Clallam County Watchdog

Jeff Tozzer
  • 3.1 (7)
  • Politics
  • Updated Daily

Holding County Leaders Accountable www.ccwatchdog.com

  1. 12m ago

    Don’t Fear the Family Home. Fear the Record.

    Lauren Churchill told PDN readers that “common sense” means fearing Jake Seegers and keeping Mike French. The record says otherwise: pool-board failure, $1.5 million in avoidable Towne Road costs, $500,000 “affordable” units, and a Meta-backed 68,000-acre forest deal that dwarfs one family’s first house. From pool petitions and stolen signs to drop boxes and treatment-first, this week’s potpourri is a simple question — are you better off, and will you vote like it? Common Sense Isn’t a Smear. It’s a Record. Lauren Churchill’s letter to the Peninsula Daily News asks what “common sense” means, then concludes that new building is the risk and that voters should keep the sitting commissioner. A fair reading of common sense is simpler: look at results. Mike French has spent years in Port Angeles and Clallam County leadership. In that time, the William Shore pool district — on whose board he sits — was the subject of a state auditor fraud investigation. The Towne Road project let grant opportunities slip and left local taxpayers covering $1.5 million they did not have to spend. Funding went for years to a poet laureate, while he now favors a new tax for law enforcement. Helping those trapped in addiction has meant giving them clean crack pipes, not steering them towards recovery. Does that sound like common sense or a record of process, public spending, and thin, measurable results? Churchill asks where growth would go, and for whom. Affordable housing is the obvious answer. That does not have to mean $350,000 to $500,000 per unit built with public dollars. It can mean lower fees and clearer rules so private builders can produce homes at a much lower cost. The letter describes Jake Seegers as a real-estate developer. His holdings are two primitive, undeveloped camping properties and an undeveloped parcel where he hopes to build a house one day. If he does, it would be the first home he and his wife have owned rather than rented. That is a family hoping to build, not a development firm. Churchill also writes of a “colonial mentality.” Labels like that invite a basic consistency test. Would the same paper comfortably print a letter about a “Native American mentality” or an “immigrant mentality”? If the worry is campaign money, the Public Disclosure Commission already publishes the donors: pdc.wa.gov. Hundreds of people have given to Seegers because they want a different direction. If the worry is the candidate himself, the direct route is to ask him: jakeseegers.com. It is also worth keeping proportion. Concern that an “out-of-town” family might one day build a single house sits beside a much larger land story that has drawn far less comment. EFM, a Portland firm, partnered with Meta (Facebook) on 68,000 acres of Olympic Peninsula forest — about 37,000 of them in Clallam — purchased from Rayonier for more than $200 million. EFM and Meta contracted for 676,000 carbon-removal credits through 2035, moving working timberland into corporate-offset “climate-smart” conservation next to Olympic National Park. The county commissioners support this. If the question is scale and outside capital, that transaction meets the test. A family building its first home does not. First Fed, Tribal Partnerships, and a Subscriber’s Dissent First Federal is the only bank headquartered in Clallam County and a longtime partner of the Jamestown Tribe—banking, project financing, and community events. In 2023, it gave $10,000 to the Kurt Grinnell Aquaculture Scholarship Foundation, pledged $25,000 over five years, and then-CEO Matt Deines joined the KGASF board. That partnership is real and documented. A CCWD subscriber offered a more skeptical local view: she pointed to flooding at 3 Crabs, ongoing water disputes, national wildlife refuge takeovers, fishing pressure, and a “healing campus” that, in her experience, has lined up with more street disorder. She also questioned whether “self-reliance” in this case depends too much on public funding and concentrated business power. Other tribes, she wrote, work more easily with neighboring towns; she does not see that here. It is one resident’s account. Readers can compare that account with First Fed’s own description of the relationship. PABA’s Election Season Breakfast Circuit The Port Angeles Business Association is packing Tuesday mornings at 7:30 at Jazzy Joshua’s with this November’s ballot issues, and it’s all streamed on Facebook. * Sept. 15 — PUD District 2: Rick Paschall, Randy Brackett * Sept. 22 — US Congressional District 6: Emily Randall, Teresa Fox. Randall will be in D.C.; Lorraine Basch will deliver a statement (questions still limited). * Sept. 29 — State Legislative District-24 Pos. 2: Kaylee Kuehn, Marcia Kelbon; * Oct. 6 — Clallam Commissioner Dist. 3: Mike French, Jake Seegers * Oct. 13 — Fire District 2 EMS levy: Jake Patterson * Oct. 20 — Millionaire’s tax: Sen. Mike Chapman against repeal; Darren Littell (Let’s Go Washington) for repeal Skip reading the voters’ pamphlet and show up to PABA. The Pool Is for Swimming. 640 Signatures Say Keep It That Way. Terri DiMartino is still collecting signatures. The William Shore Aquatic Center is a taxpayer-funded facility. County harm-reduction hygiene and shower-voucher ideas put high-risk use into a place already generating far more police calls for disorder than for recreation — 78 Port Angeles reports in the period reviewed. Hygiene options already exist at Serenity House, Salvation Army, and TAFY; the Homelessness Task Force has recording-fee money that could expand those sites instead of the pool. French, who sits on the pool board, argues the voucher experiment has produced “no incidents.” Seatbelts work the same way: the absence of a crash is not proof the risk was imaginary. The petition asks the health department and the board — Mike French, Randy Johnson, Mark Hodgson, LaTrisha Suggs, Greg Shields — to reject a hygiene center and free shower vouchers now and later. More than 640 people have already signed. Add your name. Critical Areas, “Guests,” and Low Turnout Subscriber Robert’s comment on Deputy Mayor Navarra Carr — also Mike French’s campaign manager — and Councilmember LaTrisha Suggs is blunt: classify wide swaths of Port Angeles as critical areas, choke development and industry, drive out producers, watch young people leave, and backfill with levy lifts and federal grants. He ties that vision to French. Carr has publicly framed most Clallam residents as guests on ancestral land. Whether that is land-back rhetoric or just rhetoric, it is not a growth strategy. Suggs won with turnout under 30 percent. The 2025 county general was under 50 percent. Turnout, not slogans, will decide the commissioner race in November. $100 in Recording Fees Later In 2021 the county warned that recording fees would jump — a $24 surcharge plus $76, $100 total — for “affordable housing” and “ending homelessness.” Five years later: a $118,000 safe-parking program with a handful of spaces, and working families still cannot afford a house. Are you better off? Vote like you remember. You Can Slash the Sign. You Cannot Stop the Message. Recently, there has been an uptick in stealing, spray-painting, and slashing Seegers signs. Yard signs are still at Aloha Smoothies and Sweets in Port Angeles on South Lincoln and on the street at 1052 Jamestown Road in Sequim. Property destruction is a crime no matter who condones it. Report the destruction of Jake’s signs to authorities or to Clallam County Watchdog. Refuge Signage Is Not “Co-Management” New Jamestown Corporation signage at the Dungeness Wildlife Refuge does not look like shared stewardship. It looks like branding ahead of a takeover. Imagine the signs if ownership follows. Tribe v. Tribe Over the Same Fish This month’s filing in United States v. Washington is not tribes versus the state. It is tribes versus tribes. Jamestown S’Klallam, Port Gamble S’Klallam, and Lower Elwha asked a Seattle federal court to block a Tulalip spot-shrimp opening in Marine Areas 6 and 6B, arguing a 1983 settlement gives the Klallam tribes regulatory control there. They want the regulation pulled, similar openings barred, and contempt on the table if the fishery proceeds. Read the filing. The public is often told tribal governments are uniquely suited to steward the resource. In practice, they are also competing harvesters with overlapping grounds and court-enforced quotas. When one tribe opens a fishery another has not, the fight goes to court — not to a shared story about who is the natural steward. Treaty rights remain. So does the politics of who sets the season and who takes the share. Environmental Justice as a Land Tool RCW 70A.02.060 is the HEAL Act machinery — agencies must bake “environmental justice” into significant actions, including who is consulted and how burdens and benefits are mapped. In practice, it becomes another lever over permitting, siting, and private land. Pair it with “land back” politics, and you do not need to take title on day one. You just make use of the land expensive, slow, or impossible. Master Gardeners, Public Money, and a DNR Delay The Master Gardeners’ garden off Woodcock Road earned Level II arboretum status. Good for them. The photo included Keith Dekker, who was documented damaging DNR markers and delaying a timber sale — which means delayed revenue for Clallam. The county still pays the program $13,343 a year. If that line ever disappears, remember Master Gardener Keith Dekker put it at risk. Sea-Level Rise Meets the HEAL Act The Department of Ecology’s Shoreline Management Act update WAC 173-26 / 173-27 rulemaking layers sea-level-rise assumptions, climate guidance, and environmental-justice language onto already crushing shoreline rules. Call it science if you want. Call it a quieter land grab if y

