Council Approves School District Ties

City of Newcastle, WA -- Council Meeting of April 16th, 2013 (Part 3 of 3)

 

Stewart Shusterman, the Facilities Project Manager for the Renton School District, spoke and made a half-hour presentation, including answering questions from the Council, as he was politely received by the Council and other city officials.  After Mr. Shusterman's speech, the Council voted unanimously to approve an ordinance for impact fees for the Renton School District and separately for a resolution authorizing an interlocal agreement with the district.  Both votes were 7 - 0.  Nobody from the audience spoke for or against the ordinance.

 

Regarding the 4th of July festivities in Newcastle, Mayor Rich Crispo noted his concern about overcrowding around the Lake Boren fireworks extravaganza, but there was a general concensus by the Council not to cancel this popular fireworks show.  They may try to draw less attention to it, however -- an event which draws a lot of out-of-towners -- to alleviate potentially dangerous crowding conditions.  One suggestion, from Councilwoman Carol Simpson, was to drop the advertisements in the Seattle Times.

Providing Newcastle with expert legal advice for years has been Dawn Reitan, Newcastle's City Attorney, who has guided the city down a wise and legally sound course, including at this meeting, where she made sure that the ordinance procedures, among others, were astutely followed.

 

This has nothing to do with the most recent Council Meeting, but regarding Newcastle election news, Councilman John Dulcich will run for re-election (announcing after the initial posting of this essay, but before this update).  Mayor Rich Crispo recently announced that he is running for another 4-year term.  Councilman Bill Erxleben has decided to leave City Hall at the turn of the New Year. 

Mark Greene, the only announced non-incumbent candidate for Council to date, has already started his campaign.

[revised on 5/3/2013]


Austerity Versus Practicality

City of Newcastle, WA -- Council Meeting of April 16th, 2013 (part 2 of 3)

The Austerity Faction of the Council Gets a Loss and a Stalemate.

 

The Council debated over whether to approve the Public Works Director Mark Rigos' request to purchase a trailer-mounted hydro excavator for, broadly speaking, the purpose of surface water management, but more specifically to clean up chemical spills, paint spills or other hazardous waste substances that may cause problems in storm drainage basins, Lake Boren and other bodies of water, generally.  City Manager Rob Wyman said that the money for this equipment is readily available through a grant awarded to the City, and implied that if the City started going down the road of passing up grant money, particularly this one, that it could possibly have a negative effect on receiving future grants.  The Council's Budget Hawk-In-Chief, Bill Erxleben, referred to the excavator as a "toy" for the Public Works Department at one point, and said that there were other ways to get at spill problems.  City Manager Wyman and Director Rigos tried to explain to Erxleben and other budgetary skeptics that this was a "no-brainer" in terms of city operations, cost/benefit analysis, and the general budget (the term, "no-brainer" was actually used at one point, though, N.P.R. doesn't recall whether it was by Wyman or Rigos, but both were on the same plane, so to speak).  Rigos said that there was a time factor involved, because if Public Works had to call an outside agency, it could take up to two hours to have workers at the scene to clean up a spill, but with the excavator, Public Works could take care of it themselves within minutes.  Councilman Gordon Bissett said, in so many words, that he didn't care whether it was "free" money or not, because it was the public's money in any case.  Similar to Tea Party fanatics in Congress, Erxleben and Bissett put budget priorities above all else, including, apparently, potential environmental emergencies, whether or not there is a real or imagined fiscal problem, although, Wyman and Rigos had explained to them that this would be a budgetary savings for Newcastle over the long haul.  Erxleben said that the whole exercise, which would be of a limited use anyhow, would be very costly and not entirely from grant money, pointing out that City money would have to be expended as well, to the tune of $25,000 (presumably, annually, but N.P.R. is not certain over what length of time Erxleben meant).  Councilwoman Carol Simpson sided with Erxleben and Bissett on the vote, but Deputy Mayor Jensen, Mayor Crispo, John Dulcich and Steve Buri voted in favor of purchasing the environmental equipment, thus a close 4 - 3 outcome in which the budget hawks lost.

