The Longview City Council has changed its mind again.

Thursday, it voted 5-2 in favor of polling Longview and Kelso citizens to see if they want to explore whether merging into one city would save money. Councilmen Don Jensen and Andy Busack voted against the resolution.

The council’s approval means a non-binding advisory vote on the matter will be on November’s election ballot. The Kelso City Council already has approved holding the poll. The cost of adding the measure to the ballot will be less than $1,000 and will be shared by the cities, officials say.

If a majority of voters support the ballot measure, a formal study will be conducted by a citizens’ committee within six months of the election to lay out details for a city merger. Then in November 2010, voters would be asked whether they want to merge the two cities.

The council already has held two votes regarding the poll. The first one — essentially saying members would discuss the advisory ballot measure’s wording at its July 23 meeting — passed 4-1. Then on July 23, the council rejected the resolution 3-2.

Because two council members had been absent and wanted to vote on the matter, the council called a special meeting Thursday and reconsidered the issue. Putting an item on the agenda requires the support of two council members.

Thursday, Mayor Kurt Anagnostou emphasized that the intent isn’t to sway people’s opinions about merging. It’s just to take an inexpensive poll about whether the cities should spend the time crunching numbers to see if a merger would be cost-effective, he said.

Studying the merger would require an estimated 10 hours per week for the city attorney and 10 hours per week for the city executive office, according to city staff. Therefore, the cost in staff time would be around $30,000, but that money is already part of employees’ salaries.

Jensen said it didn’t seem right to devote that much time to the issue when the city was closing down for one day a month to save money. Busack agreed, wondering how city staff could carry out their regular duties in 40 hours a week, plus devote time to work on the merger. That would require other business to be set aside, he said.

Councilwoman Mary Jane Melink pointed out that’s what always happens when the council sets a priority. Councilman Dennis Weber argued that staff members already are spending time on the merger issue because local governments have been meeting all year to discuss consolidating services. Citizens should be asked whether they want those talks to continue, he said.

“I think we need to ask to make sure we’ve headed in the right direction,” Weber said.

Back in the 1990s, Longview and Kelso governments took steps toward merging services without first asking citizens what they thought, and the result was a “fragmented effort,” he said.

“Let’s not make that same mistake again,” he said.

Busack was concerned that the advisory vote wouldn’t indicate whether a majority of citizens from each city supported studying a merger.

Anagnostou replied it’s easy to break down the results by precinct.

Kelso Councilman Dan Myers told the council, “We seem to be hung up here that this is an advisory vote. That means it could pass overwhelmingly and we could still decide not to move forward.”

He said he sees little point in creating a citizens’ committee to study a merger if most people are emotionally opposed to joining the cities from the outset, Myers said, adding, “I say, let’s test the water.”

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Longview council to revisit merger advisory vote

Longview council kills advisory vote on consolidation with Kelso  (July 24)

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Officials planning non-binding vote to gauge support for Longview/Kelso merger  (July 7)