PORT ANGELES — A panel elected to review the Clallam County charter has identified the county administrator’s position as its top priority for study.
Eleven of the 15 members of the Charter Review Commission signed up to study the charter’s Article 6, which governs the appointment and duties of the administrator, in a Monday night meeting.
The commission is tasked with reviewing the county “constitution” for government and may recommend charter amendments for voters to consider in November.
Other popular articles for study include legislative and executive branches (Article 2), other elected officials (Article 4) and charter review, amendment and repeal (Article 11), with nine members signing up for all three.
Eight panelists will review Article 8 concerning the powers of initiative, referendum and refers to recall.
No other article drew interest from more than five members of the commission.
“What we’re doing is seeing which articles we would prioritize in our discussion,” said Norma Turner, who chairs the commission, during the meeting.
“For example, there is nobody who cares about Article 3 [legislation]. We’re not going to spend much time on it. But we have a lot of people who are interested in Article 6.”
The 13 articles of the county charter are available on the Clallam County website, www.clallam.net.
Click on “Board of Commissioners” and “Home Rule Charter” to navigate to the charter review home page.
“We can begin to discuss the articles according to the ones that have the greatest interest,” Turner said.
“The other thing you can do is you can begin to use this [matrix] to create subcommittees.”
Subcommittees composed of no more than seven members of the commission will be formed to study specific sections of the articles.
“Any article that has more than a quorum, we’ll be discussing that at the next meeting to try to split it into sections,” Turner said.
The article concerning the county administrator has a section mandating his or her appointment and a section listing the duties and responsibilities of the job.
The county administrator is appointed by the three-member Board of County Commissioners to oversee day-to-day operations in county government and to submit an annual budget.
Jim Jones is the current county administrator.
Commission member Selinda Barkhuis, the current county treasurer, has questioned the need for a county administrator and has criticized Jones personally.
She named the county administrator position as her top priority during the charter review panel election in November.
Barkhuis was among the 11 panelists who signed up to study Article 6.
“Every county has somebody who does the day-to-day administrative work, whether they’re a charter county or not,” Jones said Wednesday.
He reserved further comment until he hears specific concerns from the commission.
Clallam is one of seven counties in the state that operate under a home-rule charter.
A Charter Review Commission is elected by Clallam County citizens every eight years.
It has five representatives from each of the three commissioner districts.
Last November, voters elected Sue Forde, Ken Hays, Ronald Bell, Nola Judd and Ted Miller to represent District 1, the easternmost district in the county.
Central District 2 is represented by Turner, Glenn Wiggins, Maggie Roth, Steven Burke and Barkhuis.
District 3, which stretches from Valley Creek in Port Angeles to the Pacific Ocean, is represented by Mike Doherty, Barbara Christensen, Rod Fleck, Connie Beauvais and Cheryl Williams.
An executive committee composed of Turner, Forde and Christensen has been formed.
The executive committee will invite elected county officials and Jones to speak before the commission in three meetings in March.
The commission’s next meeting will be a public hearing Feb. 17.
The hearing will begin at 6:30 p.m. in the public meeting room (160) at the Clallam County Courthouse, 223 E. Fourth St., Port Angeles.
Other public hearings will be held in Sequim and Forks.
Agendas are posted on the charter review home page.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5072, or at rollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.