You have been silenced

The Charter Review has shut you down

Apr 29, 2026

Last night’s meeting of the Charter Review Commission culminated in the silencing of the people.

Your ability to know what the Commission is doing has been restricted from the beginning. The process of excluding the public has continued and expanded.

This is long but necessary. YOU are being silenced.

TAKE ACTION

I will explain below, but in reverse order of what I typically bring, I want to lead with a call to action. After reviewing my explanations below, I hope that many of you will flood not only the Commission, but also the County Council with your concerns and rebukes.

Email the Charter Commission

Send your message to the Clerk. It will be delivered to all 21 members of the Commission

Commission Clerk - katey.hobbs@piercecountywa.gov

Email the County Council

While the Council does not have direct authority over the Commission, they can certainly influence them. I will be sending a message to all of them.

Dist. —— Name ————— Email

1 Dave Morell dave.morell@piercecountywa.gov

2 Paul Herrera paul.herrera@piercecountywa.gov

3 Amy Cruver amy.cruver@piercecountywa.gov

4 Rosie Ayala rosie.ayala@piercecountywa.gov

5 Bryan Yambe bryan.yambe@piercecountywa.gov

6 Jani Hitchen jani.hitchen@piercecountywa.gov

7 Robyn Denson robyn.denson@piercecountywa.gov

The message I sent

This is the message I have sent to the Commission and will also be sending to the County Council. It should give some insight into the actions the Commission has taken against you. I will follow with more details below it.

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The Secret County Charter Review 4-28-26

The public took a huge hit at last night’s Charter Review Commission meeting. This has been a culmination of a number of maneuvers that cannot be dismissed as unintentional.

Public access to records

I have long complained about public access to the proposed Amendments and their progression. This has gone unanswered in practical terms. Over a month after my initial complaint on 3-9-26 a feeble attempt was made to post the Amendments. Of the 55 Amendment proposals currently filed, only 22 of them are posted. The remainder can be found by scouring through over 1000 pages across 14 previous packets.

Last night the Commission voted along direct ideological lines to dismiss a number of Publicly proposed Amendments without them ever being posted on the website. The public never knew they existed in the first place and were never given the opportunity to bring their support or opposition to them.

This is now confirmed as intentional

I brought these concerns before, during and after the meeting. Speaking with Vice Chair Lanz at the end of the meeting I was told they are in the packets so that is sufficient. This reflects an intentional disregard for public access to the records. I now see this as an intentional, strategic plan to keep opposition from knowing or being able to act upon proposals.

Meeting minutes are a month behind

Using the same rationale that the public has full access through the meeting packets, the Commission has kept the public in the dark on the proceedings as the last Packet for 4-27-26 is almost a month behind on past meeting minutes. How is the public who cannot attend the meetings in person know if any of the Amendments were voted on and what their status is? They simply cannot.

Silencing the Public

In addition to all of the above actions, the Commission voted to restrict public comment to 2 minutes. While this is their prerogative, it works together to silence the voice of the people.

Article 1 Section 1 of the Washington State Constitution states:

“All political power is inherent in the people, and governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, and are established to protect and maintain individual rights.”

This commission has not only disregarded the public in their proceedings, they have acted with malice and intent. I see this commission as illegitimate.

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Some History

For those who have been busy just trying to live your lives without government molesting you, I need to catch you up on what has transpired.

Secrecy from the start

Starting with the first meeting on Jan. 14^th, 2026, the Commission was directed to go into executive (secret) session by the prosecutors office. This proceeded without a vote by the Commission or their official consent.

See the recording of the session HERE.

Watch at the 5:00 point.

This appears to be a violation of the Open Meetings Act.

No available records

As the Commission began, I was busy tracking the State Legislature and could not attend. As soon as I could, I immediately recognized a major deficiency in transparency. The procedures they are operating under, the proposed Amendments to date and the status of each of them was no where to be found.

I complained about this way back on March 9^th – HERE

I complained again on March 18th - HERE

After about a month and continued verbal complaints, they initially posted a link to the procedures. HERE

I assumed they were progressing, but they weren’t. As time went on I resumed my complaints and eventually they posted a woefully inadequate listing of the Amendments. HERE

Only 1/3 of the Amendments have ever been posted. They are listed in random order spread across 3 different folders in a very unfriendly format, but this was a start so once again I backed off a bit expecting this new format to expand and be updated.

It has not.

The Silencing Begins

On April 13^th, the Commission took a very unnecessary vote to reduce public testimony from 3 minutes to two. The Chair already had the discretion to make limitations if conditions warranted it, but they voted for it and it and the restriction will remain in place for all of the remaining meetings, no matter how sparsely attended.

I publicly chastised them for this move at the April 20^th meeting which you can view HERE

It gets way worse

I had family in from out of town and was not able to stay for the entire April 20 meeting and needed to update all of you on the status of the Amendments heard that night. I thought, no problem, I’ll look it up in the minutes. To my dismay, the minutes have not been updated since the end of March!

After much searching, I came up empty handed. No information to be had, this started me looking deeper and the Amendment files they were supposed to be keeping available and discovered that out of the 55 Amendments filed, only 22 of them were listed!

My recent message Challenging anyone to find them was my response which I also printed out including QR codes linking to their own mess. I handed these out to all of the Commissioners as well as the public in attendance. Review it HERE

They Doubled Down

Prior to the meeting I spoke with the Chair, Kelsey Barrans and Vice Chair Martha Lantz to air my concerns. Martha was defensive but I can dismiss that if a solution is considered. When public testimony started and I had my meager 2 minutes to speak, the Chair attempted to challenge me as out of order but ultimately allowed me to proceed robbing valuable time from me.

See it HERE

They shut down Public Amendments

They continued to double down when the Public Amendments came up. A motion was made to give them one spot on the Agenda then to remove them from consideration forever. Our conservative Commissioners attempted a follow-up Amendment to extend this to two weeks but it failed along ideological lines.

I separated out that portion and posted it to Youtube for you.

There were many strong objections from the conservatives. Most notably Commissioner Mason Fletcher gave a very concise rebuttal HERE and followed up again HERE

To no avail. The progressives out vote us and took away the Public Amendments from future consideration.

The biggest insult of it all is that all of those Public Amendments are among those never listed on the website!

In Summary

If you have read all the way to here, the trail of actions to limit and outright prohibit public input and participation shows a pattern of abuse that can no longer be dismissed or attributed to ineptitude.

At the end of the meeting I approached Vice Chair Lantz to point out the very Amendments they voted to silence are not on the web site. Her response was that they are in all the packets and that is sufficient.

This tells me all I need to know. This is intentional. They will continue to silence and restrict the public.

Which brings me to the present. I hope you are as offended as I am and will join me in registering your complaints with the Commission and the Council.