Most of the above changes were relatively minor adjustments to the Charter. The early 1990's saw the first substantive changes to the Charter in response to structural changes in King County government.

• In 1991, a proposal to merge King County and the Metropolitan Municipality of Metropolitan Seattle (the regional transit and water pollution control/sewage treatment agency known as "Metro") to expand the Council from nine to thirteen members and to create multijurisdictional committees with city membership failed. (Technically, the Charter amendment passed but, since it was contingent on the ballot measure to merge King County and Metro failed, the Charter amendment was not effective.)
• A repeated attempt in 1992 to merge King County and Metro passed. It included Charter amendments to (1) expand the Council from nine to thirteen members, (2) create three multijurisdictional policy committees as part of the County Council for transportation (transit), water pollution control, and regional issues, (3) create an initiative process for cities for countywide matters, and (4) modify the citizen's initiative process.

In 1996, two council-initiated charter amendments were on the ballot. One changed the appointed sherrif to an elected position (as it was pre-charter). This was strongly opposed by good government groups. One proposed to change the council redistricting process back to once every ten years from five years. Both were approved by voters.

The 1996-97 Charter Review Commission sent ten charter amendment proposals to the council. The Council put six measures on the ballot of which three passed. The Commission-initiated amendments were: (1) Create an independent Ethics Board (failed); (2) Increasing the monetary value of public works projects carried out by county work forces (passed); (3) Clarify the method for determining the number of signatures for unincorporated area initiative and referendum petitions (failed); (4) Establish procedures for interim Assessor, Sheriff, and Executive until statutory process can be carried out for replacement. (passed); and (5) Authorize revisions to laws enacted by initiative or referendum after two years. The Council-initiated amendment was to lower the eligible age for holding county office from 21 to 18 (failed, for the second time).

In unprecedented follow-up the next year, the Council continued to work on some issues including: Modify Regional Committee procedures (some new committee procedures were adopted); Create a task force to develop a Charter amendment proposal for an unincorporated area legislative body and to revise the method of electing the county council for placement on the 1998 ballot (reviewed but not acted on); and Create subarea planning commission for unincorporated areas (reviewed but not acted on).

Two issues generated considerable debate between the Council and Commission but without resolution: (1) Establish an initiative process to amend the Charter; and (2) Establish whether the Executive, Council and Assessor positions should be partisan or nonpartisan.

In 1999, the County Council proposed five charter amendments, but placed only one the ballot. The proposed amendment--giving the council the power to submit a referedum to the people--was strongly opposed by the major papers and good government groups. It was placed on the November 1999 ballot. (10/5/99)

The 1976-77 Charter Review Committee was appointed in late 1976 at the Executive's initiative after consultation with the County Council and others. The membership did not follow the composition recommended by the Metropolitan Study Commission nor was the charge to the committee limited to Metro/King County consolidation.

The 1976-77 Charter Review Committee held its first meeting in December 1976 and met every two weeks through July 1977. The committee solicited comments on possible charter amendments from a variety of sources. The King County Council sent a motion to the committee proposing four charter amendments for the committee's consideration. These included: (1) lowering the minimum age for holding county office to 18; (2) returning to the commissioner form "of government with five commissioners; (3) limiting elective officers to two consecutive terms; and (4) establishing non-partisan County elective positions. The committee issued a draft report in late May 1977. During June, seven public hearings on the committee's draft report were held in locations throughout the County.

The committee issued two final reports. The first one, issued in August 1977, addressed general charter amendments proposed by the committee for the 1977 ballot and other non-charter recommendations for improving the operations of County government. In response to this report, the County Council placed on the September 1977 ballot three charter amendments: (1) reducing the age requirement of County elected officials from 21 years to 18 years; (2) deferring to State statute in the matter of political activities of County employees; and (3) requiring that appeals from land use decisions by the Executive Branch go to a hearing examiner process established by Council ordinance (instead of the Board of Appeals which now hears only property valuation appeals). All three amendments were among those proposed by the charter review committee. Of the three ballot issues, the age reduction for elected office failed.

The 1977 Charter Review Committee's second report, issued in October 1977, proposed the consolidation of King County and Metro. No further action on that proposal occurred until early 1978 when the County Council proposed the establishment of a citizens advisory committee to recommend whether or not the consolidation issue should be placed on the fall 1978 ballot. The County provided $15,000 to support this effort, which was staffed and housed independently of County government. The Citizens' Advisory Committee on United Countywide Government was directed by Council Motion 3423 to advise the Council by July 1, 1978, on whether or not a King County/Metro merger should be placed on the fall 1978 ballot. The committee's report recommended the consolidation of King County and Metro into a single governmental unit with either a nine-member council or a federated body of not more than 37 elected city and county officials to the maximum extent possible to attain representation consistent with federal constitutional requirements. The County Council put the proposal on the November 1979 ballot. It failed.

