Some Kirkland City Council members are starting to look out for the citizens. Councilmember Bob Sternoff led the way with his suggestion for a citizens’ group to complete a service matrix showing “core” services the citizens feel are essential to have a sustainable budget. He also said the city has to stop doing business as usual that causes the expenditure curve to grow faster than the revenue curve. The city can’t do business as usual. Stable resources need to be known. Mayor Joan McBride was reluctant to endorse the public’s involvement in identifying core values at a time when resources are limited. I believe she is afraid that her pet special interest projects will suffer. I hope so. Citizens should be allowed to identify core services they feel are important.

Councilmember Amy Walen asked staff a very important question. Why does the city budget forecast show divergent lines between expenditures and revenues? The answer from staff was vague and evasive. They said that given the complexities of city budgets, it’s impossible to forecast a budget that does not diverge. I don’t believe it. Somebody is trying to baffle us with bull. If staff is smart enough to know why the lines diverge, they are smart enough to know what it takes to prevent it. An ever-increasing debt is not acceptable. Walen’s question was right on the money.

Councilmember Greenway wanted the public to have greater knowledge of what the council was doing and how it affected them. I feel it is extremely important that whatever media the council uses to keep the public informed, it should be accurate, pertain to all citizens, and void of special interest, public or private. If one or more special interest is revealed, then just like a ballot measure, there should be a pro/con debate in the same publication or announcement by the city as to what they are doing.

Councilmember Marchione suggested that the public be given an opportunity to review proposed budgets early in the process. That’s great. She correctly pointed out that as it is now, many decisions are already made in study sessions and private phone calls by the time the public hearing is conducted in September or later. How right she was. Instead of not knowing what has been adopted or discarded by council by the time it reaches the public, the council needs to know how the public feels early in the process, say by April.

Councilmember Asher was amenable to the suggestions made by fellow council members. His analysis and comments were encouraging.

It was great to hear more counci lmembers come to the side of citizens.

There are serious problems yet to be solved. Public works said if you think traffic is bad now, wait until we meet our goals. He was speaking of the Growth Management Act. Traffic will get worse if we don’t do something.

Why are we accepting a rate of growth that is impacting our neighborhoods and causing greater traffic congestion? The answer lies in the GMA with its “Commercial Core Centers.” Kirkland has two, downtown and Totem Lake. The council approved those centers but has not developed the necessary transportation grid including arterials, collectors, and residential streets to support them. Why? The neighborhoods object to more traffic. They are protecting their interest.

Each neighborhood is a part of the city and it’s the city that should develop the infrastructure to support their decisions. Not every street in a neighborhood is a resident street but neighborhoods think so. It’s not true.

Residential streets are paid for with local money. In order to pay for streets that are necessary to get people to and from where they are going, we need collectors and arterials, and yes, highways. Most of those are too expensive to be developed with local money alone so the city asks for federal and state grants with the city paying a percentage. For a city to survive, to have the means for successful residential and commercial resources, it must have a transportation grid that supports those facilities. Many arterials and collectors have already been identified. Neighborhoods should know where they are and, if they want to be a part of the city, acknowledge and accept the fact that not every street is a residential street.

The subject of surface water management came up suggesting that SEA (Street Edge Alternative) should be used throughout the city. The ground water percolation system depends on good soils/drainage. SEA is not appropriate throughout the entire city, especially east of 405 where the soils are bad.

The subject of parks came up. It was acknowledged that people love their parks. They should be paid for. A council member correctly pointed out that there is a limit on how much the city can collect from its citizens. I ask if those who love parks and are willing to pay for them, why not pay for them with user fees. To do otherwise, park money is then in completion with other services. The more park money, the less money we have for other services some of which may be essential.

At the retreat, it is clear that deficits, budget shortfalls, and structural gaps are dirty words to council. The terms never came up at the retreat. Other politically correct terms were used. It’s time to call a spade a spade. The city is in dire straits. Annexation makes it worse. But even here, there were good signs from the council.

Most council members agreed to a “revenue” approach to providing services to the PAA. Come annexation time, some services must be provided. Many can be delayed until the revenues from the PAA are received by the city. That way, at least the cost for annexation is not solely on the backs of current citizens. However, for the next year and a half, the city must ramp up its resources to be ready for annexation. The money will come from us. Staff had a good suggestion and almost every council member agreed: let’s borrow the money from existing resources and pay it back later when the revenue from the PAA can be used. It’s a cost that has to be made up sooner or later. At least if it’s later, the PAA will end up paying part of it.

Bob Style is a long-time Kirkland resident.