On another front, however, the Budget Hawk-In-Chief (Erxleben) managed to get a stalemate.  City Manager Wyman wanted the Council to give him the authority to approve a Solid Waste Interlocal Agreement, in other words, a long-term agreement with other cities in the region for having a combined regional system for city-wide garbage pick-ups and transfers to landfills and recycling centers.  Erxleben complained that he hadn't been given enough time to read the agreement, and he noted that the City of Bellevue was pulling out of the arrangement.  He seemed to suggest that Bellevue knows something that Newcastle doesn't, and that he intended to find out what that was.  Simpson, Dulcich, Buri and Bissett also didn't seem to be in any rush to give this authority to Wyman, although, Bissett did seem to think that delaying was kind of silly, as he said (paraphrasing), "What are we going to do, haul our own garbage?"  Wyman, especially, was not pleased by the delay, as he noted an April 30th deadline and that Newcastle was one of the last holdout cities to sign this agreement.  Wyman implied that Bellevue's pull-out was of no major significance, and that Bellevue's financial impact on the overall agreement was relatively minuscule.  The hardliners on this particular issue, Erxleben and Simpson, were not appeased, however.   The analytical-minded Simpson, who always wants plenty of details on a variety of issues, noted that this was a 40-year deal.  Wyman, however, reminded councilmembers that this issue couldn't be dragged out interminably as deadlines pass, and there was no guarantee that Newcastle would be let back into the consortium if it failed to sign the agreement in a timely manner, but deadlines seemed to be of little concern to the austerity wing of the Council.  The general Council pretty much agreed to do nothing until the May 7th Meeting, at the earliest (there was some talk about a Special Council Meeting before the April 30th deadline, but that didn't seem to go anywhere).

Update:  due to the length of writing about just two agenda items from the April 16th Meeting, N.P.R. has decided to make this report a three-parter instead of two, with Part 3 likely to be published tomorrow night (April 18th), probably after 8 P.M. Also, N.P.R. did not attend the April 17th Planning Commission Meeting due to the busy schedule of the editor, but will make a special effort to make the next one.

[revised 4/18/2013]





Greene Urges Council to Start Global Warming Committee

City of Newcastle, WA -- Council Meeting of April 16th, 2013 (Part 1 of 3)

 

Update:  N.P.R. is doing the report on yesterday's Council meeting in three parts, and the second part will be published sometime later today (on a separate posting).  Now, likely to be posted later than earlier thought, probably tonight, between 8 P.M. and 12 A.M.  The third part is scheduled to be published on April 18th.

Newcastle City Council Candidate, Mark Greene, made a speech at the mid-April Council meeting urging Council to appoint a 3-person volunteer Global Warming Committee which would make suggestions to the Council about green energy ideas and how they could be implemented by the city government.  Greene had previously made this suggestion at a prior meeting some weeks ago, but the Council had not acted or commented on the proposal as far as N.P.R. knows.  In the prior meeting, Greene stressed the importance of combined incrementalism or the "power of incrementalism," in other words, the more communities around the world that take concrete steps to counteract global warming, the more impact it would have in reducing the "greenhouse" gases that cause it.  This does not replace the needed strong federal or centralized government action on global warming by all countries, but would greatly complement it and may even inspire it in some cases.  At yesterday's meeting, Greene cited examples of international community or local government involvement in making green energy/environmental strides, such as a geothermal plant in Lund, Sweden and a solar power project on a former landfill in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  Greene, also, mentioned the Twin Cities Enviromental Justice Project which seeks to point out environmental hazards or infrastructure threats in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, and to find solutions in solving those problems.  Whether the Council listened to Greene with more interest this time than last is not yet clear, but Mayor Rich Crispo later commented on volunteerism, generally, and said there was not even interest in Newcastle about being a volunteer commissioner on the newly named Community Activities Commission (previously, called the Parks Commission).  So anybody who wants to be a Community Activities Commissioner should just submit an application with the City, and your chances of being appointed would seem to be better than 50/50.  Mark Greene thinks the City should at least give stipends to volunteer Planning and Community Activities Commissioners, perhaps, using the money they will save from the reduction of some Councilmembers' salaries (positions 5, 6 and 7) in the next term.  Councilman Bill Erxleben implied that the City needs better marketing tools to attract volunteers, and he's probably right about that.

[The update to this essay was revised on 4/18/2013.]

Refreshed and Revamped

Update: the March 20th, 2013 "Big Divide" essay now includes a recent update at the bottom of it.

N.P.R.'s vacation, from April 1 - April 10, is now officially over.  Although, we missed the most recent Council and Community Activities Commission meetings, we'll get back to our regular coverage from this point on.  Newcastle Council Candidate, Mark Greene, revamped his campaign website today, check it out at this link: brandnewelections.us.