The 1987-88 Charter Commission was appointed amid a resurgence at both the State and local levels of concern over how regional and local services should be delivered in response to rapid growth in unincorporated areas of Central Puget Sound counties. At the State level, the State Legislature appointed the Local Governance Study Commission in 1985 to study local government organization and make recommendations for improvements to the Legislature by the end of 1987. At the local level, the Seattle Chamber of Commerce initiated the formation of a private, 35-member citizen's group--the King County 2000 Committee--to address concerns about financing regional capital projects and to assess regional governance issues. The King County 2000 Committee issued its final report in November, 1987. Two members of the King County 2000 Committee were also on the 1987 Charter Review Commission.

The 1987-88 Charter Review Commission began its work in April 1987 with a three part-mission:

To review all existing provisions of the Charter and develop recommendations for any technical amendments to improve the operation of County government;

To review all existing provisions of the Charter and develop recommendations for any necessary structural changes to improve the organization of County government; and

To assess King County's role as a regional government and to recommend improvements in the County's ability to deliver regional services.

The Commission spent its first four months hearing from elected officials and others regarding their concerns about King County government. At the end of this period, the Commission had compiled a list of more than thirty issues for its consideration. In August, the Commission members divided into three working committees--Regional, Structural, and Technical--and assigned each issue to a committee. The committees worked on their assigned issues until February 1988 when the full Commission began to review and take initial action on the committees' preliminary recommendations. In late April and early May, the Commission requested public comment on its preliminary recommendations. It issued a newsletter summarizing the key issues and including a comment/request for Information form. It also held a series of six public meetings held throughout the County to take public comment. There was very low public response to these opportunities. Following the public comment period, the Commission reviewed all issues again and took final action on them as described in this report.

The Commission adopted a rule requiring that in order for a recommendation to be approved, it had to receive approval of a two-thirds majority of the total members at two separate meetings. In fact, the Commission operated by consensus. Of the 39 specific recommendations voted on by the Commission, 14 involved Charter amendments, 8 involved administrative or other actions by the Executive and Council, and 4 involved management of regional issues. Thirteen other recommendations were considered by the Commission, but it did not take further action on them. An additional 16 formally identified issues were initially considered by the Commission, but were not carried forward for a variety of reason.

The County Council put five of the recommended charter amendments, some with modification, on the ballot:

1. Requiring the appointment of a citizens commission to conduct the Charter review at least every ten years.
2. Clarifying the role of the County Auditor and strengthening the independence of the office.
3. Changing the responsibility for appointing the Judicial Administration Department Director from the Executive to the Council.
4. Clarifying status of exempt Career Service and less than half-time positions.
5. Changing the value of work that can be performed by County employees from $15,000 to $25,000.

The merger implementation was closely monitored. The Municipal League of King County and the King County Leagues of Women Voters were particularly interested in the three regional policy committees--Transit, Water Quality, and Regional Policy. In August 1994, the Municipal League issued a report that was highly critical of the first year's performance of new regional committees, particularly the Regional Policy Committee.

In May 1993, a citizen committee, the Consolidation Advisory Committee, was created to advise the County Executive and Council on the implementation of the merger. The Consolidation Advisory Committee issued a number of letters and reports covering a wide range of merger issues including overhead allocation, boards and commissions, an overview of the unincorporated area, and the Regional Policy Committee's second year performance. When the Consolidation Advisory Committee sunsetted at the end of 1995, it passed the oversight baton back to the Municipal League and League of Women Voters. It was also expected that the next Charter Review Commission would carry on at least some of the Consolidation Advisory Committee's issues.

One Charter amendment changed the position of county sheriff from director of the Department of Public Safety under the Executive branch to a directly elected sheriff as it was before the Charter was adopted. The change was proposed in response to Council concerns that as an appointed director the sheriff was not able to establish an independent budget in response to community public safety needs. While there was considerable opposition to the measure by good government groups and newspaper editorials, there was no organized campaign against the proposed amendment which was quietly supported by law enforcement officers and agencies.

The other Charter amendment changed the frequency of redistricting from every five years to every ten years.

