SEQUIM — Nine people have applied for appointment to the Sequim City Council for the unexpired term left by the resignation of Dennis Smith, the fourth such council appointment in the past 12 months.
The application deadline for the appointment was Friday. The council plans to conduct interviews and perhaps name an appointee on Feb. 22.
At 6 p.m. tonight, the Sequim Good Governance League, which formed in opposition to the dismissal of City Manager Charlie Bush and other city issues, will host a Meet the Applicants Night.
Zoom links to the meeting are available at tinyurl.com/1q3dxlck as well as the Sequim Good Governance website, www.sequimgood governanceleague.org. Another such meeting is set for the same time Feb. 16.
Smith, a former mayor who served from 2012 to 2016, left for personal reasons.
The most recently appointed member was retired California fire chief Keith Larkin in late October. He filled the unexpired term of Troy Tenneson after he resigned Aug. 21, citing a family emergency.
Larkin was one of six people who had applied for the Position 6 seat to which he was appointed.
Of those six who applied last fall, four have again applied for the Position 4 seat: Janine Bocciardi, Kathy Downer, Vicki Lowe and Lowell Rathbun.
Applications from all nine members can be seen on the Sequim City website. (Pop-up blockers can interfere with viewing documents.)
The nine candidates, listed in alphabetical order, are:
• Rachel Anderson — Anderson volunteers on the Sequim Education Foundation board and is the Olympic Community Action Programs (OlyCAP) board member who represents low-income families. She also chairs OlyCAP’s Headstart Policy Council.
She said she is a parent and full-time college student studying business administration.
She lived in Sequim from 1990 to 2009 and returned in 2011.
Her priorities on the council would be “to help select a new city manager while learning from my fellow council members. She also said she would “contribute the perspective of low-income families.”
• Janine Bocciardi — Bocciardi, who works part-time performing educational database design and coding as well as complex data analysis, has lived in Sequim for more than five years.
She said her goal as a council member would be “making Sequim’s residents feel that their concerns are heard and considered; and ensuring that the majority of citizens are begin served by existing and new laws.”
“Sometimes the best question to ask people is: “What are you most afraid of?” The answer to that question often reveals the true concerns … ”
• Cynthia P. Dinan — Dinan, who has lived in Sequim city limits for seven years but added she had raised her children in Sequim before leaving and returning to the area, works at the Clallam County Respite Care Center.
She has worked as director of activities at the Dungeness Courte Memory Care as a teacher and substitute teacher.
Among her priorities are education, an economic climate that would provide opportunities for young people and mental health.
• Kathy Downer —Downer, who retired as a nurse after 43 years, moved to town in June 2019.
She had served as a city council member in Marietta, Ohio, a town of 14,000. She was on the police/fire and water/sewer committees and chaired the streets committee. She now is on the Sequim Planning Commission.
She said her priorities on the council would be increasing light manufacturing jobs, setting aside some short-term RV parking and creating more workforce housing.
• Vicki Lowe — Lowe, who has lived in Sequim since she was 5, has been the executive director of the American Indian Health Commission for Washington State since 2015.
Before then, she served as interim administrator of the organization and worked as tribal benefits manager for the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe.
Lowe now serves on the Equity and Inclusion Community Design Team and sits on the Peninsula Behavioral Health board. She assisted the steering committee for Voices for Health and Healing and has been a school volunteer.
Her priorities include helping businesses survive the pandemic, increasing health services to Sequim residents, pursuing community partnership and working for good schools.
• Daryl Scott Ness — Ness moved to Sequim in March 2020 after retiring as CEO of Peninsula Terminal Company in Portland, Ore.
He said he would listen to citizens’ viewpoints and share viewpoints of others.
“Finding middle ground is so important when possible.”
• Lowell Rathbun — Rathbun has lived in Sequim for two years with an additional six months in Clallam County after retiring from Tektronix, Inc., in Beaverton, Ore.
He was an instructor and executive board member for the National Alliance on Mental Illness in Oregon and has been a longtime member of the Democratic Party; in Clallam County, he serves as a precinct committee officer.
Among the issues he wants to help correct on the council are: More political balance, more help for individuals who have suffered under pandemic restrictions and to create more affordable housing. He also is in favor of the medication-assisted treatment clinic planned by the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe.
• David Rich — Rich, a former forester in Northern California, has been a pastor for the past 30 years. He has lived in Port Townsend, Port Angeles and Sequim.
He has served in the U.S. Coast Guard and the U.S. Air Guard.
His priority on the Sequim City Council would be “to bring political balance to work in a bipartisan manner.
“Yes, I have conservative values, which I don’t want to see be completely taken away, and yet I think you need to always look at all the differences and use wisdom in making decisions that would affect the City of Sequim as a whole.”
• Autumn Wolfgang — Wolfgang describes herself as a small business owner, stay-at-home mother and active community member.
She has lived in Sequim for about five years but said she has spent the better part of a decade volunteering in different capacities in the neighboring area.
Her priority on the council would be “to help develop our community to the appeal of our growing demographic of young families.”
