David Richardson (in blue) watches his wife, Mayor Theresa Richardson, preside over the May 6, meeting of Richland City Council.

Updated May 17 to include Councilmember Jhoanna Jone’s comments.

Without even asking the fifth of five members present at Richland City Council’s April 22 workshop for his view on signing a letter titled “The Protection & Preservation of Girls Sports,” Richland’s Mayor Theresa Richardson declared victory with three votes of support. She was moving on in the meeting when Richland City Manager Jon Amundson told her that the motion required four votes to pass.

Even though the mayor indicated that she believed that a vote was being taken at the workshop to give her permission to sign the letter on behalf of the city council, City Manager Jon Amundson and City Attorney Heather Kintzley later declared that there had been no vote at the April workshop.

Here’s what happened on April 22.

After Councilmember Kurt Maier voiced opposition to the letter and without even hearing Councilmember Ryan Lukson’s opinion, Richardson declared, “ I’m hearing that the majority of council would allow the mayor to sign on to this and I think that it’s concurrent with all of the other mayors in the community and commissioners as well. So that’s how I will proceed,” Richardson said.

After that statement, she recognized Lukson who was attending remotely. He said, “I don’t, as a matter of principle, generally approve of city council weighing into things that are not something that we can legislate. So for those reasons, I would not be interested in signing this letter.”

Apparently, still believing that her vote and the votes of Councilmembers Shayne VanDyke and Ryan Whitten, who follow her lead almost 100% of the time, meant approval, Richardson said, “Okay, thank you for that. Thank everyone for your input. I think we’ll go on.”

That’s when City Manager Jon Amundson stepped in.

“At this point, we’ve only heard from three councilmembers in the affirmative, and so unless we hear from others, I would suggest that we don’t have a mandate to sign the letter,” Amundson said.I

“So we need a majority of four,” she said.

The precedent for allowing a second vote.

The precedent has been that a losing vote cannot be voted on again without a motion to recommit from the voters who prevailed.

City Attorney Heather Kintzley wrote in the September 1, 2020, minutes about a similar situation when the council eliminated term limits for board and commission members:

“City Attorney Kintzley provided a brief procedural background for Ordinance No. 07-20, including the fact that it failed to pass at the last meeting due to lack of receiving a majority vote of all members of Council as required by the Richland City Charter. City Attorney Kintzley further advised that Council has a long-established process for motions to reconsider, and stated that the motion to reconsider may only be made by a member who voted on the prevailing side of the proposition.”

But this requirement went away when Amundson and Kintzley declared that on April 22, there wasn’t a vote.

The Observer emailed councilmembers asking them about the process used for the vote. Councilmember Ryan Lukson forwarded it to Kintzley who wrote: “There was no vote at the Council workshop. The topic was informally introduced to see if there was consensus (i.e., everyone in general agreement) to sign the letter. There was not, which required it to come to Council for a vote per RMC 2.26.062(B), which provides that “[a] councilmember shall always represent that opinions stated are the member’s own and do not necessarily represent those of the council unless the council has voted and passed an ordinance, resolution or motion that so states the expressed policy.”

Kintzley pointed to a “recommendation” that former Councilmember Michael Alvarez wanted to sign as precedent.

The councilmember with the swing vote “promised a friend.” that she’d vote for the letter.

Oh May 6, Richardson received the fourth vote that she needed when Councilmember Jhoanna Jones voted “yes.” Later, during council comments, Jone’s said that she was generally against the letter because she agreed with Lukson that the city had no authority in the matter, but she had promised a friend that she would vote for it.

The Observer reached out to Jones for a comment about the circumstances of the promise and received her response after publication saying that it was a difficult subject for her to discuss: “When I said I “gave my word,” I was speaking from my own lived experience as a survivor of sexual assault. Though I chose not to share those personal details during the meeting, I felt compelled to honor a constituent who reached out—someone whose voice, like so many survivors’, often goes unheard. By giving my word to support the letter’s safety provisions, I sought to elevate those silent survivors and ensure their concerns received council consideration.”

As for the process for voting to support a letter, she wrote that the city attorney had said that since the matter was a “resolution,” it could be put on the “New Business” section of the agenda for another vote.

Correction May 12, Mayor Richardson said on April 22, “So we need a majority of four,” not “So we need four votes,” as originally reported. The Observer regrets the error.

Clarification May 14, the Observer did reach out to councilmembers for comments about the voting process but received no responses and that has been noted in the article.