PORT ANGELES — Jon Hamilton has been chosen to fill a vacant seat on the Port Angeles City Council.
Hamilton was chosen Tuesday night through a rank-choice system in which he received five first-choice votes.
The seat became vacant when Brendan Meyer resigned effective June 30.
Hamilton will be sworn in before the Sept. 16 meeting, but the date and time have not yet been scheduled.
During a special meeting Tuesday, Hamilton was interviewed along with the other two finalists, Laurel Cripe and Christy Holy.
During the interview, Hamilton said one thing the city is not currently doing is providing a simple entry point for homeless people who need help.
“I believe that it’s going to be impossible to eliminate homelessness,” Hamilton said. “These individuals often have severe trauma that they’ve experienced. We need to focus on counseling, mental health and help filling out paperwork. After we implement things, we need to hold ourselves accountable, and we’ve really got to leverage partnerships and grant funding.”
When asked about the relationship between ecological protection and economic growth in Port Angeles, Hamilton said the two are tied together.
“We can’t have tourism and a working waterfront without a clean environment,” he said. “This is all for those that come after us. We need to invest in the future for those people.”
Hamilton said he will be able to balance the time commitment of council with work and life because he already is skilled in balancing multiple aspects.
“As you know, I’m a teacher, I’m an officer in the union, and I have four kids so I already balance a lot of things, and I’ve gotten pretty good at it,” he said. “This isn’t just a task or a hobby for me, it’s purpose-driven. I want to be here and serve our community.”
Hamilton sees housing, ecology and infrastructure as the top three issues facing Port Angeles.
When it comes to budgeting, Hamilton said he sees them as value statements.
“My priorities first would be to make sure core services are maintained and fully staffed,” he said. “We should still aggressively pursue state and federal grants and make sure housing is tied directly to infrastructure. I believe citizens and our residents deserve fiscal responsibility.”
If a situation arises when Hamilton disagrees with the majority of council, he said he would handle the situation with respect and transparency.
“Once the vote’s happened, I’ll respect the outcome and help implement it. That’s how democracy works,” he said. “You should be able to walk into a room with someone you’ve had a disagreement with and still be able to have a conversation and shake hands.”
In other business, the council had a lengthy discussion about border patrol, which was added as a late item in the wake of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid at the site of the Bear Gulch fire last week.
“We’re in the situation now of being a subordinate system of the state government trying to figure out what powers we have to resist a system that is breaking apart our community,” council member Lindsey Schromen-Wawrin said. “It’s really a question of, right now, do we care about this deportation agenda, or do we actually care about our economy and do we care about human rights?”
Schromen-Wawrin proposed a motion to direct city staff to research the existing connections between the city and ICE and Customs and Border Patrol so the city council will know what options are available to it.
“Our friends and neighbors are being disappeared; they are living in fear,” Deputy Mayor Navarra Carr said. “For months, I’ve been thinking about what is our responsibility as a city and sort of hoping it wouldn’t come here for us. It’s here. It’s something we need to talk about as a city.”
Council member LaTrisha Suggs said the Bear Gulch raid is public because first responders addressing a public safety concern were arrested, but other arrests have happened quietly and no one has heard of them.
“For those of us that can speak up, we need to speak up and be that voice of reason and that voice of hope,” she said.
The council passed Schromen-Wawrin’s motion as well as one from Carr requesting Mayor Kate Dexter and City Manager Nathan West write a letter to the city’s federal and state partners thanking them for asking questions and calling for investigations and formally requesting the city be informed of the results of those investigations.
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Reporter Emily Hanson can be reached by email at emily.hanson@peninsuladailynews.com.
