Lake Forest Park held a council work session on Thursday to solicit preferences for internal leadership roles and to identify council liaisons to regional boards and committees.

Deputy Mayor Fertani, who led the session, reviewed the governance manual and described the roles up for consideration: council chair (the deputy mayor), council vice chair, and the budget & finance chair and vice chair. Fertani said those positions will be formally elected or confirmed during the organizational portion of the council’s next regular meeting and used the work session to “get a sense” of who wants to be considered.

“There's a series of pages that goes through the no,” Fertani said as part of an overview of the governance manual and committee structure. (Transcript excerpt.)

Council members volunteered verbally for several positions. Council member Goldman said she would “be interested in being considered for vice chair.” Council member Biddle expressed interest in serving as budget and finance chair, and other members volunteered to serve as the committee’s third voting member or as alternates. Fertani emphasized the budget committee typically has three voting members and that membership expands to the full council during the budget year.

The work session also functioned as an opportunity to place councilors on liaison roles for advisory bodies including the planning commission, tree board, parks & recreation board and multiple regional organizations. For example, one member agreed to continue as the city’s tree board liaison and another volunteered to be the primary representative to the Lake Ballinger/Macquarie Creek Watershed Forum.

Fertani and other members reviewed how regional representation works through the Sound Cities Association (SCA) and its Public Issues Committee (PIC). Several councilors advised newer members to begin as alternates on SCA boards, describing PIC as intensive but valuable for learning regional policymaking.

Councilors also discussed the King County Solid Waste Advisory Committee, the King County Cities Climate Collaboration (K4C), salmon-recovery groups and other interjurisdictional bodies. Members noted timing and meeting cadence differences (for example, some regional transportation forums meet monthly at 7:30 a.m.; some climate or statewide bodies may require occasional in-person attendance).

No formal leadership votes were taken at the work session. The mayor said he will conduct the official election and hand the gavel to the person elected as council chair at the next regular meeting, after which the confirmed chair will preside over confirmations for regional appointments and other organizational items.

The council left many slots tentatively filled pending members’ availability and formal confirmation at the next scheduled business meeting.