Oak Harbor councilmember warns of light agendas as meeting cadence changes

Councilmember Bryan Stucky opened a Tuesday Oak Harbor City Council meeting by pressing staff on what he called "lackluster" agendas, saying, "When I got the packet on Thursday, I was a little disappointed to not see any items on it for us to discuss." Stucky noted the council had "added another meeting," which "could logically spread things across other meetings," and urged fuller agendas when necessary.

Mayor Ronnie Wright deflected the procedural question to city administration, telling City Administrator Sabrina Combs, "Sabrina, I’ll let you respond tactfully, because I’m not sure I can." Stucky closed the exchange by thanking staff: "I appreciate that and look forward to having fuller agendas in the future as needed."

Council members do not normally set agendas but can make motions for issues they want to address, a procedural point raised during the discussion. Stucky used recent single-topic sessions — citing a nepotism discussion and a conversation about pickleball courts — to illustrate his concern that recent packets contained only a couple of items and limited council debate.

The meeting also highlighted other local issues on the council’s plate. Meeting materials show consent agenda items that included approval of minutes from the City Council Meeting of June 3, 2025, and the City Council Workshop of June 17, 2025, and routine accounts payable and payroll items. Staff noted the city had received four new public comments since the last regular meeting: Patti Stucky supporting flying the United States flag only at a June 3, 2025 meeting; Karis Mills asking that the merge lane at Highway 20 and Erie Street be closed and converted to a right-turn-only lane; Kim Welch requesting cleaning and repainting of Oak Harbor welcome signs and complaining about a trailer park; and a truncated entry from Ardith Joan.

Stucky pressed staff on multimodal traffic and sidewalks, asking about reducing Swantown from four to three lanes and extending sidewalks north on Swantown. City Engineer Warner told the council staff has been in conversation with the Washington State Department of Transportation, and noted the city currently has one westbound lane closed with no issues. The proposed Swantown configuration in meeting materials described two travel lanes and a bicycle lane, and Warner said the sidewalk segment Stucky cited lies in Island County and is outside city jurisdiction.

Separately, an excerpt from HeraldNet provided to the reporter, not explicitly tied to Oak Harbor in the clipped passage, contained staff comments naming Mayor Pro Tem Beth Munns and Councilmember Joel Servatius and raised morale concerns. The excerpt quoted Councilmember Jim Woessner: "Some of this is stuff that should keep us awake at night," and included staff language such as "Munns drops in offices all over the city all the time wasting our time to tell us how great and important she is," and "It is disheartening to see administration ignore the evidence set forth of staff’s dissatisfaction with administration." The HeraldNet excerpt also stated that "about 20% of employees who commented wrote that staff fears retaliation," and cited calls for action including cost-of-living pay increases and improved communication.

Stucky’s public critique put agenda mechanics squarely before the council and the public, raising questions about how Oak Harbor will use its added meeting to handle items such as nepotism, pickleball courts and the Swantown traffic project. City Administrator Sabrina Combs, Mayor Ronnie Wright and City Engineer Warner were identified during the meeting as the officials with operational responsibility for agendas, staffing and traffic projects; their detailed responses on agenda-setting, the added meeting and the Swantown configuration remain to be provided.