Jan. 10 — Protest over procedure

First meeting dominated by clarifying procedure and setting guidelines

Chris Albert / of the Herald

There were some new faces at the first Puyallup City Council meeting of the year on Jan. 7.

“Those of you who have been here before probably notice the landscape has changed a bit,” said Councilmember Mike Deal.

The meeting started with the swearing in of new councilmembers John Knutsen and Tami Brouillet and returning members Kathy Turner and Don Malloy.

As part of his first action as a councilmember, Knutsen abstained from voting for the mayor and deputy mayor selections and voted no to most agenda items in protest over procedure.

In December, a council meeting agenda was drafted for the first meeting of the year to include the appointment of a candidate to fill the district two spot that opened when Turner vacated the seat to take the At-Large council position.

“I’m going to abstain from voting on this because I don’t believe the correct procedure was taken,” Knutsen said.

The agenda was changed because the council had not discussed the procedures they would take in appointing a candidate, said Don Malloy, who was appointed mayor.

Giving the 18 people who applied for the vacancy a fair shot during one council meeting is not realistic, Malloy said, and it would be premature of the council to appoint someone without having guidelines in place to select them.

Knutsen did participate in voting on procedure for the appointment of the vacant seat.

The council agreed that each candidate would get three minutes to introduce themselves to the council at a Jan. 9 meeting.

Then each council member would write down the names of three candidates they wish to interview again. The list of all the names the councilmembers selected would be compiled and the council would decide how many of the candidates to interview for a second time at a Jan. 11 meeting, with the time and place to be determined.

Those candidates will each be interviewed by the council for 25 minutes and allowed an opening and closing statement if they stay within the allotted time. Each council member will have a prepared list of questions and be able to ask one question. If a councilmember’s first question is used by another councilmember they will go to their next question and so on.

All candidates will be asked the same questions. Candidates who are not being interviewed at the time will be in a separate room, isolated from the other interviews. The order of when the candidates will be interviewed will be random as well as the order of when councilmembers ask questions. The council will then decide if they are ready to make an appointment.

The council may go into executive session to discuss qualifications, but the interviews and appointment will take place in the public arena.