SEQUIM — Eight new leaders of the Sequim-Dungeness Valley Chamber of Commerce were named Thursday, following an election that racked the community.
The newly elected members of the chamber board of directors are Bill Littlejohn, Emily Westcott, Stephen Rosales, Scott Clausen, Damian Humphreys, Bill Thomas, Liz Beth Harper and Ron Bell.
None of the election’s victors is part of the Concerned Chamber Committee, or CCC, a group of business people who’ve called for a more accountable, responsive chamber board.
“If any of you were concerned about your being able to serve on the chamber board of directors under the current and prospective ‘leadership,’ rest easy,” a sarcastic Gil Simon, the CCC’s spokesman, wrote in an e-mail to CCC members on Thursday.
“This is a clean sweep and closeout of all CCC members and supporters.”
Littlejohn is owner of Sherwood Assisted Living and a prominent philanthropist.
Westcott is a retired educator and current Irrigation Festival volunteer.
Rosales is 2007’s Sequim Citizen of the Year and a Sequim Food Bank and a volunteer with the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Olympic Peninsula.
Clausen is co-owner of Peninsula Mailing and a retired naval officer.
As the top four vote-getters, they were elected to serve on the board until 2010.
Humphreys is marketing director for the Quality Inn and planned Sequim Holiday Inn Express, and a former board member who stepped down amid controversy over the board’s Jan. 18 firing of chamber executive director Lee Lawrence.
Thomas is a former mayor of Sequim who’s now with Bagley Creek Associates.
Harper is a retired mediator who’s a member of the nonprofit Blue Whole Gallery.
Bell is an attorney who’s lived and practiced in Sequim for decades.
These four form the next tier of top vote-getters, and will serve on the board until 2009.
Sequim Bible Church pastor Dave Wiitala, the election inspector, said that more than 250 ballots were mailed to him from chamber members, who number 432.
The ballots had to be postmarked by Saturday; Wiitala spent all of Tuesday and some of Thursday counting them.
“We had to verify that they were all from chamber members,” he said, adding that he used the outer mailing envelopes to check voters’ names against the chamber database, and then separated the envelopes from the ballots to ensure anonymity.