In early 1997, two charter amendment proposals were initiated by councilmembers. One was to give the council the authority to refer ordinances to voters for enactment. The other one was to require that the issuance of bonds over a certain amount be subject to voter approval. Both amendments were proposed following a contentious debate concerning baseball stadium financing. Neither were pursued by the Council.

Appointment and Review Process: The Charter (Section 800) required that there be at least 15 members and that there be at least one member from each geographic council district. The Executive widely sought nominations for the commission about 300 individuals and organizations as well as requesting nominations from the County Council. The commission was supposed to have started meeting in May or June 1996. Between the Executive Locke's campaign for governor and tardiness in submittal of names to him, the 1996-97 Commission was late in getting appointed. The 26-member commission that was finally appointed in late 1997 was very diverse on many levels, politically savvy, knowledgeable about King County government or government issues in general, well-known and well-regarded within their spheres of work and community activity, and highly committed to the Charter review process. (The commission members were confirmed by the Council in 1998 although they were, by ordinance allowed to act in an official capacity without formal council confirmation.) The charge to the mission was to:

• Review all existing provisions of the Charter and develop recommendations for any technical amendments to improve the operation of County Government.
• Review all existing provisions of the Charter and develop recommendations for any necessary structural changes to improve the organization of County government; and
• Assess King County's role as a regional government and to recommend any necessary amendments to improve the County's ability to deliver regional services.

The Commission first met in November 1996 in an unofficial meeting for the purposes of getting to know each other and to get some background on the Charter. Commission members essentially dispensed with the planned agenda and moved to addressing how to organize themselves and the review schedule, and set up a committee to develop a public involvement program. The public involvement committee met before the first formal meeting of the Commission in December 1996.

The review schedule was the pivotal issue for the Commission. The schedule hinged on whether they should target their work for the 1997 and/or 1998 ballots. The Commission's mission as assigned to them by the Executive was to make recommendations in time for the 1997 ballot, however, that deadline with the expectation that the Commission would start meeting in mid-1997. The 1997 ballot was attractive because about half the County Councilmembers would be running for re-election, but the Commission's late start meant that the review process would have to be condensed into a fairly short period of time. The 1998 ballot was attractive because it would give the Commission more time to review the charter and more time for the Council to consider the Commission's recommendations. The Commission decided to target the1997 ballot and committed to a condensed, intense schedule which would allow them to transmit recommendations to the Council by the end of June 1997. They also decided to review their progress in April 1997 to determine whether there were any issues that they all agreed could not be addressed within this schedule and which they all would commit to working on during the balance of 1997 for a 1998 ballot recommendation. In April 1997, they determined that there were no such issues. decided not to extend their substantive work past June 1997. Additionally, in response to Council concerns about the amount of time they would have to review the Commission's recommendations, the Commission agreed to shorten their schedule by several weeks.

The Commission conducted an issue scoping process in February 1997, including a mailed brochure with a mail-in comment card and four public meeting throughout King County. Considerable information about the Charter, the Commission, and charter issues was posted on King County's Internet site with the address made widely known. Additionally, the Commission held a public comment period on it preliminary recommendations in May 1997 which included two public meetings, one in Seattle and one in East King County and mailings. Both processes generated considerable comment, most of which came from comment cards, e-mail, and a telephone hot line. In addition to the Public Involvement Committee, the Commission organized itself into three issue committees--Regional, Structural/Organizational, and Technical/Operations--in which most of the substantive issue review work was done as well as an Executive Committee and several ad hoc committees as were needed. The 1996-97 Charter Review Commission members attended a lot of meetings in a very short time. Between December 1997 and May 1998, the full Commission met 11 times, the Public Involvement Committee met four times, the Regional Issues Committee met nine times as well as meeting five with Regional Committees of the Metropolitan King County Council, the Structural Issues Committee met nine times, the Technical Issues Committee met 11 times, an ad hoc committee working on unincorporated area governance met six times as well as having three meetings with community groups on this topic, there were two or three meetings with the Council's Committee for Unincorporated Areas, and an ad hoc strategies committee met four times. In between, there were six public meetings and about 20 meetings with special interest groups including the Suburban Cities Association and the city councils of Seattle, Bellevue and Renton.

While the Executive and Council allowed and encouraged the Commission to function as independently as possible, there was considerable interaction between the Commission and the Executive and the Council. The Executive Sims, who was appointed to replace Executive Locke when he was elected Governor, met with the Commission twice in lively debate with Commission members. The Council chair and several members of the County Council met with the Commission as well as attending various issue committee meetings to share views. The County Council's Committee-of-the-Whole met eleven times on the Charter and the full Council acted on Charter matters in two meetings. During most of the Council's meetings, Commission members' views were sought out and then debated among Councilmembers.

