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Charter panel approves seven-question survey after debate over distribution and paper responses
Summary
The commission voted to accept an outreach committee's seven-question survey as an official survey instrument after members debated its drafting, how paper responses would be collected, whether questions reflected town-hall input, and whether additional surveys should be allowed.
The Clallam County Charter Review Commission voted May 6 to accept a seven-question survey drafted by the outreach/town-hall committee and authorized by an earlier committee vote, despite public and commissioner debate about the survey's content and distribution.
Commissioners and members of the public raised concerns that the survey was drafted without explicit agenda notice and that paper copies had been distributed then removed while staff developed a tracking process. Commissioner Morris said she asked staff to publish the survey and later had it briefly pulled to create a reliable process for paper submissions; she said paper surveys would be available by request through staff and those responses will be added to the SurveyMonkey results.
During public comment, several residents criticized the survey as too short, questioned how questions were chosen, and urged broader outreach. Commissioner Tozer and others noted the outreach committee spent multiple meetings drafting the instrument and the group voted 11-1 to approve the questions at a prior meeting; several commissioners said that record is in the meeting packet.
After discussion, the commission moved to accept the attached survey as the panel's survey and voted in favor. Commissioners and staff said the survey will run through May 31 and paper copies will be accepted if requested from the clerk's office (staffer Lonnie was named as the contact for paper forms). The chair clarified that additional, separate surveys may be circulated by individual commissioners if they choose.
The commission did not adopt any charter language tonight based on the survey's results; the survey was positioned as an outreach and information-gathering tool to help prioritize possible charter amendments and ballot topics.
The panel also adopted a separate, low-technology "sticker" poster exercise (each commissioner places up to 10 stickers on priority topics) so commissioners themselves can publicly display priorities at a later session.
