City of Kent financial task force grows to 18 members; applicant gets wrong email

The city of Kent’s newly formed Financial Sustainability Task Force grew by three more members to 18 on Tuesday partly because of a mistakenly sent email from the city.

Elmo “LaMont” Palmer received noticed last month from the city that he hadn’t been selected to the 15-member committee but he also mistakenly received an email that invited him to the July 21 City Council meeting when appointees were introduced. Palmer showed up at the meeting and introduced himself along with the other task force members.

Palmer showing up caught Mayor Suzette Cooke by surprise. She knew he hadn’t been picked for the committee. But when Cooke researched the matter, she discovered Palmer had received the email to come introduce himself as a member.

Cooke and Council President Dana Ralph said in an email to the council that the task force interview committee of Cooke, Ralph and Council members Les Thomas and Bill Boyce had no strong opposition to Palmer.

“We thought keeping him on the committee would be valuable,” the email read. “He is retired from Boeing where he was a programmer, systems analyst and manager in the Financial Services Division.”

So the council at its Tuesday meeting added Palmer to the task force, which is to provide detailed recommendations to the mayor and council about the city’s needs and the community’s priorities as far as what services should be funded and how to pay for them. The task force will evaluate services and revenues in Kent compared to other cities. The task force must prepare a draft report by May 1 for public review and comment.

Meanwhile, two other of the 34 applicants for the committee told city officials how disappointed they were in not being selected. They each offered to be alternates, but the council decided to appoint both of them to the task force.

Parwinder Dhanda, a business owner and operator, real estate broker and economic forecaster; and Marcia “Lisa” Bartholomew, the owner/chief financial officer of a multi-state, locally home-grown family based courier service, were appointed along with Palmer to join the task force.

And in yet another change to the committee, Jerry Coupe is the new chairman. Lamont Williams had been appointed as the chairman on July 21 but told city staff he was resigning as chairman but would remain on the task force.

Coupe recently retired from working in Information Technology, has a master’s in business administration and has worked as a chief information officer and controller, including supervision of 55 people.