We received a copy of an intriguing email sent to City Council, and want to share with everyone. If you support what the sender said in the email, please write to council@redmond.gov in support of that email.
Dear Council Members,
For the past several months, people attended council meetings, gave public comments, yet were frustrated by the seemingly very slow motion by the council for something that the public feel is straightforward – to have a discussion on the amendment to Ordinance #3059.
The aha moment came when Director Helland told the council “I was not proposing to do changes to the Ordinance” at the 10/26 study session. Voter elected 7 council members, yet, they are not equipped with even one supporting staff. By contrast, the Mayor, has 10 supporting staff. For a city with only 80K population, 10 supporting staff for one Mayor is overkill.
Without its dedicated supporting staff, the City Council is powerless. The Council can’t act and vote in a vacuum. If the Mayor does not want anything to happen, she controls all the staff, and can easily set up road blocks like we have seen with Ordinance #3059. This MUST change. The City Council MUST have its own dedicated supporting staff that is free from Mayor Birney’s control and influence. And the Mayor’s outsized supporting staff team needs to be reduced. According to a City of Redmond document, the city’s homeless funding was $1.375 million. I hope the City Council would support a lean and efficient Mayor’s office, and repurpose some of Mayor’s Birney’s staffing cost to support homeless people in our city.
I would also suggest the council to discuss the scenario of changing the form of government from strong mayor-council to council-manager. All surrounding cities, except Redmond, have council-manager form of government. Voter elected council can appoint a city manager, or elect council members to be city Mayor and Deputy Mayor.
Look at below directory, does the Mayor needs a Communications Manager AND a Communications and Marketing Specialist? How many communications a city of 80K population have? Does the Mayor needs a Chief Operating Officer AND Executive Deputy Director AND Chief Policy Advisor? Those expensive and highly overlapped positions need go.
I am actually interested in hearing thoughts from council members on this proposal.
If you are a Redmond voter or a tax payer, and you would like a change on how the government is run, we are conducting a public opinion poll on whether Redmond should eliminate strong mayor, and change to council-manager form of government. Please participate in the poll at https://safeeastside.com/poll/ and forward this post to anyone in Redmond.
Our effort has made a big impact in the Redmond city council races. This is just the beginning, we need more people to join us at https://safeeastside.com/joinus to help us handout more flyers and put out more yard signs.