With a dozen citizen-led boards and commissions, the city of Langley is contemplating the possibility of slimming down.

During a special meeting this week, a quorum of the Langley City Council met to discuss this topic. Though no formal decisions were made, the council considered which committees to continue spending time and effort on, and which to consolidate or eliminate completely.

State law requires that a city of Langley’s size has a civil service commission and a planning commission, which is known as the Planning Advisory Board.

Led by Councilmember Rhonda Salerno, the council focused on paring down the Design Review Board, the Ethics Board and the Lodging Tax Advisory Commission for various reasons.

Salerno acknowledged that Director of Community Planning Meredith Penny needs a body to look at applications for signs and outdoor projects, and this work could be delegated to the Planning Advisory Board instead of the Design Review Board, which has created confusion and angst in the past about decisions that were made for projects, particularly those involving the Dog House. The board also meets sporadically for brief meetings.

Penny said that while city code currently calls for design review, design standards could be changed to be more specific so that they don’t require as much ambiguity, and staff can issue permits instead of waiting for a body to make that decision. She said it made sense, for now, to combine the efforts of the Design Review Board with the Planning Advisory Board, which Councilmember Chris Carlson also supported.

Salerno also spoke about dissolving the Ethics Board, which hasn’t met in over a year and has lost most of its members. The board’s last opinion, which involved the director of the Langley Chamber of Commerce, was enveloped by controversy. Though never officially released on the city’s website, a citizen obtained the opinion through a public records request and shared it with the city council. At the time, the city attorney and mayor cautioned against proceeding with the board because it could be a liability. Previous opinions concern the conduct of city officials.

Salerno suggested that someone with an ethics-related complaint could go to a city administrator or the mayor, rather than a citizen-led board. Other members of the council agreed that the city’s ethics ordinance could easily be updated to match that of other cities.

Another board that convenes irregularly is the Lodging Tax Advisory Commission, which hasn’t met since October. This board is the city’s most recent committee and was created by former mayor Scott Chaplin. Salerno said the commission does not have a direction or a staff liaison at the moment.

Councilmember Gail Fleming said she would be happy to let this commission “dribble away down the drain.”

As Salerno pointed out, the town of Coupeville has only three citizen-led boards, and Mayor Molly Hughes has wondered how Langley does it with 12. Salerno hoped that moving from a dozen to nine committees would be a reasonable change.

Councilmember Craig Cyr pushed back against the idea of one too many committees in the Village by the Sea.

“We have civic participation in Langley, and there is a cost to staff, but we’re going through a process here to really hone these,” he said. “Our citizens are interested. They bring their expertise.”

Carlson agreed that having engaged citizenry is a feather in Langley’s cap. He added that it’s important to keep in mind that when they sign up, citizens don’t necessarily know that being on a formal commission of the city imposes a lot of overhead and procedure on action.

“I think we also need to be mindful and strongly encourage civic-minded citizens to volunteer their time in more informal advocacy groups that still provide council with their subject matter expertise and recommendations but don’t need to operate within the OPMA and the PRA and have all the limits on their collaboration,” he said.

Mayor Kennedy Horstman, who formerly served as the chairperson of the Dismantling Systemic Racism Commission, echoed this sentiment. She said her role on the board “was a heck of a lot closer to activism than what actually happens in a commission.” She said the evolution of the city’s Climate Crisis Action Commission, which split off into a group of engaged citizens, is a model.