SEQUIM — School and business leaders aim to turn Sequim High School’s graduates into ready-to-work citizens.
First, they want to leverage a $1 million local investment into a $15 million-plus vocational facility on the SHS campus.
Ned Floeter, director of Sequim School District’s Career and Technical Education (CTE) classes, detailed for Sequim City Council members earlier this month a plan to fund and construct a facility that would expand Sequim students’ vocational offerings and double as an emergency shelter for the community.
State Sen. Lisa Wellman, who represents the 41st Legislative District (Mercer Island, Bellevue, Newcastle and parts of Issaquah, Sammamish and Renton), is chair of the Senate Committee on Early Learning and K-12 Education.
Wellman visited the Sequim School District for a vocational forum, tour and meet-and-greet on July 1, and expressed interest in pursuing construction of a vocational facility that also helps the community to be prepared for emergencies — but she wanted to see $1 million in community support, Floeter said.
The proposed high school vocational facility/emergency structure, which would be on the district’s northeast corner at North Sequim Avenue and West Hendrickson Road, drew interest from a number of local groups, including Sequim Sunrise Rotary and the Clallam County Economic Development Council (EDC).
“She (Wellman) is making this a primary issue for her in this next legislative session,” noted EDC Executive Director Colleen McAleer at a CTE general advisory committee meeting in October.
Now the Sequim City Council is going to the public to see if it should fulfill a request for a $250,000 pledge toward a local $1 million investment for the facility.
On Nov. 28, council members voted 5-1 — with William Armacost opposed and Mayor Tom Ferrell excused from the meeting — to conduct a public hearing in 2023, asking whether the city should pledge financial support for the facility.
The motion also included approval of a letter of support for the project.
Sequim School District staff say the facility would expand Sequim students’ vocational offerings and could replace some existing infrastructure in poor shape.
The facility also could double as an emergency shelter for the community, and potentially an after-hours program/campus for Peninsula College.
“I’d (suggest we) have a public hearing and see what the public wants us to do,” council member Lowell Rathbun said.
“The public is the prime beneficiary. Let’s see what they want.”
City staff said they’re tentatively going to set the public hearing at one of the two January 2023 city council meetings.
According to school district staff, the proposed vocational facility would be 100 feet by 200 feet, with three “open bays” of 40 feet by 100 feet, along with two fully resourced classrooms, restrooms and showers, and a full, restaurant-grade kitchen.
Efforts for a vocational building have been underway for about four years starting with the Sequim Sunrise Rotary, said Dale Jarvis, volunteer member of the Career Technical Education Workgroup organized by Sequim schools superintendent Regan Nickels.
He told city council members Nov. 28 that “it’s an interesting timing issue” after Wellman asked the community to gather $1 million by the time the legislative session begins in January to show Sequim has “skin in the game,” Jarvis said.
As of the Nov. 28 meeting, no official pledges were made yet, Jarvis wrote via email, but “there are several hundred thousand dollars’ worth of proposals being considered by a number of local groups.”
He said a CTE subcommittee is working on a business plan for the project, but they won’t have more firm costs for about six months.
“The school district and work group is looking for support from the city council in a pledge so we can build up a portfolio from the community,” Jarvis said.
“I understand pledges don’t normally happen in city budgets.”
Council member Rachel Anderson said the request “feels so sudden” and was hesitant to make a decision “without anything being written in stone.”
She also expressed concern over “what ifs,” such as state funds going elsewhere and if the city needed to use funds it had pledged in an emergency.
“I’m also concerned about all these older (school) buildings,” Anderson said. “It feels so odd trying to fund it when there are so many buildings in the district that need funding too.”
Armacost said he supports CTE programs but feels there are concerns in the community, namely from manufactured home park residents, about tightening budgets.
“If I was in that position, I’d feel I wasn’t being heard,” he said.
“But now we’re tentatively looking at quarter of a million dollars when there’s people looking at how they’re going to pay next month’s rent.”
Council member Kathy Downer said she, too, supports CTE but wasn’t ready to make a pledge.
“I don’t feel like we’ve had enough time to commit to an amount by January,” she said. “The government moves very slowly.”
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Michael Dashiell is the editor of the Sequim Gazette of the Olympic Peninsula News Group, which also is composed of other Sound Publishing newspapers Peninsula Daily News and Forks Forum. Reach him at editor@sequimgazette.com. He serves on a Sequim High School CTE advisory group.
Matthew Nash is a reporter with the Olympic Peninsula News Group. Reach him at mnash@sequimgazette.com.
