BP BHEAD INT H [atlas:bill]

AN ACT Relating to citizen participation in the discussion of public issues; adding new sections to chapter 43.63A RCW; and providing an expiration date.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:

NEW SECTION. Sec. 1. The legislature recognizes that some citizens have difficulty accessing political processes that rely on public hearings held at locations that are distant from their residence or workplace. To increase public participation in the political process, the legislature intends to establish a self-funding pilot process by which citizens can receive information about public issues and provide feedback to elected officials in a convenient, local setting.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 2. (1) The office of citizen councilor is created in accordance with section 10 of this act. According to Webster's dictionary, "councilor" means an official advisor to a sovereign or chief magistrate. Any citizen registered to vote who volunteers to act as an official government advisor may become a citizen councilor on request by sending a letter to the department of community, trade, and economic development or calling a special toll-free number and paying a nominal fee as set by the steering committee. Citizen councilors shall act collectively as official advisors and a sounding board for public officials and agencies, legislative study committees, and the department of community, trade, and economic development on issues of public interest or concern. Conveners of citizen councilor groups shall be those designated by the citizen councilor coordinator or deputy citizen councilor coordinator under section 4 of this act from among citizen councilors who volunteer to host a group. Every effort shall be made to assign citizen councilors to a group that meets at a convenient time and place. Meetings will usually be in residence or work area zip codes.

(2) Citizen councilors may participate:

(a) In a citizen councilor organizational group under section 7 of this act;

(b) In a citizen councilor group usually organized by residence or work area zip code with the assistance of the citizen councilor coordinator; or

(c) As an individual if the individual is unable to attend meetings in groups due to age, disability, or remote location.

(3) Citizen councilors will be reassigned a group on request to assure that their group meeting place, time, and makeup is convenient and compatible.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 3. The department of community, trade, and economic development:

(1) Shall determine suggested issues for public discussion approximately quarterly but not more than monthly from suggestions received from public officials, agencies, legislators, and individual citizen councilors and recommend an appropriate issue or issues for consideration by citizen councilors to a steering committee. The steering committee shall be composed of four voting members: One member of the minority and one member of the majority party from each house of the legislature. Other nonvoting members of the steering committee shall be: (a) A representative from the governor's office, (b) a representative from any organization participating with over fifty groups of eight to twelve persons under section 5(7) of this act, and (c) the citizen councilor coordinator and deputy citizen councilor coordinator selected as provided in section 4 of this act except that the citizen councilor coordinator or deputy citizen councilor coordinator may vote on the steering committee in case of a tie;

(2) After approval by the legislative members of the steering committee, shall assign the issue or issues approved for discussion to the volunteer citizen councilor coordinator for preparation and implementation by value reporters and others. Value reporters assigned to gather information on issues shall be careful to present all issues as evenhandedly as possible, taking care to present the generally prevailing viewpoints surrounding an issue or issues from experts, officials, and others in an effort to provide the public with information needed for discussion. Value reporters shall conduct interviews of experts, officials, and others to solicit their various viewpoints and record such interviews on audio or video tape for later reproduction and distribution to citizen councilor groups. Before any materials are released to citizen councilor groups, however, persons interviewed and taped shall approve their taped interview for release or complete another interview to their satisfaction, otherwise their statement shall not be included in materials sent to citizens;

(3) Shall approve the public information materials prepared by the citizen councilor coordinator, deputy citizen councilor coordinator, and staffs and authorize its distribution to citizen councilors to the steering committee for final approval before distribution.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 4. The offices of citizen councilor coordinator and deputy citizen councilor coordinator are created within the department of community, trade, and economic development. The director of community, trade, and economic development shall appoint the citizen councilor coordinator and deputy citizen councilor coordinator with the advice and consent of the steering committee. The citizen councilor coordinator and deputy citizen councilor coordinator shall serve at the pleasure of the director of community, trade, and economic development, until terminated with the approval of the steering committee, and shall be volunteers and serve without compensation, but shall be reimbursed for actual expenses incurred in carrying out their duties under sections 1 through 10 of this act as funds are available.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 5. The citizen councilor coordinator and deputy citizen councilor coordinator shall:

(1) Promote to the citizens of the state the citizen councilor program and its contribution to public and private planning processes;

(2) Oversee preparation, tabulation, summarization, and dissemination of data and information by the volunteer staff;

(3) Receive, on behalf of the citizen councilor revolving fund, gifts and donations of real or personal property, including cash and in-kind services;

(4) Hire a value reporter and other paid staff to assist the volunteer staff if funds are available;

(5) Contract for any services including without limitation toll-free telephone number and answering services, keypunch, computer, scanning, recording, reporting, research, consulting, printing, and mailing to carry out this chapter as long as the providers of these services either work without financial compensation or are unrelated to the citizen councilor coordinator or deputy citizen councilor coordinator;

(6) Solicit volunteers to assist in administering the program from community service, educational, civic, business, religious, and other organizations;

(7) Solicit citizen councilor groups from existing organizations;

