SEQUIM — For a while on Monday night, it looked like harmony.
The City Council voted unanimously to hire the Henderson Group of Redmond to conduct a traffic-impact fee study that could lead to some revenue — from developers — for new roads.
Mayor Laura Dubois announced that the council members would have a “team building” session on Jan. 23.
The city will pay the Seattle human resources firm Waldron & Co. $2,000 to facilitate the half-day workshop.
Although a quorum of members will be present, since it will not be a City Council meeting and “no business will be transacted,” Dubois said, the session will be closed to the public, but, after about an hour on Monday, the council cohesion fell apart.
The rift among Mayor Laura Dubois and two longtime members, Paul McHugh and Walt Schubert, opened wider.
Committee assignments
The trouble began last week when Dubois handed out assignments: Schubert would serve as the council liaison to the city Planning Commission while McHugh got the Solid Waste Task Force and Sequim-Dungeness Valley Chamber of Commerce as his committee posts.
Dubois took the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Olympic Peninsula off the list of groups with a Sequim City Council liaison, rendering Schubert’s position as the clubs’ council representative moot.
She also removed Schubert from his post as liaison to the Clallam County Economic Development Council.
The mayor later assigned McHugh to the EDC.
In an interview, Schubert said he cares about both organizations and will continue attending Boys & Girls Club board meetings.
After nine years of involvement with the EDC, he’s disappointed with Dubois’ move.
At the Jan. 5 council study session, Dubois said she’d been told Schubert only attended about 50 percent of the EDC’s monthly meetings.
But on Monday, EDC executive director Linda Rotmark told the council his attendance was above 80 percent.
McHugh was on the verge of being furious Monday night.
“I’m not going to serve as the council representative to the EDC because I’m not going to participate in the mayor’s effort to discredit Walt Schubert,” he said in an interview.
Dubois responded that Schubert had given few reports last year on the EDC meetings.
She said, too, that when he spoke to the council about the Boys & Girls Club, he offered success stories but no information about the organization’s financial health.
The mayor added that in 2008, she and council member Susan Lorenzen each served on five committees.
“We wore ourselves out,” Dubois said.
That’s why she redistributed committee assignments this year.
“I had to cut somewhere,” Dubois said, adding, “McHugh won’t volunteer for anything.”
McHugh said Tuesday that this is the first time in six years on the council that he’s served on a committee, but he stood fast in his refusal to replace Schubert at the EDC.
Longtime council member Bill Huizinga, a veteran of many a panel including the affordable housing committee and the Clallam Transit board, volunteered Monday night to represent the council at EDC meetings.
Quarterly reports
After adjourning Monday’s meeting, the mayor said she expects quarterly financial reports from Boys & Girls Club executive director Bob Schilling.
Since the city will provide $60,000 in funding this year for the club’s teen programs and the budget for them is about $121,000, Schilling will have much fundraising to do, Dubois said.
She said the council must make sure the teen-activities budget doesn’t borrow from other club programs.
“We want to make sure they’re not short-changing the younger kids,” since the club’s members range in age from 5 to 18.
As for Schubert, “he can go to the Boys & Girls Club meetings,” Dubois said, “but he’s not giving us financial reports.”
Schubert affirmed that he’ll continue to be active in club development.
“The biggest problem I have with the whole thing,” he added, “is the way it was handled.”
Schubert wishes Dubois would have asked, in an open session, who wanted which committee assignments.
“But it’s not that big a deal. I’m not going to let stuff bother me this year,” he said. “I’ve tried to bring things together and it hasn’t worked . . . that’s just life.”
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@ peninsuladailynews.com.
