The discussion resumes Saturday, when the council is expected to turn those issues into priorities for the year. The session begins 9 a.m. at the LOTT Clean Water Alliance board room, 500 Adams St. N.E. in Olympia.
Budget issues weighed heavily on council members, who were briefed Tuesday that next year’s budget has a $1.7 million hole and that members might consider asking the public to raise their taxes.
“My belief is that the security of our community is at risk because of our current budget challenge, ” Mayor Stephen Buxbaum said. “It is not only public safety but the security of our community as a whole. It’s not just police and fire … it’s how we do services – social services, traffic.
“Our budget and how we deal with our budget is going to directly affect our community’s … security, including basic services like fire, police, traffic, social services, those sort of things.”
Councilwoman Karen Rogers said, “The No. 1 issue I hear from people is that they have … complaints because they don’t feel safe.”
Buxbaum said the city has choices about what levels of service to provide.
“This is a choice between how we either go out and explain to the public why we need more revenue or how we’re going to go out to the public and explain how we’re going to meet their needs with less revenue, but still meet the need,” he said.
Councilman Steve Langer said, “I think we need to consider bringing something to the voters about … adding revenues.”
Community outreach was another major topic. Councilman Jim Cooper said the council has a “PR problem.”
“When we make the national news, it’s for not positive things,” he said.
Earlier in the retreat, council members suggested not just holding regular Tuesday business meetings, but at least one study session per month to talk about topics without taking action. They also suggested holding quarterly town hall style meetings.
Downtown is a perennial problem identified by councils past and future.
“My problem is that I am feeling alarmist right now,” Councilman Nathaniel Jones said, “and if we lose downtown, downtown is threatened in an existential way.”
He mentioned that other small cities have lost their core and said the city needs to take action to avoid that.
Langer, who champions the city’s Downtown Project, said the city is doing meaningful things.
Under consideration are a ban on some high-alcohol drinks, working with bars to prevent overserving and declaring part of downtown blighted under the state community-renewal law in order to for the city to buy derelict properties and sell them for redevelopment. A low-interest loan program for redevelopment is another effort.
Councilwoman Jeannine Roe suggested the city might have a public-relations problem.
“We are making progress, but the public doesn’t know that we are,” she said.
Matt Batcheldor: 360-704-6869
mbatcheldor@theolympian.com
