SEQUIM — Kathy Downer, a Sequim City Council member since 2022, announced she’s retiring. She is planning for tonight’s meeting to be her last.
Downer told fellow city council members and staff of her decision at the council’s Dec. 9 meeting and confirmed the announcement in a telephone interview last week.
“I’m ready to retire and spend time with my (3-month-old) grandchild,” said Downer, 72. “I’m ready and I have so many other things I want to do.”
Downer said she’s been toying with the idea since former council members Tom Ferrell and Lowell Rathbun, who are around her age, opted to resign or not run again.
“I will miss it,” she said.
City staff do not formally announce the process to replace a council member until they have officially resigned. If council members choose to follow the same process as previous resignations, they’ll open applications for two weeks to city residents to apply for Downer’s seat.
If they have acceptable candidates, council members will then interview them in a public session and discuss the candidates in executive session. They’ll make nominations and vote during a public session. If someone is not appointed within 90 days of Downer’s resignation, then the three Clallam County commissioners would select someone.
Downer’s term was set to go through the end of 2027.
Under Sequim Municipal Code, applicants must be registered voters in the city of Sequim, have a one year continuous period of residence within the city and hold no other public office or employment under the city government.
Council members are paid a $368 salary per month; the mayor and deputy mayor receive more.
Votes
Resignations or retirements are not uncommon for the Sequim council. In February 2024, former mayor Tom Ferrell announced his resignation after he was reelected to his seat a few months prior.
That led city council members to open an application process and eventually appoint Nicole Hartman, Clallam Public Utility District’s communications and government relations manager, in April to replace him.
Deputy Mayor Rachel Anderson was the previous council member appointed to an open seat in February 2021. She was elected in November 2021 along with Downer, current Mayor Brandon Janisse, council member Vicki Lowe and Lowell Rathbun, who chose not to run for reelection in 2023.
They ran as an allied group largely due to concerns over a majority of the sitting council’s decisions to call for former city manager Charlie Bush’s resignation and to approve a resolution to share their opposition to a county health mandate requiring proof of vaccination against COVID-19 to sit indoors in restaurants and bars.
The five council members won in November 2021 with 65.4 percent to 69.6 percent of the votes in their races.
When she was up for reelection in 2023, Downer switched from seat No. 2 to No. 1 to run against former Mayor William Armacost, who became a focus on national media platforms.
Downer said during their race that she in part ran against him because of his alleged connection to the QAnon conspiracy theory, which he appeared to endorse in August 2020 on KSQM Radio’s “Coffee with the Mayor” program. He’s denied any affiliation in multiple interviews since that time.
Downer won with 2,382 votes, or 72.6 percent, to Armacost’s 892 votes, or 27.2 percent.
Background
Downer, a nurse for 43 years, retired in 2014, giving her two weeks notice the day after she won a seat on the Marietta City Council in Ohio. She served through 2019 and moved to Sequim, and she successfully ran for Sequim’s council in 2021.
During her tenure, Downer said she’s proud of the five candidates coming together to run in 2021 to “change the makeup of the council” and for switching seats and winning in 2023.
As a nurse, she said the resolution to go against health protocols at the time went against her beliefs and those of many residents she spoke to leading up to the election.
Downer also pushed for more affordable housing options in the city, such as proposing and voting in October 2023 to reduce park impact fees by 50 percent for a new development through Dec. 31, 2028, if its household income is set for 30 percent to 80 percent of the area median income.
She said building affordable housing is a nationwide issue, though, and she’s unsure what Sequim can do differently.
“We need to think outside the box,” Downer said. “(Change has) got to come from the state.”
In December, she and fellow council members approved a manufactured home zone overlay to preserve those parks so they cannot be redeveloped into anything other than manufactured homes, one of Sequim’s more affordable housing options.
Fellow city council member Harmony Rutter, voted into office in November 2023 with Downer, said she’ll be missed.
“Thank you for all that you brought to council,” Rutter said.
Downer lives in Sequim with her husband Steve and they have four adult children. They plan to stay in Sequim.
“I could not think of any reason to leave Sequim,” she said.
Those with questions about the council application process can contact city clerk Heather Robley at hrobley@sequimwa.gov.
________
Matthew Nash is a reporter with the Olympic Peninsula News Group, which is composed of Sound Publishing newspapers Peninsula Daily News, Sequim Gazette and Forks Forum. Reach him by email at matthew.nash@sequimgazette.com.
