SEQUIM – Bob Spinks is busy debunking rumors, and awaiting a new boss.
The latest scuttlebutt about Sequim’s chief of police is that he sought the top law enforcement position in Quincy. That one came a few weeks after Spinks put his house on the market.
“I did review the Quincy job,” he told the Peninsula Daily News last week, “but it didn’t meet my career goals and I’m not in that process.”
Spinks was not among the finalists for the Central Washington position, according to a report in the Quincy Valley Port-Register.
In a second e-mail, Spinks added that he also looked at the police chief post in Anchorage — but is not in the running for that, either.
When asked why he’s been looking to move away, Spinks said: “I’m not necessarily interested in leaving Sequim. I have not yet achieved my vision for the Police Department,” which includes remodeling the police station in the J.C. Penney Co. center on Washington Street.
These days, Spinks is feeling Sequim’s belt-tightening. The 2010 budget will be a lean one, likely to leave vacant staff positions unfilled.
Already, “we are cutting the edge pretty close in what we as a community are expecting and demanding of 18 police officers versus 14,000 total incidents of all kinds coming our way,” he said, referring to the Sequim police’s annual call load.
“We all work long hours and produce more than other city employers would ever expect,” Spinks said of Sequim’s department chiefs.
“At the end of the day, these are jobs. And we all have families to look out for. So if a challenging opportunity arrived, I’m not sure if any department head could afford not to seriously consider it.”
Spinks, 50, has said he wants to retire in Sequim, and he repeated that last week.
But “it has been a rocky two years,” since four new City Council members were elected in November 2007.
Spinks is “looking forward with great expectations to the arrival of our new city manager, Steve Burkett. He is experienced, has been around the block a few times and should have a tool bag of resources to help gel a vision and bring stability to city operations.”
Burkett working
Burkett, meanwhile, has already started work, according to city attorney and interim manager Craig Ritchie.
“He’s been accepting e-mails, which we send incessantly,” and has met with Linda Herzog, the preceding interim manager.
“He’s not paid till the 19th,” Ritchie added, “but he’s trying to make sure he’s ready to go.”
Reached on his mobile phone while packing Friday, Burkett said he’s moving to Sequim this weekend, having found a place to rent with the $900 monthly housing allowance he’ll receive for nine months or until his Edmonds house sells.
When asked what his first task will be Monday morning, Burkett laughed.
Then he listed a few: figuring out City Hall’s e-mail network, meeting all of the employees, lining up meetings with City Council members.
And having been a Rotarian for 28 years, Burkett will have a decision to make.
“I’ve already had a couple of invitations,” from the Thursday noon Rotary Club and from the Friday Sunrise Rotary Club.
“I’ll have to visit them both and see which works best for me,” he said.
As for the 2010 budget, “I’m obviously not going to have much input into the adoption process,” since city finance director Karen Goschen has worked for months on the document the City Council must finalize in December.
“But the budget is just a plan, so we will make modifications,” into next year, Burkett said.
“One of the most attractive things about the job,” he added, was having Goschen, “a finance director who knows what she’s doing, who understands long-range financial planning and [that] sustainability is really key.”
Burkett and Goschen will engage in a public discussion of such issues at the next council meeting, at 6 p.m. Oct. 26 in the Sequim Transit Center, 190 W. Cedar St.
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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.
