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Clallam charter change would limit candidates’ spending

Published 5:06 am Sunday, July 8, 2007

By Jim Casey, Peninsula Daily News

PORT ANGELES – Clallam County Charter Review Commissioners hitched up their britches Monday and carried three more proposed changes a step farther on the road to the Nov. 6 election.

They already had agreed to forward two other issues to Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Mark Nichols for review:

  • Should the director of the Department of Community Development continue to be elected, not appointed?

  • Should the Charter Review Commission be chosen every eight years instead of every five?

    Meeting Monday night, they voted to send three more issues to Nichols:

  • Should campaign spending by candidates for county offices be held to the same spending limits as candidates for the Legislature, currently 41 cents per voter?

  • Should the county enable county commissioners someday to approve Instant Runoff Voting, also known as ranked-choice voting?

  • Should voters forbid the county to seize real estate by eminent domain for the sole purpose of economic development, primarily by private developers?

    Still awaiting Nichols’ advice is the question of limiting terms for county elected officials.

    He will tell them July 16 if the limits are constitutional.

    A proposal is pending that voters must ratify new taxes.

    Another idea – to increase the number of county commissioners, choose them only within their districts and elect the county administrator – appears to have died.

    The 15 charter commissioners – five from each county district – were chosen last November to review the charter, the county’s constitution.

    Forwarding the five issues to Nichols doesn’t guarantee they will appear in the election that will end Nov. 6.

    He will rule only on their legality and how they must be worded.

    If Nichols approves the substance and form of the measures, the charter commissioners will vote whether to place them on the ballot.

    Although Nichols’ approval won’t amount to a certainty, it will heighten the probability that voters will decide the issues.

    The proposals in brief:

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