EDITOR’S NOTE: Stephanie Noblin of Port Angeles (email: sn@larrynoblin.com) videotapes the Charter Review Commission meetings.

You can watch her 2-hour, 50-minute YouTube video of Monday’s meeting (May 4) on this page; it is embedded immediately below this news story. Or you can view it at https://youtu.be/wCrBLUy0Gy8

You can see other commission meeting videos at her YouTube website. Noblin files as “Justice Restoration.”

PORT ANGELES — The Clallam County Charter Review Commission has winnowed down concepts to bring to a series of public hearings next month.

Among them: changing the composition of the Board of County Commissioners from three to five members and electing a Charter Review Commission every four years instead of every eight.

Voted down for inclusion on the public hearings agenda was the idea of making the elected community development director an appointed position.

Members of the public can still testify on any topic they want at the hearings.

“They are not constrained, but we will try to frame issues that we think are of most importance,” committee Chairwoman Norma Turner said.

Clallam is one of seven counties in the state that operate under a home-rule charter.

The elected Charter Review Commission will incorporate citizen input as it develops proposed charter amendments for voters to consider in the November election.

Public hearings

Public hearings are planned for June 1 in Forks, June 15 in Sequim and June 29 in Port Angeles.

The hearings will begin at 6:30 p.m. Locations have not been announced.

A general charter review meeting will be held at 6:30 p.m. May 18 in Room 160 at the Clallam County Courthouse, 223 E. Fourth St., Port Angeles.

The 15-member commission has broken into subcommittees to study each of the 13 articles in the county charter.

Most members are serving on multiple subcommittees.

Proposals

In a meeting Monday night, the Charter Review Commission voted to bring the following proposals to the public hearings:

■ Change the word “cooperation” in section 1.20 of the county charter to “coordination.”

■ Elect the Board of County Commissioners by district in both the primary and general elections.

■ Change the composition of the board from three to five members.

■ Define “the county” in the charter.

■ Define the duties of the administrator with regard to other elected officials and the budget process.

■ Move initiatives and referendums to the ballot without transmission through the Board of County Commissioners.

■ Change the charter to allow citizens 120 days rather than 90 days to gather petition signatures for initiatives and referendums.

■ Revise the appeals process for county employees who have been suspended or dismissed.

■ Restrict elected county officials, the county administrator and charter-exempt employees from serving on the Charter Review Commission.

■ Elect a Charter Review Commission every four years.

Voted down

Some of the proposals that were voted down for inclusion on the public hearings agendas were:

■ Make the elected community development director an appointed position.

■ Separate the executive and legislative authority of the Board of County Commissioners in the budget process.

■ Require that all tax increases exceeding $500,000 in annual revenue be approved by a vote of the people.

■ Require that changes to land-use regulations that cost more than $5 million be approved by a vote of the people.

■ Place the county’s “human environment” on equal footing with its “natural environment.”

“These are merely concepts at this level,” said committee member Sue Forde, who made a motion to place all items on the public hearing agendas.

“Since these items came from the public, I believe we owe the public the opportunity to speak to them at the public hearings.”

Ted Miller countered that committee members should “do our job and winnow these down a little bit.”

“Some, in my opinion, are clearly beyond the scope of the CRC [Charter Review Commission], and others are really more policy issues that should go to the county commissioners and not the CRC,” Miller said.

“Many of these are from people who don’t like government, don’t trust government, and so there’s some very ambiguous concepts,” Mike Doherty added.

“Some of these are more sort of tea partyish, I’ll say for a lack of a better term.”

Grand jury

Meanwhile, new subcommittees were formed Monday to study the merits of a grand jury system and a charter enforcement commission.

A group of citizens called the Justice Restoration Group has asked the Charter Review Commission to propose a new article in the charter that would form a grand jury system.

The new subcommittees will report to the full commission at the May 18 meeting.

In other news from the three-hour meeting, the commission voted 9-5 to ask the Board of County Commissioners to establish a county trust lands advisory committee within three months.

The advisory committee would make recommendations on the reconveyance of forest board trust lands back to the county for management.

Near the end of the meeting, the commission voted 8-6 to mail 32,700 single-page surveys to citizens for feedback on charter-related issues.

“We tried it before, and we got 2,400 responses,” said Turner, who has served on several charter reviews.

The Clallam County charter is available on the county website, www.clallam.net.

Click on “Board of Commissioners” and “Home Rule Charter” to navigate to the charter review home page.

Stephanie Noblin of Port Angeles (email: sn@larrynoblin.com) videotapes most Charter Review Commission meetings. Ed Bowen of Clallam Bay videotaped a meeting on her behalf Monday night.

You can watch the two-hour, 51-minute YouTube video of Monday’s meeting at www.tinyurl.com/PDN-charterMay4.

You can see other commission meeting videos at Noblin’s YouTube website. Noblin files as “Justice Restoration.”

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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5072, or at rollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.