SEQUIM — After a year and a half of gritted teeth and disputes in the Sequim City Council chambers, familiar faces emerged last week as candidates, each with his own plans for moving the city forward.
Three of them – Bob Anundson, Mike East and Don Hall — are running for the position to be vacated by Paul McHugh, a semiretired Realtor who has said that his eight years on the council were enough.
The other two open seats on the Sequim council are held by Walt Schubert, 69, and Bill Huizinga, 68, both of whom are running for re-election.
Friday afternoon, shortly before the filing deadline, Schubert acquired a challenger: Ted Miller, a 63-year-old retired attorney who is now chairman of the Sequim Planning Commission.
McHugh, 52, said that he was proud of the council’s accomplishments — until the “new four,” Ken Hays, Susan Lorenzen, Erik Erichsen and Mayor Laura Dubois, were elected in November 2007.
Three vie for seat
McHugh and Schubert have disagreed with the newer members over developers’ impact fees, a proposed sales-tax increase to fund street improvements and, most fervently, the firing of city manager Bill Elliott during a study session on May 5, 2008.
The “new four” voted to terminate Elliott, saying his “laissez-faire” style no longer suited Sequim, while McHugh, the only other council member present, voted to keep him.
Since then the hunt for a new city manager has been tortuous and costly. Three finalists were brought to town last November, but no hiring agreement was reached; then the council hired the Seattle search firm Waldron & Co. to start recruitment over again this spring. The fee: $20,000.
Anundson served on the City Council for nine months in 2007 after he was appointed to succeed Patricia Kasovia-Schmitt after she resigned, but lost his bid for election to Erichsen.
East is vice chairman of the Sequim Planning Commission.
Both men decry the firing of Elliott and the subsequent spending.
East, 66, said he wants to bring “common sense” back to the council, and is part of Sequim Sense, a group whose Web site, www.SequimSense.com, criticizes what it calls the new four’s “change for change’s sake” tack.
Anundson, 67, opposed last year’s ballot measure to raise sales tax within Sequim two-tenths of 1 percent to pay for sidewalks and road work, saying the city must “live within its means.”
Dubois and Lorenzen were strong advocates of the increase, emphasizing that it would not affect non-taxable necessities such as grocery-store food and prescriptions.
The measure, added to last November’s ballot, failed by a narrow margin. During its meeting at 6 p.m. Monday in the Transit Center, 190 W. Cedar St., the council plans to discuss a second try this November.
Hall, the third man to file for the seat last week, said he supports the sales-tax hike. More important, he said, he believes he can bring harmony to the council.
“I don’t have anything bad to say about the four new people . . . I like to get consensus. I like to get things done,” said Hall, who served for six years on the council before Lorenzen defeated him in 2007.
He added that he has since worked with her on planning parks and trails, since he is now a member of the Citizens Park Advisory Board. Hall said too that he helped Hays with the formation of Sequim Speaks, a new citizens advisory panel.
Hall is proud of on-the-ground projects he pushed while a council member, such as the paving of a wheelchair-friendly path to the James Center bandshell, the upgrading of Carrie Blake Park’s softball diamonds and the establishment of Sequim’s off-leash dog park.
At 77, he learns of changing needs in the city by walking 5 to 10 miles a day across it.
Schubert-Miller contest
Miller believes that Schubert, now in his 10th year on the council, makes it too cheap and easy for developers to come to Sequim.
“He did everything he could to minimize the costs,” of building here, Miller added, instead of requiring developers to pay for needed sewer and water system expansions.
“Ted Miller is a good man,” Schubert said Friday evening. But “he doesn’t understand the history of the area. Go back 10 years, and this area was dead.
“The council, with my leadership, stimulated economic development here … and we’re going to keep having more development. We just have to manage it.”
When asked what he thinks of the “new four,” in contrast, Miller was upbeat.
“I support Mayor Dubois,” he said, adding that he sees an improvement this year over last year in the newer members’ decision-making.
Finally Miller said he also supports Huizinga’s efforts to bring more “workforce housing,” homes affordable to teachers, police officers, firefighters and other moderate-income earners, to the city.
“It’s important for people who work in Sequim to be able to live in Sequim,” he said.
Huizinga
Through it all, Huizinga has usually stayed out of the council fray, remaining quiet while Dubois, Hays and Lorenzen disagreed with McHugh and Schubert on many issues.
Dubois, for one, has said she has enjoyed serving with him.
As filing week ended, Huizinga emerged as the only member who will run unopposed in November.
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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.
