Tuesday, July 20, 2004

By NEIL MODIE
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Supporters of a flawed initiative to shrink the King County Council from 13 members to nine wonder if council critics of the measure are improving it to death.

"I think legally we're swimming in shark-infested waters," said Bob Ferguson of Seattle, the council's only Democratic supporter of the initiative, after the council voted 9-4 yesterday to amend the proposition from how its sponsors wrote it.

Backers of the ordinance, passed with bipartisan support, said it consisted of "technical" fixes necessary to correct procedural glitches. Its opponents suggested the "corrections" might contain legal and political booby traps.

The changes postpone from 2004 until 2006 the redrawing of the county into nine new districts, and from 2005 until 2007 the first elections based on the new districts. They also reduce memberships of three regional committees that include members of the county, Seattle and suburban city councils. One committee also has representatives of sewer districts.

County residents will vote in the November election on the proposed amendment to the county charter.

Backers of the initiative-amending ordinance -- most or all of whom oppose the charter change -- said the initiative was flawed as drafted by the King County Corrections Guild, its sponsor. The guild, a collective bargaining unit of county jail guards, supported the changes.

As written, the initiative would have required that the appointment of a redistricting committee and the drawing of nine new council district boundaries be concluded after the November election is certified but before the end of 2004. That would be an approximately six-week period for a process that in past years has usually taken nearly a year.

Council members who stand for election next year would have been elected to four-year terms, but the initiative originally would have ended their terms after two years.

Ferguson, a lawyer, said the council lacks clear legal authority to alter an initiative before it has been passed and that delaying the council elections and reducing the size of the regional committees "are not technical (changes); they are substantive."

In an interview later, he questioned not only whether the council has the authority to amend the initiative at all but also whether it exceeded whatever authority it might have to make substantive changes "beyond truly technical, like changing a comma."

Another potential legal land mine is the possibility that the initiative, as amended to alter the size of the regional committees, would be vulnerable to a legal challenge for embracing more than one subject, in violation of the county charter.

After discussing legal issues with the council in a closed, 33-minute executive session, county Deputy Prosecutor Tom Kuffel acknowledged that the single-subject argument "is an issue that could be raised" in court. But he noted that the council, in amending the initiative, made a finding that the changes are all part of the proposal to reduce the council's size.

Councilman David Irons Jr., R-Sammamish, suggested avoiding the potential single-subject problem by deleting the section reducing the membership of the regional committees and putting it on the ballot as a separate charter amendment. But his proposal to excise the committee-reduction provisions was rejected 4-9.

Irons said officials of suburban cities and sewer districts already feel they have too little representation in county government affairs. Irons said it's an example of why "King County is such a dirty word out in the suburban cities." He told a reporter that the purpose of reducing the number of suburban members of the committees was "to kill" the initiative by turning suburban officials against it.

He said most currently support the initiative.

Council Chairman Larry Phillips, D-Seattle, a passionate critic of the initiative, noted that when voters approved merging the county with the Metro sewer and transit agency in 1993 and enlarging the council from nine members to 13, it was the suburban city officials who wanted the council enlarged to give them better representation.

Councilman Dwight Pelz, D-Seattle, said in the 1993 merger of the county and Metro, "the measure to expand the council was very tightly tied into the measure creating the regional committees."

He contended that if the council is reduced to nine members, an argument could be made for doing away with the regional committees entirely.

Critics of the council-shrinking plan said it would save little money and reduce citizens' representation. At the same time, Pelz said, the council's workload has increased greatly in the 10 years the 13-member body has been in existence.

"We could save a lot more money if we invested more in a strong regional government and less in dozens and dozens and dozens" of small cities and taxing districts, Pelz said.

The changes to the initiative were supported by six of the council's seven majority Democrats and Republicans Pete von Reichbauer, Jane Hague and Kathy Lambert.

P-I reporter Neil Modie can be reached at 206-448-8321 or neilmodie@seattlepi.com

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