SEQUIM — Lee Lawrence has been abruptly fired as executive director of the Sequim-Dungeness Valley Chamber of Commerce.
Lawrence — a longtime civic activist, former Sequim Citizen of the Year and a professional financial planner who became executive director six months ago — “was not meeting the board expectations,” according to 2008 chamber president Joe Borden.
In an e-mail Monday notifying chamber members, Borden said the board of directors of the business/tourism group met to discuss Lawrence’s performance last Thursday.
After he refused to resign, Lawrence was fired on Friday, Borden said.
“Lee Lawrence wasn’t the proper fit at this time for the chamber, so we needed to move on and find someone else,” Borden told the Peninsula Daily News on Monday afternoon.
“Lee’s personality was great, and he did some really great things for the chamber, but there were some things that weren’t perfect.
“We asked for his resignation — which he would not give — and then we did fire him.”
Borden would not specify what troubled the board.
Saying that because it was a personnel matter, he couldn’t speak specifically to what had happened, he said.
Attempts by the PDN to reach Lawrence on Monday, the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, were unsuccessful.
Lawrence did not return phone calls to his cell phone.
