The process can be started by either the Skagit County Board of Commissioners or by citizens, who will need a petition signed by 10 percent of the turnout of the last election to get a call for election of people to sit on a charter committee.

Once the committee of 15 to 25 people comes up with a charter, it’s submitted to the voters. If it garners a simple majority, it becomes effective.

Charters can create procedures for initiatives and referenda, as well as changing the form of government from the three-commissioner system used in most counties. Snohomish County uses five full-time council members and an elected executive, while Whatcom County has seven part-time council members.

Sedro-Woolley resident Don Bockelman tried to spearhead a charter movement in early 2000, but that effort fizzled.

“I have a petition, and there wasn’t a whole lot of interest,” he said. “I haven’t put it in the garbage can, but I recognize that politics is about timing.”

He said the effort collected about 100 signatures — far short of the 2,656 currently required.

“People just found when they brought (the petitions) out in the community, there wasn’t a lot of interest,” he said.

The three-commissioner system, in place since statehood in 1889, no longer works for a county with so many people and diverse interests, he said.

He said he hopes that the county’s planned flood control project, most likely a channel that would take water from the Skagit River to Padilla Bay, will galvanize people into wanting a new form of government.