PORT ANGELES — If City Council candidate Larry Little is elected Nov. 3, he will miss every other council meeting for three months while he is out of town for at least six weeks this winter, and will be absent at other times during the year as well, he said.
Little, 55, will be gone for at least two weeks each in January, February and March while he and his family vacation in British Columbia, where he manages property and his children are enrolled in a freestyle ski program, he said.
In addition, he’ll be out of town “a week here, a week there” at other times in 2010, he said.
The Port Angeles City Council has a total of 24 meetings scheduled annually.
Modern technology such as e-mail will render his absences irrelevant, Little said.
‘Not full time’
But his opponent for Position 1, Cody Blevins, 28, has made Little’s vacations a campaign issue, asserting that Little does not live in Port Angeles “full time.”
“He can do what he wants to do. That’s great,” said Blevins, an electronics store sales representative and installation specialist.
“But I don’t know how effective he can be as a City Council person when he’s gone. I don’t want to sling mud, but it’s important that voters realize that.”
Little, clinical director of Volunteers in Medicine of the Olympics in Port Angeles and the race director for the North Olympic Discovery Marathon, can take part in council meetings by speaker phone, he said.
He will stay in touch with his constituents by phone and e-mail while he’s gone, he said.
“We happen to have technology that’s available to us these days called cell phones, Internet, called ‘Webinars,’ called Skype,” Little said.
‘Engages well’
“Give me a break. I engage well with this constituency. I have more engagement with this constituency than my opponent could ever hope for,” he added.
“I feel that I am more than capable of providing much more insight, much more community engagement than my opponent is, even with that schedule.”
The Position 1 council winner will receive $500 a month, compared with $600 for the deputy mayor and $650 for the mayor.
Three other seats also are up for election: Max Mania and Edna Petersen are running for Position 2, Harry Bell and Patrick Downie are vying for Position 3 and Brooke Nelson is challenging Deputy Mayor Betsy Wharton for her seat.
All are newcomers except Wharton, the current deputy mayor. Petersen served on the council as an appointed member from 2006 through 2008.
In the 2009 Clallam County General Election Voter Guide, contained as a special section in today’s PDN, City Council candidates were asked: “How will you make the time to attend all meetings and be an effective, full-time council member?”
Council members attend regular meetings the first and third Tuesdays of each month, council subcommittee meetings, and various community meetings of their choosing.
Current City Council members were interviewed separately on whether a council member could effectively represent his or her constituents would if he or she missed two weeks a month for three straight months and a few more weeks at other times of the year, as Little suggested in an interview he would do if he wins.
“It wouldn’t work for me, but that’s just me,” said Cherie Kidd, elected in 2008.
Time spent on business
She and other council members said they spend 10 to 20 hours a week on council business for 52 weeks a year, attending council subcommittee meetings and other community meetings that keep them informed about what’s going on in the city, as well as simply talking to constituents at the store or on the street.
All said it would possible to be effective with absences from town, adding that success depends upon the person.
But they said that a concerted effort would be required from a council member who is gone from Port Angeles for half the time for three straight months.
“I find that being a council person is more time consuming than you anticipate,” Kidd said.
“I find that if I don’t put in time on the committees, I’m not as effective a council person as I want to be.”
But Wharton said she believes Little can pull it off.
“What I do know about Larry is that he is very tuned in computer-wise and phone-wise, and very easy to be in touch with,” she said.
But she said using a speaker-phone to attend meetings is less desirable than being there in person.
“I have to be at most council meetings in person, I really do,” Wharton said. “It’s important to attend meetings, but I think Larry is going to make this work.”
An important part of the job, she added, is talking to people on the fly.
Recently, while at her daughter’s elementary school, Wharton engaged in a 30-minute impromptu conversation with a parent about William Shore Memorial Pool.
The city is in the process of handing the pool over to a new, voter-approved taxing district.
But outgoing City Council member and former Mayor Karen Rogers said she would not be effective under that schedule.
“I work on council matters everyday,” she said. “If I’m not attending a meeting, I’m researching material. I personally put a lot of work into it, because I believe that’s what the city elected me to do.”
When she was mayor, she worked on council business at least 30 hours a week, she said.
Outgoing council member and current Mayor Gary Braun, in his 16th year, said council subcommittee meetings alone can last three hours.
He’s on a half-dozen such panels.
‘Always a lot going on’
“It always seems like there’s a lot going on, and that seems like it’s just part of being part of the council,” he said.
“People who have not been on the council need a clear understanding of that. It’s not just two meetings each month for four years. That’s just not the way it works.”
Council member Dan Di Guilio, elected in 2008, pointing out that the council’s entire regular-meeting packet of information is on the city Web site, said that face-to-face discussion “is always better than over the telephone.”
As to whether Little would be able to keep up, “It will be harder, but it will be possible, I would think,” Di Guilio said.
In an e-mail, outgoing council member Larry Williams calculated the amount of time he spends on council business.
Williams, who refused to be interviewed for this story, included meeting attendance, visits to city hall and the 200 or so e-mails he reads every week.
’20 hours a week’
“You can figure on a solid 20 hours a week as long as everything is running smoothly,” Williams said.
“But most importantly, none of this discussion figures in at least doubling your time for each time you get gas or groceries as people bend your ear about one thing or another.
“That is probably the most critical interface needed to really do the job, and something you totally miss when you are out of the area.”
Council member Don Perry, also in his second year, said he averages 20 hours a week working on council business, and sometimes more than that.
If someone were gone two weeks a month for three straight months, “you could keep up with it,” Perry said.
A council position under Port Angeles’ council-manager form of government automatically becomes vacant if a council member fails to attend three consecutive regular council meetings without being excused by the council, said state Auditor’s Office spokeswoman Cheryl Moss.
In that case, the council would appoint a replacement, and voters would cast ballots to fill the position during the next odd-year election.
But city council members are rarely removed under the law — the key being the excuse.
“I would think, if they like the person, they could be excused,” Moss said.
“There’s a lot of ways to get around this, I would imagine.”
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Staff writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-417-3536 or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.