PORT ANGELES — A city of Port Angeles Nov. 6 water fluoridation survey will include oversight by retired Clallam County Auditor Patty Rosand and extensive measures to ensure the results are impartial and tamper-proof, officials said.
The survey and the public hearings that will precede it were outlined at the Port Angeles City Council meeting on Tuesday.
Nathan West, city community and economic development director, said Wednesday that council members can make changes in the process as Nov. 6 draws near.
Rosand, who retired Dec. 31, said Wednesday she was approached by City Manager Dan McKeen to supervise the survey count.
She said her name also was brought up by several people as suitable for the job.
“All the parties would feel comfortable if it was not someone associated with the city who was involved in counting the surveys,” Rosand said.
“As I have many years of experience doing things like that, I sort of feel it’s my civic duty to heed their call.”
The survey will be mailed to an estimated 10,000 city water users inside and outside city limits.
It will go to the addresses of about 8,500 city water users and 1,500 users of city water in the Clallam County Public Utility District.
City Council members will consider the survey results when they decide whether to continue the much-debated 10-year-long pledge to fluoridate city water, a practice that has generated comments at numerous council meetings since August 2014.
The fluoridation commitment to the Washington Dental Service Foundation, which provided $260,000 to install the equipment and educate the public, will end May 18, 2016.
The public review process of fluoridation begins in earnest at 6 p.m. Oct. 22 with a public hearing at City Hall, 321 E. Fifth St.
The hearing, which will be moderated by Clallam County League of Women Voters past president Sue Erzen of Sequim, will feature presentations only by committees for and against fluoridation.
Each committee also will submit to the council 10 questions that they will be prepared to answer.
The City Council will select five for each committee to answer. The council also can add its own questions or alter the questions that are submitted.
Each side will have 20 minutes to respond to the questions and a 15-minute rebuttal.
There will be no public comment.
The public will get its chance at a second hearing at 6 p.m. Oct. 29 at City Hall.
Another moderator will coordinate that hearing, League member Anne Hastings Murray said Wednesday, adding that efforts will be made to find someone from the Sequim area.
Preference for comments will first be given to city residents and to those PUD customers east of Port Angeles who receive city water.
Others can speak if there is time.
Speakers will have up to three minutes to state their opinions.
The Edgewood marketing company, Databar Inc., which produces the city’s utility bills, will publish the surveys and mail them Nov. 6.
West, who filled in at Tuesday’s council meeting for McKeen, who is on vacation, said each survey will include a self-addressed, postage-paid envelope.
It must be postmarked by Nov. 27 and will be addressed to a secure post office box, West said Wednesday.
He said city officials anticipate the ballots will be counted “within a few weeks” after the deadline.
The survey envelopes will include 250-word statements prepared by pro-fluoridation and anti-fluoridation committees and 150-word rebuttals penned by each side.
The questions will be written by the city.
A single survey will be mailed to every water connection, resulting in each family giving its opinion on one survey form.
“They need to just discuss it as family and come up with a consensus and send that vote in,” McKeen said in an interview last week.
Residents connected to city water in both their homes and businesses will receive more than one survey.
“No matter what process we use, there is probably no perfect process,” McKeen said.
“We want to get as many back as possible to ensure we have as much input as possible from our citizens and those individuals within the PUD that receive fluoridated water.”
West did not have a cost estimate for conducting the survey.
Rosand said she expects to get paid for supervising the count but does not yet know how much.
West said she would be paid as a city employee.
The PUD will pay for its portion of surveys mailed out to non-city residents.
“Our priority is making sure we have a fair and impartial process and doing so in a cost-efficient manner,” West told City Council members.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5060, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.