No Meeting This Week But Everett City Council District Choices Emerging

There is no Everett City Council meeting this week but there will be a special Everett City Council meeting next Tuesday July 3rd.

At that time the city council members will get a look at more details on the proposition being considered for a vote on July 11th that deals with changing the City of Everett Charter.

The change would allow a number of council members to run in various geographic districts instead of all at large. Here is a look at a refined ballot proposal that may come before voters in the November General Election.

Districting Ord Consol Draft Clean Copy Jun27th

There are only two choices for voters on the ballot in the city council plan:

Allow voters to say if they want to have city council districts at all.

Choose between 5 council districts with 2 at large or 4 districts with 3 at large.

Some of the details within the proposal include:

9 member districting commission made up of one member appointed by each city council member another appointed by the Mayor and a ninth selected by the 8 appointed members.

Districting commission must be appointed by January 31, 2020.

Districting commission appoints a districting “Master” to assist with technical issues.

The boundaries of the five districts will first be drawn in 2020, redrawn in 2022 and then every 10 years following the decennial census.

City Council positions 4 and 5 will be for just two year terms in the 2019 election.

Again these are just a few of the highlights of the proposed ballot measure and there are still many questions being asked including one large issue so far not publicly addressed.

How much will it cost to implement the council districts and with a multi-million dollar budget deficit where will the money come from?

For clarity the above is the official Everett City Council version of creating council districts and putting that idea before voters this fall. It is completely separate from the effort by Everett Districts Now who have been gathering signatures for their own ballot proposal for the fall ballot.

Many Everett District Now members recently addressed the Everett City Council at their last meeting and asked the city to stop the effort to have anything other than their 5 -2 proposal on the ballot citing confusion for the voters. (As a compromise they did float an option of adding an 8th council member which the Mayor flatly rejected) They have begun discussing using paid signature gatherers to ensure their measure makes it onto the fall ballot. Here is their proposal.

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The next Everett City Council meeting is set for Tuesday July 3rd at 12:30 PM in the Everett City Council Chambers at 3002 Wetmore in downtown Everett. (No meeting on Wednesday due to the July 4th Holiday). The public hearing and final reading and likely vote on the ordinance is set for Wednesday July 11th at 6:30 PM.