At the close of the last Hermiston City Council meeting of 2013, Councilor Manuel Gutierrez made a comment about the current working relationship between the current members of the council. The soft-spoken Gutierrez said he was pleased to see that the council had overcome past differences and worked together for the betterment of the entire community.
He was right. The council took on a number of serious and, at times, contentious issues and, in the process, wrapped up a very productive year.
Anti-government sentiment is rampant throughout the country. Voters are fed up with partisanship and bickering. On a national level, a recent poll found that a large majority of voters view the current U.S. Congress as the worst they’ve ever seen – and for good reason. It’s accomplished very little of substance. With the Democrats in control of the Senate and the Republicans in control of the House, we have divided government – something many consider a good thing. But when the two parties’ sole purpose is to thwart the opposition, the result is that government grinds to a halt. That is certainly the case on a national level.
That’s not the case on our local level. The Hermiston City Council began the year with a new mayor and several new faces on the council. There were some clashes between councilors early on that were not particularly productive. There were acrimonious feelings between a few of the councilors, most notably George Anderson and John Kirwan over the council’s decision to write a letter in support of immigration reform. Kirwan voted against writing the letter and the disagreement between the two spilled over to a subsequent meeting of the Hispanic Advisory Committee in which Anderson singled out Kirwan for his refusal to support the letter. At the following council meeting, Kirwan took issue with what he described as “derogatory comments” made by Anderson, who refused to back down.
The acrimonious feelings between the two councilors could easily have turned poisonous. But Mayor Dave Drotzmann showed his leadership skills and a bit of ingenuity when he placed the two men, along with Gutierrez, on the mobile food vending subcommittee, forcing them to work together.
And it worked. Anderson and Kirwan developed a mutual respect for one another and the subcommittee worked harmoniously together in helping to draft an effective ordinance regulating mobile food vendors in the city.
Drotzmann’s first year as the city’s mayor has been an impressive one. Along with his leadership, the mayor has displayed great communication skills, always succinctly summarizing the issues before the council for the benefit of the public. This was not always the case in past years when audience members were often left wondering what just happened. Too many times in the past, the only people with a good grasp of a particular agenda item were the mayor, council members, city administration and reporters with access to the council packets. These days, Drotzmann makes every effort to ensure the public is up to speed on the issues before the council. It’s refreshing, to say the least.
The mayor is also a big proponent of government transparency, and the city has become a leader on that front. The council agenda is available online prior to council meetings, as well as the full council packet. In other words, the public has access to everything the members of the council have. A lot of credit goes to Assistant City Manager Mark Morgan for working to make the city’s website informative and user friendly.
The public also has been given additional opportunities to speak during the meetings. Audience members always had a chance to address the council prior to it tackling the night’s agenda. But recently, at the suggestion of Hermiston resident David Lamp, the council gave the public a second chance to speak its mind at the end of council business. It’s a small, but significant gesture that shows the council is responsive to its constituents.
City Manager Ed Brookshier is now entering his final year on the job. Brookshier is not without his critics, but anyone who has served as city manager for 23 years is going to have plenty of those. His tenure has not been without some mistakes along the way, but can anyone say they have accumulated a perfect record after nearly two dozen years on the job? Of course not. But Brookshier works tirelessly for the city, provides excellent leadership and is well respected by the members of the council. It will be the city’s loss when he steps down at the end of the year.
It wasn’t very long ago that the city manager, mayor and council were under heavy fire from a segment of the population. We all remember the effort to recall former Mayor Bob Severson and four members of the council. The effort failed, but the fact that it happened at all showed there was genuine dissatisfaction among some people in the public toward the city government. The council was accused of being tone deaf regarding complaints against the former police chief, Dan Coulombe, and people felt there was a lack of transparency within the government.
At the time, those complaints had some validity, but no more. In the past year, the council has proven itself to be responsive to the public and has made every effort to conduct its business out in the open. And anyone attending council meetings in 2013 will have noticed that, by and large, the members of the council are fully engaged and unafraid to speak their minds and disagree with one another while maintaining civility.
What began as a potentially dysfunctional council ended up being a productive and effective one – and that bodes well for the coming year.
