find that the "art" of compromise and finding common ground is something that will make your new job possible and help you avoid ulcers and high blood pressure. Despite the apparent differences in the ways each of you see the world or perceive your respective roles, you'll all get to know what objectives drive each other. When you do, hopefully the city or town and the county can find some common ground to deliver the citizens more bang for the buck.
Staff. Whether you're in a city or a town, this group of (usually) very dedicated appointed people who work for that local government are a treasure. And if you're newly elected, they can be a great storehouse of information that can be helpful to you. Generally, they'll be glad to give you a tour of their area of responsibility and share their observations. The sooner you can have those tours and those discussions, the better prepared you'll be to vote knowledgeably when called upon to do so. And you'll also be in a much better position to knowledgeably talk with constituents.
The Clerk-Treasurer. If yours is a small city or town, this is an especially important person. Often, after the mayor, the clerk-treasurer must operate as the central authority for the municipality. Many of them are very capable and experienced people. She or he can be a great help to you if you will rely on them for information and advice.
The City Administrator. If yours is a mayor-council city or town, you may have one of these. She or he is appointed by the mayor and serves at the mayor's pleasure. The function of the city administrator is to be the primary assistant to the mayor, who is the chief administrative officer. In some instances, the mayor may have assigned considerable authority to the administrator. Again, this is a key person. As a councilmember, you need to be aware of the lines of authority involving this position in your city or town.
The City Manager. There are now 53 of these in Washington state. If your city is one of the council-manager cities, you know about it. If there's a vacancy in the manager position, you will have an equal say with the other councilmembers in the selection of the new person for the position. City managers are selected on the basis of their experience and training, and hopefully are a "fit" for your city. Unlike the city administrator, this person works for the whole council and serves at the council's pleasure. He or she is the chief administrative officer of the city, and usually has responsibility to hire and fire personnel. The mayor's role is that of being ceremonial head of the city, of chairing council meetings, and of being the policy leader, sort of a "first among equals." If you have a vacancy in the manager position, Municipal Research, or MRSC, keeps a list of potential interim managers/administrators.
The City or Town Attorney. You need one, and you need to rely on her or him. The statutes granting authority to cities and towns in Washington are extensive and explicit. The actions you take as a mayor or a councilmember must comply with those statutes. Cities and towns in Washington derive their power from the state. As a mayor or as a councilmember, you don't have a totally blank slate to write upon. There are federal and state mandates that apply to you. In some cases, those mandates have been imposed without thought about how you will pay for them. That becomes your responsibility. Your city or town attorney can be a major help in leading you through many potential minefields. And certainly keeping out of jail is always a good thing.
Police. You haven't forgotten that cop who gave your teenage son or daughter a ticket a block from your house last year. You'd like to see that she or he gets fired. Hold on! If your city or town has three or more officers, including the chief, the statutes require that you operate under a civil service system. Police have civil service rights. You can't just fire one of them. You have to have a substantiated reason. And unless you're the mayor or the city manager, you're not the "appointing authority," which means you don't control hiring and firing them. That responsibility belongs to either the mayor or the city manager. And, just perhaps, your teenager really was speeding, or did go sailing through that stop intersection without slowing down. Be cautious. Police officers sometimes have a very tough job. It would be best for you to get to know more about it. They're always glad to help you learn about it. And you'll know much more about your city or town if you take time to listen and to learn.
Fire. You want to check to see if those firefighters are really busy, or whether they just play checkers and dominos and watch television when they're not actually fighting fires. In the vast majority of cities and towns they are very dedicated to fire, medical emergencies, and general safety. During times when they're not answering an alarm, they're training, maintaining equipment, and doing fire inspections and pre-fire planning. In most places, 75% or more of fire department calls are not about fire. They're about medical emergencies or accidents. Get acquainted with what they're really doing before you launch an attack. And in the smaller places, they're probably volunteer firefighters. They're working their regular job, and the fire and emergency business is something they do out of dedication to the safety of the place. If you find that this is not the case, then perhaps you'll want to talk with the other councilmembers to establish policies that will upgrade the professional nature of your fire department's functions. Or is it already very good, and the participants need to be recognized for how good and dedicated they really are?
Water. You can't just assume that when you turn on your faucet clean water will flow. How clean is your city's or town's water supply? Are the mandates of the clean water act being met? Do you think some of the requirements of the clean water act are unreasonable? Do you know how to get information about this subject or how to register a concern if you have one? Do you have adequate fire flow? How reliable is your source of supply? Do you have adequate water rights if you are the primary supplier for the system? Is your system operated as a proprietary function of the city or town? Are the user rates based on a cost of service model? These are things you'll need to get to know, or at least want to ask. And in some cases the answers may not be clear. Water supply is a basic service, and as a councilmember you'll need to be able to answer constituent's questions. City or town staff is your source of information.
