The Council finds itself in the position of having to dig deeper into the city's response to the December storms. Stories published in The Seattle Times last week showed that our earlier review was incomplete. The "after action" report presented to the Council was very inadequate.
Last Friday I asked Council President Conlin to request all documents that were given to the Times as a result of their public disclosure filings be provided to the Council. The Council will also soon direct the City Auditor to conduct a review of these and other documents. Clearly, we must redo our review with more aggressiveness.
That being said, my larger concern remains the city's failure to recognize the big picture, strategic implications of the storms. This failure led to multiple operational problems--not hiring sufficient private plows to augment city plows, not coordinating closely enough with Metro, not realizing the huge negative impact on the business community. These strategic shortcomings are far worse than any of the operational errors, in my opinion. Just think major earthquake, a more severe storm, or, heaven forbid, a man-made disaster. It's essential that city emergency operations and decision-making be strategically and operationally sound. The response to the December snow storms raises questions about both areas.