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HomeMy WebLinkAbout09/09/2014 04 Council General InformationBUSINESS OF THE CITY COUNCIL YAKIMA, WASHINGTON AGENDA STATEMENT Item No. 4. For Meeting of: September 09, 2014 IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII ITEM TITLE: SUBMITTED BY: SUMMARY EXPLANATION: Council General Information Sonya Claar Tee, City Clerk 1. Letter from Governor Jay Inslee 2. City Meeting Schedule 3. Preliminary Future Activities Calendar 4. Preliminary Council Agenda 5. Newspaper/Magazine Articles: * "The greatest threat to our liberty is local governments run amok and only a strong federal government can stop them," New Republic, September 3, 2014 (submitted by Council Member Ensey) Resolution: Ordinance: Other (Specify): Contract: Contract Term: Start Date: End Date: Item Budgeted: Amount: Funding Source/Fiscal Impact: Strategic Priority: Insurance Required? No Mail to: Phone: APPROVED FOR SUBMITTAL: RECOMMENDATION: City Manager ATTACHMENTS: Description Upload Date information 9/4/2014 Type Cover Memo 1111111111111111111111 Governer "ne Imw "TE F WASHINGTON Office of the Governor August 28, 2014 Yakima City Council 129 North 2°d Street Yakima, WA 98901 Dear Members of the Yakima City Council: RECEIVED CITY OF YAKIMA SEP 022014 OFFICE OF CITY COUNCIL I am writing you today about Federal District Court Judge Thomas Rice's decision last week that found the City of Yakima in violation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and invalidated the city's current system for electing City Council members. I'm sure you were as alarmed as I was that the Court determined that the city's electoral process "is not equally open to participation" by Yakima's large Latino population. I was heartened to read that the city would work to comply with Judge Rice's ruling. The Yakima City Council now has the opportunity to show leadership on behalf of the city and all of Washington. I want to respectfully request that the Council send a clear message by voting to not appeal the Court's decision and instead focus on implementing a plan to address this serious issue. This is not just about Yakima. Numerous jurisdictions in our state suffer from a lack of diversity in political leadership and representation, at odds with our shared goal of a truly representative democracy. We all should be concerned when a city in our state is found to be in violation of the Voting Rights Act. Full participation in the electoral process is one of the touchstones of our democracy. As a former resident of the Yakima Valley, I know your city has many things to be proud of. This is an opportunity for a show of civic leadership that I believe would be admired throughout Washington. Very truly yours, 0Dc',4r w „PI pf „). 1E3 x 40002 0 Oily vnruoa, sdhuvu ngton 98504,-0002 0 (360) 902-4111 0 . ;oveu° or wa.gov CITY MEETING SCHEDULE For September 8, 2014 — September 15, 2014 Please note: Meetings are subject to change Monday, September 8 8:30 a.m. Pension Board meetings — 1St Floor Conference Room 3:30 p.m. Civil Service Commission — Council Chambers Tuesday, September 9 10:00 a.m. City Council study session — Council Chambers 1:30 p.m. County Commissioners agenda meeting — Council Chambers Wednesday, September 10 11:00 a.m. Boundary Review Board — Council Chambers 1:30 p.m. EMS Board meeting — Yakima Regional 3:30 p.m. Yakima Planning Commission meeting — Council Chambers 5:30 p.m. Yakima Parks & Recreation Commission meeting — Council Chambers Thursday, September 11 9:00 a.m. Hearing Examiner — Council Chambers 1:00 p.m. Harman Center board meeting — Harman Center 1:30 p.m. Yakima Regional Clean Air meeting — Council Chambers 2:00 p.m. Bid opening — 1St Floor Conference Room 3:00 p.m. Homeless Network Coalition meeting — Neighborhood Health 5:30 p.m. YCDA board meeting — New Vision Office Of Mayor/City Council Preliminary Future Activities Calendar Please Note: Meetings are subject to change Meeting Date/Time Mon. Sept. 8 8:30 a.m Tue. Sept. 9 10:00 a.m. 12:00 p.m, Wed. Sept. 10 12:00 p.m. 1:30 p.m. 3:30 p.m. 5:30 p.m. Thur. Sept. 11 1:00 p.m. 1:30 p.m. 3:00 p.m. 5:30 p.m. Tue. Sept. 16 12:00 p.m. 5:00 p.m. 6:00 ,m. Wed. Sept. 17 8:00 a.m. 2:00 p.m. 330•m Thur. Sept. 18 2:00 p.m. Mon. Sept. 22 12:00 p.m. 12:00 Organization Pension Board Meeting City Council Study Session Miscellaneous Issues Iw Welcome Fire Mechanics Convention EMS Board Meeting Yakima Planning Commission Parks & Recreation Commission Harman Center Board Meeting Yakima Regional Clean Air Meeting Homeless Network Coalition Meeting YCDA New Vision Board meeting Miscellaneous Issues (T) City Council Executive Session City Council Meeting Welcome WFOA TRANS -Action Meeting Arts Commission Meeting Council Built Environment Committee meeting Capitol Theatre Board Meeting Greenwav Board Meeting Board Meeting Scheduled Meeting Dittmar Council Scheduled Meeting Cawley, Coffey, Dittmar Scheduled Event Cawley Board Meeting Lover Scheduled Meeting Ensey Scheduled Meeting Adkison Board Meeting Scheduled Meeting Adkison Cawley Scheduled Meeting Coffey, Lover Board Meeting Scheduled Meeting Scheduled