PORT ANGELES –– Saying they are up against a pending ballot deadline, attorneys Thursday implored Clallam County Superior Court Judge Erik Rohrer to order a pair of initiatives to change Sequim’s dealings with municipal employee unions be put on the Nov. 4 general election ballot.
“The timing is critical,” said Shawn Newman, attorney for Susan Brautigam of Sequim, who filed a lawsuit against the city Sept. 3 because it did not respond to the local initiatives within the legally prescribed time frame.
Responding that voting will begin as soon as Friday, city and county officials said that deadline has already passed.
“It’s impossible to get the ballots printed in time,” Clallam County Prosecuting Attorney Will Payne told Rohrer.
Rohrer said he needed to read more about each side’s case and pledged to offer a written ruling soon.
The initiatives, presented to the city of Sequim on July 28 through a pair of petitions organized by Susan Shotthaffer of Port Angeles, seek to open contract negotiations with municipal employee unions and allow city workers to opt out of union representation.
Thursday’s hearing was on Brautigam’s lawsuit, which claims state law that allows municipal initiatives spells out a time frame the city did not meet.
City Attorney Craig Ritchie argued the state law that lays out election timelines required issues for the November ballot be submitted to the county auditor by Aug. 5.
“That is when you have to have a resolution for a ballot issue,” Ritchie said.
Newman said the county’s contract with Everett-based K&H Printers specified a Sept. 22 deadline for ballots to be produced.
That date is only the last day it could be done, and the ballots are already printed, Clallam County Auditor Patty Rosand said after the hearing.
Rosand also noted that each election must have its own separate database that corresponds with ballots and is set up well before the ballots are printed. The Nov. 4 database, she said, already has been set.
She added that some 300 ballots will be mailed today to Clallam County residents serving overseas in the military and estimated that another 200 military members will be able to vote online starting today.
Under the law that allows for initiatives to be filed in Sequim, the city has 20 days after petitions are certified by the county auditor to either respond to the proposals or put them on the ballot for a public vote.
“The citizens who organized these petitions did so under the rules spelled out on the city’s website,” Scott Roberts, an activist with the conservative Olympia think tank Freedom Foundation, said after the hearing.
“If those rules aren’t right, why even have the power of initiative?”
Sequim is one of 57 of the state’s 281 communities that allow citizen initiatives.
Rosand certified the petitions Aug. 8, which would have given the city a deadline of Aug. 28.
The Sequim City Council on Sept. 8 voted to do neither of the prescribed options after Ritchie advised them the initiatives could put the city in legal jeopardy.
The legality of the initiatives was briefly discussed before Rohrer on Thursday, but the issues he was considering centered around the ballot deadline and whether the Teamsters Local 589, which represents 50 Sequim employees, could join the city’s defense.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Joe Smillie can be reached at 360-681-2390, ext. 5052, or at jsmillie@peninsuladailynews.com.
