The majority of the Lakewood City Council recently decided to reduce its meetings from four Mondays a month to three. This decision prompts me to reflect on my own experiences as a council member and offer a practical perspective on what it means.
We should be fine with it if council members had said, “We are busy with work obligations. Many of us have jobs. Many of us have families, including families with minors. We need more time for those things.”
That did come up, and I’m glad, because it’s a very human explanation for something that I’m glad the council is trying this for the sake of its members. If they truly can cut down to three meetings, great. Some talked about using that time to engage citizens in other ways, which is partly what this column is about. It will surely make the remaining meetings longer.
I’m worried another reason that came up in an earlier discussion, summarized in a written explanation for the decision in the staff report found at page 112, “One concern is whether this frequency of meeting discourages individuals from service on the City Council.”
Are you thinking about running for council and will three Monday nights instead of four make a difference? We have to talk. If you are considering running for City Council, and I recommend it to everyone, you are making a big mistake if you are just looking at the council meetings.
Service on a city council takes much more time than you’d expect. I’m not trying to discourage you, just keeping it real. Partly because of what had happened to me.
When I ran for City Council, I thought I knew a council member’s workload because I had been to so many of the meetings as a reporter: “Hey, they just show up for these meetings, I thought. They talk to citizens and they do research. I can do that.”
What I did not know was how many other meetings there are: neighborhood groups, umpteen other government groups that expect a city representative, people who want to meet about ideas or causes or other things.
It’s a high price for someone with a family and a 40+ hour a week job. You are expected to be at things. People view your participation as an entitlement.
Example 1: I missed an event to sit with my young son because he had the stomach flu. A letter to the editor was published noting my absence and suggesting I and other people who missed the event were racist.
Example 2: One evening, an ailing former first Mayor Bill Harrison appeared for public comment at a council meeting. We were all happy to see him. We all knew he was not well, and it was a great pleasure anytime to see him. It was the last time I’d see Bill able to stand on his own.
Bill got up – and ripped us a new one. Bill was angry. He had attended a meeting that was exploring new course offerings at a Clover Park school. No one from the council was there. We had missed it. He was angry, and he said it.
Now bear in mind, city government and Clover Park schools are totally different entities. When you ask a City Council member to fix the schools, it’s like asking someone at Jiffy-Lube to sell you clothing at Wal-Mart. When you ask a school board member to fix a city issue, it’s like asking someone at Safeway to serve you a sandwich at Subway.
However, the city and schools have a lot in common, often cooperate, and of course we all tried to get to each other’s meetings. That had been a busy week, and as Bill spoke, we council members all looked guiltily at each other, realizing we had failed to get to this meeting.
Bill told us that this represented our lack of support for Clover Park schools. Which was not our intent at all. But our failure to attend was a failure to recognize our status as symbols.
I tell you these stories not to scare anyone away, though maybe I am about to do so with these words. If I had known the total amount of time it would take to be a council member, I would never have run. It wasn’t clear to me, until my children were growing up, that I wished I had not run for council. I don’t ask for sympathy, everyone did their best; and in retrospect, my family and I are proud of my time. And I am in NO WAY claiming everyone should feel this way. I’m just sharing one experience.
Part of it was that I was just not organized enough. Council members who were retired or who had part-time jobs had often read more than me. Is that my responsibility and fault? Yes. But it’s also true that employment and families occupy time and energy.
I hate to say that. We NEED council members who are employed and who have young families. We need them to represent the community. But they better be very, very organized. Because this decision to recover one Monday night a month is nothing.
To underscore I’m just talking about me, I also know council members with busy employment and families who did or still do an amazing job of getting it all done. Can one serve all these important interests? Absolutely. If you feel called to serve, please do. I only offer my story as a lone, cautionary tale and an example of one.
My main message is: If you’re considering running for council, my main message is: don’t focus solely on the frequency of Monday meetings. Mondays are the tip of the iceberg.
In fact, there might be a lot more work coming for everyone. One thing I’ll be very interested to see is what happens in this year’s elections. We may end up with a council where all the members generally agree with each other, generally agree with staff, generally agree with the developers doing things in town. Then even current council members won’t notice a difference in time commitment.
Try being on a divided city council. Try being on a council where people often disagree about what’s best for the city. Because if there are council members determined to do something you disagree with, you can’t just show up and nod your way to victory.
Or if you want to advance something to make a better city, and the opponents are coming at you, you need to be busy. You have to study, research, collaborate with others, and then debate and decide. And you’ll hear from the public. This all takes time.
Whatever happens, the one thing I do know is that council members put in a lot more time than anyone else knows. I respect them for it. And if you feel that you can put in the time, and juggle it with family and work, I encourage you to go for it.
