Port Angeles voters should reject ballot measure City of Port Angeles Proposition 1, which seeks to downgrade the city’s government status from “code city” to “second-class city.”
Prop 1 is a measure to revert the city government form to “second class.”
Under “second class,” the people lose their rights to petition and to make initiatives at the city level.
A change to “second class” would kill innovation in the area, it would kill any hopes at job growth and it will not — as proponents assert — bring “change” or lower taxes.
Taking away the people’s right to petition local government does not give them more of a voice or more control.
Just the opposite.
The measure sadly appears to be a thinly disguised end-run around the democratic process.
Port Angeles is in the middle of an election cycle that will bring in four new duly elected City Council members, and yet the measure’s petitioners purport to up-end that process to bring in a “full new City Council” (“Second-Class City Question Advances For Port Angeles,” PDN, April 7).
If the proponents of the measure want change in a certain direction for the city, they should run for office or support candidates who will run for office who share their vision for the city.
Vote “no” on Proposition 1.
Virginia Shogren,
Sequim