Clallam County committee advances charter amendment requiring annual town halls, 30-day public notice

Clallam County Charter Review Committee members on Monday agreed to send a revised charter amendment to the next step that would require each county commissioner to hold at least one town-hall meeting in their commissioner district each year, and require all members of the Board of County Commissioners to hold at least one town-hall meeting in each commissioner district annually.

The committee also agreed to require public notice of those meetings at least 30 days before the event and removed language that would have tied a specific budget allocation or other monetary incentive to town-hall outcomes. The committee did not adopt mandatory language about hybrid platforms and struck proposed language calling for simultaneous meetings in all districts.

Why it matters: The change would formalize recurring outreach by commissioners and the committee framed the amendment as a tool to increase public participation and transparency. Members debated frequency, scheduling outside of normal working hours, how to avoid inadvertently privileging one community, and how the Open Public Meetings Act (OPMA) could apply if all three commissioners attend the same meeting.

What the committee…