Are retreats working vacations or just work?

Puyallup’s City Council went to the downtown Bellevue Hyatt Regency and spent $17,000 over two days. University Place’s council went to a tribal casino near Shelton. Lakewood’s went to a four-star Hood Canal resort, and the Pierce County Council just returned from the same scenic spot.

Council members from Gig Harbor, Sumner and elsewhere stayed home.

Many city leaders around the South Sound have attended retreats over the past few years to learn how to work together, outline strategies and agree to projects they want done.

Tacoma didn’t. The council hasn’t held a full-fledged retreat in at least four years.

The others paid thousands of dollars for travel, lodging and food, and for professionals to facilitate their sessions. Now is a popular time of year to hold retreats, as new council members settle in.

Some critics don’t like councils going out of town. They see it as a ploy to get away from public scrutiny. Others don’t like spending taxpayer dollars that way. And some say if a retreat is necessary, why not stay closer and spread the money among locally owned businesses?

Several critics are elected members of the councils themselves.

“I’m totally opposed to spending money” on an out-of-town retreat, said Puyallup City Councilman George Dill.

If there must be a retreat, he said, “let’s use our own facilities, Meeker Mansion, the fairgrounds, the pavilion.”

EXPENSIVE SESSIONS

Three East Pierce cities topped the expense category for a single retreat in the past four years in the local cities that were surveyed.

The Sumner council stayed home and spent nearly $9,700 in 2005, records show. The Bonney Lake council traveled to the Phoenix Inn in Olympia for a retreat in 2006 and spent nearly $10,000.

That same year, Puyallup spent at least $17,000 for two days in Bellevue. Lakewood spent more than $6,000 recently at Alderbrook Resort & Spa, and Pierce County budgeted more than $7,000 for a retreat there that ended Friday.

Bonney Lake Mayor Neil Johnson said the expensive council retreat sessions in 2005 were necessary to help bring a new council together and to reduce tensions between a dysfunctional council and mayor.

Much of the cost went to pay a facilitator, he said.

Bonney Lake’s expenses dropped dramatically for the latest retreat in January. Council members paid 87 percent less and stayed in Bonney Lake one day, followed by a session at a downtown Tacoma hotel on the second day.

Sumner spent most of the $9,700 for two professional facilitators. Last year at another in-city retreat, the city spent slightly more than a third of that sum.

‘JUST NOT NECESSARY’

In Lakewood, City Manager Andrew Neiditz said traveling about 60 miles to Alderbrook resort on Hood Canal this year added to the quality of the City Council retreat. Lakewood spent more than half of its retreat funds on a facilitator.

“The council was able to learn how to relate better, to develop a consensus,” he said.

Not everyone was supportive of traveling so far. Council minutes from the Jan. 7 meeting show that council members Ron Cronk and Pad Finnigan protested the Alderbrook getaway.

Cronk said the distance prohibits citizens from attending. Neither he nor Finnigan would comment further last week.

Dennis Haugen, a Lakewood resident who often speaks at City Council meetings, said he went to Alderbrook for a retreat dinner.

“It’s just not necessary” to travel that far, he said. “We’ve got the meeting space at City Hall.”

Councilman Dill said he’d been in office for nearly two months when the Puyallup council went on its Bellevue retreat two years ago.

He said he went along to see what it was like, and wasn’t impressed. Some council members went to dinner at Ruth’s Chris Steak House, an expensive restaurant. Dill said he and Councilman Don Malloy didn’t go.

“We stayed and ate at the hotel,” said Dill, noting that each paid $9 for his fish and chips.

After the Bellevue experience, he said, he opposed spending taxpayer dollars for out-of-town retreats, although they continued for a while.

Malloy agreed that the Bellevue retreat was expensive, but said $12,000 of the cost was for a facilitator. Puyallup’s last retreat was at the city activity center in 2007, and the council hasn’t decided about the next one, said Malloy, who became mayor this year.

AWAY FROM DISTRACTIONS

Michael Pendleton, a professional facilitator who conducted last month’s Lakewood retreat, said in a report sent to the council that events often cost more when held out of town.

But he said most councils recognize that investing a small amount to build teamwork, relative to the millions they spend on general fund and capital budgets each year, is worth it.

Pendleton, who has a doctorate in organizational psychology, said a majority of council retreats are held away from home to help develop better working relations. Distractions are limited, and a facilitator can help ensure sessions aren’t dominated by one or two participants, he said.

Lakewood City Councilwoman Claudia Thomas said being away from City Hall and the weekly meeting routine helped council members “stay focused” for last month’s retreat.

“We hadn’t bonded as a team,” the former mayor said. “Now trust is developing. It can’t just be a Monday night rendezvous. You have to spend time with each other.”

She said this year’s retreat was more productive than one held in Lakewood in 2006.

Dill said out-of-town retreat theories are “a bunch of baloney.”

“You don’t have to go out of town,” the Puyallup councilman said. “You have to communicate, negotiate, give and take.”

THE FOUR-STAR TREATMENT

Lakewood officials broke away Jan. 18-19 to Alderbrook, a four-star resort popular for government and corporate retreats, in part because of its 7,000 square feet of meeting and banquet space.

