Insiders say city planners are too few and overworked

July 1, 2009

By J.B. Wogan

Sammamish government has long prided itself on having a lean staff. But now, some city officials are saying the city’s planning staff is too lean, and city government is suffering because of it.

The Planning Commission voted not to discuss two topics June 18. Some commissioners say they were not given enough material – and that what they were given was lacking in quality. As a result, the commission, in a 4-2 vote, said it could not have an informed discussion.

Delaying the talks could end up costing the city as much as $1,000 in consultant’s fees.

The decision is the result of a string of similar incidents of getting incomplete or late information, and the root cause of it all is understaffing, commissioners said.

In an e-mail fired off the next morning to the City Council, Commissioner Scott Hamilton called past city budgeting decisions “miserly,” resulting in an “exhausted staff that is continually under inordinate pressure.”

While Hamilton’s e-mail began the conversation, other commissioners followed suit:

“This was not only a question of having materials on time, but at least for me a question of quality of the materials,” noted Commissioner Jan Klier in an e-mail. Klier described superficial PowerPoint presentations given by consultants that lacked detail; in one case, the consultant “was only marginally prepared to speak to it, because he wasn’t the original author of the slides,” Klier wrote.

Commissioner Stan Bump said he was dismayed by the material given at the June 18 meeting.

“We deserve better than that. Give us something that we can chew on and we will produce the end product,” Bump wrote.

Staffing levels lower

than allowed

Since 2006, the number of positions for city government authorized by the City Council has not matched the number actually employed. The council authorized 75 full-time employees for 2009, but the city has filled 69 of them. In 2006, 72 were authorized and 70 were actually employed. In 2007 and 2008, 74 were authorized and, again, 70 were actually employed.

When the City Council approved the 2009-2010 biennial budget, it authorized hiring an information technology specialist in 2009 and an office assistant in 2010. The information technology specialist position has been filled.

Neither of the new positions would directly impact the Community Development Department, the department that has primary interface with the Planning Commission. The Community Development Department has 15 employees and will spend about $2.4 million on its employees’ salaries in 2009.

Responses from the city administration and the City Council about Hamilton’s concerns were mixed.

“There is no question that we could use more staff,” City Manager Ben Yazici wrote to Mayor Don Gerend and City Councilman Lee Fellinge. “I have to tell you, however, you will get the same answer from other agencies which already have three times more staff than ours. No department h ead will tell you that they will not use more staff.”

Both Yazici and Gerend singled out Hamilton in internal e-mails. Yazici said he was “very disappointed with Mr. Hamilton’s behavior,” while Gerend called it an “egregious failure to communicate in a timely fashion.”

Community Development Director Kamuron Gurol echoed Yazici’s message that he could always use more staff, but “I don’t think you can reasonably say that there’s a lack of resources,” he said in a later interview.

Too much depth, all at once

Gurol also placed some onus on the commission, describing them as “fairly detail-oriented.”

“They’re not interested in staying up at 50,000 feet,” Gurol said.

John Galvin, a resident familiar with the Planning Commission because it works on policy decisions that will affect property he owns in Town Center, said the commission is, in fact, too detail-oriented.

“They usually have far more information than is necessary and take far more time than is necessary,” Galvin said. “They question and they drag out the process far far more than is necessary.”

In general, Galvin does think the city is understaffed and overworked, but the Planning Commission’s problems aren’t related to low staffing levels, he said.

“As far as Town Center goes, the problem is not staff. They have staff. They have money,” he said, pointing out that the city appointed a project manager (Michael Matthias) and several consultants to aid in the commission’s policy decisions.

City Councilman Mark Cross, who works as an urban planner in Bellevue, said the disagreement pointed to a different problem: the Community Development Department and the Planning Commission are trying to do too much, too fast.

“We’re getting a lot from our staff. If we’re not getting everything as quickly as we would expect, I’m very supportive of the idea that we either need to slow down the pace of our policy work or get more staff,” Cross said. “It’s very possible that we don’t have enough people to provide all of that.”

In his formal response to Hamilton’s e-mail, Yazici told the commission it needed to press on in making its recommendations and not waste the time of the city staff and consultants in the future.

Hamilton is upset that his concerns are not being addressed.

“This really should serve as a wake-up call and, forgive me, not a lecture as to our role,” Hamilton retorted. “This is a majority opinion, not a one-man crusade.”

Reporter J.B. Wogan can be reached at 392-6434, ext. 247, or jbwogan@isspress.com. To comment on this story, visit www.SammamishReview.com.

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