Last Monday, council observers watched in wonder as two members of Planning and Development Committee, Terri Briere and Dan Clawson, announced that their committee was going to quit accepting any more work. Then, they started dumping their unfinished work on other committees. The rest of us rose to the call of duty. Marcie Palmer’s Transportation Committee (which I serve on) agreed to tackle a Planning and Development item concerning driveway widths, and the Committee of the Whole (for which we are all members) agreed to tackle some land-use appeals.

This came across like an effort to push even more council work onto Don Persson, Marcie Palmer, Denis Law, and me, while Dan Clawson and Terri Briere further exclude themselves from daily council business. Several of us seem to be getting buried by work of late, as the annual budget hearings are coming up and we all have full committee schedules already.  We are also intently preparing for  the financial aspects of the Benson Hill proposed annexation, such that Renton will be ready if Bensen Hill voters approve this. On top of all this (and adding insult to injury)  we are also busy making appointments with an Issaquah legal team which is defending the city from Dan Clawson’s frivolous lawsuit. So taking on more of Terri Briere’s and Dan Clawson’s responsibilities is a bit much.

The seventh member of the Council, Toni Nelson, is council president this year so she serves only on Committee of the Whole, and does not get involved in Transportation, Utilities, Public Safety, Community Services, or Finance Committee the way other council members do. (Toni retires at the end of this year)

I’m a little irritated that Dan Clawson and Terri Briere are sidestepping their responsibility here, and I have never seen such a thing in 14 years on council.

Dan Clawson and Terri Briere stated that they are punting on all the appeals work because the whole council does not accept their recommendations. I disagreed at the meeting, pointing out that there is not a single appeal in recent years, at least not in my memory, when the council did not approve their recommendation. Terri was simply giving an unsubstantiated reason for ducking the appeals.

Terri used the same rationale for ducking new policy decisions, like the driveway width issue. Her view was she has seen council second-guess planning and development recommendations over the last couple years, so she is getting tired of her committee “wasting time” preparing these recommendations. I can understand her point of view a little more here, but I think she is exaggerating the issue. Of all the work the Planning and Development Committee has done in recent years, there have only been a few issues that Council has asked for full council deliberation before acting on the P&D Committee Recommendation. Most notably, in Renton Highlands, a project in which every council member had input coming from all over. More recently, council asked for an additional week of deliberation/public vetting of some design guides, based on a request from the third member of Planning and Development Committee, Marcie Palmer. None of these actions provided a reasonable basis for P&D Committee to decide they would no longer perform their agreed functions.

There appears to be another issue rooted in these actions. I think there is a misunderstanding of the basics of delegating within a large organization, or within a legislative body. I find it interesting that when Don Persson and I delegate controversial topics to committee, we do not fully release our ultimate responsibility or accountability for the final action; and we are also the only two members of the Council that have spent our careers working within large organizations, with both subordinates and many people that we report to. Toni Nelson, Terri Briere, and Dan Clawson are all self-employed, and may not fully understand that when you delegate something you delegate some of your authority, but not your responsibility or accountability for the end result. I’ve observed that 99 % of issues delegated to council committee get quietly worked out in committee meetings, and meet with no public fanfare or outcry when they reach the full council. But for that 1%, when the public (my boss) comes back to me on a decision I delegated, and asks for me to reconsider the way it is headed, I listen to them. I’ll give preference to the P&D Committee recommendation, particularly if all three members support it, but I will still listen to the public’s point of view.

Another way to look at it is that there are actually seven levels of delegation, and I view our council delegation on the highly-controversial items falling right about in the middle of the spectrum. Right between these two options:

3. “Give me your recommendation, and the other options with the pros and cons of each. I’ll let you know whether you can go ahead.” Asks for analysis and recommendation, but you will check the thinking before deciding.

4. “Decide and let me know your decision, but wait for my go ahead.” The other person needs approval, but is trusted to judge the relative options.

Terri may see it differently, and I guess I don’t mind discussing this. But that is no reason to quit doing her fair share of the hard work of City Council in the meantime.