by Richard Uhlhorn
The City of Chelan held its annual Retreat at the Chelan Golf Course Clubhouse in early October to give City Council the State of the City by directors of each department and to identify and prioritize issue and find solutions.
Wade Farris, city administrator opened the meeting with an overview of the retreat’s objectives, which are to add diversity, economic stability, developing a growth plan, build the economy on the shoulder seasons, and quality of life for its residents.
Objectives for 2024 include more lake access and docks along with explaining the benefit tourists bring to the community.
The City should pursue the development of retirement condominiums along with more tourist accommodations.
In the next 10 years, Chelan’s greatest challenge will be land use practices. One objective is to make Chelan a thriving year round economy. The preservation of Lake Chelan is also of utmost importance over the next 10 years.
I’m going to take each department day by day instead of writing a long and extensive article on the Retreat. So the next five days each department will be covered in depth so the reader can better understand the issues each City Department faces in the coming years.
Office of the City Clerk:
The City Clerk’s Department, operates under City Clerk Peri Gallucci. Gallucci, has earned the designation of Master Municipal Clerk (MMC), which is awarded by the International Institute of Municipal Clerks (IIMC), Inc.
IIMC grants the MMC designation only to those municipal clerks who complete demanding education requirements; and who have a record of significant contributions to their local government, their community and state.
The International Institute of Municipal Clerks, founded in 1947, has 14,000 members throughout the United States, Canada and 15 other countries, and the mission of this global non-profit corporation is to enhance the education opportunities and professional development of its diverse membership.
Her department continues to develop automated workflows, staff training/certifications, the new website/public portal, public records requests and records management.
Gallucci told the Council and other departments that the more documents she can get on line, “the better.” Gallucci has been working on tuning the workflow in the office since 2017. “With Cailey (Couch) on board we’ve made real progress,” said Gallucci. Couch serves as assistant City Clerk.
Public record requests have been a huge drain on the office and its finances. Mayor Goedde remarked that the municipality has lost a lot of money responding to records requests.
The Clerks office is digitizing all public records so the public can access their questions on the City’s website. This is a long process, but will alleviate staff’s time and efforts to find public records for requests from the public.
Councilman Tim Hollingsworth asked how different departments deal with these requests. Gallucci gave an example of the new portal on the website for records requests. “If you type in Chelan Hills, everything to do with Chelan Hills will come up in the Central Depository.” Finance Director Jackie Tuppling added that if the City has the record, it has to provide it to the requestor.
Councilman Mark Ericks remarked that in his experience, 20% of requests are just picking a fight with the government and the other 80% are legitimately looking for information. “It’s a problem… it’s always a fight, but it is what it is,” he said.
Next up – Community Development and Planning.
All Things Lake Chelan 