[revised and updated 4/15/2013]

Position No. Six: Referendum on Annexation

The title of Councilman Bill Erxleben's (who's not running for re-election) most recent letter to the Newcastle News was "City Councilman wants city to be left in good hands," but it could have been entitled "City Councilman wants Newcastle to be left in Bellevue's hands."  I am sure that Newcastle didn't go through the long process of incorporation a couple of decades ago merely to present itself as suddenly mature enough to be the stepchild of a more prestigious neighbor.  The last 19 years -- to use a baseball metaphor -- wasn't practice for merging with a Triple AAA team (at least I hope that wasn't the case).  The last 19 years was finding our way in the world of self-representing cities and establishing this city as one of Washington's best.  There is no financial crisis in Newcastle, no hint of bankruptcy and no overriding reason to become a part of any other city.  No reason that could not have been found 19 years ago, anyway.  Newcastle is a unique city and has no pretensions of being anything other than small, crafty and independent.  However, I suspect the election for Position No. 6 this year will be the de facto referendum on whether we want to become an extension of Bellevue or not.  Be wary of any candidate (or candidates) for Position 6, and there are sure to be more than just me, who chooses to be quiet about this issue.  We will likely know where a candidate that doesn't state a position stands: for annexation.

Don't be surprised if there will be one or two other positions (5 & 7) open without an incumbent running this year (the PDC filings are just not coming in, yet, except for mine), which may be fertile ground for those candidates who want to avoid the annexation issue this election year.

- Mark Greene, Candidate for Newcastle City Council, Position 6

(the anti-annexation candidacy)

[revised on 4/9/2013]
 

Short Vacation

N.P.R. won't be covering the Newcastle City Council Meeting of April 2nd, 2013 due to the editor's short vacation.  Have a great spring!

[revised on 4/2/2013]

Newcastle 2035

City of Newcastle -- Planning Commission Meeting of March 20, 2013

The on-going conversation about the Comprehensive Plan continued in the first hour of this meeting with all commissioners in attendance.  One of the earliest comments from the Commission was about coming up with a more fascinating name for the Plan, as someone brought up the fact that Deputy Mayor Lisa Jensen had suggested this recently to generate more community interest about what's going on with it and how it should proceed since the drab sounding "Comprehensive Plan" didn't seem to do the trick.  "Newcastle 2035" was one idea, "20 - 20" or something like that was another.  N.P.R. has no idea what the significance of 2035 is as relating to all of this (a 20 year continuum after the 2015 date of the Plan?) or what "20 - 20" exactly signifys, other than perhaps "being focused."  Speaking of community interest, at one point, the Commission haggled over the wording of how the city should enable volunteerism, and decided on something along the lines of the following, if not exact: "Newcastle recognizes the importance of volunteerism and encourages it among its citizens for the public good."  Regarding other Plan business, the Commission didn't appear too fond of the "contract city" terminology (referring to Newcastle) that they said originated from the Council, which Community Development Director, Tim McHarg,  said is meant to encourage public sector and government cooperation with other cities.  At least one commissioner implied that Newcastle should strive to be as independent as possible, however, the Commission writ large appeared to swallow the "contract city" language in order to appease the Council lords (the italicized is non sequitur joshing by N.P.R.).  McHarg also commented about Newcastle's storm water infrastructure, which he said is in the best shape that it has ever been in thanks to the Public Works Department and its director, Mark Rigos.  The department recently completed a capital facilities management plan (streets, parks, storm water), according to McHarg.  McHarg also talked about Land Use, which he said is the core of everything, but there were a lot of constraints with building land in the city.

Commissioner Jon Simpson spoke about an increasingly aging population, and thus the importance of accessory dwellings which were becoming prevalent (presumably meaning in society, although, maybe he was referring specifically to the city).  N.P.R. isn't exactly schooled on this particular terminology, but its seems to conject some type of sub-housing that is a part of the main housing structure in some way -- a cottage in the backyard or something like that.

Commissioner Rob Lemmon brought up the issue of solar panels on houses -- which have invigorated green energy use and help the environment (N.P.R.'s non sequitur) --  and said that homeowners' associations cannot legally forbid or limit their use in Washington, but they can implement placement guidelines.

Planning official, David Lee, said, in so many words, that "Critical Areas" and Transportation would take up the lion's share of resources in resolving issues related to the Plan.

Planning Commission Chairman, John Drescher, began the proceedings by saying that the Commission should or wants to complete the Comprehensive Plan by the end of 2014.  Incidentally, only two journalists were in the audience for the first hour, but the Commission wants more community participation in the discussion about these matters.  So the clarion call of the Commission for this project may well be "Newcastlers, come now, come all!"

[revised and updated on 3/28/2013]