Sarah Augustine chosen as Chair of the 2021 Washington State Redistricting Commission

And then there were five!

Today, at a short, busi­ness-focused meet­ing, the four vot­ing mem­bers of the 201 Wash­ing­ton State Redis­trict­ing Com­mis­sion ful­filled their respon­si­bil­i­ty to select a fifth non­vot­ing mem­ber to serve as the com­mis­sion’s Chair through the end of the redis­trict­ing process as the Wash­ing­ton State Con­sti­tu­tion requires.

Sarah Augus­tine, the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of the Dis­pute Res­o­lu­tion Cen­ter of Yaki­ma and Kit­ti­tas Coun­ties, was the Com­mis­sion’s unan­i­mous choice for the job. She will pre­side at future meet­ings of the Com­mis­sion, whose four vot­ing mem­bers are Demo­c­ra­t­ic Com­mis­sion­ers April Sims and Brady Walkin­shaw and Repub­li­can Com­mis­sion­ers Joe Fain and Paul Graves.

“Sarah received a BA in Soci­ol­o­gy and Psy­chol­o­gy and an MA in Whole Sys­tems Design with an empha­sis in group con­flict trans­for­ma­tion,” her DRC biog­ra­phy says. “She is the co-founder of Suri­name Indige­nous Health Fund (SIHF), where she has advo­cat­ed for vul­ner­a­ble Indige­nous Peo­ples since 2004.”

“She has rep­re­sent­ed the inter­ests of Indige­nous com­mu­ni­ty part­ners to their own gov­ern­ments, the Inter-Amer­i­can devel­op­ment bank, the Unit­ed Nations, the Orga­ni­za­tion of Amer­i­can States Inter-Amer­i­can Com­mis­sion on Human Rights, the World Health Orga­ni­za­tion, and a host of oth­er inter­na­tion­al actors.”

“She employs shut­tle diplo­ma­cy and group deci­sion-mak­ing strate­gies to de-esca­late con­flict and estab­lish com­mon ground between com­mu­ni­ties and exter­nal inter­ests. In addi­tion to her work with SIHF, Sarah has worked as an orga­ni­za­tion­al con­sul­tant in strate­gic plan­ning, facil­i­ta­tion, and mediation.”

“Sarah, a senior medi­a­tor, has been a medi­a­tor for fif­teen years.”

The com­mis­sion­ers were all in agree­ment that Augustine’s back­ground and expe­ri­ence make her an extreme­ly suit­able can­di­date to serve as Chair.

“This [nom­i­na­tion] was a sug­ges­tion from one of our Demo­c­ra­t­ic col­leagues… [I] had a con­ver­sa­tion, did a lit­tle bit of research and what I found, I was extra­or­di­nar­i­ly impressed with,” said Repub­li­can Com­mis­sion­er Joe Fain.

“The pub­lic has tasked us with not only draw­ing maps, but in cre­at­ing bound­aries in a fair and col­lab­o­ra­tive way that fos­ters trust in our gov­ern­ment and con­fi­dence in our elec­toral process… I have full faith and con­fi­dence that Sarah is sim­i­lar­ly com­mit­ted to this goal,” said Demo­c­ra­t­ic Com­mis­sion­er April Sims.

“I had the good for­tune to spend some time talk­ing with Sarah yes­ter­day — hope­ful­ly, soon to be Com­mis­sion­er Augus­tine — and I was just extra­or­di­nar­i­ly impressed by the per­spec­tives she brings to this spe­cif­ic role,” con­curred Demo­c­ra­t­ic Com­mis­sion­er Brady Walkinshaw.

“I’m very excit­ed about Sarah Augus­tine serv­ing as our Chair as well,” said Repub­li­can Com­mis­sion­er Paul Graves. “We’re going to end up hav­ing an orga­ni­za­tion that is a state agency and hires eight or nine peo­ple. Her work run­ning the Dis­pute Res­o­lu­tion Cen­ter in Yaki­ma and Kit­ti­tas Coun­ties shows she can do that, and — I have con­fi­dence! — do it well.”

Future meet­ings of the Redis­trict­ing Com­mis­sion will be sched­uled by Augus­tine in con­sul­ta­tion with the four vot­ing mem­bers, Graves noted.

Just before adjourn­ment, Com­mis­sion­er April Sims observed that the Com­mis­sion needs to move quick­ly on releas­ing a job descrip­tion for the posi­tion of exec­u­tive direc­tor so that it can begin seek­ing appli­cants for that role.

The Com­mis­sion then con­clud­ed its Jan­u­ary 30th meeting.