SEQUIM — As Sequim’s parks coordinator, Jeff Edwards has ideas, new tasks, and no new money.
Edwards has been the city’s Planning & Public Works Department office manager for years. His job has expanded, he said this week, to cover Sequim’s four parks and what they could become.
Edwards is taking on the added challenges because Sequim has yet to hire a successor to Public Works Director James Bay, who retired April 25.
City Engineer Bill Bullock is interim public works chief, but his plate is full of water reclamation and sewer system upgrades, planning for the Olympic Discovery Trail connection through Sequim and a score of street improvement projects.
So Edwards “is stepping out onto the ice,” of parks planning, said Robert Spinks, Sequim’s interim city manager.
He is not stepping gingerly.
“I want to build the parks department into a viable department,” Edwards said in an interview from his tiny office on Fifth Avenue.
“I have dreams of grandeur. I want to make Sequim a sports destination,” he added.
“But I have no money.”
Edwards’ annual salary of $60,000 is staying the same, City Clerk Karen Kuznek-Reese said.
And with the city facing revenue shortfalls totaling some $750,000 this year due to drops in sales tax and building permit fees, he expects no fresh funding for park programs in 2009.
What to do, then?
“I’m looking for anybody who wants to donate time,” Edwards said.
