The Enumclaw City Council is canceling its regularly-scheduled May 28 meeting, and instead, will be holding a special meeting tonight, May 21.

According to City Clerk Marueen Burwell, the city was already planning to cancel the Tuesday meeting (because of the Memorial Day holiday) but wanted to hold the special meeting in order to approve of a letter to Gov. Jay Inslee asking him to allow small municipalities to move into Phase Two of reopening, as opposed to moving the whole of King County into Phase Two by the expected June 1 date.

“Losing out economic base goes beyond losing money, it goes to loving hope,” the letter reads. “Times are becoming desperate. We fear that, even if encouraged, some in our community may begin to ignore the social distance mandates out of desperation.

“We appreciate the conversations with your office over the past few weeks and do not want to appear ungrateful for the opportunity your staff has given us to voice our concerns,” it continues. “However, we are approaching a point of no return for some of our local shops and restaurants…. With that in mind, we ask that even if you generally believe in extending the Phase One condition broadly, that you allow local municipalities (like ours) to move to Phase Two.”

Also on the council agenda is the approval of an “inclusion proclamation” to re-affirm the city’s stance on equality and inclusiveness in light of white supremacist propaganda repeatedly being put up around downtown.

“We… do hereby proclaim that we re-affirm our community’s shared values of compassion, inclusion, respect, and dignity; and our commitment to building an environment, and a community, in which everyone is valued and everyone has the opportunity to thrive; and we encourage the citizens to likewise affirm these values of inclusion,” the proclamation reads.

The Enumclaw School District Board of Directors is also expected to approve the same resolution.

This meeting will not be held in person, but virtually. To attend, you can tune into ECTV on Channel 21 (inside city limits) or stream the meeting from www.cityofenumclaw.net.