Metro Council President Tom Hughes said Thursday that his decision to seek new citizen representatives to the Metro Policy Advisory Committee had nothing to do with political battles in Washington County.
Hughes, a former Hillsboro mayor in his 13th month as Metro Council president, sent letters to MPAC's citizen representatives from Clackamas, Multnomah and Washington counties on Jan. 19, notifying Wilda Parks, Matt Berkow and Nathalie Darcy that he would be accepting applications for their positions on the board.
MPAC is a 21-member committee that advises the Metro Council on policy issues. Seventeen of its members are elected officials from cities and special districts from around the region; the only other non-elected representative is TriMet board member Steve Clark.
Hughes said he's wanted to re-consider the citizen membership of MPAC since he took office, but the issue was on the back burner in 2011. His staff said they had been working on the final touches of replacing MPAC's citizen representatives – two of whom are the longest-serving members of MPAC – since November.
But political issues in Washington County, where anti-sprawl activists have been battling with Washington County mayors who generally support policies that favor outward expansion, have cast a shadow over Hughes' intentions for a discussion about the tenure of MPAC members.
Washington County Commissioner Greg Malinowski, who is aligned with the land conservation advocates, suggested that Hillsboro Mayor Jerry Willey prompted the change, and said Willey thinks the citizen representative should support the largest city in the area.
"My question has always been if they're just extra votes for the biggest city in the area… you know, the Ukraine had its own vote in the United Nations when it was part of the Soviet Union," Malinowski said.
Darcy, a Garden Home resident who tended to vote with land conservation advocates, declined to comment on whether she thought she was being removed because of political disagreements with Washington County leaders.
Willey signed a Dec. 29 letter from Washington County mayors asking for new citizen representation on MPAC. The mayors suggested that Hughes should appoint Robert Grover, a Hillsboro business owner, to serve as the citizen representative to MPAC. Grover was also a donor to Hughes' 2010 campaign for Metro president.
"We believe a change in the county's MPAC citizen representation right now would be a healthy, natural and timely thing considering basic democracy principles," said the letter, which was from the mayors of Hillsboro, Beaverton, Tigard, Tualatin, Forest Grove, Sherwood and Cornelius, as well as Washington County Chair Andy Duyck. Only Hillsboro Mayor Jerry Willey signed the letter, which was on City of Hillsboro letterhead.
Hughes said he thinks elected officials should have some say in who gets appointed to MPAC.
"Citizen representatives are tough to identify… the way I prefer is they get elected," Hughes said. "So, what I want to do is poll the electeds in each of the counties and say 'Do you have anybody in mind, including the incumbent?'"
But wouldn't that lead to a groupthink mentality from MPAC members?
"What you have in terms of the mayors and county chair, you've got a bunch of elected officials… who arguably represent the people," Hughes said. "So collectively, the fact that they all agree may mean they reflect a public sentiment in Washington County that is pretty consistent with the way they vote."
Darcy, who has served on MPAC since 2000, disagreed.
"A citizen representative must be autonomous and not part of a voting bloc," she said. "Otherwise it's redundant. Why have one?"
The tenure of Darcy on MPAC, as well as Parks' eight-year tenure as Clackamas County's citizen rep on the committee, was one of the main reasons Hughes cited for making the change. He said he thinks citizen representatives should have a term of about four years on the board; the Metro charter does not have a term limit for citizen representatives.
But, Hughes said, mayors are often term-limited; for example, his tenure on MPAC was limited to eight years.
Hughes said he'd also like to revisit the make-up of the Joint Policy Advisory Committee on Transportation, a 17-member committee with only two representatives from Washington County.
There was less scrutiny about the changes on the eastside, where both Berkow and Parks said they plan on reapplying.
Berkow was supportive of the review.
"The idea of periodically considering each citizen appointment on a regular basis makes sense to me," said Berkow, who has been Multnomah County's citizen representative since 2009. He said he thinks members should serve for at least two years. "It takes a while to get a hang of what's going on at the meetings."
Parks, who is an executive at the North Clackamas Chamber of Commerce, said it's important to have stability in citizen representation.
"Having that knowledge, that background and being able to move from this step to this step to this step" is important, she said. "We're doing some things that are very long-term, and being there at the beginning, the middle and the end is important."
Note - An earlier version of this story listed the wrong date that the Washington County mayors sent their letter about MPAC. This version has been corrected to reflect that the letter was sent on Dec. 29.