Sequim, a small city recognized for its summer season lavender pageant and its above-average ration of sunshine for the Pacific Northwest, is now drawing darker nationwide consideration as dwelling to a mayor who has promoted irrational QAnon conspiracy theories.
William Armacost was chosen mayor by the Sequim Metropolis Council a yr in the past . Final summer season, in a “Espresso with the Mayor” chat broadcast on native radio he declared QAnon a “fact motion” and inspired listeners to observe on YouTube a particular QAnon conspiracy video.
The video, subsequently taken down by YouTube however nonetheless obtainable on the web, is anti-Semitic, anti-intellectual and histrionic. It guarantees a “struggle of biblical proportions” to rid the world of an evil international conspiracy run by an elite class riddled with pedophiles — a cabal that’s introduced as the reason for every thing unhealthy on this planet together with crime, struggle, homelessness and poverty.
It tries to persuade viewers with extra baseless costs that each U.S. president since Ronald Reagan has been a “deep state felony” and that a secret group of excellent guys within the army is about to save lots of the world with Donald Trump as their nice chief.
That final bit could be outdated now.
Interviewed by CNN Thursday, Armacost refused to go judgment on these conspiracy theories. As a substitute, he denied he had ever explicitly “endorsed or mentioned I used to be a QAnon supporter” and mentioned he had merely inspired individuals “to hunt fact.”
Shenna Youthful, who helped discovered a residents group to advertise good governance in Sequim, mentioned its 500 lively member are very involved about Armacost’s “QAnon ideologies.”
“This isn’t indicative of who we’re. It’s a small minority,” Youthful mentioned. “This highlight is damaging our tourism and our companies.”
Judging {that a} recall of the mayor could be expensive, her group is concentrated on the November election and goals to interchange three Metropolis Council members aligned with Armacost.
Armacost couldn’t be reached Saturday. He didn’t reply his cellphone and its voice mailbox was full.
Recruited in a conservative push
Armacost has by no means been chosen in a contested election by the individuals of Sequim.
He was helped into public workplace with the assist of a Clallam County group run by two distinguished native Republican activists that promotes “conservative/populist” candidates.
He was appointed to the Metropolis Council in 2019, held that seat in an uncontested election, then was appointed mayor by a vote of the town council — which at present is usually appointed, not elected.
Town, on the north coast of the Olympic Peninsula, has simply over 7,000 residents.
In November’s presidential election, the town voted 56% for Joe Biden and 41% for Trump. Nevertheless, the encompassing rural neighborhood is overwhelmingly Republican. Final summer season, indicators supporting Republican Loren Culp for governor predominated within the space.
Matthew Randazzo, who lived in Sequim for six years till 2012 and was then the chair of the county Democratic Celebration — he nonetheless has property there and retains connections within the city — described the outlying neighborhood as “a sturdy, outspoken conservative inhabitants that’s making an attempt to pull the town authorities in its path.”
He mentioned the group that helped get Armacost into workplace has been recruiting candidates for nonpartisan our bodies that don’t get a lot consideration.
“They’ve exploited this lack of consideration and the result’s an extremist and apparently unhinged metropolis council majority” in its assist of Armacost, mentioned Randazzo.
He mentioned Armacost has been very open, even flamboyant, about his QAnon beliefs, flaunting them on social media posts.
“However I don’t assume he’s alone,” mentioned Randazzo. “He’s the tip of an iceberg, of a radicalized conservative base all throughout the nation.”
Resisting pandemic restrictions
Armacost runs a salon & spa enterprise in Sequim and can be a consultant of Juice Plus+, a multi-level advertising and marketing scheme that sells vitamin dietary supplements.
Juice Plus+ was formally cautioned by the Federal Commerce Fee in June for false promoting claims that its merchandise may forestall COVID-19 an infection and make its representatives wealthy.
Armacost shares the resistance of many on the correct to authorities recommendation on COVID protections.
In August he traveled to the annual bike rally in Sturgis, South Dakota, which drew greater than 450,000 individuals and the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention recognized it as triggering chains of transmission to different states.
On his return to Sequim, which has a excessive proportion of older retirees, Armacost declined to self-quarantine.
“It isn’t required of me both by science, regulation, expertise or customized,” he defined in a letter to the Sequim Gazette.
Final week, political strife within the city reached a pivot level when the mayor moved behind closed doorways to oust longtime metropolis supervisor Charlie Bush.
With a powerful resume of metropolis administration positions, Bush was recruited from Issaquah to handle Sequim greater than six years in the past.
When a furor broke out after Armacost’s QAnon remarks on the radio broadcast final August, Bush issued an announcement with the mayor saying it was inappropriate to have made these remarks in the midst of conducting metropolis enterprise.
“Any responses to questions reflecting the private opinion of the Mayor don’t replicate coverage positions of the Sequim Metropolis Council,” Bush acknowledged in that launch.
In that assertion, Armacost didn’t disavow his feedback, however dedicated sooner or later to maintain his “private life separate from my skilled life.”
Bush declined to remark Saturday.
The political warmth in Sequim rose over the previous yr when an opioid remedy clinic being constructed by the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe deeply divided the neighborhood’s liberals and conservatives.
Bush’s granting of permission for that clinic appears to have been the ultimate impetus for the mayor and his Metropolis Council allies to oust the supervisor.
On Monday, after a closed-door govt session, the council handed a movement to request his resignation, in what the native Peninsula Every day Information described as “what guarantees to be an costly” leave-taking.
An area petition to retain Bush as metropolis supervisor had collected greater than 1,500 signatures by Saturday.
Armacost’s excessive political views have sharpened what was for a very long time a typical rural/city divide between conservatives and liberals and now displays the deeper tensions which have riven the complete United States because the election.
5 days after an indignant mob of Trump supporters — prominently together with QAnon believers — violently blasted previous police traces this month to ransack the U.S. Capitol, one native Sequim resident who gave his identify as Josh requested Armacost at a Zoom Metropolis Council assembly to publicly resign QAnon.
“I don’t wish to be represented by terrorists,” Josh declared.
Armacost ignored the plea for a public denunciation.
