Redmond Committee of the Whole – Finance, Admin, Communications Meeting – January 13, 2026
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City of Redmond Committee of the Whole – Finance, Administration, and Communications Meeting – January 13, 2026
The Committee of the Whole met to discuss updates to the Council Rules of Procedure and to prepare for the evening's special meeting to interview candidates for the vacant council seat. Council also addressed logistics for the interview process and considered administrative matters during "Good of the Order."
Council Rules of Procedure Discussion
Council President Stewart reported that she, Council Vice President Nuevacamina, and Councilmember Kritzer, along with the City Clerk, have been working on updating the rules. The scope is limited to items previously agreed upon: integrating the vacancy appointment process, subcommittee chartering rules, attendance policies, and a technical fix identified by the clerk. The group will meet with the clerk on Friday, January 16, to review a draft. Councilmember Forsythe reminded that the voting mechanism used during the vacancy process should also be included. The council acknowledged the update and will receive a formal draft soon.
Council Vacancy Process Preparation
Mayor Burney and Council President Stewart outlined the process for the special meeting later that evening. The city received 38 applications; 33 passed a verification process, and 11 candidates were selected for interviews after a blind application review. Each candidate will have 15 minutes to answer six pre-distributed questions. Council members selected which question each would ask: Councilmember Prakriya – question 1, Councilmember Soni – question 4, Councilmember Stuart – question 2, Councilmember Forsythe – question 5, Councilmember Nuevacamina – question 6, and Councilmember Kritzer – question 3. Logistics were finalized: the timer starts with introductions, candidates manage their own time, and the mayor will provide a brief grace period to finish a sentence. If a candidate is a no-show, the council agreed to maintain the schedule and take a break rather than shift interviews; however, if the no-show is the last candidate, they may move up executive session. Executive session will follow interviews, after which the council will vote to select 2-3 finalists for a second round of interviews next week.
Good of the Order
Council President Stewart thanked the council for a productive first week and announced committee chairs: Councilmember Kritzer – Finance, Administration, and Communications; Councilmember Forsythe – Planning and Public Works; Councilmember Soni – Parks and Environmental Sustainability; Councilmember Prakriya – Public Safety and Human Services. She also recommended that Councilmember Kritzer be appointed as the council's representative to the Lodging Tax Advisory Committee, to be placed on a future consent agenda. Finally, she provided a heads-up about emergency management training opportunities in mid-March (three identical sessions to avoid quorum) and noted that the Public Safety and Human Services Committee will meet emergency management staff in February.
Key Outcomes
- Council received an update on rules of procedure revisions; draft expected after January 16 meeting.
- Interview process for council vacancy finalized: 38 applicants, 33 eligible, 11 interviewed in 15-minute slots; each council member assigned one question; logistics for timing and no-show scenarios agreed.
- Councilmember Kritzer recommended for Lodging Tax Advisory Committee; action to be taken at a future meeting.
- Committee chairs for 2026 assigned as listed.
- Emergency management training for council members scheduled for March.
Meeting Transcript
I'm calling this meeting to order. This is the uh January 13th, 2026 Committee of the Whole Meeting for Finance Administration and Communications. Council members in attendance are Council Member Stewart, Councilmember, Council President Stewart, Council Vice President Nueva Camina, Councilmember Forsythe, Councilmember Sony, Councilmember Procrea, and myself, presiding officer, Councilmember Kritzer. There are two items on our agenda today the council rules of procedure discussion and the council vacancy process preparation discussion, as well as we'll do a go to the order at the end since we won't have council talk time tonight. So the first item on our agenda is the council rules of procedure discussion. I will just uh open this to note that at the at last year's final meeting of the year, it was brought up by Council President Stewart that the idea to make some updates to our rules of procedure. Um council member uh or council vice president Nueva Camina and myself volunteered to work with council member Stewart um on looking at a couple items that have been flagged by the council as things that we wanted to update. Um, and we have been working along with the city clerk to look at a couple of those items. I'll turn it over to Council President Stewart to give us an update on um that process as well as some of the items we've identified that we'll be bringing back to council. Yeah, thank you so much. And really um the for the scope of this conversation, these are the things that were brought up in previous uh council conversations and agreed upon in December. There may be a whole host of other uh ideas that come forward for the council rules of procedure, but that is outside the scope of kind of what our task was over the winter recess. So just simply reporting back to you that uh we did the we are making progress on the work that we said we would over the recess, and the three of us are set to meet with the clerk next Friday to review a draft. So you do not have materials in your um packet today. Um I'll walk you through just a quick reminder of what the topics are that are under consideration, but we do hope to be back in front of you all pretty soon here uh with an actual draft uh for us to all discuss and respond to. So just as a reminder, um, one of the uh suggestions from Councilmember Forsyth was to integrate the process we are creating for how to fill a vacancy. Um obviously we will do that when we are completed with the process and we know what works about it and what we'd like to improve about it. That'll also give the council the next time a council vacancy occurs, it'll give a really strong starting point with how to create a process, whereas this time it really was creating from scratch. Uh, the second is uh integrating the rules for how our subcommittees are chartered. These were agreed to in our last council retreat, and we're bringing that forward. The third um is around policies and procedures around attendance, which were also a prioritized interest at our last council retreat. There is a fourth recommendation that we hope to bring forward, and it offers a technical fix to something in our items for the audience right uh rules right now, and it was identified as a technical fix by the clerk. I just wanted to acknowledge today that um Cheryl Santos has been an awesome partner in this. We'll have a chance to review that draft, like I said, with her on Friday of next week, and then be back in front of you and have a chance to talk through that with you after that. So uh happy to answer any like process questions, but really we are containing the conversation to these couple of things that the council has previously discussed. Thanks. Councilmember Forsyth. Thank you. Um so in the conversation where we were talking about the council appointment process. Um we had talked about getting this into our rules. That also stemmed around the voting mechanism that we were using. So I don't I want to make sure that part of it, part of that conversation does not get lost in that. So thanks. Makes sense. Thanks. Council President Stewart, did you have a comment on that? Or no, just to follow up. Yes. Makes sense. Thanks. Yeah. Sounds good. Um, and I think there were a couple items. I'll just note that when we we looked at a couple other potential things to include in scope and thought that we could tackle them with our new legislative coordinator, being able to do some research for us on a couple different topics as well in the time ahead. Any other questions or comments on this? This is mostly an update. All right, not seeing any. We'll move on to the next item, um, which is the council vacancy process preparation. Um, so tonight we will be interviewing the top 11 scoring candidates out of the over 35 applications that we received for the vacancy. I want to just start by saying thank you to everyone who applied for this.
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