GOOD GOVERNANCE BEING AN OPPOSITE OF TRUMPISM:

"Our community has spoken and they want a change," said Vicki Lowe, a city council candidate in Sequim, a town of 8,000 in Clallam County. As of Nov. 3, Lowe had 68% of the vote against an incumbent who'd recently supported a city resolution opposing pandemic health mandates. "Now we can take the focus back from everything else that doesn't have to do with Sequim City Council, and start talking about housing and sidewalks and how our recycling is really getting recycled," she said.

The contest for five city council positions in Sequim, a retirement haven on the Strait of Juan de Fuca, was particularly heated. Controversy started to escalate last year, when Mayor William Armacost lit a political firestorm by plugging QAnon on a local radio show. He later denied supporting the baseless pro-Donald Trump conspiracy theory, and did not respond to a request for an interview. When Armacost later presided over a council that fired the city manager for undisclosed reasons, many observers saw a small-town parallel to what happened on the steps of the U.S. Capitol days earlier on Jan. 6: an attempted government takeover by once-fringe extremists. The council continued to take controversial actions, such as passing a resolution critiquing county vaccine requirements for local businesses.

While Armacost was not up for reelection on Tuesday, he had formed a majority with three other city councillors who were. They and two other city council candidates were backed by the Independent Advisory Association, a group that trains populist-conservative candidates for office in Clallam County, founded by two local Republican party activists. An opposing coalition -- formed in the name of good governance shortly after the dismissal of the city manager roiled the town -- had recruited and supported five candidates to run against them. Initial ballot counts showed the latter slate winning by two-to-one margins.

Independent Advisory Association candidates were also running for seats on the hospital commission and school board, as well as positions in other parts of Clallam County; all were losing their races as of Wednesday morning, with one tight contest for a city council seat in Port Angeles. A request for comment sent to the group's main email address was not returned. 

Both the IAA and the SGGL describe themselves as nonpartisan. Yet the two-slate battle reflected a divide in Sequim that deepened during the last half of the Trump presidency -- not only along partisan lines, but between ideological camps that initially formed around an opioid addiction treatment clinic under development by a local Native American tribe. 

Social media played a role in organizing opposition to that project, with Facebook providing a forum for anti-Native and homelessness fears, as well as unfounded suggestions that city administrators had conspired with the tribe to approve the plan. The main opposition group, Save Our Sequim, has since become a clearinghouse for vaccine misinformation, agitation around critical race theory and mask mandates, as well as support for the mayor and his allies. Several members have ties to local militia groups, according to research by the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights. One member recently posted about setting up a local chapter of People's Rights, the anti-government group led by far-right militant and Idaho gubernatorial candidate Ammon Bundy. 

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