Lewis County Commissioners Form Panel to Assess Administration, Government

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The Board of Lewis County Commissioners announced Monday the creation of a blue-ribbon task force to review and compare Lewis County’s administrative and management practices with other counties.

The group will evaluate the benefits of having a county manager or not, and compare commission-style boards, which have three members, with councils, which have more members depending on population.

“Some of the things we’d like them to do is review our current structure, see how we’re managed, compare our structure with other comparable counties, interview other Washington state county commission and council members and identify the best practices,” Commissioner Edna Fund said Monday.

The commissioners announced the creation of the task force at a brief press conference after its regular meeting at the Lewis County Courthouse Monday morning.

The group is composed of five community members — Tony Briggs, Lee Grose, Larry McGee, Anil Puri and Lonnie Willey. County Central Services Director Steve Walton is assigned to work with the group on the project.

The group will spend six weeks on the study, Fund said.

Fund noted that a group of Lewis County citizens have met recently to discuss the possibility of reorganizing the county’s commission-style government into a council, beginning the home rule charter process.

“This has been under discussion for a number of years,” she said.

According to the Municipal Research and Services Center, the Washington state Constitution makes commissions the standard form of county government, unless counties adopt a home rule charter.



All but seven of Washington’s 39 counties have three-member commissions.

This form of government sometimes makes communications difficult between commission members, former county commissioner Ron Averill said Monday, because it means two commissioners cannot talk without it being a quorum, and therefore subject to public disclosure.

“I wish the group great success,” he said. “They might find a solution that will help us.”

The Washington state constitution allows counties to adopt home rule charters to have a different form of government, other than a commission, typically either a council with an elected county executive or a council or commission with an appointed county administrator, according to MRSC.

Counties that have a home rule charters include King, Clallam, Whatcom, Snohomish, Pierce, San Juan and Clark.

“If you’re looking at the map, most of the councils are from bigger places,” Fund said, calling smaller Clallam County an “anomaly.”

Fund said the group will meet publicly, but said meeting times have not yet been confirmed.

“We believe it’s time to do a fresh look at this and have people in there who have the time and best management experience to take a look at the various management structures throughout the counties,” Fund said.