SEQUIM — Which should come first: formation of a metropolitan park district or the definition of what it should do?
The City Council will consider asking the Sequim Aquatic Recreation Center to tap the brakes on a drive to place a park district question on the Aug. 4 ballot.
A citizens group had collected by the end of last week about 2,000 signatures out of a goal of 3,500 on a petition to place the measure on the August ballot.
Tonight, the Sequim City Council will consider a resolution asking that the recreation center, known as SARC, and the city aim to place “a broad-based” metropolitan park district measure on the 2016 ballot.
Such a district would include input from recreational interests ranging from tennis and pickleball players to Little League and garden club members, the proposed resolution says.
In the meantime, the proposal says, short-term measures would be worked out to fund through 2017 the center that includes the city’s only public pool.
Frank Pickering, SARC board president, plans to be at tonight’s 6 p.m. council meeting at the Sequim Transit Center, 190 W. Cedar St.
He said Friday that there is nothing to stop a future elected metropolitan park district board from working with city and county officials, recreational users and others to further define the district once it is formed.
He pointed out that if the district question is placed on the August ballot, it would be accompanied with elections for a board.
If voters then approved it, the SARC board would dissolve itself and the newly elected board, which he plans to run for, would be in charge of SARC’s present assets at 610 N. Fifth Ave., and the district.
“There’s nothing to prohibit the new board from having interlocal agreements with the city, Olympic Medical Center, the county or any other governing entitity,” Pickering said.
But the goal of the present board is to acquire the funding needed to keep the center open, he said.
That’s why, when faced with diminishing funds that would put the center in the red by the end of 2016, the board acted in February to find a way to get the funding.
In the wake of voter rejection Feb. 10 of a property tax levy of 12 cents or less per $1,000 assessed valuation, the SARC board passed a resolution Feb. 28 that outlined a three-pronged approach to acquiring public funding.
It encouraged formation of a citizens committee to gather signatures on a petition calling for the county auditor to place a metropolitan park district measure before voters in August.
At the same time, the SARC board would work with city and county for a possible interlocal agreement to place the district question on the Nov. 3 general election ballot in the event that the petition drive failed.
If neither effort were successful, the board said that it would re-run the levy question Nov. 3.
“The number one goal is keeping SARC operating for the benefit of people in Clallam County,” Pickering said.
SARC is a junior taxing district formed in 1988 as Clallam County Parks and Recreation District 1. Passage of a levy requires a 60 percent supermajority.
Although 57.5 percent of voters approved the levy in February, that wasn’t enough for passage.
A simple majority is required to approve creation of a metropolitan park district.
The new board could then impose a property tax levy — which proponents say would be the same as that requested in the levy election.
“We do feel that they rushed into this,” said Sequim Mayor Candace Pratt on Friday.
“It’s very understandable. They are running out of money. The levy didn’t pass. They are fearful for the life of SARC,” she continued.
“We do think that a more measurered approach would be more practical in the larger sense.
“We need a pool. We want a pool. This is not the city trying to be against SARC in any way,” the mayor said.
“We are very concerned about the process.”
The petition drive headed by Judy Rhodes of Sequim had gathered a little less than 2,000 signatures by Friday, said Virginia O’Neil, spokeswoman for the citizen group.
The deadline for getting the signatures to the auditor — which was in doubt when the drive began — has been determined by SARC attorney Craig Miller to be May 1, O’Neill said.
By law, the petition must be signed by 15 percent, or 3,247 of the 21,647 registered voters in the SARC district, Rhodes has said.
The SARC district has the same boundaries as the Sequim School District except that it does not go beyond the county line as the school district does.
The goal is to gather more signatures than needed in case the auditor finds that some are invalid.
O’Neil said that she resented language in the city’s proposed resolution.
“It characterizes SARC as a pool and health club,” she said. “It is not for a privileged few in the community.”
She pointed to a use agreement with Olympic Medical Center and the Silver Sneakers program which she said offers free access to the center to seniors on Medicare.
“OMC does not partner with ‘health clubs,’” she said.
“I agree with the city’s action plan to begin discussions with the various stakeholders and taxing districts to identity broad-based community parks and recreation needs,” O’Neill said.
“I take exception to the city coming in at the 11th hour and trying to be the white knight saving the kingdom.”
Pickering said that he knew that city officials “all feel that SARC is valuable.”
But “the SARC board is unanimous that we must focus as closely as we can that SARC continues into the future.”
And he pointed out: “If the petition drive succeeds in getting enough valid signatures then what the City Council is proposing is moot because it will be on the Aug. 4 ballot.”
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Managing Editor/News Leah Leach can be reached at 360-417-3531 or at leah.leach@peninsuladailynews.com.
