PORT ANGELES — Tonight’s City Council agenda includes a resolution enacting initiative and referendum powers for the city’s voters, a resolution in support of a proposed sales tax increase and a public hearing on a city loan for a dental clinic for the indigent.
But the evening’s biggest issue likely will be an item that doesn’t appear on the printed agenda.
The meeting will feature the return of former Mayor Richard Headrick to the seven-member council, fewer than three months after he was forced out of office as a result of last fall’s election.
Tom Bihn, who ran unsuccessfully for City Council against now-Mayor Karen Rogers in 2001, said he will be at tonight’s meeting to show his opposition to the council’s decision.
“I’m been encouraging people to show up and voice their opinion, whatever it may be,” Bihn said.
Bihn also plans to bring a blue recycling bin with a sign attached reading, “Recycle Politicians Here,” and is encouraging others to do so.
“Mostly people seem to be interested, it remains to be seen how impassioned people are,” Bihn said, noting Rogers’ comment week before last that the public controversy will “settle down.”
“They may be right, in which case we get the government we deserve,” he said.
Field of 8 applicants
Headrick, first elected to the council in November 2001, was selected March 8 from a field of eight applicants to fill the Position 2 vacancy created by the Feb. 3 death of Councilman Jack Pittis.
The other seven candidates were motivational speaker and current Planning Commission Chairwoman Cherie Kidd; online publisher and two-time council candidate Peter Ripley; former Clallam Transit System General Manager Dan DiGuilio; ex-Planning Commissioner and land developer Patrick Downie of Volunteer Chore Services, Neil Spicher, a retired Pacific Bell engineer and English teacher; artist Taylor Jennings, who also has a master’s degree in planning; and ex-Planning Commission Chairwoman Linda Nutter.
The vote to select Headrick just six hours after application filing was closed was 4-2.
Councilwomen Lauren Erickson and Betsy Wharton — who defeated Headrick in the November 2005 election — voted no.
Headrick, a retired District Court judge, was sworn into office the following morning.
