Record doesn’t match claims

Incumbent Sean Sundwall proudly claims that he initiated live streaming of Snoqualmie City Council meetings (in his responses to a Valley Record questionnaire published on Oct. 4, 2019). This is misleading. While he may have gotten the city started with live streaming, Peggy Shepard (my wife, and a current councilmember) actually initiated the concept five months earlier by video recording council meetings with her phone and publishing them on YouTube. Her efforts to make the council more visible to the citizens of Snoqualmie were, if anything, met with annoyance by the council and city administration. It is interesting to note that Sundwall’s interest in having the city provide video was at the same time as his election campaign that year.

The city’s first video of a city council meeting was on Oct. 23, 2017. Peggy began recording city council meetings and publishing them on YouTube on May 22, 2017.

Since that time, Sundwall has voted for: Stopping the city’s recording of the open public comment period at the beginning of Council meetings; drastically limiting the amount of time that city staff may spend responding to public records requests; preventing citizens from photographing public records that the city provides for public records requests; limiting the ability of council members to examine and question payments made by the city.

Yet, Sundwall says in the article “I have supported every effort to increase transparency.”

Richard Scheel

Snoqualmie