SEQUIM — Tonight, the park will seethe with passion, as neighbors confront neighbors. What, in little Sequim?
Isn’t that an exaggeration about this evening’s meeting in the community hall at Carrie Blake Park?
Not if you’re talking about the Sequim-Dungeness Valley Chamber of Commerce.
In the nine weeks since the board of directors fired Executive Director Lee Lawrence, the chamber has been riven by disputes between officials and the Concerned Chamber Committee, a group of 15 seeking to reshape the organization.
During a chamber forum on Feb. 12, several CCC members, charging that the board had given too little information about its reasons for firing Lawrence, demanded that every board official step down. All but Hattie Dixon and Ron Gilles did.
Calling the board irresponsible, CCC members also said the chamber is long overdue for a financial audit. But its leaders have been “a closed society,” said Gil Simon, spokesman for the CCC.
After the Feb. 12 forum, Dixon and Gilles formed an interim board of directors with City Councilman and former Mayor Walt Schubert as president. Schubert and Simon then managed to plan a special meeting to allow all chamber members to vote on removing the interim board, revising chamber bylaws and scheduling an election of permanent board members in early April.
That meeting starts at 6 p.m. today.
