SEQUIM — Ken Hays has his hands full. His architecture firm is busy building custom homes; he and his wife Joanna are raising a son, Bill, who’s about to be a teenager.
You wouldn’t think he’d jump at the job of mayor, which pays $250 a month.
But Hays, 55, was delighted to be chosen for that post last week by his fellow council members.
In a sense, the longtime Sequim resident has already had a hand in the development of this town — and of Clallam County’s other two cities.
Hays was the architect for Sequim’s Boys & Girls Club, the James Center bandshell at Carrie Blake Park, The Lodge at Sherwood Village, the Trinity United Methodist Church in Sequim, the Serenity House Adult Shelter and offices in Port Angeles and the Forks Transportation Center and Forestry Training Center, among many other projects over the past couple of decades.
He worked on the restoration of the Clallam County Courthouse, donated more than 1,000 hours of work to the Boys & Girls Club, and designed, pro bono, the public restrooms on Sequim Avenue and at Carrie Blake Park.
More accessible
These days, Hays’ evening reading includes the Association of Washington Cities handbook, which has a section for mayors.
It suggests setting goals, and so Hays is thinking about how to make the City Council more efficient, as well as more accessible to the people of Sequim.
To start, Hays wants a little more formality at council meetings, to prevent the “old boy network” feeling he believes has existed in previous years.
And, he said, he wants to learn ways to interrupt other members if ever their comments grow long-winded. The challenge, he said, is to cut in with grace.
Hays will act as a referee as the council confronts this year’s array of complex problems: how to pay for more and better streets and parks, how to keep downtown Sequim alive, how to fund a new $10 million city hall.
Tonight, in his second meeting as mayor, he’s likely to face members of the North Peninsula Building Association, who’ve been urged by executive officer FaLeana Wech to attend and voice their concerns about increased developers’ fees – charges Hays advocates.
The meeting will be at 6 p.m. in the Sequim Transit Center, 190 W. Cedar St.
As anyone who’s been to council meetings knows, there’s been many a clash in the Sequim Transit Center’s meeting room since Hays and three other new council members took office two years ago.
“The new four,” as they were known, voted to fire City Manager Bill Elliott in May 2008; since then Hays and then-Mayor Laura Dubois were at odds with the council’s three longtime members, Walt Schubert, Paul McHugh and Bill Huizinga.
Ted Miller defeated Schubert in last November’s election; Paul McHugh didn’t run, so Don Hall took his seat after beating Mike East. Huizinga ran unopposed, and kept his seat for another four years.
That means Huizinga is the one holdover from the period — roughly 2005 to early 2007 — when Sequim was booming, with housing tracts and big-box stores arriving at both ends of the city.
But Huizinga, 69, said he doesn’t sit around worrying about being the lone veteran, even though “there’s a philosophical difference between me and them.”
That difference is that he’s against raising the impact fees developers pay in order to build here. Hays, Dubois and Miller have been vocal in their advocacy for such fees.
Yet Huizinga remains cautiously optimistic about the seven members’ ability to move forward together.
“There’s a lot of desire on the council to do things right,” he said.
Goal-setting session
And on March 5 and 6, the members will hold a “goal-setting session,” with City Manager Steve Burkett and professional facilitator Julia Novak.
The time and place have yet to be announced, but Huizinga said the workshop’s purpose is twofold: to help the council members get along and sharpen their focus on which goals to realize in 2010.
Hays, meantime, praised Dubois for serving as mayor during a turbulent time.
The city’s search for a manager faltered, restarted and faltered again, lasting 17 months before Burkett was hired. Through it all Dubois was a steady presence, he said.
“She is one of my biggest heroes,” Hays added — but Dubois let him know she’d had enough.
For her part, Dubois, 62, describes herself as a “yep/nope kind of person,” while calling Hays “very articulate.”
Hays is known for short speeches during council meetings, on the many topics about which he’s passionate.
But with his day job running his architecture firm, he may not be able to attend everything he’s invited to.
“I’ll support him there,” Dubois said. “I can go to some of the lunches; I’ll still do ribbon-cuttings,” as mayor pro tem.
She’s also eager to put Sequim on the environmental map.
For the first four months of this year, Dubois said, she’ll be planning the city’s multifaceted celebration of the 40th anniversary of Earth Day during the week of April 22.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.