Blaine City Council and department heads convened September 22 in council chambers to discuss downtown construction, a new lineman apprenticeship program and ranked-choice voting for appointed positions.
The meeting concluded without follow-up discussion on councilmember Eric Lewis’ personal emails that prompted mayor Mary Lou Steward to request his resignation during the last council meeting on September 8.
The mayor’s request, which wasn’t publicly backed by any other council members, came after an anonymous public records request revealed Lewis had been communicating in what Steward believed to be a questionable way with members of the Blaine Water Coalition from mid-February to early March. Lewis used his personal email to communicate with the coalition, which has hurled accusations at local leaders for the past two years and has filed a lawsuit against the city.
The coalition requested Lewis bring two motions to council to update the city’s stormwater manual and create a code of ethics. Neither motion passed as the city’s stormwater manual was already to state standards and the ethics would have been voluntary in addition to state laws. City manager Mike Harmon previously said he was consulting the city attorney about whether Lewis violated the state’s appearance of fairness doctrine surrounding his communication on a decision from the city’s hearing examiner.
Calling him a “traitor” during the September 8 meeting, Steward expressed concern Lewis could potentially leak information from executive sessions discussing the coalition’s lawsuit against the city. Steward requested Lewis resign within two weeks of September 8, or she would put forward a motion to censure him from any executive session discussing the coalition’s lawsuit against the city. The mayor’s deadline has come and gone, and Lewis remains on the council.
Nothing was said and no motions were made on the topic. The only reminder of the conflict was a handful of people in attendance who have been associated with the Blaine Water Coalition holding signs calling for the mayor to resign and decrying city governance as they’ve done previously. The sign-holders were stationed around council chambers in the front, in the back and strategically avoiding a news camera.
Also appearing to be in reaction to the last meeting, which drew raised voices, a police officer stood near city staff. Police officers have been called to council meetings periodically over the past two years to help keep decorum as coalition members have disregarded meeting instructions.
At the end of the September 8 meeting, Steward said Blaine voters may be the ones to decide whether Lewis stayed on council as his position is up in the November election. A letter campaign in support of Lewis has since been initiated.
Phase three of the city’s Downtown Revitalization Project is expected to begin Monday, September 29, Blaine Public Works assistant director Gary McSpadden told council. The third phase will close traffic on Peace Portal Drive from Starbucks to Aloha Café, though the street will remain open to pedestrian access. Traffic will be detoured through F Street, 3rd Street and H Street. G Street, the area between Hill’s Chevron and the Black Forest Steakhouse building, will not be impacted.
Downtown businesses remain open during construction. The multi-million-dollar Downtown Revitalization Project began in mid-July to make Americans with Disabilities Act improvements, along with other upgrades. Landscaping, irrigation and light poles will soon be installed as the project wraps up in some of the earlier areas.
“We’re going to start seeing some of the finished product,” McSpadden said.
Council unanimously approved creating a lineman apprenticeship program after years of the city struggling to hire linemen despite, at one point, offering the highest hourly pay in the state and incentivizing signing bonuses.
The city will start with one apprentice. The city will pay for the apprentice’s tuition, books, fees and travel throughout the three-year program. In exchange, the apprentice will agree to work for the city for three years after finishing the program or will be required to reimburse the city for their education and training.
“We want to showcase this,” deputy city manager Sam Crawford said. “This is huge for us. This apprentice program will allow us to cast a much wider net in the marketplace.”
The apprentice will start earning $57.37 per hour, or 75 percent of the journey-level rate, and end with an hourly wage of $68.85, or 90 percent of the journey rate, once they’ve completed 5001 hours. Once they finish the program, the apprentice will earn 100 percent of the journey-level rate.
Harmon said there were several city employees who would be competitive applicants and he anticipated interest from dozens of others as well.
Council unanimously approved voting via paper ballots for appointed positions, such as board members and commissioners, instead of conducting a roll call vote. If there are more than two positions, council will use ranked-choice voting, where they will write down their choices in order of preference.
The vote comes after councilmember Richard May asked council during its September 8 meeting to consider changing the way it voted on these positions. May said he wanted to change the roll call vote because other councilors had told him they’d voted for the first person nominated only because they didn’t want to vote against someone.
“In a roll call vote, there’s the potential of each council member impacting or influencing the votes of the other councilmembers,” May said. “With a paper vote, everyone writes down what they want without influence.”
Council’s decision will need to undergo legal review prior to going into effect.
