Blair King has been nothing short of spectacular as city manager for the city of Bainbridge Island.
He’s like our Tom Brady. He has raised the level of everyone else involved in city government. Anyone who pays attention to City Council meetings can see that.
The meetings previously would go on and on and on and on for four hours or more. Lots of things were said, but little seemed to get done. Meetings often would become contentious. Councilmembers sometimes showed little respect for each other. Communication with city staff also was challenging. Often it didn’t seem to understand what the council wanted—maybe because the council didn’t know itself.
King has changed all of that.
Meetings very seldom run that long anymore. And if they do it’s because there is just so much more on the agenda. King obviously understands Roberts Rule of Order and helps the meetings move along that way. If the council seems to be heading off in a different direction he often interjects politely and guides it back on course.
Mayor Brenda Fantroy-Johnson also has been a big improvement here by not allowing councilmembers to go on and on ad nauseam repeating the same arguments. To keep things civil, she also calls on councilmembers to speak in order. And like previous mayor Joe Deets she also usually limits councilmembers to two speeches per issue.
But this is mostly about King. He has done a great job putting into context what councilmembers have said and the direction they want city staff to go after each issue. That gives staff focus on what to do so at the next meeting it can provide the council with the information it needs to make informative decisions. So, more work gets done in less amount of time.
Kudos to King for all of that.
The one area we’d like to see King improve the council on is communication with the public. We don’t know how much of this change is due to King, but here are some examples of recent issues regarding public participation. He could sure help the council steer back on course.
First, rather than take public comments at every meeting like they used to, now the public only has input during business meetings, and not what is now called work sessions. The public therefore has lost half of its opportunities to speak.
Also, the entire city government came under fire when city staff and its consultant did now allow public input at the start of the Comprehensive Plan and Winslow Subarea Plan updates. The City Council even thought it wasn’t involved enough. The city said that because of a tight timeline it was trying to expedite the process. But because of the public outcry, the entire process was changed to include more public input. And a steering committee was formed to keep the council and public up to date.
More recently, the council has cut back on public input even more—and combining all three of these is deeply concerning.
The biggest change is it will only allow public input on items on the agenda. That is terrible news. The council learns about many issues it may not even know about when people bring them up during public comments. Receiving that information publicly adds clout to what is being said. It is more powerful than calling or writing an email, which can be discarded easily and sent off to Never Neverland.
The council also has cut off Zoom comments entirely. That is not good because that was a great way to receive input from people who may have a disability or who may have trouble getting to meetings. The city likes to pride itself on inclusion, but, frankly, some people can be intimidated speaking at a public meeting, so it’s a great way for them to participate. That is the opposite of inclusion.
Some really horrible comments were made a few weeks ago by a person on Zoom during a council meeting, which led to the limitations on public input. But certainly there should be a way to cut off such hate speech when it happens, which is rarely. It certainly is not a good reason to ban so much speech that is so important to the public process.
