Lewis County is having acute growing pains. As the county has grown over the years deep fissures have opened up among our community members and organizations regarding what our future should look like and the governmental structures that would best ensure that vision’s fruition.
Some in our community have responded to these ongoing challenges by sponsoring and successfully shepherding a home rule charter initiative scheduled for the election this coming fall. This legislative initiative effort is a direct outgrowth of this rising level of dissatisfaction with our leadership.
This is how representative democracy is demonstrated in a modern society. When disputes and philosophical differences arise, the citizenry has the tools it needs to craft durable and binding solutions. I would like to give credit to all of the people who worked very hard to bring the citizens of this great county a voice in their future and how it is achieved.
One of the ongoing failures of this effort in my opinion is to properly and comprehensively educate the general public concerning the history of home rule in the United States, Washington state and specifically what it would mean for Lewis County’s positive economic future.
I personally attended some of the informational outreach meetings organized by the sponsors of this political process and was left lacking the answers to some very fundamental questions. I have waited for an updated and clarified series of information meetings, to no avail.
Centralia College has offered a home rule charter certification course for the summer 2018 term on Saturdays that starts this week and goes through Aug. 25. The Department of Continuing Education was created to bring our community this exact kind of educational opportunity to comprehensively drill down into what exactly home rule charter is, how it can benefit Lewis County, and then actually create one in the classroom.
This course was very carefully designed to provide all of the information that was missing in the sponsorship public briefings, the tools to be successful, and a very unique opportunity for our community members to participate directly in a Constitution creation process before the actual elections this coming fall.
In the interests of disclosure, I will be instructing this course. As a former member of the Citizens Budget Advisory Committee in 2017 and the primary author of the CBAC Report to the Lewis County Commissioners Office, I have a unique understanding of the systemic, organizational and structural challenges our great county currently faces.
Out of this knowledge came the genesis for the course currently being offered at Centralia College.
Mitchel N. Townsend
