Napavine resident Merry Barnes was given a police escort from City Hall by Chief Salyers at the conclusion of Tuesday night's Napavine City Council meeting. Barnes angrily addressed members of the city government at the conclusion of the public meeting.
Scott Hamilton voiced numerous grievances to the Napavine City Council during a public meeting on Tuesday at City Hall. Hamilton, a former Napavine councilman, also announced his intention to run for council position number four during this year's election. That spot is currently held by recently appointed councilman Bob Wheeler.
At the conclusion of Tuesday's Napavine City Council meeting resident Merry Barnes angrily accused the city council of chasing personal agendas and of systematically silencing the voice of the public. The was eventually given a police escort from City Hall.
Don Webster turns to leave Napavine City Hall after being ejected from a public meeting by Mayor John Sayers on Tuesday. The man accused the City Council of evading questions and cursed the mayor before making his exit. Recently resigned councilwoman Laverne Haslett can be seen seated between Chief Salyers and Webster.
NAPAVINE — The New Year is quickly fading in the rearview, but that doesn’t mean the fireworks have stopped in Napavine.
On Tuesday, about 40 people showed up to the regularly scheduled Napavine City Council meeting. Many of them took the opportunity to voice a laundry list of grievances with the city government.
The myriad complaints covered, among other things, the city community development director; a contentious water source known as Well No. 6; a perceived lack of transparency and genuine dialogue between the council and constituents; and an ongoing fact check tit-for-tat that has included impassioned letter to the editor campaigns in The Chronicle.
In the face of so much pointed criticism and loud displeasure from the public, Mayor John Sayers elected to eject one audience member in the middle of the meeting for speaking coarsely and out of turn. It was only the second time in his term as mayor that Sayers has thrown a citizen out of a public meeting. It also happens to be the second meeting in a row where the mayor has been compelled to eject an objecting member of the public.
That action did little to quell the frustration among the assembled crowd, though. Out of turn interjections from the crowd continued throughout the rest of the meeting. In fact, the biggest kerfuffle was reserved for the immediate conclusion of the meeting when Napavine resident Merry Barnes stormed the podium and directed an impassioned opposition rant on a number of issues to the council. The finger-pointing tirade ended when Barnes was escorted out of City Hall under the direction of Napavine Police Chief Chris Salyers.
“They are just playing their game. You’ve got to just let them have their say,” said Mayor Sayers on Wednesday after he had decompressed from the high tension public meeting. “Some of these people just have diarrhea of the mouth.”
The highly anticipated meeting began with two applicants for two vacant city council positions partaking in public interviews by the council. The prospective council members, Shawn O’Neill and Sandy Wiediger, were each asked the same four questions before the city council conducted an executive session. In the end, Sayers announced that a decision would not be made on either applicant that night. The mayor said it was the council’s preference to wait until February’s city council meeting in order to hear from a third applicant who did not make it to Tuesday’s meeting. That applicant is former Napavine councilman Larry Stafford.
“We’re not in a rush, but here’s the other thing that’s going on — if you appointed one person tonight, how would that look to an angry crowd?” said Sayers. “A lot of people think it was a good idea to wait. But you’ll always have somebody who doesn’t understand the process.”
O’Neill said he was disappointed that the council chose not to make a decision on his application on Tuesday, but he added that he is willing to wait out the process.
“I have a passion for public services, especially local government,” said O’Neill, who recently graduated from The Evergreen State College with a bachelor’s degree in public administration. “Transparency, equity and approachability are the three things that I would like to bring to this council.”
O’Neill has also been involved with Napavine Youth Baseball for nine years and served as the league president for the past seven years.
“We have run into roadblock after roadblock in getting anything done,” said O’Neill in regard to the youth baseball league and sports complex. “That’s kind of the thing at the center of my heart is creating a safe place for kids to play and having the city be a part of that.”
Wiediger, who has an associate’s degree, stated to the council that, “My vision is to see the city grow and hopefully the city council will listen to citizens and take into account how they feel.”