Meeting Scheduled Meeting fl Scheduled Event Scheduled Meeting Adkison Cawley, Coffey, Adkison Council Cawley Ettl Scheduled Meeting Adkison ati n` 1st Floor Conference Room Council Chambers TBD IOW 1111 Convention Center Yakima Regional Council Chambers Council Chambers Harman Center Council Chambers Neighborhood Health New Vision TBD Council Chambers Council Chambers MMIVIEHMIIINIESTAMIIMMIIIMANNI(61111HIMIMMAIN10141,11.11111111/110601045.040 Convention Center WSDOT 2nd Floor Conference Room Scheduled Meeting Coffey, Lover, 2nd Floor Conference Room Cawley (alt) Board Meeting Coffey Capitol Theatre Board Meeting Etti Greeny a Visitors Center Tue. Sept. 2 11:30 a.m. 12:00 p.m. Wed. Sept. 24 12:00 p.m. 12:00 p.m. 3:30 p.m. 5:30 p.m. Thurs. Sept. 25 1:30 p.m. Fri. Sept. 26 10:00 a.m. 11:00 a.m. 1111111111110111 Sports Commission Meeting Miscellaneous Issues 11 1 Scheduled Meeting Scheduled Meeting YVVCB Board Meeting PAL Board Meeting Yakima Planning Commission Historic Preservation Commission Council Economic Development Committee Council Public Safety Committee Meeting Council Partnership Committee Meeting v,w. _......u,:MUI Board Meeting Board Meeting Scheduled Meeting Scheduled Meeting Scheduled Meeting Scheduled Meeting Scheduled Meeting Ettl Cawley, Coffey, Ensev Adkison Dittmar Ensey Coffey Cawley, Coffey, Dittmar Adkison, Dittmar, Lover Cawley, Adkison, Ettl Yakima Hotel & Conference Center TBD Convention Center PAL Center Council Chambers Council Chambers 2nd Floor Conference Room 2nd Floor Conference Room 2nd Floor Conference Room DRAFT PRELIMINARY FUTURE COUNCIL AGENDA September 16. 2014 014 (T) 5:00 p.m. Executive Session — Council Chambers 6:00 p.m. Business Meeting — Council Chambers • City of Yakima Apple Award presented to Brian Smillie, City of Yakima Firefighter • Design and implementation of North First Street Project • Downtown parking plan • Consideration of accepting private streets (Maui Lane & Kona Place) as public streets • Resolution authorizing an agreement with FCS Group for Phase II of the Utility Billing Process • An ordinance amending the City of Yakima Leaves of Absence ordinance of the Yakima Municipal Code to show the management group paid time off policy; amending YMC chapter 2 to update language and reconcile with bargaining agreements • An ordinance amending the City of Yakima municipal code to reflect the organizational change for human resources becoming a city department; amending YMC 1.18.005 ; amending YMC 1.18.015; and amending YMC 1.18.100 • An ordinance amending the City of Yakima municipal code to update the reporting requirement for secondhand dealers and amending YMC 5.64.060 Public Hearings • Public Hearing re utility tax options 9/4/2014 10:34 AM Ferguson's Lesson: Local Government Poses the Real Threat to Liberty 1 New Republic Page 1 of 4 10 f NEW REPUBLIC Politics September 3, 2014 The Greatest Threat to Our Liberty Is Local Governments Run Amok And only a strong federal government can stop them 171 V Tweet 454 f Share By Franklin Foer !I' @franklinfoer Photo: Getty Images he libertarian's jeremiads about creeping tyranny often seem the ravings of a paranoid. Then T along comes Ferguson to confirm the dark warnings: Warrior cops stalk suburban streets, dressed in Desert Storm green and wielding automatic weapons aimed to fire. They detain journalists, hurl smoke bombs into unarmed crowds, and bury incriminating details. And yet, even though libertarians were plenty prescient in warning about the militarization of the police, they still managed to get it wrong. As Rand Paul - http://time.com/3111474/rand-paul-ferguson-police/ - argued in an impassioned op-ed on the conflagration in Missouri: "Not surprisingly, big government has been at the heart of the problem." But what Ferguson shows is that the heart of the problem is, in fact, small government—the cops, prosecutors, and their bosses with an inflated sense of their powers. The great and growing threat to liberty in this country comes from states and localities run amok. These are boom times for provincial autocrats. In many chunks of the country, state and local politics were once a competitive affair; there was an opposing political party ready to pounce on its foe's malfeasance. That sort of robust rivalry, however, hardly exists in an era in which blue and red states have become darker shades of themselves. Thirty-seven states - http://www.ncsl.org/research/elections http: //www.newrepublic.com/article/ 119249/fergusons-lesson-local-government-poses-real-... 