(8) Solicit individual citizen councilors to participate in local groups organized by mutual convenience usually within the same residence or work zip code area;

(9) Assign value reporters to interview scholars, experts, public officials, planners, leaders, and others on tape concerning topics of discussion assigned by the department of community, trade, and economic development;

(10) Produce audio or video cassette tapes, or both, and printed materials evenhandedly;

(11) Mail public information materials to citizen councilor conveners or individual citizen councilors, or both;

(12) Provide, at cost, group mailing labels of its own conveners on request of an organization participating or to a county, municipality, or school district if a private iteration of their own constituents is desired at their own time and expense;

(13) Scan or tabulate, or both, citizen councilor response sheets using, as appropriate, the "Fast Forum" computer program that is available without cost to the citizen councilor program and the University of Washington academic computing services as a nonprofit, external user;

(14) Mail organizational, community, school, business, or church profiles to the leaders of such participating organizations for their information and without cost when they have over fifty groups responding state-wide;

(15) Prepare summary reports of data generated and press releases;

(16) Mail summary reports and other information to all citizen councilors, conveners, participating organizations, and to those public officials who have indicated to the citizen councilor coordinator that they are interested; and

(17) Maintain data generated for public and media reference in the department of community, trade, and economic development.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 6. The citizen councilor coordinator shall actively encourage citizen councilor groups to form throughout the state. Citizen councilor groups shall usually consist of a minimum of eight and a maximum of twelve regularly assigned members and meet on call of their convener at times and places they deem most appropriate during a thirty-day or other designated time period. Citizen councilor groups shall normally meet three or four times per year on state issues. They shall have the opportunity to listen to audio or video tapes articulating an issue of public interest or concern and study other materials prepared or authorized as described in section 3 of this act. Citizen councilors shall have the opportunity to respond anonymously making their opinions known on individual mark-sense response sheets for return to the citizen councilor coordinator for keypunching or optical scanning, tabulation, and analysis.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 7. Eight through twelve citizens from organizations such as, but not limited to, community, civic, associations, cooperatives, unions, church, business, or school district groups may enroll as an organizational group with their own convener designated. An organizational profile report shall be provided the leaders of organizations with fifty or more groups without cost to inform them of how their members responded to public issues posed or approved by the department of community, trade, and economic development and shall be open to public inspection in the offices of the department of community, trade, and economic development. If additional profiles or services are requested by an organization of its own constituents, the policy, rules, and fees to cover such costs shall be as determined by the citizen councilor coordinator. Organizations with fifty or more groups may purchase mailing labels of their group conveners at cost and prepare and mail their own group materials for tabulation at their own effort and expense. This data shall not be tabulated by the citizen councilor coordinator and shall not be combined with the public data nor available for public inspection at the department of community, trade, and economic development.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 8. Each citizen councilor shall be asked to make donations from time to time to help cover the costs of the citizen councilor program estimated at ten to fifteen dollars per person per year at 1995 costs. It is also the intention of the legislature that donations and gifts be solicited from public-spirited individuals, businesses, and foundations for the purpose of funding the program. However, since all costs of this program are provided by donations with no funds from public sources, the citizen councilor coordinator shall use his or her discretion in determining the scale and the scope of the program so that expenses do not exceed available funds.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 9. A citizen councilor revolving fund is created and shall consist of donations collected under this chapter and any moneys appropriated to it by law for specific purposes. The state treasurer shall be custodian of the revolving fund. Disbursements from the revolving fund shall be on authorization of the citizen councilor coordinator. In order to maintain an effective expenditure and revenue control, the citizen councilor revolving fund shall be subject in all respects to chapter 43.88 RCW, but no appropriation is required to permit expenditures and payment of obligations from the fund.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 10. (1) The department of community, trade, and economic development may provide the citizen councilor coordinator and his or her volunteer staff with space in existing offices and with clerical services from existing staff to assist in establishing and conducting the citizen councilor program. Appropriations are not required, but the director of community, trade, and economic development may consider the services provided under this section in submitting the department's budget.

(2) The citizen councilor coordinator shall seek to obtain donations from citizen councilor organizational groups, citizen councilors, and public-spirited individuals, community service organizations, businesses, and foundations to cover the costs of the program. When ten thousand dollars in donations have been received, the department of community, trade, and economic development shall authorize the citizen councilor coordinator to establish a toll-free telephone number and answering service and to develop a list of the names, addresses, and telephone numbers of persons and groups interested in serving as citizen councilors, citizen councilor conveners, or citizen councilor organizational groups, or in making donations. When forty thousand dollars in donations have been received, the citizen councilor coordinator may initiate the new communication process contemplated in sections 1 through 10 of this act and continue it at a scope and scale that is supportable by the resources available.

(3) In the event the program under this chapter fails to support itself and is necessary to be terminated by the department of community, trade, and economic development or expires, funds remaining after payment of all outstanding expenses and disposal of equipment and supplies owned shall be deposited in the general fund.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 11. Sections 1 through 10 of this act expire June 30, 2004.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 12. Sections 1 through 10 of this act are each added to chapter 43.63A RCW.