SUMMARY MINUTES OF DINNER MEETING

Monday, February 14, 2005

Shoreline Conference Center

6:00 p.m. Highlander Room

PRESENT: Mayor Hansen, Deputy Mayor Jepsen, Councilmembers Fimia, Grace, Gustafson, and Ransom

ABSENT: Councilmember Chang

STAFF: Steve Burkett, City Manager; Bob Olander, Deputy City Manager; Julie Modrzejewski, Assistant City Manager; Ian Sievers, City Attorney; Bernard Seeger, Management Analyst, and Sharon Mattioli, City Clerk

Deputy Mayor Jepsen called the meeting to order at 6:20 p.m. He and Councilmember Grace were present, but all other Councilmembers, with the exception of Councilmember Chang, arrived shortly thereafter.

City Manager Steve Burkett provided a brief overview of the Council’s proposed itinerary for the legislative visit in Olympia. He also distributed the Council’s 2005 legislative priorities. He alluded to Representative Ruth Kagi’s bill regarding Fircrest. There was also a brief discussion of the gambling tax bill.

Deputy Mayor Jepsen indicated that he could not attend the dinner but he recommended that Councilmembers ask our legislators which bills they are supporting or opposing that have direct impacts on the City of Shoreline.

When Councilmember Ransom arrived, he mentioned that the gambling bill, SB 5287, is being heard on Wednesday at 1:30 p.m. He felt it is important for the Association of Washington Cities to testify against it.

Moving on, Mr. Burkett introduced Julie Modrzejewski, Assistant City Manager, and Bernard Seeger, Management Analyst, who reviewed the City Council correspondence performance report. The report indicated that staff provides responsive, personalized correspondence for letters and e-mails written to the City Council. Ms. Modrzejewski noted that the letters fall into two categories, those related to Council policy and those related to operational/service delivery problems. She reviewed process and timeline for responses and noted there was an 11% increase (from 414 to 459) in correspondence to Council between 2003 and 2004. This shows a continued rise from the 169 pieces of correspondence received in 2000. In comparing with other cities, it was noted that most do not track correspondence. Shoreline had 9 letters for each 1,000 residents.

Mr. Seeger reviewed the distribution of the responses across City departments and by issues to be addressed. It was noted that there are certain recurring issues, such as traffic, Aurora project and permits over the period of 1999 to 2004. In 2003 and 2004, the recurring issues were: public comment, environment, Shoreline Community College master plan, gambling, code enforcement, Fircrest and police.

Mr. Seeger concluded that last year 397 letters received a formal response and the average time for a response is 6.7 working days, with the median being five working days.

Ms. Modrzejewski concluded that certain individuals generate a significant portion of the workload, with 14 individuals responsible for 22% of the correspondence received in 2004.

Moving on, Sharon Mattioli, City Clerk provided a performance report on public disclosure activity. She reviewed the legal requirements related to providing public records and the training activities her office has provided. She described how public records requests are processed. It was noted that of the comparison cities for Clerk’s Offices that do not handle police records, Shoreline processes more requests (192 in 2004) than Burien, Lacey, Renton and Federal Way.

Continuing, Ms. Mattioli said the number of requests by year has gone from 170 in 2002 to 192 last year. The average number of pages provided is about 15,000. She noted the various categories of requests, with the highest number related to permit files. She concluded that certain individuals and issues generate a significant amount of the workload related to providing public records. The Innis Arden tree-cutting issues generated 26 requests by six individuals; one individual made 17 requests on a variety of environmental and permitting issues; a single building permit generated 13 requests and the North City issue generated six requests. These requests represented 36% of the total requests in 2004.

Ms. Mattioli concluded with a description of the customer survey that is distributed when requests are filed, noting that 94% of those responding rated the process for handling the requests as excellent or good.

Mayor Hansen thanked staff and adjourned the meeting at 7:15 p.m.

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Sharon Mattioli, City Clerk