The Sequim City Council and its staff have looked both ways and stepped off the curb holding hands. Traffic may come up without warning, but they'll pull each other back, not to worry. Council and staff have formed a "mutual dependence" pact.

Monday evening, with little fanfare but a whole lot of thought and a hefty dose of anxiety, the administration (the doers) delivered to the council (the deciders) 21/2 months of selecting, mulling, debating, planning, re-thinking and deep-breath-taking. It's a City-wide Work Program for 2009. Bureaucracy at its finest.

And I mean that.

Bureaucracy is a fine thing in the right place. It was created to bring governing order out of regulatory chaos. To put the public workers and their governmental functions into "bureaus" to get the work done.

Replacing chaos with order is also the function of the city of Sequim 2009 City-wide Work Program.

Cities have so much to do. They need to make the water run out of the tap when you turn the faucet, make the roads line up at the intersections, send out an officer when you see or hear something that makes you anxious, establish zoning designations so a manufacturing plant can't move in on the other side of your flower garden, and make sure new houses and commercial buildings are built well so they stand for generations.

On top of the day-to-day busy-ness, cities have to look out ahead and chart a course to keep up with what their citizens want and need.



Too many top priorities

That can lead to a whole different set of choices and decisions. Last fall when the administration tallied up outside-the-ordinary "unfinished business" the staff was working on, there were more than 100 projects, ideas and operational changes.

One-hundred seven to be precise. These were all designated Priority 1 or Priority 2.

Things like preparing capital project descriptions so Sequim would be eligible for state loans and grants to build the streets we need, to extend and improve our water system and to purchase park land for our families.

Things like reconciling contradictions in the city code that had not been given sufficient attention in past years.

Like dramatically expanding our remarkable water reclamation facility so we can use our precious potable water for drinking and substitute "class A" re-use water for irrigating and replenishing the groundwater supplies. And like financing that $9 million expansion in the face of an economy that is uncertain at best.

The problem was not figuring what needs to be done but focusing on the most important of those 107 "top priority" projects.



Decisions, decisions

Staff went to work on that dilemma on Jan. 23. Ten grueling weeks were spent figuring out which of the 107 projects must be done in 2009, exactly what must be done, who was needed on your "team" to get the work done, what the council needed to do to provide the funding or set the policies in place to authorize the work.

Out the other end, some 10 weeks, later came the proposed 2009 City-wide Work Program. It's engaging. At least for those who spend their days in bureaucracies. (Remember ... good word.)

Monday evening the city council came onto the field. They knew about all the projects and the issues. After all, these items had been placed on the list months, some even years, ago.

Individual council members felt some work program items were more important than others. Not everyone agreed. While cuncil members carefully considered each others' comments, staff took a lot of notes.

We all expect that adjustments will be made as the months go by. But the council has said "go," and the staff already is going.

2009 will be a very productive year in your city government. You'll see your council and your staff hard at work on the big decisions and the major projects, on a schedule that would do any - yes, bureaucracy - proud.

Next time you see a city employee or a city council member (read: volunteer), stop and say you appreciate all the complex and difficult work they're doing. And that you think planning ahead is worth the trouble.

That's one of the things that separates the leaderly bureaucracies from the plodding bureaucracies.

And does your city have a plan!

Linda Herzog is Sequim's interim city manager.