Soap Lake City Council downsizes itself

SOAP LAKE — The Soap Lake City Council made a decision regarding council size after three meetings of deliberation. Four council members voted in favor of downsizing the council to five members for the upcoming election this November. Both Kayleen Bryson and John Carlson voted no on the matter. 

City Attorney Julie Norton explained that a seven-person council is needed for communities over 10,000; however, Soap Lake has a population of around 1,700. Therefore, the city has the option to go down to five council members instead of seven. If the city would like to go back up to seven members that would have to be decided six months before the next election.  

City Council Member Susan Carson said to the council that it is crucial for them to vote during this meeting instead of waiting until the next meeting and postponing it again.  

“If we are going to change it, now's the time we have to do it. So it goes on the ballot,” Carston said. “Take that into consideration that, you know, we can't put this off. We can make a decision if we're going to go to five this meeting. You know, we don't have the luxury time, kind of like we didn't have the luxury time to make another appointment.” 

Carson said that over the years she has noticed with the seven-person council there is frequently an open seat. 

“It took a lot of push and a lot of talking to even bring Andrew on here. I can just say how many months we have been looking to try to get people to do this. It’s a lot of work. We don’t get paid much. I am going to be completely honest; we get trashed on social media and attacked on a regular basis. It’s really hard to get these positions filled.” 

Carson said the council could always change it back to seven, but they should try five. 

“I think we should give a shot at five and try to create some stability in this council and have a strong team,” she said.  

Andrew Arnold, Soap Lake City Council’s newest council member, expressed a similar sentiment. 

“I remember from my time here prior, when I first started, I don't want to say we were constantly down two seats,” he said. “I honestly felt that when the council was down to five, more was accomplished.” 

However, Bryson said she was not in favor of the resolution because she said Soap Lake accomplishes more than other communities the size of 1,700 people. 

“Well, I thought pretty long and hard about this, because on one hand a council of five, seems like it would be more efficient, but I'm not sure it would be more effective,” Bryson said. “The reason I say that is because we are so big but small in population, but we also punch weight on our weight, and we do a lot of things and step out, and we've accomplished a lot of things. We just do all kinds of things that a lot of communities of the size of 1700 population probably wouldn't.”