The city paid for meals, coffee breaks and one night of lodging, said city spokesman Jeff Brewster. Records show eight individual occupancy rooms were rented for $143.39 each. No spouses attended.

Brewster said the officials’ personal credit cards were swiped to ensure the city wasn’t charged for extras, such as room service.

Why not use one of the region’s new conference centers, such as the $84 million Greater Tacoma Convention & Trade Center, built in 2004?

Councilwoman Thomas said Lakewood got the best deal at Alderbrook.

Lakewood recently built a meeting center and event auditorium jointly with Clover Park Technical College. But Thomas said she’d prefer not to retreat there because it’s too close to avoid distractions.

THE RETREAT BUDGET

University Place budgets about $7,500 a year for retreats, which covers two out-of-town sessions, according to estimates from city finance director David Layden.

The City Council and staff will hold a three-day retreat next month at the Suquamish Clearwater Casino Resort near Poulsbo. They will retreat again in September, this time to Leavenworth.

City leaders typically use the fall retreat to preview the upcoming budget and examine the status of their goals. They don’t hire a facilitator.

The City Council varied from the norm in January, after it dropped the developer of its $250 million Town Center project.

To chart the course of what they needed to do in the first quarter of this year – a period University Place leaders say is crucial to getting Town Center back on track – they held a one-day retreat workshop.

The city manager and six council members – Stan Flemming was absent – met for a day at the Little Creek Casino Resort near Shelton.

The group drove a city van to the casino, rented a meeting room and spent eight hours discussing issues that revolved mostly around Town Center.

Mayor Linda Bird said no council members gambled. The city uses casinos for retreats because rental rates are good, she said.

The total cost of the trip was $862.

“This was more of a retreat to talk about issues that couldn’t wait until March,” Bird said.

IT’S WORK, MAYOR SAYS

If people want to know what the Auburn City Council did at its 2007 Council retreat at Port Ludlow, they need only look at a large framed map of the city hanging in the City Council chamber.

On it are dozens of work projects planned for the next 10 to 15 years, including road and sidewalk projects, trail construction, park improvements and civic buildings.

Mayor Pete Lewis said the two-day retreat last year created the map.

He said retreats are not a vacation but a long day of work the first day followed by a wrap-up session the next morning.

The longer-distance retreats to Alderbrook and Port Ludlow cost between $4,000 and $5,000 each and included an overnight stay. By contrast, in 2005, the council went to nearby Green River Community College, which cost taxpayers about $585, city records show.

This year they plan to return to Port Ludlow. They go out of season, when rates are lower, he said.

“There isn’t anything else you can do but work,” he said, noting that the retreats also are open to the public.

Councilwoman Virginia Haugen, who took office in January, said Friday that she won’t be going to the next retreat.

“The cost, of course, is an issue,” she said. “But it’s also too far away, and there will be no media coverage. Though it’s an open meeting, nobody can practically come to it.”

STAYING LOCAL

In recent years, the Federal Way City Council has had its annual retreat at a city-owned facility. Its most recent retreat was last month at the city’s community center. The only cost was about $400 in food for lunch and breaks for council members and staff, said finance director Iwen Wang.

Likewise, the Milton City Council has retreats at the city’s community center or at an assisted living facility in Milton. The only cost is a catered lunch, said finance director Maria Pierce.

Fife goes to Gig Harbor.

For the past three years, the Fife City Council has held its annual retreat in January at the Gig Harbor Inn. The retreat starts Friday afternoon and concludes Saturday afternoon. The cost last month was $1,500 for food and lodging for council members and three staff members, said city manager Steve Worthington.

And Gig Harbor stays home.

City leaders on the Peninsula typically get away for a pair of half-day retreats every year. They’re held in the community rooms at the Gig Harbor Civic Center, a few doors down from the council’s weekly meeting spot, according to finance director David Rodenbach.

Staying in town saves the city money, he said. The costs associated with Gig Harbor’s retreats are overtime pay for some staffers and $12 box lunches for about 20 people.

Rodenbach, finance director since 1997, recalled when the city used space at the local yacht club one year, but the room was donated.

Mayor Chuck Hunter said there’s isn’t really a need to leave town to conduct city business.

“We’re in the best place in the world,” he said. “Why would we want to go anywhere?”

Staff writers Steve Maynard, Melissa Santos, Jason Hagey and David Wickert contributed to this report.

Rob Tucker: 253-597-8374

Brent Champaco: 253-597-8653

Mike Archbold: 253-597-8692

RETREAT COSTS FOR SOME CITIES

2005200620072008

LakewoodNot available$5,025None held$6,287

Bonney Lake$5,820$9,950$1,150$1,300

Sumner$9,663$461$3,322None held yet

Auburn$585$4,432$4,900*$4,900*

University Place$7,500* $7,500*$7,500*$7,500*

Puyallup**Not available$17,000* Not availableNot available

*Estimates

**Puyallup officials said last week that they wouldn’t supply expense figures unless they received a formal records request. The $17,000 figure was provided by two councilmen.