  2. 1d ago

    When “Critical Areas” Swallow a Working City

    Port Angeles Deputy Mayor Navarra Carr just spent a work session asking how much of the city isn’t a “critical area” — downtown fill, the mill, the port, the harbor, the bluffs. She wants codes that prohibit development there, and she wants last year’s fight over net ecological gain put back into city law. She also runs Mike French’s campaign, and this is what that partnership sounds like when the microphones are on. Port Angeles Deputy Mayor Navarra Carr spent the August 25 city council work session mapping a city so full of “critical areas” that she was no longer sure what was left. She wants maps. She wants stronger codes that “prohibit development in critical areas.” She wants downtown fill treated as a climate problem. She wants net ecological gain revived. She wants variances locked down so mills and ports cannot “bend our ear.” She even asked whether people should still be allowed to drop anchor in Port Angeles Harbor. That is not a side comment from a junior member. Navarra Carr is County Commissioner Mike French’s campaign manager. French gave her $1,000 in her last race — behind only a union and the Jamestown Tribe. If voters want to know what a second French term looks like, this is the crystal ball. The same playbook as last December Last December, then-Councilmember Lindsey Schromen-Wawrin tried to stuff the 20-year Comprehensive Plan with two upgrades: replace “no net loss” with net ecological gain, and replace tribal consultation with U.N.-style Free, Prior and Informed Consent. No other Washington city uses FPIC for local zoning. Staff were told to write it in. Carr strongly supported it. On August 25, Carr did not say the letters F-P-I-C. She did something quieter and more durable. She put net ecological gain back on the calendar and said if it is not settled inside the critical areas ordinance, “frankly, I don’t know when we would be having it.” That is the same standard debated late last year: prove the environment is better after you build, not merely that you avoid damage. In a small, already-built city on fill, creeks, bluffs, and a working waterfront, “gain” is not a scientific finding. It is a permission slip the city can withhold. Housing gets slower and more expensive. Remodels become negotiations. Industrial land becomes a hearing. Carr wrapped it in the favorite phrase of the planning class: “best available science.” Science is not the issue. Who picks the science, and who gets a variance, is the issue. If everything is critical, nothing can be built Carr’s opening move was the map. Stream corridors under roads. Shoreline. Ravines. Aquifers. “I’m not sure which areas aren’t in our critical areas.” Then the policy: “We should also have strong codes that prohibit development in critical areas.” Then she asked the question that should alarm every downtown owner: what about the fill? “All of downtown, to my understanding… is built on fill.” Maybe not a wetland for salmon, she said, but “when we’re talking about climate change mitigation, it certainly comes into play.” Read that again. The commercial core — Railroad Avenue, Front Street, First Street, the streets people actually use — can be pulled into the same regulatory bucket as a creek corridor if climate language is wide enough. That is how a working downtown becomes a special overlay. This is the same pattern described in GreenLink or Land Grab published four months ago. Daylight the creek. Widen the corridor. Call it a park. Then the industrial land, streets, and private lots are treated as obstacles. Restoration language first. Acquisition questions later. The mill and the port are “critical.” The creeks get a sermon. Carr said the mill sits in what she would “imagine to be a critical area.” Most of the port buildings, too. The marina. “A huge amount of infrastructure on our shoreline.” She says that is not necessarily bad. She wants “smart and strategic development.” Then she named the problem, and it was not the needles and human waste in Peabody and Tumwater Creeks. It was employers: “What are we doing about the big businesses who can pay… What are we doing about the people who have enough pull… that the most vulnerable and the poorest people among us are not.” That is the tell. Critical-area talk gets strict when a mill, a terminal, or an Amazon-scale project might get a variance. It goes soft when the same corridors hold encampments. The people with “pull” are the ones who file applications and make payroll. The “most vulnerable” become the reason not to enforce. Selective enforcement is a fair complaint. The answer cannot be a code that squeezes businesses and treats illegal occupation of stream corridors as a protected class. Trash, needles, and sewage in the creeks are not a land-use variance. They are a public-health failure. Lecturing Westport while encampments sit in the same “critical” landscape is not environmentalism. It is politics. A deep-water port is not a mooring-ball experiment Carr was “delighted” to hear eelgrass and kelp mentioned. She interacts with them “through sailing.” Then: should Port Angeles “continue to allow people to anchor in our harbor”? Tankers do it. Private boats do it. Her preferred fix for the little guy is mooring buoys, plus more public dock space, because anchors can tear eelgrass. Port Angeles is not a boutique cove. It is the first full-service deep-water port on the Strait of Juan de Fuca, with three industrial terminals that take logs, lumber, pulp, chips, chemicals, and repair work — vessels up to 1,000 feet. Harbor anchoring is part of how that system works. Treating tanker layup and commercial use as a lifestyle conflict with kelp beds is how a timber-and-marine town talks itself into being a marine sanctuary with a gift shop. Protect eelgrass, but do not pretend the harbor exists for Navarra’s sailing calendar. Water after the dams, trees after the neighbors, bluffs after the condos Carr echoed Councilmember LaTrisha Suggs on aquifers and “other ways to expand where we’re able to get our water,” because “we’re in a drought” and past councils did not have to think this way. The Elwha dams came out, and the city’s water storage left with those dams. Now the same political cohort wants new water sources and tighter land rules at the same time. On trees, she and Suggs want retention treated as a community asset, not a lot-by-lot right. “We live in a community.” True. Communities also need roofs, shops, and the ability to cut a hazard tree without a public hearing. Then she turned to the bluffs. Carr tied the bluffs south of First Street to the climate mitigation plan: slopes already sliding toward the Strait and down toward Country Aire. She liked Suggs’ idea of larger buffers. Her own phrasing was more blunt. If the ground is that unstable, “it’s either we tell people… you got to go.” She did not name Second Avenue. She did not have to. That is where homes sit on top of those bluffs, and where people live below them. She said those houses are at “immense risk,” and that if something fails, the city — meaning taxpayers — will likely be “the entity bailing them out.” The unresolved question she left on the table is enforcement: what happens to people who already live there, and what rules hit anyone who wants to build next. If the answer is bigger buffers and “you got to go,” that is not a mapping exercise. That is a conversation about who gets to stay. Meanwhile, Peninsula Behavioral Health put a roughly $12 million, 36-unit permanent supportive housing project, North View, at Second and Oak — the top of the switchbacks above Country Aire. If bluff vegetation and buffers are now sacred, explain why a public-funded four-story building belongs on that rim while private owners are told the science has changed. Encampments that strip cover off the same slopes get the vulnerability speech. Homeowners get the ordinance. You cannot tell homeowners the bluff is too dangerous to occupy if the city will not clear the people already camping on it. What Carr is actually offering Strip the work-session manners and the list is short: * Draw critical areas so wide that downtown fill, under-road creeks, mills, the port, marinas, and bluffs all count. * Prohibit development in those areas, then ration exceptions through a “clear process” aimed at people with “pull.” * Revive net ecological gain — last year’s Comprehensive Plan fight, back as code. * Treat harbor anchoring as a harm to manage with buoys. * Expand water planning after the region already removed two water storage reservoirs. * Grow tree and buffer rules until existing houses look like nonconforming violators. Navarra Carr says she does not want to make it “harder to build.” Net gain plus prohibition plus climate-classified fill is how you make it harder to build. Housing costs do not fall when every parcel needs a study, a variance, and a morality play about who is poor enough to be exempt. French does not have to read the remarks into the record. He hired the person giving them. He funded her. He backed the North View bluff housing project. He tapped her to run his campaign. Carr’s kelp lecture is a distraction. The real question is whether Port Angeles still gets to function as a port town, or whether the next changes will decide that jobs, houses, and a working harbor were the mistake. The maps she wants will be very pretty. The price shows up in permits, empty lots, and a harbor that still has to earn a living. What you can do This is still a draft ordinance, not finished law. Tell the council you want a working waterfront, enforceable creek rules that apply to everyone, and no “net ecological gain” standard that turns housing and payroll into a variance. Email the Port Angeles City Council at council@cityofpa.us Say it pla