9/4/2014 Ferguson's Lesson: Local Government Poses the Real Threat to Liberty 1 New Republic Page 2 of 4 -and-campaigns/these-unified-states-state-legislatures-magazine.aspx - now have unified governments, the most since the early '50s. And in many of these places, there's not even a remote chance that the ruling party will be deposed in the foreseeable future. The rise of one-party government has been accompanied by the evisceration of the local press and the near -extinction of metro -desk muckrakers (14,000 newsroom jobs have vanished in the last six years), crippling the other force most likely to call attention to official misdeeds. The end of local media hasn't just removed a watchdog; it has helped to complete a cultural reversal. Once upon a time, Jefferson and Tocqueville could wax lyrical about local government, which they viewed as perfectly in sync with the interests of its yeoman citizenry. Whether this arcadia ever truly existed is debatable. But it certainly hasn't persisted into the age of mass media. Nowadays, most Americans care much more passionately about national politics than they do about the governments closer to their homes. They may harbor somewhat warmer feelings toward states and localities, but those sentiments are grounded in apathy. Most Americans can name their president. But according to a survey conducted by Georgetown University's Dan Hopkins, only 35 percent can identify their mayor. The nostrum that local government is actually closer to the people is now just a hollow piece of antique rhetoric. I s r�arirrn by V With so many instances of unobstructed one-party rule, conditions are ripe for what the political scientist Jessica Trounstine calls "political monopoly"—officials and organizations who have so effectively defeated any potential predators that they can lazily begin to gorge. She writes: "When politicians cease to worry about reelection, they become free to pursue government policy that does not reflect constituent preferences. They acquire the ability to enrich themselves and their supporters or pursue policies that would otherwise lead to their electoral defeat." This past year alone has provided some spectacular examples. Chris Christie rough-housing a political enemy in Fort Lee; Robert McDonnell stuffing his closet full of gifts from a dietary -supplement magnate; http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119249/fergusons-lesson-local-government-poses-real-... 9/4/2014 Ferguson's Lesson: Local Government Poses the Real Threat to Liberty 1 New Republic Page 3 of 4 Ray Nagin sentenced to prison for swapping New Orleans's city contracts for several truckloads of granite for his kids' countertop company; two former attorneys general of Utah arrested for pocketing bribes and tampering with evidence to protect their pipeline of lucre. When the Center for Public Integrity commissioned a comprehensive study of state governments, 18 states received Ds, eight outright flunked, and not one got an A. It's not just egomaniacal politicians who have amassed power and riches for themselves. At times, it seems, the whole system has followed their lead, with entire branches of government falling into the hands of oligarchs. In West Virginia, the mining boss Don Blankenship spent more than $3 million electing a state Supreme Court judge. His beneficiary then provided the decisive vote in a favorable verdict that saved him $50 million. (Photographs also later showed Blankenship vacationing with the court's chief justice on the French Riviera.) Or there was the especially grotesque example of the impoverished town of Bell, California, where nearly every public official extracted Wall Street–sized salaries for themselves. Even the city manager's assistant pulled in $375,000 a year. If there's a signature policy of this age of unimpeded state and local government, it's civil -asset forfeiture. The program sounds benign enough: Authorities can unilaterally confiscate cash or property that it considers illegally begotten; many states then place the proceeds straight into its own coffers to fund further crime -fighting. But the reality of the policy is aggressive and arbitrary. As Sarah Stillman graphically exposed in a magisterial New Yorker investigation - http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/08/12/taken - last year, in many states law enforcement can seize a person's assets without ever charging him with a crime. Her reporting chronicled one appalling story after another—cops who ran a $50 million forfeiture ring in Bal Harbour, which funded the purchase of luxe cars and first-class airplane tickets; a party at the Contemporary Art Institute of Detroit, where guests were knocked to the ground and forced to hand over their cars. Their offense: Dancing and drinking in a space that wasn't properly permitted. Even if local governments wanted to roll back this legalized Boss Hoggism, they couldn't. Police depend far too heavily on the revenue it generates. (Something similar seems to have happened in Ferguson, where police processed an average of three warrants for each household—milking millions in fines and court fees from the poorest residents to bankroll its operations.) The greatest danger of untrammeled local power is that majorities will use their control of government to stampede the rights of minorities, both racial and political, in their midst. Since the 2010 election, more than 20 states—most of them under GOP control—have enacted new voting restrictions, thinly veiled efforts to suppress the minority vote. And Republicans have also ruthlessly redrawn the legislative map of the South, creating supermajorities that have started to roll back the gains of the civil rights era. Immigrants, too, are