SEQUIM — Young families, the cost of building a home in Sequim, a new City Hall and the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Olympic Peninsula provided ample fuel for a five-man debate Friday morning.
The Sequim Sunrise Rotary Club hosted the forum, a showcase of the Sequim City Council candidates in the Nov. 3 election.
Right away Don Hall, a former council member running against Mike East, sought to differentiate himself.
“I don’t consider myself a candidate. I consider myself a volunteer,” Hall said.
He listed some of his past accomplishments: Helping establish Sequim’s off-leash dog park, improve its softball diamonds and put in the paved path between Carrie Blake Park and the James Center band shell.
Next up: Ted Miller, a former CIA staffer and attorney who’s challenging council member Walt Schubert for his long-held seat.
“Schubert has served his constituency brilliantly,” Miller began, adding that “unfortunately,” that constituency is real estate agents and developers.
Miller believes his opponent, who was mayor of Sequim from 2002 through 2007, let builders into the city much too cheaply.
Development fees
It’s time now for the city to raise development fees to pay for infrastructure, Miller said, and though home builders have paid “a token amount” for roads, they should also cover the costs of other municipal services.
“The permit fees should be 100 percent of the cost to the city,” Miller said; otherwise the taxpayers are subsidizing city facilities, “and that’s just not fair.”
Rotarian and Realtor Ron Gilles took exception. He said that with one project he’s involved in, he did pay 100 percent of the cost for roads to serve it; for a second project, he covered $800,000 in infrastructure costs.
“You really should do your homework,” Gilles told Miller.
Miller acknowledged that Gilles had paid for the transportation impacts. But he added that Sequim faces many other infrastructure costs, such as the building of a new City Hall and police station.
Schubert, for his part, said that many people who have moved into Sequim in recent years “don’t know the history” of its relationship with builders and other business people.
Ten years ago when he first ran for council, “to go to City Hall and get anything done was difficult.” But with the commercial development of the past five years, he said, “we’ve turned that around,” and built a healthier sales-tax revenue base.
Then came the nation’s economic crisis, which has brought consumer spending low and dried up a portion of the city’s revenue stream.
So while there is some money set aside for it, “we have no business even considering building a City Hall at this time,” Schubert said. He would rather see portable buildings or some other inexpensive solution, to “just get by.”
Miller differed: “We’re going to need a new City Hall,” he said. “We’re throwing money away on rent,” of the Public Works & Planning building on Fifth Avenue.
At the same time, Schubert advocates city funding for the Sequim unit of the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Olympic Peninsula’s teen program, which he believes is a powerful crime preventative.
Sequim provided $100,000 for the club last year but cut that to $60,000 in 2009.
“There are a lot of young families, and they have needs, such as soccer fields,” Schubert added.
A group known as Sequim Family Advocates has pushed for such fields to be established at Sequim’s Water Reuse Demonstration Site adjacent to Carrie Blake Park.
Boys & Girls Club
East, who was involved with the Boys & Girls Club when he lived in Anchorage, Alaska, also favors continued support of the Sequim club.
He shares Schubert’s platform, which includes “reasonable” building fees so that development can take place inside the city and not out in the unincorporated county. That’s the way to save farmland, East said.
“We need to pay for infrastructure,” he added, “but we also need to make it reasonable for people to build here.”
East moved to Sequim after working in the construction and freight industries, most recently in Alaska.
“I’m not a developer; I’m not an attorney, so you can’t pin that on me,” he told the roomful of Rotarians, some of whom are developers or attorneys — or in the case of Larry Freedman, both.
Hall, East’s opponent, didn’t spend much time talking about developer fees or farmland preservation.
He did say that the city shouldn’t “give money away” to the Boys & Girls Club or to other nonprofits now, as it faces a financial crisis.
Earlier this month, city finance director Karen Goschen told the council that Sequim may see an $850,000 difference between revenues and projected expenditures in 2010, meaning staff layoffs are a real possibility.
Hall, for his part, said he’d rather keep a staff member employed than provide funding to the Boys & Girls Club.
The one City Council candidate who has no opponent is Bill Huizinga.
He too spoke to the Sunrise Rotarians, about the need for affordable housing in Sequim.
The problem is intensifying, Huizinga said, though at least one sitting council member, Erik Erichsen, has questioned the need.
“One reason I decided to run again was to support Bill Huizinga,” and his push for lower-priced homes, said Schubert.
Miller again took aim at what he sees as Schubert’s pro-builder bent.
If voters “want the developers to regain control of the City Council,” they should vote for Schubert, he said.
“This [election] is a referendum on the future direction of Sequim.”
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladaily news.com.