  3. 2d ago

    When Disrespect Is Policy, a Meme Becomes a Police Matter

    Allison Berry wants deputies to referee her critics. Board of Health Chair Mike French sits beside her and laughs through the same public comments. The people who pay both of them get the smirk—and a police report. Clallam County Health Officer Allison Berry called the Sheriff’s Office because she did not like a Facebook post. That is not a paraphrase. That is Case 2026-00013825. On August 4, 2026, Berry contacted the Sheriff’s Office about “potential threats” from Jesse Farmer. A friend had sent her a screenshot. The meme had two panels. The top showed Berry smiling in a group during the COVID years—no masks, no distancing—while her office was still pressuring businesses over vaccine passports, distancing, and masking. The bottom showed a child and a dog with their heads in a homemade breathing box labeled “YOUR CHILD.” The caption: “These people are still in your community. It’s time to get rid of them.” Berry wanted to know if the meme “crossed the line”—meaning, was it a crime. What the sheriff found Sergeant Steffen Estep called Farmer. Farmer said he has been clear: he wants Berry out of the health-officer job. Elect people who will fire her. He said he has a right to oppose a public official. Estep agreed. Farmer said he has never made a physical threat and would not. He told the sergeant to pass along a message: the Sheriff’s Office is “not her political Gestapo.” Estep told him the office was not trying to silence political speech. Then Estep called Berry. The CAD log is blunt:“I ADVISED ALLISON OF MY CONVERSATION WITH JESSE AND THAT HE WAS PRACTICING HIS RIGHT TO FREE SPEECH… SHE WILL CONTINUE TO UPDATE THE SO ON ANY THREATS SHE MAY RECIEVE… I SPOKE WO HER ABOUT COURT ORDERS AS WELL.” And: “JESSE IS PRACTICING HIS 1ST AMENDMENT RIGHTS. THERE IS NO CRIME.” That is the whole law-enforcement product of Berry’s complaint. A sergeant spent a workday on the phone and typing up reports so a county official could test whether a political cartoon was arrestable. Berry’s answer: blame the critic Farmer later wrote Sheriff Brian King after watching the body-cam conversations. He asked the obvious question: if the officer said the post was too vague to be actionable, why was there an investigation at all? He said Berry “knows exactly what the meme means,” then “giggles along and pretends it is just some random personal attack.” He asked at what point her complaint becomes a false complaint. In the podcast: Hear the phone calls between the Deputy and Farmer and Berry. Berry’s answer to Farmer was not an apology for using deputies as a speech referee. It was a lecture: “I have not spoken publicly about this recent incident. The only reason so many people are aware of your conduct is because you yourself regularly post about it on your platforms. If there has been any damage to your reputation from this incident, it has been by your own doing.” She called the sheriff. He documented it. Then she blamed Jesse Farmer for the public knowing about it. On September 2, 2026, CC Watchdog emailed Berry at her county address seeking comment on the harassment complaint, including any threats she reported perceiving and any context she believed relevant. The note gave her a Sunday-noon deadline and said that if she did not respond, the article would state she was contacted and did not provide comment. She did not respond. A county habit, not a one-off That is the pattern. Officials in this county treat criticism as a safety emergency and their own conduct as none of the public’s business. It happened on Towne Road. When landowners who wanted a public road turned into something closer to a private driveway emailed Commissioner Mark Ozias that they “need help” with a critic of Towne Road, Ozias did not tell them to file a routine report and wait in line. He pulled in the Sheriff’s Office and the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office. The investigation of Towne Road supporters ran nearly a month on allegations of harassment, intimidation, bullying, and stalking that never produced the case the landowners wanted. The critic was Jeff Tozzer and Clallam County Watchdog. The story is still up: “We need help,” family begs county. It happened with Charter Review Commissioner Jim Stoffer. A resident called him a name during public comment. Stoffer wanted armed security. His friend, Commissioner Ozias, arranged an armed guard for Stoffer. Taxpayers paid Security Services NW $57.50 an hour to protect Stoffer while the county talked about layoffs and deficits. It happened in the courthouse hallway. After resident John Worthington used public comment to challenge Commissioner Mark Ozias, Ozias’s wife, Lisa Boulware, followed him out of the meeting and confronted him. Worthington described it as an “attack from behind.” An eyewitness said she was the aggressor. County leadership did not treat that as harassment, even though it was caught on camera. That was not her first turn at the microphone. On January 30, 2024, Boulware used public-comment time to address the audience instead of the Board, identified herself as Ozias’s wife, and tore into residents for their “perceived grievances.” She cursed. Commissioner Mike French thanked her. He did not stop her, did not remind her of the three-minute rule applied to critics, and did not send a sergeant to ask if her words “crossed the line.” The rule in county government is simple. If you are aligned with power, you may scold the public in the chamber or in the hall. If you criticize power, you may get a case number. Being insulted at a public meeting was enough to put a guard in the room. Wanting a public road left public was enough to loop in the prosecutor’s office. Following a commenter into the hallway was not enough to draw a warning. Seeing a meme was enough to generate a case number for Allison Berry. When county officials want protection, law enforcement is on speed dial. When residents want officials to listen, they get the smirk. The smirk is the policy Watch a Board of Health meeting. Berry giggles through testimony about overdoses, needles, and kids in parks. She rolls her eyes. She talks past people who live with the mess her programs leave on the ground. Chair Mike French does the same: dismiss, cut off, lecture about “respect,” then shut down the follow-up. French once posted that it was “incredible” the public “really think their nonsense should be convincing”—as if a hearing would have changed the Board’s mind. That is the man who chairs the body that is supposed to supervise the health officer. Residents pay these salaries. Public records showed Clallam paying Berry $137,007 in 2020 (under her prior name, Unthank) and $161,735 in 2021. Jefferson County separately contracted her in 2021 at $63,291 a year. She still works part time at Jamestown’s clinics. None of that buys the public the right to be treated like a nuisance when they object to policy. It also does not buy Berry a personal deputy. The double standard is the point. Berry can be openly contemptuous of the people in the room. French can model that contempt from the chair and call it leadership. A resident posts a harsh political collage, and suddenly there is a deputy, a body-worn camera recording, a case number, and a conversation about court orders. When asked for comment on the record, Berry had nothing to say. The statute Berry did not use on herself Resident Vanessa Baker has now put the professional question on paper. She filed a request for notice and hearing under RCW 70.05.050 and 70.05.060 seeking for-cause removal proceedings against Berry and HHS Director Kevin LoPiccolo. Her complaint is not about a meme. It is about discarded sharps in parks and trails, exposure risk to children and workers, reported Hepatitis C concerns, and a claimed failure to abate known hazards tied to the Harm Reduction Health Center and syringe program. She alleges failure to perform statutory duties, failure to control infectious disease, gross negligence, malfeasance, and incompetence. She also flags Berry’s “diversionary tactics” toward people giving testimony. That filing does what Berry’s police call did not: it uses the statute written for this office. RCW 70.05.050 lets the Board remove a health officer for cause after notice and hearing. RCW 70.05.060 says the Board has to enforce public health laws and act on conditions that require intervention. RCW 70.05.070 says the health officer must control infectious disease, keep sanitary conditions, and abate nuisances. A Facebook caption is not a nuisance. Needles in a playground are. Human Resources and the Board of Health should treat Baker’s request as what it is: a demand that the county apply the same seriousness to Berry’s fitness that Berry tried to apply to Farmer’s speech. If smirking through bereaved families, reframing accountability as a wish that people “get AIDS and die,” suggesting that organizations cleaning up our public spaces are committing theft, calling deputies over protected political speech, and declining to answer for it is compatible with the job, the Board should say so on the record after a hearing. If it is not, the statute already tells them what to do. Who used what French’s dismissiveness and ridicule of the public set the tone for the Board of Health. Berry built on it and used county resources to target a critic. Farmer used the First Amendment. The Sheriff’s Office correctly found no crime. Asked to explain herself, the health officer went silent. The habit remains: officials who cannot stand being mocked still expect the public to sit still while they mock the public. What you can do All three county commissioners—Mark Ozias, Randy Johnson, and Mike French—sit on the Board of Health that oversees Allison Berry. French chairs it. Ask them to put Vanessa Baker’s request for notice and hearing on the age

