By: Pepper Fisher

PORT ANGELES – The Save Our Sequim group (SOS) got a victory in court Friday when Superior Court Judge Brent Basden elected not to award reimbursements of attorney fees to either the City of Sequim or the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe, both of whom filed separate motions claiming that an earlier suit filed by the SOS group was frivolous.

Judge Basden ruled that SOS’s suit, which attempted to stop the City from processing the Tribe’s application to build a medication assisted treatment center (MAT), even though he dismissed it in June, did not rise to the level of a frivolous lawsuit.

Sequim City Attorney Kristina Nelson-Gross says she accepts the ruling and is ready to move on to next month’s review of the process by a hearing examiner.

“The judge essentially has asked that the parties move along and have this case addressed during the hearing examiner process. So as far as I am concerned, from the city’s perspective, yes, it’s time to move on and direct our attention elsewhere.”

Mike Spence, attorney representing SOS, considers today’s ruling a victory for the group. We asked him what he would consider a good outcome from the hearing examiner’s review.

“We don’t think the city is following their own code very well here. They’ve decided that this thing, they’re calling it a medical clinic, even though there’s a mountain of evidence and some very detailed law that says it’s called an essential public facility. And that requires a hearing in front of the city council. And they are bending their code to the breaking point to call this a medical clinic to avoid having to have a hearing in front of the city council.”