| From the Port Townsend Jefferson County Leader - January 26, 2000 © Port Townsend Leader |
Rough and seven randomly picked Port Townsend residents talked in front of PTTV cameras last Friday. The show will be rebroadcast 4:30-6:30 p.m. Wednesdays and 1-3 p.m. Sundays.
"The idea is to create that dialogue, and I really think that's what this did," said Rough, a consultant based in Port Townsend.
His next step is to present the wisdom council idea Feb. 14 at a City Council study session. Rough has 75 minutes to make a pitch for formal support.
The wisdom council is not an advisory board, Rough emphasized, and would not make binding decisions. But at some point Rough wants the City Council to support wisdom council with a year or two trial period. Wisdom council results could be passed on to the City Council for its consideration.
The political voting system decides by simple majority, without allowing conversation to reach a true compromise, Rough said. Wisdom council can lead to a win-win decision rather than a win-lose conversation.
The debut participants were Michael Cobb, Kathy Hill, Virginia Sofie, Jane McCoskell, Elena Piscitello, Michael Beers and David Michael. There were two no-shows and one substitute, Rough noted.
The group had been primed with the topic of whether national chain stores should be encouraged or discouraged from locating in Port Townsend.
There was lots of talk about fear of losing the various qualities people now see here, Rough reported, but also a sense that more and more regulations is not the answer.
"Eventually there was a marvelous moment when Virginia Sofie, a longtime resident, said, 'I really miss JC Penney,'" Rough recalled. JC Penney was a mainstay department store downtown for many years, illustrating Port Townsend's history with chain stores.
People stayed in the PTTV studio after the broadcast just to talk, thanks to the dialogue the show had sparked, Rough said.
It wasn't easy to use a computer-generated list to select eight city residents at random, Rough noted. The bevy of cell phones and fax numbers led to a lot of unanswered calls. One of the names that did turn up was Port Townsend City Manager David Timmons, who politely declined.
(© Port Townsend Jefferson County Leader - January 26, 2000)