  4. 3d ago

    Code Enforcement’s New Appetite

    In this Sundays With Seegers, County Commissioner candidate Jake Seegers shows how Clallam County’s Code Enforcement manager told the Planning Commission she wants new fees, more discretion, and the power to threaten whole groups of property owners with fines at once. She called it an “amnesty” program. Then she provided an example of how it would work: comply in three months, or face a minimum $2,000 fine—because, in her words, once people get the Hearing Examiner notice, they “usually fold.” As Clallam County updates its Comprehensive Plan for the next 20 years, it faces two very different paths: Enhance property rights, economic opportunity, and freedom for taxpayers… Or, Expand government regulation and enforcement power while eroding property rights, economic opportunity, and individual freedom. Right now, the Planning Commission and Department of Community Development appear to be heading down the second path. During the August 19th Planning Commission meeting, Diane Harvey, Code Enforcement Special Projects Manager, asked the Commission to consider more fees, greater discretion for her department, and new authority for the Director of the Department of Community Development (DCD) to threaten fines against entire groups of property owners at once. Specifically, Ms. Harvey asked for: * The ability to charge property owners up to $300 when they enter into a voluntary compliance agreement with the County—and to use those fees to help fund Code Enforcement. (10:15) * The ability to charge an alleged violator the cost of going before the Hearing Examiner. (12:30) Currently, the County pays those costs—approximately $700. * Authority for the DCD Director to send blanket letters to groups of property owners with similar alleged violations, threatening a minimum fine if they do not comply. These would significantly expand enforcement authority because, currently, fines are imposed through the Hearing Examiner process. Ironically, this proposal was described as an “amnesty” program. (14:15) An amnesty is a pardon, not a mass threat of fines. More Staff. More Fees. More Power. This request comes after a significant County investment in expanding Code Enforcement. In 2025, Code Enforcement added two officers—one full-time and one part-time. Earlier this year, commissioners approved expanding the part-time officer's hours from 24 to 30 per week. Now, Code Enforcement is asking for additional funding through fees, greater discretion, and more power to threaten property owners with fines. Ms. Harvey offered vacation rentals as an example of how an “amnesty” program might work. Clallam County currently requires vacation rentals to obtain a fire-life safety inspection—a County requirement that goes beyond state lodging regulations applicable to many single-family vacation rentals. According to Ms. Harvey, most vacation rentals are not complying with that requirement. She explained: “Maybe we want to do that amnesty program to get people who are renting their homes to actually get the fire-life safety inspection. Because there’s probably 2,000 of this [vacation rentals] in our county.” (15:20) Later, she described what that “amnesty” could look like: “We would send out notices and say, ‘within the next three months, we want you to get your fire-life safety inspection. And, if you don’t we’re going to fine you a minimum of $2,000.’” (1:34:30) But that example raises another important question. What Happened to “Complaint-Driven”? The Department of Community Development (DCD) and County Code Enforcement have repeatedly described enforcement as “complaint-driven,” including in the February 2025 DCD Newsletter. Yet the proposed vacation-rental enforcement campaign appears to proactively identify and threaten an entire class of property owners without waiting for individual complaints. And Code Enforcement’s actions against Mossquatch Resort—a boutique glamping destination near Forks—show that proactive enforcement is not merely hypothetical. Mossquatch had operated for years and developed strong support among customers and West End community members: five-star reviews, no known public complaints, and no reported safety incidents. Then a taxpayer-funded county employee noticed that Mossquatch’s owner had failed to pick up a 911 address placard. Instead of simply contacting the owner about the placard, the employee investigated the resort and discovered an issue with its Conditional Use Permit. The employee forwarded the matter to Diane Harvey. Ms. Harvey immediately requested that it be logged as a “complaint” and assigned directly to her. Within hours, she had also filed a complaint with the State Department of Health’s Transient Accommodations program. Other County departments were notified on the same day. A multi-department, unannounced site visit was organized and conducted just three business days after the initial email. Apparently, a phone call to the business owners did not happen first. According to Mossquatch’s owners, in an April 28, 2026 response letter: “I am unaware of any attempts made by Clallam County…to contact myself or my family regarding the expired CUP and a potential site visit by Clallam County staff.” That is difficult to reconcile with Code Enforcement’s stated approach, which it describes as being “centered on impartial public service, offering support and resources that empower landowners to achieve and maintain compliance.” The owners’ description of what followed sounds far less like supportive voluntary compliance and far more like an enforcement raid. County staff ultimately compiled a roughly 400-page enforcement package, threatened substantial fines, and scheduled the matter before the Hearing Examiner. According to Ms. Harvey, that pressure is part of the enforcement process. During a recent Planning Commission meeting, she stated that after people receive notice that they will have to appear before the Hearing Examiner, “people usually fold.” During an August 10th Work Session, she seems to describe that strategy as very similar to the Mossquatch action: “When you get a 460-page notice to go to a hearing examiner and they tell you you’re going to get fined $22,000 if you don’t come into compliance, that, I believe does move people.” (1:31:55) It certainly does move people. The more important question is whether this is how County government should treat the people it claims to represent and serve. Who Decides What Gets Enforced? That question matters even more because Code Enforcement has hundreds of open cases. During the Planning Commission Meeting, a commissioner asked Ms. Harvey: “How do we decide what takes priority? Is that your decision as the manager?” Her answer was unequivocal: “Yes.” (41:00) She subsequently noted that County code also establishes enforcement priorities. Later, she explained the discretion involved: “I have to be honest with you. Code enforcement is not a process that you can treat everybody the same. You have all different types of people you are dealing with. They have mental health issues. We deal with hoarders. I can’t treat a hoarder the same way I treat somebody else who is just a regular person who just disregards the code.” (53:30) County code itself recognizes substantial enforcement discretion. Clallam County Code, as summarized on the County’s own website, provides that Title 20: “shall not be construed as placing responsibility for code compliance or enforcement upon Clallam County in any particular case” That is also consistent with the Washington Court of Appeals’ decision in Lange v. Clallam County. The court rejected the argument that the County Charter required DCD to investigate every alleged violation, recognizing the Director’s discretion over enforcement decisions. That makes how that discretion is exercised extremely important. A February 2025 DCD Newsletter states: “Code Enforcement exists to promote safety, community health, quality of life, neighborhood vibrancy, and the protection of the environmentally sensitive areas for the benefit of Clallam County…Code Enforcement ensures that zoning, building, nuisance, and environmental codes are followed to create a well-functioning harmonious community.” But with 349 open cases, Code Enforcement must choose where to dedicate its limited resources. Are those choices reflecting the priorities of the people who live here—or the priorities of the department? The same newsletter warns: “Without Code Enforcement’s oversight, unregulated activities could lead to unsafe living conditions, environmental damage, and disruption of economic growth.” Yet the unsolicited enforcement action against Mossquatch threatened to shut down a thriving West End business that was itself contributing to local economic growth. Under a voluntary compliance agreement, Mossquatch's owners had to shut down three tents and three cabins. Other areas of the property could remain open. Those six units, the owners say, support work for as many as eight people. Mossquatch also estimates that: * $2,500 of lost daily revenue (on the low end) * The county loses out on $250 daily in taxes * The water utility loses $1,200 for the season * Waste removal misses out on $3,000 * The cleaners lose $350 each day ($40,000 for the season) * The local hardware store doesn’t sell $3,000 worth of propane * Costco doesn’t sell $5,000 in supplies * Local youth groups aren’t able to sell the $3,000 in donate firewood A case that started with a 911 placard did not merely produce a 400-page file. It took a functioning West End business offline. If Code Enforcement is going to spend limited resources on a property with no public complaint and no reported safety incident, the question is not only whether a permit condition was missed. It is who else loses when the County puts that file on the top of Diane