Sewers and sewage treatment. Flush! What happens? Did you ever think about that? If your city or town controls a treatment facility, are the discharge requirements being met? Is a pollution problem being created that shouldn't be? Is the plant in deplorable condition? Are your operators able to meet their certification requirements according to their respective functions? Is city or town hall getting complaints about odor? You should probably ask for a tour of the treatment plant if your city or town has one. Like the water operation, is the sewer system run as a proprietary function? Are the rates based on a cost of service model? Is the system being subsidized by the general fund? Why? It shouldn't be. Are there lots of septic tanks that are beginning to pollute the basic water supply system? Again, it's a whole field with which to become familiar. Your constituents will expect you to know the answers.
Streets. Potholes. You'll want to know about them, about how they need to be repaired, and how much it costs to repair them. As the newly-elected mayor or councilmember, you may already be getting phone calls from citizens about them. Or . . . the state highway goes through your city or town. During the campaign it was clear that a lot of people who live along it really want to have the speed limit decreased to slow down the traffic. So now that you'll be the mayor or on the council, you'll just bring in an ordinance, get it adopted, and fix the problem. Right? It's a neat idea, but you don't have that authority. §46.61.415 Revised Code of Washington (RCW) specifies how and within what limitations you can change speed limits. Talk with your city or town attorney and your public works person before you offer to change a speed limit. It can be done, but it has to be done properly.
Planning and land use. You want your city or town to do its best to be and remain a nice, livable place. Of course you do. And for one thing, you don't want that new solid waste transfer station to locate right next to the nicest residential neighborhood in town. Or you want nice commercial enterprises to be built in a sound development rather than just in strips along both sides of that new stretch of highway that's under construction. That's where planning and zoning come in. And those things can be very controversial. You'll probably find that after you're the mayor or you're on the council, you'll spend as much as a third of your council time dealing with land use issues. Educate yourself about them. Learn what the state laws authorize and require, particularly the state's growth management act (GMA). Talk with experienced councilmembers in nearby cities or towns and learn about their good and bad experiences. Give some thought to how those examples could impact you if applied to your city or town.
Garbage! No, you can't just dump it in the nearest ravine. You can't just dump it at all. Trash and recycling come under this heading, too. Terms like "PRP" come to mind. That means "potentially responsible party." And if you're hearing that, the city or town is probably already involved in a lawsuit. It's a term that comes from the federal superfund literature. The federal (and state) superfunds are sources of money to finance cleanup of contaminated waste sites. What isn't popularly understood is that if superfund monies are used to perform a cleanup, an effort is then made to collect back the costs. If your city or town was operating a garbage collection system or contracted with a private company to provide the service, and it can be ascertained that the city or town or the private provider used a now contaminated site for disposal, the city or town almost certainly will be a PRP. Nationally, the costs of cleanup or remediation of a contaminated site using superfund methods have been running something like 35% higher than costs of cleanup done without superfund. The moral of the story is that you need to become informed, and you need to tread softly among the garbage. It's not a simple matter. After all, you definitely won't want contamination from the landfill to flow underground into your primary well field that supplies most of the city's or town's water.
Adult entertainment. Not in my town! Well, maybe and maybe not. Where does constitutional free expression and something you wouldn't want in your neighborhood cross, begin, or end? What is the "four foot" rule? The courts are full of questions like that. And it certainly keeps the legal profession busy. Don't venture into this arena without first having a discussion with your city or town attorney. He or she should be able to advise you what has been upheld in the courts in a number of Washington cities and towns. And you should also learn what things the courts have definitely said are beyond what you can enforce. If you don't listen and carefully think first, your city or town could become the basis for several lawyers' private permanent employment and retirement programs. The public probably won't like to pay for things like that with their taxes and fees.
Dogs and cats. People's pets often appear to be more important to them than their kids. Just try to abruptly enforce a very stern leash law with large penalties and you'll find out. Or try to institute a serious "pooper scooper" law and enforce it vigorously without any backing from citizens with pets, especially if there's been no such law and no enforcement in the past. This is an area where "deliberate" and "in response to citizen requests" really begin to be demonstrated. This is also an area where the mayor and council need to be unified with a public support group. Then perhaps there won't be a war.
Parks and recreation. This can be a very pleasurable area of your new responsibility. Or it can be a nightmare! Some cities and towns do their recreational space development in conjunction with the schools. In some instances, that will make public dollars go further. Now, assume that your city or town has had a highly developed little league baseball program for many years. In fact, all during the season, the ball fields are in constant use. Good! Right? But recently, there's a real movement in the city or town to also get deeply into soccer. The fields are taken up with baseball. There simply isn't daylight field time available for the proposed new soccer league. What can you do about it? Chances are there simply isn't money to acquire and build a new field for soccer, let alone maintain it properly so it'll support hard use. This is a good example of a situation that requires all the interested parties to get around a table and put all the facts, desires, finances, and possibilities out for all to clearly see. Often a way can be found through such a thicket. But everyone at the table will need to be open and honest. This example will provide you a chance to exercise your leadership responsibility. Hopefully it can be done without your having to wear a hard hat, a flack vest, and steel toed boots all the time.
