PORT ANGELES — Clallam County has formed an ad hoc panel to screen applicants for county hearing examiner.
The 10-member screening committee will review applications and rank the five candidates who are vying for the quasi-judicial position.
Hearing examiners adjudicate land-use matters, including appeals of Department of Community Development decisions and a variety of land-use permits.
County commissioners will interview the five candidates, who have not yet been named, based on the results of the committee’s rankings.
“We can interview two to five, just depending on how the rankings add up,” Commissioner Mike Chapman said in a Monday work session.
“If they’re all kind of lumped in the middle, we can probably just interview them all.”
Four of the five applicants are from the Puget Sound region. One is from Clallam County.
Slow start
Commissioners sought representatives of the environmental community, building industry and legal profession to serve on the screening panel.
Only one candidate, Darlene Schanfald of the Sierra Club North Olympic Group, had expressed an interest in serving as of March 21.
Nine others stepped forward after subsequent news reports about the search for panelists, County Administrator Jim Jones said.
“Good, quality people came forward and offered their service,” Jones said.
Members of the ad hoc committee are Schanfald (environmental), Chris Anderson (no preference), Ted Miller (legal), Selinda Barkhuis (legal), Annie O’Rourke (building), Gene Unger (building), Vernon Frykholm (no preference), Bill Knebes (legal), Scott Headrick (building) and Robert Sextro (environmental).
“It strikes me that we ended up getting a pretty well-balanced group of people who expressed an interest,” Commissioner Mark Ozias said.
“We could pick and choose from among them, but under what guidelines would we decide to appoint someone or not appoint someone to the screening committee?”
Commissioners decided to appoint every candidate who wanted to serve.
Individual work
“I wouldn’t mind at all having each of these folks individually come in, review the applications and utilize whatever their own process is for making some recommendations,” Ozias said.
“They can provide us with just their top three choices or some additional recommendations or encouragement. That will alleviate the need of trying to get that group together. It will give us a good sense as to what the community’s input is.”
The rankings will be discussed in a work session later this month.
No date has been set for the interviews.
Clallam County’s contracts with Hearing Examiners Lauren Erickson and William Payne are set to expire at the end of May.
Erickson and Payne have been rotating hearings for a flat fee of $2,250 per case.
Commissioners decided in January to hire a primary hearing examiner rather than continue the split rotation as recommended by Community Development Director Mary Ellen Winborn.
The primary hearing examiner will operate under a three-year contract with the county, with payment terms to be negotiated.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 56450, or at rollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