  5. 6d ago

    Recompete Was Sold as Jobs. The Fine Print Is About Who Gets the Money.

    The pitch was simple: Put Peninsula people back to work. The federal slides, the local plan, and the woman hired to run the program say something else. Race and tribe are on the page. Preferred partners are named in bold. A hydroseeder is bought for a tribal enterprise while local businesses already do that work. A lot of the cash moves through NGOs. Read the documents. The conclusion is sitting there. Recompete arrived as a rare win. The North Olympic Peninsula received about $35.6 million from the U.S. Economic Development Administration, 2024 through 2029, to close the gap in prime-age employment and rebuild timber, maritime, and natural-resource jobs. Clallam County is the lead applicant. Commissioner Mike French chairs the coalition and has made the grant a centerpiece of his public service. That is a fair thing to list. It is also fair to read what the grant actually rewards. Year one is the first hard look. Officials said they would move roughly 900 people into good jobs over five years. Year one produced about 31 placements. More people enrolled and trained than got hired. At 31 placements in year one, the five-year promise is still mostly a promise. Page 9 is not a jobs chart. It is a group chart. EDA’s Phase 2 overview does not describe the six national winners as “places with too few paychecks” and stop there. Page 9 is labeled service area and demographics. It lists the winners by race and identity: * Allentown: 14% Black / African American; 70% Hispanic / Latino * Birmingham: 80% Black / African American * San Juan: 16% Black / African American; 99% Hispanic / Latino * Eastern Kentucky: 1% Black; 1% Hispanic; 100% rural * North Olympic Peninsula: two counties plus five Tribal Nations * Wind River: “Majority Native American”; two Tribal Nations A workforce program that needs a racial scorecard is not treating every out-of-work adult the same. It sorts communities by group and calls the sorting “equity.” The scoring rules match the slide. EDA asked whether benefits would be shared “equitably.” Equity was a criterion for the whole plan and for each project. In Phase 1, “equity, inclusivity, and diversity” carried the same weight as the strategy itself. Finalists sat through a session called “Executing on Equity.” The formal notice ties the program to executive orders on “advancing racial equity” and names preferred classes: Black, Latino, Indigenous and Native American, Asian American, Pacific Islander, women and girls, and Tribal lands. All Tribal lands were eligible by default. If the same chart had listed any other race as the favored class, most people would see the bias at once. The method does not change because the approved word is “equity.” The local plan puts Tribes in bold Clallam’s strategy has four parts. Three sound like workforce policy: remove barriers to work, train people for good jobs, and create jobs in maritime and natural resources. The fourth is the sorting rule: “address equity issues by building capacity and programs in Tribal nations and underserved communities.” EDA’s own write-up of the award uses the same emphasis. About $35 million would build timber and maritime industries “within five Tribal Nations, Clallam County, and Jefferson County,” and “add economic development capacity to five Tribes.” The five are named in the paperwork: Hoh, Makah, Jamestown S’Klallam, Lower Elwha Klallam, and Quileute. That is the deep dive. Not every distressed worker first. Tribes, as a category, first. The money follows the words. Commissioner Mark Ozias’ NGO, the North Olympic Development Council (NODC), received $8.27 million to build capacity and send subawards to five tribes and the City of Forks. After those pass-throughs, more than $1 million stays with his NGO as an administrative fee. Olympic Community of Health (OCH) received about $9.8 million for “barrier removal,” care hubs, and coordination. OCH is not a mill or manufacturing hub. It is a professional class with a land acknowledgment at the top of its website. Then comes the line that needs no theory. A scope of work under the NODC subaward says the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe will buy a hydroseeder and a mini excavator so JKT Development, a tribally owned enterprise, can expand into hydro-seeding as “a new area of business.” Next comes marketing, operations, and three to four hires. Hydro-seeding is not missing in our region. Local companies already own the trucks, already bid the jobs, and already pay the taxes that keep county government running. The grant does not “include” those small businesses. It subsidizes a tax-advantaged competitor and calls the result “justice.” If equity meant equal rules, a family business that bought its own rig would not have to watch federal money buy one for someone else. “Tribal poverty” does not describe this partner A national poverty rate is not the same thing as the Jamestown Corporation. Federal data have long shown American Indian and Alaska Native poverty far above the U.S. average. A widely cited Census figure for people identifying as American Indian or Alaska Native alone was about 29 percent. That number is real in many reservation communities. It is not a snapshot of Jamestown. The Jamestown Tribe reported 509 enrolled citizens in 2024, with 213 living “in area.” County and tribal documents in recent years put the local count in the same place: just over 200 members in the service area. That is a small local membership, not a missing workforce. It is also not a cash-poor startup. Public reporting puts the tribe’s annual budget at more than $100 million. The tribe’s 2024 tribal citizen report listed $85.9 million in revenue for that year. The local enterprise list for these 200 local members is well known: casino and resort, golf course, development company, clinics, land surveyors, gas station, and a cannabis shop. Clallam County, on the other hand, serves about 77,000 people. So the federal story is: Tribes are “communities most impacted.” Therefore, this grant is needed to repair historic injustices. The local facts are: one named partner, the Jamestown Tribe, has just over 200 members living here, already operates on a nine-figure scale, and still receives a federal hydroseeder to open a line of work that private businesses already perform. Poverty on distant reservations does not explain that purchase. Identity on page 9 does. Mike French’s own vocabulary makes the problem easy to see. “Equity” here does not mean the same shot for every underemployed adult. Inclusion means the coalition table, not an open bid. Lived experience becomes a credential. “Communities most impacted” becomes a sorting hat: tribe over taxpayer, NGO over small business, identity over a paycheck. Repair and redistribution are how a transfer of public money gets described as moral hygiene. That is why some residents hear “reparations.” They never print “reparations,” but Page 9 still sorts the winners by race and tribe. The coordinator said the quiet part The county’s Recompete Plan Coordinator is Molly Pringle. That job is supposed to keep a $35 million workforce grant pointed at work. Her own LinkedIn description points somewhere else: “As a white, cis, queer person, my equity practice focuses on redistributing power and resources to communities most impacted by injustice, thinking deeply about my responsibility as a leader with privilege. I am critical, curious and active in my efforts to shine a light on white supremacy and capitalism, creating space to grow, repair and heal.” Those are her words. Redistributing power and resources. Privilege. White supremacy. Capitalism as the thing to confront. That language fits page 9. It fits “capacity for Tribal nations.” It does not fit “every person who needs a job gets the same chance.” A jobs grant is supposed to put people on payroll. Her stated work is moving power and money. Those are not the same assignment. “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” — Chief Justice John Roberts Own the check. Own the design. Distress on the West End is real. Tribal governments are real governments. None of that requires a jobs brand that scores people by race, prints a winner sheet by percent of Black, Hispanic, and Native DNA, writes five Tribal Nations into the local equity strategy, routes millions through nonprofits, and then buys equipment for a wealthy local tribal corporation’s new business. French has asked voters to treat Recompete as proof that the region finally got a once-in-a-generation chance. Leadership includes the scoring rules, page 9, the subawards, the coordinator’s philosophy, and 31 placements in year one. You don’t get credit for the $35 million without the rules that spent it. The region was promised workers. The documents describe preferred groups. The hydroseeder is the small item that makes the large design visible. Readers can decide whether that package is a workforce plan — or a jobs program that picks winners by race and tribe. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.ccwatchdog.com

