Tri-Cities council votes on allowing prayer. But 1 member says he will not participate

Any Kennewick resident can sign up to give a prayer at the start of Kennewick Council meetings, the council decided this week.

The council agreed previously on a split vote to allow formal prayers at the start of meetings but had not agreed on how to implement the policy, while being mindful of legal requirements.

The vote Tuesday night also was split, with Councilmen Chuck Torelli and Jim Millbauer opposed to formal prayers and Mayor Bill McKay, Mayor Pro Tem Gretl Crawford and Councilmen Brad Beauchamp, John Trumbo and Loren Anderson in favor of the new policy.

Torelli said he would remain seated during the prayers, not because he is opposed to prayer but because he is opposed to mandatory prayer.

Prayers will be limited to 60 seconds, and people can sign up for no more than two prayer slots a year. There are typically 24 council meetings a year.

Prayers will start at the two council meetings in November and are intended to guide council members rather than be for the public, according to city staff.

To volunteer call City Hall at 509-585-4273.

Starting meetings with prayer had been discussed by the council since July.

The policy adopted was a change from an initial proposal to send invitations to places of worship within city limits.

Some council members were concerned that would have taken more staff time and would have excluded city residents who might worship at places in the Tri-Cities without a denomination meeting in a Kennewick building.

Staff told council members that prayer at their meetings is legal, but there can be no meddling or directing the content of the prayer or discrimination against who can give prayers.

“I want to commend city staff for providing the best resolution possible for what I believe is an extremely problematic policy,” Torelli said at the Tuesday meeting.

He is a firm believer in former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson’s 1942 ruling that “‘… no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodoxy in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or deed their faith therein.”

In previous council discussion of prayer, concerns had been raised that people coming before the council to seek its help, such as a zoning change, could feel they must participate in prayer they did not agree with to avoid offending a member of the council.

Torelli said he expected that passage of the resolution will be touted as a reflection of community values.

“In reality, the passage of this resolution is more a reflection of the partisanship, the politics and the posturing that is so prevalent in our culture today,” he said. “It appears to be a culture war issue simply for the sake of mandating a specific behavior and saying, ‘We won.’”

However, he has no doubt that all council members in support of prayer are sincere in their faith, noting that four members had been on religious missions at some time in their lives.

Prayer traditions in E. Wash.?

He also questioned whether, as the resolution that passed Tuesday night said, that prayer has been a traditional act of local government meetings.

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

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

Torelli said he surveyed Benton, Franklin, Grant, Walla Walla, Yakima and Klickitat counties in Central and Eastern Washington and the 45 towns within them. He found just five had any type of invocation.

Sunnyside and Selah have invocations from church leaders at their meetings. Yakima has a resident provide a prayer 15 minutes before the start of the council meeting, and Mesa and Mabton both have time for silent prayer at their meetings.

Torelli was the only council member who commented at length Tuesday night.

But in a previous discussion, Trumbo said prayer 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 gives 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.

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

Members of the public always have been able to and have offered prayers during the public comment section of council meetings.