SEQUIM — Susan Strand, 65, and Andrew Shogren, 41, are at different stages of life.
One is semiretired; the other has two small children.
But the two moved here for one reason.
Sequim was, when they arrived, a small town — a world away from Strand’s Phoenix in Arizona or Shogren’s San Diego in Southern California.
So when the Comprehensive Plan, Sequim’s guide for growth over the next decade, came due for an update, they were eager to offer input.
Last January, they joined 12 other area residents on the Citizens Ad Hoc Committee, and spent 10 weeks analyzing the plan.
The committee then wrote recommendations for ways Sequim could add population, housing and shopping without losing its rural feeling.
Now the City Council is about to hold one of the last public hearings on the plan, Monday at 6 p.m. in the Transit Center, 190 W. Cedar St.
Mayor Walt Schubert and other City Council members have praised the citizens committee’s efforts and encouraged Sequim residents to add their own comments.
Committee’s input
Shogren, however, said the council members have been less than agreeable toward the committee’s input.
In the plan’s chapter on environmental issues, for example, “it looks like they removed three of our four recommendations on environmental goals,” he said.
The council also added words that trouble him.
Environmental goal No. 4, for example, states that the city should preserve significant species of plants and animals, “where feasible and when it does not endanger the citizens . . . or adversely affect economic enterprise.”
Those last five words about enterprise “gutted the goal,” said Shogren. “That lets them out of everything,” when it comes to deciding between wildlife preservation and economic development.