The Recommendations and Ballot Results: The Commission's work is summarized in a report entitled Final Report and Recommendations, June 1997. Two additional reports were issued to provide background on the regional policy issues (Regional Committee Report and Recommendations) and the unincorporated area governance issues (Unincorporated Area Issues Report and Recommendations). In June 1997, the Commission transmitted it recommendations to the Executive who transmitted them to the Council. The Commission's recommendations were as follows:

Charter Amendments:
• Establish an initiative process to amend the Charter.
• Modify Regional Committee procedures
• Create an independent Ethics Board.
• Establish whether the Executive, Council and Assessor positions should be partisan or nonpartisan.
• Establish procedures for interim Assessor, Sheriff, and Executive until statutory process can be carried out for replacement.
• Increasing the monetary value of public works projects carried out by county work forces.
• Establish Assessor qualifications.
• Allow biennial budgeting.
• Clarify the method for determining the number of signatures for unincorporated area initiative and referendum petitions.
• Authorize revisions to laws enacted by initiative or referendum after two years.
Ordinances Changes
• Create a teak force to develop a Charter amendment proposal for an unincorporated area legislative body and to revise the method of electing the county council for placement on the 1998 ballot.
• Create subarea planning commission for unincorporated areas.
• Extend the amount of time for initiative and referendum signature gathering.

The Council sent six charter amendments to the ballot--five Commission initiated and one Council-initiated that proposed changing the age for holding elective office in King County government to age 18 years. Of the five Commission-initiated amendments, the Council, as expected, adopted language that differed from the language originally proposed by the Commission. In the case of four of the amendments, the differences were either minor or the council selected one of the alternative approaches considered by the commission to achieve the same end sought by the Commission. In the case of the ethics board proposed amendment, Commission members and Councilmembers disagreed with the level of detail that should be contained in the Charter. The Commission wanted more detail; the Council wanted less detail with a commitment to adopt the detail in an implementing ordinance the following year. In the end, a Charter amendment with less rather than more detail about an independent ethics board was put on the ballot.

1997 Charter Amendment Ballot: The six Charter amendments shared a crowded November 1997 ballot which produced many unexpected outcomes including for the Charter amendments. Of the six Charter amendments on the ballot, three failed. It is worth noting that the three that failed has opposing statements written by citizens who, in response to a required public notice, had volunteered to write on any ballot measure. Each of the measures had supporting statements. The proposed charter amendment to change the method for calculating unincorporated. area petition signatures failed by a vote of about 54.3 percent. The proposed Charter amendment to mandate in independent ethics board failed by a vote of about 51.1 percent. The proposed Charter amendment to allow 18-years old to hold county elected office failed by a vote of about 66 percent. The three passing amendments had favorable votes from about 64 to 78 percent.

1998 Council Follow-Up: In October 1997, the County Council passed Motion 10337 which set out a schedule for Council consideration of Commission recommendations that the Council had not had time to act on during 1997. This was unprecedented action in the history of the Charter review process.

The 1996-97 CRC process was unusual in that while the funding and staffing largely ended in September 1997, work on Charter matters continued into 1998. The CRC's existence formally ended December 31, 1997 so when the Council resumed working on some issues in 1998, there was neither staff nor an official group to work with. At a February 1998 meeting, a number of former CRC members met with former CRC staff and Council staff to discuss the logistics of working with the Council as it took up outstanding Charter amendment recommendations were discussed. The process was that the Council would work through the issues in their normal processes and the CRC members interacting with the Council as would any other citizen. A small core group of the CRC members continued to follow the Council's work.

In February 1998 (shortly after the above meeting), the Council Committee for Unincorporated Areas discussed the CRC's unincorporated area governance recommendations. As was expected, the committee did not act to approve the recommendation.

In March 1998, the Regional Policy Committee (RPC) considered the CRC recommendations regarding the RPC roles and functions. Former CRC members Lois North and Bob Roegner met with the RPC and suggested, among other things, that the proposed charter amendments be implemented as trial measures. The RPC took up the suggestion and in May 1998 agreed to try for one year two procedural changes in the Council's rules which would:

• Provide for adoption, rejection or amendment by the Council of a regional committee recommendations with in 90 days of action by the committee--or, after return to the Committee and subsequent amendment and resubmission to the Council, the Council would have 30 days to act.
• Provide for delegation of topic-specific vice-chairmanship responsibility to members of the Regional Policy Committee executive committee.

These changes were adopted by Ordinance 13239 in July 1998.