WALTER NEARY,
Thank you for your amazingly interesting and insightful description of the true meaning of what it is like to serve on the Lakewood City Council.
Anyone and everyone considering running for a city council position can benefit from reading your honest description of the required commitment.
The city would do well to provide every city council applicant with a copy of your document.
Your information confirms my decision to not run for a position on the Lakewood City Council.
During my time as a Lakewood citizen, the city council held 15,600 Monday council meetings. Because I only found time, as a citizen, to attend 6 of the 15,600 council meetings, I instinctively adhered to your advice, before receiving your advice, by never running for a council position.
Joseph Boyle
Walter Neary – Lakewood City Councilman Emeritus
I just sent a response to your most recently published document regarding, if I may quote you, “the tip of the iceberg.” Reference above.
After reading what I wrote, I got to thinking.
If I were to move back to Lakewood I might be well qualified to run for Lakewood City Council.
Let’s review my qualifications.
(1) I have no small children at home. In fact, In fact, I have no children of any size at home. I do not even have a pet dog or cat at home.
(2) I have no job, nor do I have any visible means of support to distract me.
(3) Being a sports illiterate, I do not watch Monday night football.
(4) I enjoyed a constructive relationship with the former mayor, General Bill Harrison.
(5) I know you, Walter Neary, a former Lakewood City Council member who served with distinction.
(6) Maybe I could be Mayor of The City of Lakewood.
Mayor Joseph Boyle (Mayor! That has a nice ring to it and if I pulled if off, I could become a legend in my own mind.)
Frankly, im a little surprisingly impressed that the lakewood city council meets as frequently as they and commits to the length of meetings to have actual earnest discussion. Other city councils in king county and elsewhere with populations larger than lakewood meet three or four times a month for an hour. One city council publically complains that their 1 hour meetings are too long! And one city’s mayor doesnt even read the proclamations they have the clerk read them for him. So for anyone who wants to bash on lakewood’s electeds, just know that it could be worse. Our council does a pretty fair job and im glad that we have younger folks with day jobs on council than past administrations.
I too served on Lakewood’s City Council as did Pad Finnegan and Ron Cronk who were also members of Lakewood CARES which met every Friday for several hours prior to every Council meeting. I fail to see any good reason for meetings to be reduced to three Mondays a month. If you want to serve the community, then serve the community. It takes work before, after and during meetings to do the people’s business. If four Mondays a month were such an imposition then why do we have Council members in office for near decades? The biggest road block to public participation, indeed running for Council, is not the work load: it is incumbency!
True story. In 2007/8 my term on Council was coming to an end. I received a call from a certain individual (later to become Mayor) and met with him at Starbucks to discuss the upcoming election. He questioned whether I was going to run for Council again. I replied why did that matter? He stated that he was planning to run for my position only on the condition that I not run. I chided him on his decision stating that if he had something to offer the public then he should run regardless of who was running.
The truth of the matter is that open seats tend to draw a crowd despite the alleged “heavy work load” or private family, job, recreational responsibilities. Take a look at the meeting agendas and minutes. For the most part they are administrative in nature with tons of associated consent agenda items that require no debate but rather just a unanimous Council rubber stamp. Same could be said for Clover Park School District School Board meetings.
“Debate” and “disagreement” are part of serving and not something to be avoided. Council (and Board) members are not elected to serve on a “mutual admiration society” without a hint of controversy. It takes preparation, practice and presentation of alternative perspectives to arrive at a consensus that represents the best for our community and the will of the people who elected us. The lack of debate in favor of “vanilla” meetings not to offend anyone is another reason why people don’t attend Council meetings. What’s there to see?
The actual work of Council is done by staff and citizen advisory boards. I’ve found that if you want to get something done, give the job to someone who’s already busy. I’d like to find out where this thrice monthly meeting schedule originated from. No surprise it came from somewhere in staff. Not only does it let seven Council members off the hook once a month, it also lets staff off the hook preparing for one less Council meeting a month.
“…city government and Clover Park schools are totally different entities..” yet they are inextricably linked. It’s a “marriage” rather than just a couple of roommates sharing an apartment. Have you sat through City briefings to the District or vice versa? It’s largely meaningless administrative or superfluous “fluff”, a pro forma exercise with no results to benefit either entity. What joint projects are they working on to improve poverty, truancy, employment opportunities, crime, and other community problems that affect everyone?
Serving on Council or Board is not an imposition; it is a privilege and opportunity to serve the community. Everyone should run for office at least once just to see how our political system operates, what it takes to run and if elected, a view of government from the inside as well as outside.