  6. Sep 2

    Tents First, Taxpayers Last: Who Are the Sidewalks For?

    Port Angeles starts expensive ADA work on Peabody Street tomorrow while tents and debris already occupy the right-of-way. The same week, a lone island resident backs handing two national wildlife refuges to a tribe, teen substance use in Port Angeles runs twice the state average, and legacy media is asked to return to the issues. These stories are connected by one question: who is actually being served? Peabody Street ADA Project Meets Reality on the Ground Tomorrow the City of Port Angeles begins ADA improvements on Peabody Street—removing and replacing sidewalks, curbs, ramps, and pavement at multiple intersections from 2nd to 12th Street. The stated goal is better access and mobility, but look at photos of Peabody Street taken last week. The most immediate barriers to wheelchair users, strollers, and pedestrians are not missing curb cuts. They are tents, tarps, shopping carts, and debris sitting on or immediately beside the sidewalk. Clearing those encampments, enforcing existing camping and obstruction rules, and keeping the existing pavement usable would increase ease of access without another multi-phase construction project. Protection Island’s Only Resident Wants Public Land Transferred to the Tribe Marty Bluewater, 78, is the sole remaining lifetime resident of Protection Island National Wildlife Refuge. He supports transferring both Protection Island and the nearby Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service into trust for the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe. The tribe already co-manages the sites under a 2024 agreement and argues it can cut bureaucracy while keeping conservation purposes and public access at Dungeness. Protection Island would stay closed to the public. Jefferson County Commissioner Greg Brotherton calls the proposal a “moment of truth” for the Native land-back movement and supports the transfers. Chairman Ron Allen — who has said he is 75 percent European — waved off concerns about the tribe’s commercial oyster farm on adjacent state tidelands, where the plan is to grow a shellfish species native to Asia. “Oysters are oysters, for crying out loud,” Allen said. The analogy is incomplete. Native Dungeness crab and the invasive European green crab are both crabs; one belongs here, and the other is destroying habitat. The same distinction applies to species, management authority, and whether national wildlife refuges created for the public remain public. Critics worry the transfer sets a precedent that could extend far beyond two refuges. Read the Seattle Times article here. Grant-Writing Is the One Industry Still Growing Clallam County’s private-sector economy continues to struggle, but one sector is thriving: writing and administering federal grants. The Washington State Department of Commerce’s Federal Funds Grant Writing Assistance Program is holding free, full-day in-person workshops on September 29 in Eastsound and October 1 in Port Angeles. When the workshops let out, every storefront still hanging a “Grant Writer Needed” sign in the window may finally have the staff to expand hours. The real economy can wait. The application economy is hiring. Coffee with Colleen: Recompete Update Today Join Coffee with Colleen today, September 2, at 8 a.m. for an update from Recompete Plan Coordinator Molly Pringle and Communications Coordinator Carolyn Edge. Topics include grant structure, federal role, recent milestones on jobs, infrastructure, workforce, and support programs, plus upcoming plans. Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89474510306?pwd=VlIrRHh5RG1nYVh3V3JXRzFSMmRodz09Meeting ID: 894 7451 0306Passcode: 187447 * Ask pointed questions. Year-one results showed 31 job placements against a five-year target of roughly 900. At $35 million, that works out to tens of thousands of dollars per placement if targets are ever met. * The coordinator, Molly Pringle, came from Portland and has described her work as redistributing power and shining a light on “white supremacy and capitalism.” * And don’t forget the hydroseeding equipment and excavator the program has agreed to buy for the multi-million-dollar Jamestown Corporation. Residents have a right to know whether this is a jobs program or another wraparound-services pipeline. Port Angeles Teens Use Drugs at Twice the State Rate—Look Around KONP reports that 13 percent of Port Angeles 10th-graders surveyed had smoked or vaped in the previous 30 days, 15 percent used alcohol, and 11 percent used marijuana—roughly twice the Washington state average in each category. Those numbers did not appear in a vacuum. Open drug use occurs around the Veterans Bell, Safeway has become a known dealing spot, the county distributes paraphernalia and messages such as “start low, go slow,” and playgrounds and fields collect needles and foil. Teens notice what adults tolerate. Read This Before You Vote: Pardon My French Clallamity Jen’s latest piece does what last week’s District 3 forum only hinted at. Incumbent Mike French spent the night calling every policy he opposes “ideological” and every policy he favors a “practical tool.” Challenger Jake Seegers answered with facts, figures, and the County’s ledger. Out of Clallam County’s $56 million general fund, $33 million — nearly 60 percent — now goes to law and justice. The sheriff and Chief Smith have both said nearly all of that crime is drug-related. Low-barrier policies that tolerate open use without accountability generate the calls that generate the bills. Taxpayers pay once for the front-end programs and again for courts, jail, prosecution, and public defense. Jen’s argument is simple and devastating: a commissioner’s first duty is fiduciary — protect the money coming in and the public safety that keeps the tax base alive. When downtowns degrade, businesses leave, and families stay away, that $33 million tab does not shrink. It just lands on fewer remaining property owners. Read Clallamity Jen’s full essay, watch the forum clips she includes, and subscribe. The November vote is not a personality contest. Every taxpayer from Sequim to Forks is funding the outcome. Overdose Survival Is Not the Same as Recovery A letter in the journal Addiction argues that reversing an opioid overdose with naloxone saves a life but does not reverse the hypoxic brain injury that often accompanies it. Repeated overdoses produce cumulative damage similar in concept to chronic traumatic encephalopathy (like a stroke). British Columbia data show a 6 percent risk of diagnosed brain injury within one year of a first overdose for adults and 10 percent for those under 19. Many non-fatal overdoses never reach a hospital, so the true rate is higher. Treatment programs that treat reversal as the finish line ignore impaired memory, impulse control, and executive function—the very skills needed to stay in recovery. One in Five? Seattle Data and Street Reality Say Otherwise Health Officer Allison Berry has maintained that only one in five people experiencing homelessness are addicted to drugs. Christopher Rufo’s reporting in City Journal on Seattle, drawing on King County surveys, found 80 percent of the homeless population struggling with drug and alcohol addiction, with widespread use of heroin, meth, and crack and tens of thousands of needles collected annually. Thirty percent had serious mental illness. Encampments produced spikes in property crime, assaults, and public disorder. The same patterns—open use, needles, and visible addiction—are observable in Port Angeles. Claiming a 20 percent rate while fentanyl smoke and foil litter public spaces is not data-driven public health; it is a talking point that keeps the current policy in place. The Dogs Are Not Fine Either On Los Angeles’ Skid Row, rescue volunteer Joey Tuccio told NewsNation that dogs living in the encampments are used in fights, dosed as drug-test subjects, and dying by the hundreds. His group has pulled more than 150 animals out of the tents — eyes and g******s glued shut, legs rotting off, amateur surgeries performed under tarps. One French bulldog was rescued after overdosing on six drugs. Tuccio’s charge is blunt: city leaders treat the tents as off-limits even when crimes, including animal torture, are happening inside them. Clallam County is not Skid Row. It is also not immune to the same logic. Walk the creeks, the bridges, and the lots, and you will see the same pairing: people in active addiction and the dogs tied to them. The animals did not choose the encampment, the fentanyl smoke, the winter rain, or the next move. When policy treats a tent as a home that must not be disturbed, it does not only lock in human misery. It locks the dog in with it. Compassion that cannot draw a line around a suffering animal is not compassion. It is neglect with a slogan. If Los Angeles needed an activist with a camera to force the question, Port Angeles and Sequim do not. The dogs are already here. Look. “The least I can do is speak out for those who cannot speak for themselves.” — Jane Goodall Focus on the Race, Not the Sideshow One Peninsula Daily News subscriber put it as plainly as it can be said: cover the issues in the Clallam County Commissioner race, not the distractions. The issues are not hard to find. They are the $33 million law-and-justice bill eating nearly 60 percent of the general fund. They are open drug use, blocked sidewalks, and a downtown that businesses and families increasingly avoid. They are measurable results — or the lack of them — from the policies voters are being asked to renew. Everything else is noise. Read the record, and vote in November. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.ccwatchdog.com

  7. Sep 1

    OMC Already Got the Big Tax Increase. Now It Wants the Next One.

