SEQUIM ¬ — Questions about life in Sequim wallpapered the room: What do you think about . . . drug abuse, “ecosystem recovery,” population increases, “green jobs” and business opportunities, “youth culture” and “retired culture,” and a general “sense of community”?
It was a recruitment session for Sequim Speaks, a new advisory group geared toward starting a conversation between Dungeness Valley folk and their government.
About 60 people joined the meeting at the Guy Cole Convention Center Thursday night, including city officials who hope to grow the group by attracting many more applicants.
The sole requirement for membership in Sequim Speaks is “being part of the community,” said Ken Hays, the City Council member who first advanced the idea in early 2008.
The panel will have 15 to 22 members, including people from inside and outside the city limit, added Linda Herzog, Sequim’s interim city manager.
Panel selection
The seven City Council members will choose those panelists from the pool of people who submit their applications between now and May 15.
The council also will invite representatives from the Jamestown S’Klallam tribe and Clallam County and Sequim city government.
Hays and Erik Erichsen were the only council members in attendance at the Sequim Speaks meeting, though many staff people, including city parks coordinator Jeff Edwards, associate planner Joe Irvin and Police Chief Robert Spinks joined the discussions, as did Clallam County Commissioner Steve Tharinger, a Democrat who lives in unincorporated Dungeness.
Hays invited everyone to form four groups according to the area of Sequim they live in. Then members of the Sequim Speaks planning group, which met for several months last year to set parameters, explained how the new panel will work.
“We’re all neighbors, sharing ideas,” counselor Ruth Marcus told her group.
Sequim Speaks was designed to be a two-way street on which residents, elected officials and city planners talk with one another.
“This group will self-organize,” and find its own way to effectiveness, added Pat Johansen, another planning-group member.
Hays said that people in any small town begin to feel disconnected from their government as the population swells.
He hopes Sequim Speaks will be an antidote, giving residents from all over and around the city a way to have their voices heard at City Hall.
‘Serve whole valley’
“Sequim serves the whole valley,” Hays said, so of course people who reside outside the city limit have a stake in how the environment evolves.
Andrew Shogren, a farmland preservation advocate who lives just west of town, said he was pleased with Sequim Speaks’ inclusivity.
The group will have a simple majority of city residents, but people living outside the town’s boundaries are welcome.
Until now, Shogren said, unincorporated county residents like him have been “orphans.”
He planned to fill out the “volunteer/outreach support person” part of the Sequim Speaks application.
Sharon DelaBarre, also a member of the planning committee, said Sequim Speaks is a stimulus for that old idea called democracy.
“Bring your ideas, your expertise and your passions to the table,” she said.
Not everybody is going to agree on everything, of course, but she believes it’s possible to “work through some of the issues,” via dialogue and information-sharing.
Two-year terms
Sequim Speaks members will serve two-year terms and may choose to be spokespeople for their neighborhoods.
But being part of the panel doesn’t mean one must speak directly to elected officials and city staff.
Residents of the Dungeness Valley may pick up and drop off their applications by May 15 at City Hall, 152 W. Cedar St. The application form will also be available on the city’s Web site, www.ci.Sequim.wa.us.
“The real strength of this,” Hays said, “is the networking within the neighborhoods.”
If more Sequim area residents feel their voice can be heard by city officials, “that to me would be success.”
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@peninsula dailynews.com.
