City Council greeted with visit from Former City Administrator Ana Cortez

There had already been a number of surprising things happening in Leavenworth by Jan. 11. A record snowfall, the National Guard had arrived in Leavenworth, assisting with welfare checks and food deliveries. Nonetheless, City Council meeting business was usual, except for the surprise visit from former city administrator Ana Cortez, who attended the meeting as a Leavenworth resident.

The meeting started with the mayoral proclamation, which ordered to extend the emergency declaration to close Front St. throughout April 15, 2022.

Newly elected councilmember Marco Aurilio was introduced, along with the re-election of Mayor Pro Tempore Anne Hessburg.

Public Works Director Tom Wachholder opened up the public hearing for the 2022 - 2027 Six-Year Transportation Improvement Plan (TIP) to amend the additional Ski Hill Drive Sidewalk Project to the plan. The city received a $333,965 from the Washington State Transportation Improvement Board (TIB), and will provide an additional $58,935 to the project. No one spoke during the hearing and the item was approved.

The City Council moved to adopt Ordinance 1644, which reflects the decision council made on Dec. 14, regarding the included zoning changes to the Osborn property and minor changes to the zoning map that the council did approve in the 2021 Comprehensive Plan. Subsequently, the council also approved a $50 stipend for appointed members of the Design Review Board and the Planning Commission. Members will receive the $50 stipend for each meeting they attended.

The biggest item during the meeting was the discussion of both the 2022-24 Teamsters Contract and the delayed 2022 Salary Schedule for council staff. The new union contract provides a 5.5% increase to employees in 2022, wage adjustments in 2023 and 2024 based on CPI, and reduced the timeline and number of steps for employees to reach the top of the pay scale, which was originally 14 years, would now take 9 years.

Former City Administrator Ana Cortez had entered the meeting, in the capacity of a Leavenworth resident, and asked the council if they should have included councilmembers more on union negotiations.

"It is kind of hard to scrutinize a negotiation process when you come at the bottom of the knife," Cortez said. "What some jurisdictions do is they actually engage the city council at the beginning, at the top of the first. In those conversations, they obtain policy frameworks that can help guide the negotiation process, so by the time people are actually at the table negotiating, they are guided by the desires of the legislative body instead of waiting at the bottom of the 9th when basically most of the boxes had been checked."

In response to Cortez's question, Anne Hessburg asked Mayor Florea as to why council was not involved and part of the initial union negotiation process.

"It wasn't offered as an opportunity for the council to be involved from the start, with negotiations and we're voting on something that we were not a part of."

Mayor Florea stated that this was first time through this process and did not realize that more council involvement could factor into union negotiations. Former City Administrator Joel Walinski, who the City contracted with to assist in the negotiations, explained that the council has been provided updates on the progress of the negotiations, and the council members are not typically involved with the actual negotiations. The Labor agreement was passed.

It was before Mayor Florea had announced that he, and legal counsel Tom Graafstra, would discuss personnel matters related to the Salary Schedule within an executive session that Cortez accused the council of violating the Open Public Meetings Act.

Ana Cortez claimed that they did not have the grounds for an executive session and expressed concern towards whether the public would attend meetings if the agenda was inaccurate.

"Can you please indicate what are the grounds for having this conversation done behind closed doors without the public being part of how our tax dollars are being used," Cortez said.

Mayor Florea explained that the purpose of the item had to do with non-union employees, hence the separate agenda item, and the executive session was to discuss employee performance. At the conclusion of the executive session, the council in open session, approved completing a performance survey and job evaluations for employees not covered by the union contract. The survey would compare size of staff and staff job duties versus individual workloads and compare it to neighboring communities. The council then adopted the wage package for union and parttime employees. Approval of the non-union fulltime employee’s wage schedule would be on hold until after the completion of the performance study.

Florea also claimed that his legal attorney Tom Graafstra had informed Ms. Cortez earlier that the council was within their legal right to have an executive session.

"Under the public meetings act, it is a legitimate reason to discuss out of the eye of the public, so she was just mistaken. She was accusing us of something that just wasn't the facts," Florea explained. "It was surprising that she would get engaged as somebody who had been previously employed and has perhaps some issues that she still carries with her.  I don't think that's a professional approach to take, but it is what it is and it didn't stop us from doing our work."

Ana Cortez encouraged the council to be vigilant on taxpayer money and to work on increasing transparency between them and the public. She claimed that it is not enough to let a third-party HR firm work on the evaluations, rather that the community should also be involved.

Afterwards, council members updated other council members on what they were working on in various committees. The mayor also thanked the National Guard and both Tom Wachholder for assisting with snow clean-up and Wachholder for coordinating the logistics of housing the National Guard, along with Christie Voos for stepping in as Emergency Coordinator and keeping people notified of snow developments on social media.

Items that were also passed included the Professional Services Agreement with Gather Leavenworth for Festhalle Management Services, the Fuel Tax Agreement with the Transportation Improvement Board for the Ski Hill Drive Sidewalk Project, and the Well No. 1 Rehab Supplemental Agreement with Aspect Consulting,

Meeting adjourned at 9:07 p.m.