PORT TOWNSEND – An audience of about 100 watched the three Jefferson County commissioners unanimously pass an amended version of the county’s no-shooting zone ordinance on Friday.
The law allows county commissioners to start the public process to create, alter or dissolve no-shooting zones in the county with a majority vote.
“The state put that power in our hands,” Commissioner David Sullivan, D-Cape George, said Friday at the meeting in the Jefferson County Courthouse.
“If we abuse our authority, there will be consequences,” from the voters, he said.
“I think the county commissioners need to show leadership where public safety is involved,” Sullivan said.
Commissioner Phil Johnson, D-Port Townsend, was less sure the commissioners should have that power.
“One of my concerns is the majority vote by the county commissioners to create the impetus for a no-shoot zone,” Johnson said during Friday’s meeting.
But Johnson voted for the law once he included a statement in the ordinance’s preamble that states that Jefferson County is a “rural county and that hunting occurs within rural and resource lands.”
Commissioner John Austin, D-Port Ludlow, said the revised ordinance “makes sense. We’re elected by the majority of people in the county.”
Commissioners deliberated for about an hour before the unanimous vote.
No public comment was taken at the meeting.
