SEQUIM — It could be a solar-powered generator of money for the city. A magnet for soggy Seattleites. An on-screen portal to peace and quiet — relatively speaking.
It’s a weather station and Web camera that Pat McCauley of the Sequim Marketing Action Committee believes will drive sun seekers to this part of the Peninsula.
Last month McCauley asked the Sequim City Council to allocate $13,000 from the city’s 2007 budget for a WeatherBug camera system to be perched on Reservoir Road, where it would capture live shots of the city and the Strait of Juan de Fuca, both basking in rays.
“It’s what we sell: Sunny Sequim,” she said.
McCauley added that producers at Seattle’s KING-TV have told her, “When you get your weather cam, we’ll feature you on the news.”
And McCauley believes that kind of exposure across the rainier Puget Sound region will turn viewers’ minds westward.
Weather-camera shots would also be shown on www.VisitSun.com, the Sequim-Dungeness Valley Chamber of Commerce’s tourism Web site.
McCauley hopes the city’s site, www.ci.sequim.wa.us, would provide a link, too.
Along with current images, the weather station would generate Sequim’s weather forecast.
Revenue for the weather camera system would come from the city’s hotel-motel tax, which has dipped a bit this year.
By Oct. 31 the city reported $106,126 in lodging taxes, and McCauley expects the year-end total to come in around $125,000.
That’s down from last year’s $129,970.
McCauley blames the decline on rising gas prices and a softening real estate market.