Office of the Hearing Examiner | Protocol for Appeal Hearings

Hearing Protocol 

1. Be punctual in attendance at hearing.
2. Be certain to have enough witnesses on hand for each day’s proceedings.
3. Recesses will ordinarily occur promptly as scheduled.
4. Witnesses, counsel and parties should be referred to and addressed by their surnames unless, permission to do otherwise is granted. The Hearing Examiner and City staff should be referred to and addressed by their surnames or titles. The Hearing Examiner should be addressed as Mr./Mrs. Hearing Examiner or Examiner _____________ (surname).
5. Except by permission of the Hearing Examiner, all communications to the Hearing Examiner should be made from a position at or beside counsel table or from the podium.
6. Counsel (or other party representative) should not approach opposing counsel (or other party representative), witnesses, the Hearing Examiner, or the Recording Secretary without permission of the Hearing Examiner. If it becomes necessary for counsel (or other party representative) to confer with the Hearing Examiner, permission should be obtained.
7. Counsel (or other party representative) should refrain from making disparaging remarks or displaying ill will toward other counsel or party representative and from causing or encouraging any ill feeling among the parties.
8. Counsel and parties are to refrain from making gestures, facial expressions, or audible comments as manifestations of approval or disapproval of testimony or argument.
9. Arrangements with the City for the use of visual aids should be made sufficiently in advance of the need so that they may be set up prior to the hearing.
10. Only one attorney (or other party representative) may examine or cross-examine a witness.
11. Only one attorney (or other party representative) for each party may object to the testimony of a witness being questioned by an opposing party. The objection must be made by the attorney (or other party representative) who has conducted or is to conduct the examination of the witness.
12. Examination of a witness should be limited to questions addressed to the witness. Counsel   (or other party representative) are to refrain from making extraneous statements, comments, or remarks during examination. 

Office of the Hearing Examiner | Rules of Procedure for Hearings

Introduction

These Rules of Procedure are established pursuant to Tumwater Municipal Code, Chapter 2.58, to help secure the fair and efficient conduct of matters subject to the City’s administrative hearing system. The Hearing Examiner has jurisdiction over a wide variety of specific matters identified in Chapter 2.58 TMC. From the standpoint of procedure, these fall into two major categories:

 

1. Pre-Decision Hearings
2. Appeals

Pre-Decision Hearings are proceedings for gathering public testimony and documents to be used in making a decision on an application. Appeals are proceedings for gathering testimony and documents from specific parties to be used in making a decision on a claim which seeks to overturn or change a decision the City already has made.

Because of the inherently different functions performed by Pre-Decision Hearings and Appeals, the procedures for the two differ. The major difference is in the level of public involvement. In Pre-Decision Hearings, testimony from the general public is sought. A feature of each hearing is to solicit the views of any resident who wishes to be heard. Appeal hearings, by contrast, involve specific identified parties; usually the appellant, the City and the applicant (if different from the appellant). In appeal hearings, each party is responsible for his or her case and those testifying are usually only those persons called as witnesses by one of the parties. The public is normally allowed to attend, but public testimony is not taken.

View the full version in Rules of Procedure  (full version, 21 pages)