The past 96 hours or so have been nothing short of newsbreaking for open government - from the Sound Cities Association whose values statement I copy-paste above, to Bellevue City Hall and a new Public Records Officer Podcast episode as part of a roundup of interesting local news for starters. In this tardy Beehiv, we’ll take a look into Martin Luther King, Jr. County local governance.

In the past few months, yours truly has had to make open government advocacy to the Sound Cities Association (SCA) because their policies needed to align with RCW 42.30.240 - the relatively new public comment section in the Open Public Meetings Act (OPMA). So please consider this an after-action report as promised per the last emergency Beehiv.

Now the SCA is an association of Martin Luther King, Jr. County cities networking together for common interests and to provide their residents better public services. Already the SCA is deep into working on a 2026 legislative agenda and working on providing pooled oversight and input on issues such as addressing homelessness, public safety and utility rates. Clearly there is a need for citizen input and oversight with the SCA.

I was concerned for several TransitWorld contacts - note the plural - above who are serving on the SCA Board of Directors. Not just because of my concerns about compliance, but also the very real threat of Avrum (Alex) Tsimerman as well as antisemetic groups showing up to hurl hate and disrupt the meetings. But my advocacy was about more than addressing Tsimerman - who will be a subject of another part of this missive. This advocacy was also about the fact that although Renton City Hall - the current home plate of the SCA - can handle remote testimony… and you can see my cell phone photos documenting Renton City Hall’s ability ability:

The SCA for understandable reasons was not exactly eager in providing remote access to me. Especially with the ever-present threat of Zoom-bombing and the complexity of programming Zoom to accomodate the public. I agreed originally to removing my request to remotely attend Thursday’s meeting on public comment policy if I could get a recording. But a recording was ‘too much work’ for staff so I got a polite phone call update from the Executive Director. Ultimately, the SCA Board of Directors is now going to a public comment written-only policy as per the RCW - and arguably just in time.

I will also add that I attempted to get the SCA to be receptive to an effort to synchronize public comment policies. Sadly, it appears the current SCA Directors are not. However, in the SCA’s defense and to conclude on a positive note - the SCA Directors did change their contract for directors to not require confidentiality for their public meetings. Considering I found out about the SCA via RedmondTV - formally known as Redmond City Television or RCTV… all’s well that ends well and sometimes the sunshine does shine thru thanks to advocacy rooted in equal parts kindness and law. Sadly, this is something the next subject neglects to respect or understand…

The City Council of Bellevue has had an oncurring problem with one Avrum (Alex) Tsimerman for at least ten years. In fact, earlier this year I posted to YouTube some of the 2015 debates the Bellevue City Council had about having to adopt public comment rules.

However, Tsimerman would persist deep into 2025. Tsimerman’s contempt for public meetings rules would continue to a point where Tsimerman felt he could come to public meetings and use a sign to disrupt the meetings:

This disruption, along others led to the City Council of Bellevue invoking their latest version of Bellevue City Council rules on Friday. This invocation came to a 6-month exclusion that can be renewed with further Tsimerman disruptions when Tsimerman can return to Bellevue City Council after May 20. One can read the fine details below noting that thanks to Beehiv limitations, page 2 saying how Tsimerman can appeal is left off.

This is mere months after Redmond invoked their May 2024 rules update on 1 July after Tsimerman’s misbehavior justified escalating exclusions went for the six month exclusion. Bellevue moved to update their rules to get a similar exclusion policy. One should note that many incidents of disruptive conduct led to this historic exclusion by Bellevue - and not just because of one or two disruptions by an annoying opponent of the current Bellevue Mayor.

I argue that without such policies, we would see actual cities feel a need to invoke the fallback of RCW 42.30.240 of written-only public comment. No one who supports open government wants to see this firebreak actually used except in an emergency - including the guy who wrote the first draft of this firebreak in me. Below is the fine print of the firebreak in the RCW:

But the point of this firebreak is to be a last resort to stop hate speech from overwhelming democracy in between elections. To quote from a reddit comment from one spot where I posted the news of Tsiemrman’s exclusion:

Those views are supported by other Reddit community members. Here is a key example:

That’s the why we need to protect democracy in between elections from Tsimerman. We want public input from all walks of American life - not just someone who wants to get his sign and mug and hateful messages on public access television. There you go.

Below are some interesting topics from the last two plus weeks:

There you go.