    In 2024, Clallam County commissioners formally urged voters to pass Olympic Medical Center’s levy lid lift. Voters did. Property-tax collections for Hospital District 2 doubled. A newly released consultant report — and OMC’s own board discussion about taking another 1 percent hike — show why more tax money was never going to fix empty clinic slots, unused buildings, and years of losses. Two years ago, the Clallam County commissioners took sides. On July 16, 2024, they passed a resolution supporting OMC’s levy lid lift — the ballot measure that asked voters to raise the hospital’s property tax. Their resolution said the extra money was needed to keep the hospital open around the clock, keep care local, and help hire and keep staff. Voters agreed. In the August 2024 primary, about 6 in 10 voters in the hospital district said yes. Washington law lets a public hospital collect up to 75 cents for every $1,000 a property is worth. Before the vote, OMC was collecting only about 31 cents. After the vote, it jumped to the legal maximum: 75 cents. The hospital’s tax take went from about $5 million a year to about $12 million a year. More than double. If you live in Hospital District 2 — roughly from Lake Crescent to the Jefferson County line — that extra money comes from your property tax bill. That was the big raise. It already happened. What they want now is smaller — but it is still a raise State law also lets the hospital bump the total dollars it collects by 1 percent a year without going back to voters. Think of it as a yearly cost-of-living increase on the tax, not another huge jump. Last November, the OMC board skipped that 1 percent. They kept 2026 collections about the same as 2025: roughly $11.8 million. One OMC commissioner said skipping it was “foolish.” “I think we should be taking the 1 percent that is allowed by law… We are foolish to leave money on the table.” — OMC Commissioner John Nutter, Peninsula Daily News Others worried the public already thought the 2024 tax hike had solved the hospital’s money problems. It had not. Last month, the Peninsula Daily News reported that OMC finally showed a profitable quarter — about $604,000 in the black after losing $1.7 million in the first three months of the year. June itself made only about $14,000. That sounds like good news, but read the fine print. Some of that profit came from one-time items: settlements, grants, and accounting adjustments. The hospital also got a $6.1 million check from a state program for struggling hospitals. That helped cash on hand rise to 30 days — still a thin cushion. A healthy hospital usually wants more. OMC still owed vendors about $23 million. From 2022 through 2025, it lost about $70 million, including about $16 million last year. Hospital Commissioner Penney Sanders said the board should take the 1 percent this year: “We didn’t take it last year, but we believe we should take it this year.” On an $11.8 million levy, 1 percent is about $118,000 before new construction. Helpful. Not a game-changer. Nothing like the 2024 doubling. The consultant report is easier than it looks In June, a firm called Kaufman Hall briefed the OMC board. UW Medicine required that study before deciding whether to partner with OMC. The report is in the public board packet. Ignore the jargon. Here is the translation: Kaufman Hall said OMC could improve in two ways: * Run the hospital better — about $29 million a year, if the changes actually get done. * Raise cash one time — about $57 million, mostly by selling four buildings the hospital already owns and then renting them back. Add those together, and you get the consultant’s two buckets: a yearly operating target, and a one-time cash grab. Only the first bucket can change whether the hospital makes or loses money next year. The yearly $29 million is not a check in the mail. It is a to-do list: * Book appointments and use doctor time better: about $9.6 million * Use staff time more efficiently: about $8.2 million * Write medical charts so insurers pay the correct amount: about $5.1 million * Spend less on supplies: about $2.5 million The consultants said those savings would start small and grow — roughly $9 million this year if work began in July, then the mid-$20 millions next year, then about $29 million by 2028. That only happens if managers follow through. The number that should make people stop Patients wait a long time to see a doctor at OMC. At the same time, many appointment slots sit empty. Kaufman Hall looked at more than 210,000 clinic appointments in 2025. Doctors’ schedules were only filled about 67 to 68 percent of the time. The industry target they used is 85 percent. Average wait for a new patient: about 41 days. The target: under a week. Cardiology: 90 days. Urology: 80 days. Primary care: 53 days. The newspaper’s write-up of the same report said filling those empty slots could mean about 37,000 more visits and $2.5 million to $5.5 million more in clinic revenue — plus more money if those patients then use the hospital. So the story is not “there are no appointments.” The story is “there are appointments, but the schedule is not being used well.” Kaufman Hall measured realized clinic use at 67.5% against an 85% standard. That is an operations problem. The 2024 lid lift already more than doubled the district tax. Extra property tax does not fill an empty slot on a calendar. A 41-day new-patient wait, with cardiology at 91 days and urology at 80, is what internal scheduling looks like after the money arrived. Selling the buildings you already own OMC already owns the hospital — and a lot of extra space. About 297,000 square feet in 31 properties around Port Angeles and Sequim, not counting the hospital itself. Some of it sits empty. The old Wells Fargo building on Front Street is one example. It has been vacant for years. Kaufman Hall’s idea: sell four of those buildings for about $55 million, then rent them back. That sounds like a win. It is not free money. Think of selling your house and staying in it as a renter. You get a big check at closing. Then you pay rent every month, forever. Hospital deals like this are usually written so the hospital still pays almost every bill that comes with the building. Not just rent. Property taxes. Insurance. Repairs. All of it. Here