WHS Grad Researches City Charter

WAITSBURG - Waits- burg graduate Fletcher Bak- er's senior project delved into one of the reasons why Waitsburg is "One-Of-A- Kind" - its unique territorial charter the city continues to abide by.

Baker, age 18, served as the student representative on the Waitsburg City Council for one year. He said it was advised that he work on a senior project that he was interested in and that was government.

Baker has participated in Youth and Government through Waitsburg High School and was part of the American Legion Boys Ev- ergreen State prorgam where he and two Prescott High School students created an imaginary state and had to run it. Baker said he was mayor of the state and he enjoyed the experience and learned a lot.

"For a long time I've been interested in the way govern- ment works," he said. "And it definitely feels awesome when you're sitting in the important seats."

Baker said he would love to one day be a councilman or mayor of Waitsburg and so researching the city's charter is actually very useful for him.

Before starting on his project, Baker had heard about Waitsburg's unique charter. A charter is like a constitution for a city, Baker wrote in his final paper. It's a written document authorized by government that described how the city should be run.

In 1881, Waitsburg adopt- ed its city charter and eight years later, when Washington became an official state, the city kept the original docu- ment in place rather than taking on the state laws.

Mayor Walt Gobel said when he travels across the state, he often hears others remark on how special Waits- burg is because it still follows its original document.

To research the topic, Baker found multiple sources of information using the In- ternet, books and reviews.

"I had already been told it was the only one in the state," Baker said.

What Baker didn't know was that Waitsburg is one of just a few charter cities left in the nation. He found four total after searching online for about an hour.

"I was thinking there would be more than that," he said.

The other three are in the Southwest, according to Baker's paper.

With a ton of information about Waitsburg's charter at his fingertips, he was hoping to find out just as much about the other cities with charters. However, Baker said he was disappointed that not much information was available for the other cities. He was hoping to find out how the other cities and their charters compared.

Under Waitsburg's territo- rial charter, the city has more freedoms, Baker said. The city has what Baker calls a "simplified charter" with 18 chapters and 138 sections, which helps put more legisla- tive power in the city's hands.

One of the main differenc- es is elections. Waitsburg's elections for the mayor and council occur every year on the first Monday of April and have a caucus system. In all other cities in the state, the elections are held every four years, with primaries in Au- gust and the General Election in November.

Gobel said having elec- tions annually is great for the public because if someone is elected whom they don't like, the public is only stuck with the person in office for one year and then he or she can be replaced.

However, the city staff can be affected negatively by having a new mayor and new council members each year, Baker said.

"City employees might get a new boss every year," Gobel said.

Waitsburg's special char- ter also means it doesn't have to follow state competitive bid laws, requiring cities to obtain three bids from three companies for city projects. This cuts down on paper- work, can speed up projects and could mean more projects for local businesses, Baker said.

Waitsburg could even acquire land for a hospital to prevent the spread of disease and to treat and quarantine residents who are contagious, according to Baker's paper. He said in other cities, disease prevention is mitigated by the United States Department of Health And Human Services.

The city can also pass ordinances at special meetings, has different rules for public financing of political campaigns and for eminent domain, and has rules that can help the city avoid ad- ministrative inefficiencies, commonly referred to as red tape.

Finally, the mayor can vote on resolutions if there is a tie with the council and can pardon those who violate city ordinances. This gives Waits- burg's mayor more power than the others in the state.

A few disadvantages to the charter are that the document is hard to amend and it could seem old-fashioned, Baker said. Also, cities under general state law have more accountability based in their rules and regulations.

Baker only found one time in Waitsburg's history that some residents wanted to do away with the charter. He said the city tried to veto the charter in 1950 in an attempt to change how the elections were run. Citizens wanted elections to be held every two years. However, the initiative to change the charter didn't even earn enough votes to make it onto the official bal- lot, and the charter remains, Baker said.

In 1967, the attorney gen- eral of Washington State reinforced Waitsburg's right to keep its charter stating it is not "repugnant to the Constitution," and it can remain in place until it expires or needs to be altered or repealed, ac- cording to Baker's paper.

Baker said he is happy the city still has the charter because getting rid of it would have meant getting rid of one of the city's special qualities.

" Waitsburg comes up quite a bit because of our unique charter," Gobel said.

And as for Baker's paper, Gobel read it happily and was impressed with the research.

"He did a wonderful job," Gobel said.