Kennewick council divided over prayer at meetings. Attorney says rules must be followed

The Kennewick City Council was evenly split Tuesday night on whether to start council meetings with a prayer, which the city attorney said would be fine if certain rules are followed.

A decision on prayer, or direction to staff on developing a policy for further consideration, could be made at the soonest at the Tuesday, July 19, council meeting. Decisions cannot be made at council workshops.

The push to start council meetings with a prayer comes from Councilman John Trumbo, and he along with Councilman Brad Beauchamp and Mayor Bill McKay made comments generally in favor of a council prayer during the Tuesday night discussion.

Councilmen Chuck Torelli and Jim Millbauer and Mayor Pro Tem Gretl Crawford voices concerns. The seventh council member, Loren Anderson, was not able to attend.

The council started meetings with prayers from 1976 to 1992, although City Attorney Lisa Beaton said she was not immediately able to find information on why the practice stopped.

Trumbo tried to get the council to restart the prayers in 2014, but the council voted against it.

“Legislative prayer is a part of America,” Beaton said during her presentation Tuesday on the law as it applies to prayer at government meetings. “It is part of our history.”

But if the city council decides to have prayers, there can be no meddling or directing the content of the prayer or discrimination against who can give prayers, Beaton said.

The invocation is for the benefit of the council, she said.

“It is meant to assist you in your job, in your duty as an elected official,” she said. “The public can witness that, but it is really not for the public.”

The public still would be allowed to make religious presentations within the time limits of the public comment period, such as reading Bible verses.

The council should not comment on individual prayers or the organization giving the prayer. If council members, staff or audience members choose to leave the room or otherwise not participate in the prayer, there can be no consequences, Beaton said.

If prayer is restarted, she recommended that a list of religious congregations in Kennewick be drawn up and invitations sent out, although organizations not on the invitation list also could volunteer.

There is no need to solicit prayers from certain faiths to achieve diversity, but there cannot be discrimination against anyone wishing to volunteer to give the prayer, she said.

Council members and city staff should not be allowed to routinely lead prayers and they should not invite others to join in the prayer, she said.

There should be limits on the prayers, such as no more than three invocations a year by a congregation and a time limit of a minute or two for the prayer, Beaton said.

Here’s how council members stood Tuesday night on council prayer:

Councilman Trumbo

“There is nothing wrong with prayer at Council,” Trumbo said.

It creates a focus on working together and fosters an attitude of humility and acceptance that “we are all equal and no one is above another,” he said.

“It give credence to the truth that everyone needs wisdom and that it doesn’t come from ourselves alone,” he said. “... It gives inspiration toward what is right and what is wrong in decision making.”

It also acknowledges that God is omniscient, he said.

Mayor Bill McKay

McKay said he was strongly in favor of prayer at meetings.

“(There) is nothing wrong with invoking the Lord’s help when we sit down to do the business of the city,” McKay said.

“I don’t think it is pomp or ceremony or anything else,” he said. “The way I look at this is I can use all the help I can get.”

Councilman Brad Beauchamp

Beauchamp, attending the meeting remotely via the internet, had less to say, but staff counted him among council members supporting an invocation.

“It is very clear there is precedent out there that prayer is not something that is not permitted,” he said.

He said he had recently been to a public breakfast with new police Chief Chris Guerrero and he appreciated the prayer that started the event.

Mayor Pro Tem Gretl Crawford

Crawford said that prayer is personally important to her, but questioned whether there should be a council prayer.

“I’m concerned who would come before the council each week and cause us more distractions” from the business of running the city, she said, after also mentioning the council’s efforts to revise its council ethics policy.

She also is concerned about adding additional duties and stress for staff, including coming up with a list of religious organizations and coordinating volunteers, she said.

“Faith is a personal path and should maybe remain personal,” she said.

Councilman Chuck Torelli

Torelli suggested that instead of a prayer 10 to 15 seconds of silence could be schedule at meetings to allow those who wanted to pray silently to ask for and receive the grace they seek.

“One of the things I’m most concerned with is inadvertent coercive pressure put on, not so much the council members, but the audience,” he said.

City residents at the meeting to make requests of the council, such as a land use change, can leave the room during a public prayer, but they could be concerned about how the council would view that. They could feel pressured to look engaged in the prayer, Torelli said.

“We are requiring our customers, our citizens, to go along to get along and somewhere along the line that is wrong,” he said.

His Catholic faith tells him where to pray, and city council is not the place for that, he said.

“I will not have you impose your faith on me, ever,” he said.

Council members can instead pray before they come to the meeting, he said, and also suggested the moment of silence.

Councilman Jim Millbauer

Millbauer said that Congress and state Legislatures, including Washington, do have prayer, but based on their behavior it does not appear to work.

“I have my own religious beliefs but I do not force them on others out of respect for others religious freedom,” he said. “Forcing my views on others is not why I chose to run nor was elected to do so at the council.”

When he prays about council dealings, he does it in private, he said.

“Religious freedom thrives best when government stays out of it,” he said.

The next council meeting is at 6:30 p.m. July 19 at City Hall, 210 W 6th Ave., with an online broadcast also available. The agenda for the meeting has not yet been compiled. General public comment is heard at council meetings, but not workshops.