Council Sends Process to Budget Committee

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Story Published: May 19, 2009 at 5:26 PM PDT

By Audrey Asistio

YAKIMA -- Yakima's budget priorities have been a hot topic for the past month. Now City manager Dick Zais has offered up a preliminary budget process model to council members. It's designed to help council build next year's budget plan, still based off the county's budget process. Zais provided graphs of where the city's budget priorities have been in past years. Council members found the information helpful. Councilman Rick Ensey said, "We're the city of Yakima, we're not the county of Yakima and we're gonna make our own decisions on how we're gonna settle our policies and practices.

But remember, Councilman Ensey was a strong supporter of the county's model, pushing through a quick vote to adopt it, and setting off a firestorm. Councilman Neil McClure resigned, the council was taken to court for allegedly violating the open public meetings act, and they took back their original vote.

Mayor Dave Edler told Action News, "From my perspective, it's unfolding now. It wasn't something you just declared and rushed into, but we're going to continue to let this thing unfold."

Ensey added, "I think this is great. I think this is the direction we wanted to go."

City council sent the process to the budget committee for more examining and fixing. They want to take their time with this one.

"I think we need to learn from history and history is that the community needs to feel comfortable with the decision," said Councilwoman Kathy Coffey.

They want to feel comfortable with the decision so they can finally come up with a budget policy they can all be happy with, and essentially, come up with a plan that is best for the city.

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