Intergovernmental relations. You might not even like the term. But in these days of scarce resources for services, you may not have a choice. There are lots of examples out there of local governments that routinely do something in concert with another entity, be it a special district, city or town, county, or whatever. Or it's done jointly with a private organization, all correctly documented and contracted. The result can be a better service for less money, or one that provides better service for the same amount. Those kinds of success stories reflect very positively on elected people. And now you're going to be one of them. In some instances, federal and state mandates are approved by higher level legislative bodies that require you to do things in concert with others. In those cases you won't have any choice about being involved in intergovernmental relations. It's probably best if you can view the subject as a potential opportunity.
Appearance of fairness. What this means is that if it even appears to be not quite right, you'll hear about it! Washington has a strong law on this subject. It's known as "The Appearance of Fairness Doctrine" and is contained in Chapter 42.36 RCW. It applies to local quasi-judicial land use actions. Briefly, it requires that you disclose publicly any personal interest you might have in a matter coming before you. Or if you have a real personal interest -- such as you own the property in question -- you can't even vote on it. You shouldn't even be at the table or in the council room when the matter is heard. It requires that you not prejudge issues that might be presented in a public hearing coming before you. That means you shouldn't have gone out to look at the situation and perhaps talked with someone first. You must be impartial. Your city or town attorney will be anxious to have you understand all about it.
Open meetings. All levels of government in Washington State are specifically required to conduct their business openly. Chapter 42.30 RCW is known as the open public meetings act. RCW 42.30.010 provides:
Legislative declaration. The legislature finds and declares that all public commissions, boards, councils, committees, subcommittees, departments, divisions, offices, and all other public agencies of this state and subdivisions thereof exist to aid in the conduct of the people's business. It is the intent of this chapter that their actions be taken openly and that their deliberations be conducted openly.
The people of this state do not yield their sovereignty to the agencies which serve them. The people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know. The people insist on remaining informed so that they may retain control over the instruments they have created.
That's all clear language. It's also good language to remember. There are a number of specific instances in which executive or closed sessions of a governing body are permitted, and there is a specific process by which those "exceptions" to open meetings are to be employed. These are contained in RCW 42.30.110. The news media covering your meetings will be watching any use of closed sessions very closely and will report on them. Especially if something improper has been done.
Ethics! They're required by law in all cities and towns in Washington. Hopefully your city or town attorney, or perhaps another of your local officials, will talk with you about the subject. It's covered in Chapter 42.23 RCW. The title of that chapter is, "Code of Ethics for Municipal Officers -- Contract Interests." You need to get familiar with it. If you get involved in one of the orientation sessions offered by the Association of Washington Cities (AWC), you'll learn about it.
Taxes. They're certainly a major part of financing. And certainly, you want them to be lower. Don't we all? However, chances are you'll have to get to know a lot about how they work in your city, town, or county before you can just lower them. Taxes are just one source of revenue you'll have to rely upon to have well-rounded operations and meet citizen needs and desires. In fact, you'll need to know about all the revenue sources available to your local government. You'll learn that you need to look at the big picture of all sources of funds and all services before doing much adjusting. Sometimes what might look like a small "tweak" in a limited area can have impacts on other parts of your operation. And neither you nor the citizens will like the result. You need to be a real student of all financial matters.
Getting started. In this time of scarce resources and increasing demands for services, you as an elected official are in a position to provide a key link with the public. You were elected with hope, both on your part and on that of those who elected you. Your role in teaching your constituents will be a most unique and necessary one. Hopefully, you won't regret that you ran for the city or town office you're about to assume. And also hopefully, you'll like doing your bit for the city or town where you live. You don't have to become an expert in everything instantly. You owe it to yourself to become educated. And you owe it to the people who elected you to be able to teach them that being an elected official isn't always easy, and that many issues are very complex. You need the necessary background information to make knowledgeable and wise decisions.
Don't forget about those training sessions for newly elected officials that are available through AWC. And don't forget that both AWC and MRSC are available to you as resources.
Now, it's time to get started. A good place to start is to meet the city or town staff and to get them to give you a tour of their areas of responsibility. They're a great source of background.
Again, Welcome Aboard!
Good luck!! And enjoy!!!
Ron Bartels has been a Public Policy and Management Consultant with MRSC since June 1994. He has more than thirty-five years experience serving seven cities in local government including management positions in five different cities in three states. He has served as a consultant to one state, three cities, one state league of cities, and a Royal commission in an overseas country. He has worked directly for twelve mayors and fifty-three councilmen and councilwomen during his career in local government management. This article is hypothetical and is based on some of his observations over those years. Any apparent depiction of a real individual or a real circumstance is purely a coincidence.
December 2003