Members of the Winlock City Council convened on Monday, Aug. 10, for their first regular meeting of the month to discuss a number of different agenda items.
Among these items included a proposal from Winlock City Councilor Chuck Camps to begin future council meetings with a “voluntary invocation.”
A contract agreement for the City of Winlock to partner with Northwest Property Managers to manage commercial properties the city owns was also discussed.
Both of those agenda items were tabled.
Councilors also approved new hours for Winlock City Hall, which have been posted to both the city’s website and official Facebook page and go into effect at the end of the month. Starting Aug. 31, city hall will be open from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday while being closed from noon to 1 p.m. for lunch, and closed to the public on Friday so city staff can have time for “uninterrupted administrative work,” on top of processing documents and more, according to Mayor Victoria Marincin.
Additionally, councilors accepted the resignation of former Winlock City Attorney Jim Buzzard by a vote of 3-1, with Camps opposing it.
Winlock Mayor Victoria Marincin also introduced interim Winlock City Attorney Hillary Evans, of the Issaquah law firm Kenyon Disend, along with newly hired Winlock City Treasurer Michelle Francis — whose hiring was confirmed by the council during a special meeting last month.
As for Evans, she is the contracted attorney for the cities of Oak Harbor, Othello, Mountlake Terrace and Sultan according to Kenyon Disend’s website.
Concerning the agreement with Northwest Property Managers to oversee the leasing of commercial city-owned property, it was tabled after Marincin asked for councilors to get proposed agreements from at least two other property managers.
This followed Winlock resident Mike Lowry public comment, where he expressed opposition to partnering with the property management company.
“If you want to do a deal with the devil, by all means, that is your prerogative. But I have literally dealt with them and they did not take care of anything, actually treated me like garbage,” Lowry said. “And I’m not the only one that’s dealt with Northwest Property Managers, formerly known as T.J. Guyer … If that’s the kind of business you want to bring into this community, that’s your prerogative. But, I would strongly suggest not to.”
When it came to Camps’ proposal to begin future meetings with a voluntary invocation prayer, he explained he felt it would be helpful to start meetings with a prayer as over the past few months meetings have become contentious at times.
By starting with a prayer, he felt it would help set a respectful tone for the rest of the meeting along with encouraging humility and integrity while asking for wisdom and guidance with difficult agreements, “in accordance with Constitutional guidelines and established Supreme Court procedures.”
“If you guys haven’t noticed over the past few meetings, the atmosphere has gotten a little tense. I’m just gonna leave it at that, a little tense,” Camps said. “I just feel like, with a prayer over our council, we can be reminded that we are all in this together. And as stated in the pledge of allegiance, we are one nation under God. With that in the back of our mind, I think we can conduct our business a bit more better and civilized.”
Some discussion was held as to how to legally implement the invocation without excluding any religion, and the idea of starting meetings with a moment of silence was floated by Marincin and Winlock Mayor Pro Tem Jodie Curtis.
“I don’t have a problem with it, but I think the less risky thing to do would be to have a moment of silence, so if that folks choose to, they can pray to whatever god or deity they would like to,” Curtis said.
Councilor Alishia Hornburg also liked Camps’ proposal.
“I like what you have on your sheet here about the clear policy boundaries, where it talks about, you actually said, the podium could not be used to proselytize, convert the audience or disparage other religions or non-religious beliefs,” Hornburg said.
She also was not opposed to the moment of silence idea, a proposal that outgoing Councilor Jess Bowers also supported. However, Bowers opposed the prayer idea.
“It is a massive slippery slope. It is opening us up to all kinds of drama,” Bowers said.
Evans offered to talk with Camps after the meeting to go over with possible framework to bring to a future meeting for an ordinance officially establishing an invocation at the beginning of meetings.
At the end of 2025, the neighboring community of Vader also saw a city councilor propose starting their meetings with a prayer. After several months of debate and discussion the proposal ultimately was not adopted as previously reported by The Chronicle.
With the meeting being Bowers' last, after he announced his own resignation due to moving last month, the City of Winlock is still accepting applications from interested residents to be considered to be appointed to the vacancy.
Per state law, the council has 90 days to appoint someone to the vacancy after the official date of resignation.
As for the council’s other vacancy, which was created after former Councilor and Mayor Pro Tem Jeramy Allman was deemed ineligible for the seat, no update was available as to the status of the Board of Lewis County Commissioners' (BOCC) own appointment process. The BOCC’s deadline for applicants passed on July 23.
The Chronicle reached out to the BOCC for information on when they plan on holding their public interview and appointment process, but did not receive a response before print deadline.