Sayers noted that there is a “good possibility” that additional letters of interest for the city council positions will be received prior to February’s city council meeting. He is excited by the prospect of soon having a full council selected from a surplus of applicants
“You’ve got to remember that I’ve got vacancies for the planning commission too,” said Sayers, who hopes that any applicant not chosen for the council will choose to join the planning commission. “I need people there too, and right now they don’t have enough for a quorum.”
The commission fell below quorum on Dec. 29 when Bob Wheeler was appointed to the city council in order to bring that group up to quorum requirements following the twin resignations of Laverne Haslett and Armondo Galaviz the previous week.
During the public comment session of the public meeting, former councilman Scott Hamilton voiced his dissatisfaction with the direction of the city government and announced his intention to run for Bob Wheeler’s seat on the council during this year’s election.
“Your city council will soon be made up of appointees, and we’ll be out here watching to see if you’re really in it because you are for the mayor and what he wants or if you are really working to serve the citizens of Napavine,” said Hamilton.
Speaking directly to Wheeler, Hamilton added, “Integrity is everything. I heard you complaining for months on why exactly the mayor is not fit to be mayor and yet you accepted his offer to the appointment of the council.”
Shifting back to the council’s consent agenda, a vote was taken by the council in regard to Well No. 6. The first vote approved the application of ozone at the well as part of a filtration process and a second vote approved a feasibility study that had been conducted on the well. Both votes were unanimous.
Those votes also elicited pangs of disapproval from the crowd.
Earlier in the meeting, numerous speakers had made pleas with the council to stop pursuing the water source due to perceived quality issues. Those speakers included Larry Hamilton, Mike Hamilton and Jerry Graham, all who have business interests that would be serviced by Well No. 6 if it were to become fully operational. In one instance, the water emanating from the well was referred to as salty.
Mike Hamilton believes the quality of the water is so poor that it would lead to the shutdown of numerous businesses in the area, particularly restaurants.
“You annexed us. We never wanted to be a part of the city of Napavine, and we still don’t want to be a part of Napavine. In fact, it would be a lot better if you released us,” said Hamilton.
Graham continued on that thread during his time at the podium.
“The city of Napavine has pretty much killed all of our plans except to sell and get out. I’d rather do anything else. I’d rather move to Lake Havasu and retire,” said Graham, generating a round of applause from the crowd with his thinly veiled reference to Napavine’s community development director, Steve Ashley, who lives in Arizona.
Recently resigned councilwoman Laverne Haslett made claims that the bid process for the well work that was approved on Tuesday never went through the proper bidding process and was therefore illegal. It is a charge that Sayers dismissed.
“She said that she thinks the city did things illegally by the way they put out the bid,” said Sayers, who noted there was only one bid submitted between last Thursday, when the call for bids was posted, and Tuesday’s meeting.
Sayers said he was confident in the process, although he was not sure who the bid had actually been awarded to.
“I don’t get too involved in that. I pretty much figure that they know what they are doing,” said Sayers in regard to his community development staff.
As for the claims of salty or otherwise undesirable water at Well No. 6, Sayers was again on the defensive.
“I don’t know where they got that from,” said Sayers. “That is coming from Mike Hamilton. Mike Hamilton is getting all that stirred up. He doesn’t think that the water is clear enough to be using. He’s down to his last leg on an appeal and he’s trying to come back at the city any way he can.”
Sayers added, “It’s been tested to be safe to drink. The only thing about it is the color and we have a way to deal with that by filtering it.”
Going forward, Sayers expressed reserved optimism that Napavine will be able to navigate out of the political wilderness that it has been wandering recently.
“We’ve just got to be patient and I think things will get better. We’re going to start searching for a community development director and see how that goes. It’s looking like it might not be Cris Dodd because she’s doesn’t seem too interested. She seems to want to stay right where she’s at and what she’s doing,” said Sayers. “That’s the reason I’ve been holding off for the last year or so is I’ve been trying to give her a chance.”
Sayers said previously this will be Ashley’s final year working for the city as community development director. He was asked to stay on after moving to Arizona.
The next Napavine City Council meeting will be held on Feb. 21 at 6 p.m. at Napavine City Hall.