especially vulnerable to the whims of local leaders. Surges of nativism in the last two decades haven't produced draconian national reforms, due to the knotty national politics of the issue. But at the state and local levels, harsh feelings translate directly into cruel laws. In 2011, Alabama briefly gave police the authority to demand that immigrants show their papers at traffic stops and ordered schools to check the status of kids and their parents. A raft of towns have passed laws forbidding landlords from renting to undocumented immigrants. The seer who predicted much of this was, of course, James Madison. In "Federalist #10," he warned that smaller units of government were particularly susceptible to being coopted by its elites. He favored a larger republic that would draw from a greater population pool and therefore recruit a higher caliber of talent. And since successful electoral coalitions would require a substantial number of votes, a larger republic would limit the potential of a corrupt faction seizing power: "It will be more difficult for unworthy candidates to practice with success the vicious arts by which elections are too often carried." Madison wasn't remotely opposed to empowering states, which have been at the vanguard of many movements to expand individual rights. And he worried obsessively about the potential for the federal abuse of powers. But he also helped design a central government equipped to curtail its own overreaching impulses, which are real and plentiful enough. The national government, after all, has a less than impeccable record, especially during wartime, when it produces the likes of the Patriot Act or http://www.newrepublic. com/article/ 119249/fergusons-lesson-local-government-poses-real-... 9/4/2014 Ferguson's Lesson: Local Government Poses the Real Threat to Liberty 1 New Republic Page 4 of 4 worse. Yet its abuses, unlike those of its smaller counterparts, tend to quickly emerge into public view, as they did with the National Security Agency scandal. They are raked over by a feisty national press, interrogated by congressional committees, and reviewed by layers of courts. Federal abuses aren't always corrected, but at least they get vigorously debated, which is itself a barricade against future encroachments. Centuries ago, in the age of monarchs, the preservation of liberty required constraining the power of the central state. In our era, protecting rights requires the opposite. Only a strong federal government can curb the autocratic tendencies burbling across the country. Libertarians worry about the threat of local tyrants, too, but only abstractly. In practice, they remain so fixated on the perils of Washington that they rigidly insist on devolving power down to states, cities, and towns—the very places where their nightmares are springing to life. Franklin Foer is editor of The New Republic. http://www. newrepublic. com/article/ 119249/fergusons-lesson-local-government-poses-real-... 9/4/2014 Memorandum of Transmittal To: Yakima Planning Commission From: Date: Subject: Yakima City Council, Mayor of Yakima Tony O'Rourke, City Manager Joan Davenport, Director of Community Development September 9, 2014 Request for Sign Code Amendment Consideration Summary of Request The Yakima City Council has identified four key areas of the Sign Code (YMC 15.08) for which they are requesting that the City Planning Commission commence the amendment process: 1. Possible removal of Temporary and Window signs from the broad list of items included in the "Exempt Sign" provisions; Otherwise, the Council thought that the Exempt Sign provisions were appropriate. Possible review of list of other "Exempt: signs to see if they may need to be addressed. Council Comments: Re -name "Exempt" sign section. 2. Amend the requirements for Temporary signs to establish a size limit for temporary signs (32 sq. ft. was suggested). Council Comment: Some concern that we may be over -regulating this area. However, there is interest in further definition of the Temporary signs, such as material update (painted signs was used as example). 3. Amend the requirements for Window Signs to limit the amount of the window that may be covered by a sign (25% was suggested); Council Comment: The Council is not decided on the percentage or method at this point 4. Add a definition and standards for Display Case Signs, such as those used in a movie theater Council Comment: No specific additional direction on this issue Background The City Council Built Environment Committee met on August 21, 2014 to discuss the above mentioned sign code amendments. This list was developed as a result of discussion at previous City Council sessions. At the August 5, 2014 City Council meeting the report on potential sign code revisions was discussed with direction to forward the policy items to the Built Environment for review and comment. The Council discussion focused on the items listed below, which reflect the Council direction and are a modification of the previous suggestions: Council Action: Forward these amendments to the Planning Commission for consideration in the 2014 Code update cycle.