The Black Diamond Mayor made several negative comments about the City Council as quoted in the Aug. 2 issue of the Covington-Maple Valley Reporter.

The following is in response to those comments:

The article quotes the Mayor as saying:“I have never not had a balanced budget.”

Of course, the final budget was balanced – the law prohibits an unbalanced budget. The issue raised at the forum was that she chose to present an unbalanced budget to the the council and the public and left it to the council to balance it. The official preliminary budget was presented Nov. 2, 2012 as required by law and was out of balance by $248,783.

“I never use reserves which was done a lot before.”

That is untrue. Reserve funds were used earlier this year to pay the Black Diamond Hearing Examiner. Reserves were also used from the Sewer enterprise fund to supplement the Stormwater and Water enterprise funds. She has been able to decrease expenditures. She had to because revenue decreased. The council recommended the specific decreases that included council members foregoing their own salaries. The Mayor did not offer to do the same.

“… but this council has been very difficult to work with. I have reached out to them. Only one or two of them will answer an email.”

The Mayor has not reached to us. In fact, we have been snubbed by her in public. She does not even acknowledge that we are a part of the City of Black Diamond government. Every email from the Mayor that required a response and was not information only was responded to.

Olness said that council members refused to meet with her. That is absolutely untrue. The only requested meeting was with Council member Deady. And the meeting was held. The only other meetings have been scheduled city committee meetings which we both attended regularly.

“They really don’t know what I think a lot of the times, because they won’t discuss things with me, but they think they disagree so they don’t want to (discuss things).”

Because of the amount of disinformation about the council members disseminated, we are more comfortable talking to the city administrator and city staff.

We know and understand the separation of legislative versus administrative functions. This is not a transparent government. This is an issue of respect. We are not acknowledged publicly as other city government officials are by their mayors. If the Mayor would really try to reach out to the Council, she may be surprised to find that we would like to work with her. But she must be open and treat us with respect.

Janie Edelman and Tamie Deady

City Council members

Black Diamond