In an unorthodox move this past month, two city council central staffers—supposedly apolitical, braintrust employees who work on specific issues for the entire council—sent letters to the council, their bosses, opposing a legislative proposal.
The proposal, aimed generally at encouraging small and home-based businesses, would allow commercial uses on the ground floor of buildings in areas of Capitol Hill currently zoned for low-rise and mid-rise housing and within a quarter-mile of light rail stations. The legislation would also increase the threshold for the size of a development to trigger environmental review.
For a central staffer to advocate on an issue before the council is kind of like a nonpartisan GAO staffer testifying on an issue in front of Congress. It doesn’t violate the city’s ethics code—both of the two staffers, Rebecca Herzfeld and Michael Jenkins, have recused themselves from staffing the zoning issue, central staff director Ben Noble confirms—but it is a weird gray area.
Wayne Barnett, director of the city’s Ethics and Elections Commission, says he spoke with Herzfeld and told her “you don’t give up your rights to be a citizen when you take a job with government. As long as she’s not working on the issue—as long as neither of them are working on the issue—they can communicate with the City Council as homeowners just as anyone can.”
Both of the letters, by Herzfeld and her fellow central staffer Michael Jenkins, are similar: They argue that allowing commercial uses in non-commercial zones would hurt nearby business districts and harm the neighborhood’s residential character.
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