is the tax twist. While OMC owns those clinics, they are off the tax roll. Sell them to a private landlord, and the county can start taxing the buildings. In this kind of lease, OMC — meaning the public — would pay that new tax bill too. Taxpayers would be paying rent to use buildings they used to own, plus the landlord’s property taxes. These leases also usually raise the rent a little each year, often about 3%. The payment grows even if no more patients walk in the door. Today’s cash can become tomorrow’s bigger bill. Kaufman Hall’s own slide put the yearly profit from this idea at zero. Translation: the sale can refill the checking account once. It does not fix the hospital losing money year after year. It is a short-term cash move, not a turnaround. Taxpayers already own those clinics. They already pay to heat, insure, and maintain empty rooms. Selling them would not change that workload. It would add a landlord. Clallam County’s Culture In July 2024, the Clallam County commissioners did not leave the hospital question to voters and walk away. They passed a resolution telling the public to approve OMC’s levy lid lift. Their pitch was the only play this county government culture ever seems to know: the hospital is in trouble, so residents should pay more. Voters did. People in the hospital district now send OMC more than double what they did before. That was not a rounding error. That was a political choice. Two years later, the books still do not look like a turnaround. OMC lost money for years after the tax hike. It just posted a small profitable quarter, but it included one-time help. Hospital commissioners are talking about taking the next 1 percent the law allows without another vote. That is the same reflex: if the last pile of public money did not fix it, ask for a little more. Kaufman Hall did not say the problem was that taxpayers had been stingy. The consultant said clinic schedules are only about two-thirds full, new patients wait about 41 days against a target of under a week, charts are under-coded, staffing is loose, and buildings the public already owns sit underused. Their real-estate idea — sell four clinics and rent them back — puts cash in the bank once. Their own slide scored the yearly profit from that deal at zero. The rent, the new property-tax bill on those buildings, and the usual yearly rent increases would then sit on the operating statement forever. A tax increase can buy time. It cannot book an empty appointment. It cannot occupy an empty suite. It cannot make a commissioner look at operations instead of the levy. County commissioners sold the public the solution they always sell. Hospital commissioners collected it. The Kaufman Hall packet is the homework that neither board can hide behind before taking another rate hike. The record is now public. The empty slots are public. The next ask for money should be answered with one question: what did you do with the last pile of cash fleeced from the taxpayers? “There is no such thing as public money. There is only taxpayers’ money.” — Margaret Thatcher Stay Engaged This morning at 7:30 The Port Angeles Business Association is hosting a conversation between both candidates for District Court #1 Judge. PABA is pleased to welcome Alex Schodowski (above, left) and Patrick David Murphy (above, right), candidates for Clallam County District Court 1 Judge. Join PABA as both candidates present their vision for the court and share their judicial qualifications with our community. To access the livestream of this meeting, visit PABA’s Faceboo

  8. Aug 31

    A Level III Child Predator in Sequim, Needles in Bell Creek, and a Commissioner Who Tells Business Owners to Join a List

    A Georgia child molester classified as Level III — the highest risk to reoffend — settled in Sequim. A registered sex offender from the Spokane area preyed on local minors. Last Thursday, voters asked the two District 3 candidates what they would do about public safety. One answered with numbers, enforcement, and treatment. The other sounded like a man who last ran a restaurant a decade ago and still thinks a trespass list is a public-safety plan. The man Georgia sent west In 2004, Alexander Holmes Wright was convicted in two Georgia counties of kidnapping and child molestation. In Camden County, he kidnapped and molested an eight-year-old girl. In McIntosh County, he kidnapped and molested a female toddler. The victims were not related to him. Georgia records later listed him as having “moved out of state.” In 2020, the Clallam County Sheriff’s Office issued a Level III sex-offender notification. Level III is the classification for offenders most likely to reoffend. Wright, then 52, was living on the 200 block of Williamson Road in Sequim after serving his Georgia sentence. Registry entries list two child-molestation convictions and two kidnapping convictions, all with sexual motivation, all from 2004, with a listed release date of May 31, 2020. Last week, Wright was arrested and charged as a “fugitive from justice in another state.” That is not an isolated story. It is a pattern. Then came the man from Spokane Last week, Jake Seegers reported on another case: a registered sex offender with ties to Spokane who victimized at least two minors in Clallam County before he was arrested. Public reporting on that case describes a man previously convicted of second-degree child molestation in Douglas County, later arrested in Spokane County for failing to register, who then spent about a year in Port Angeles. He offered marijuana to a 15-year-old girl at the Gateway Transit Center and sexually assaulted her. When officers later found him, another girl — 17 — was in the bed. In April 2026, he pleaded guilty to rape of a child in the third degree and was sentenced to 48 months in prison plus community custody. Two different predators. Two different ZIP codes of origin. Same county at the end of the road. Why do so many sex offenders and high-need addicts arrive here from somewhere else? Residents have been asking that question for years. Is it the permissive drug culture? Policies that tolerate living outside even when shelter beds sit empty? Free housing pipelines, free food, free transportation — and now free showers at a family pool, routed through the same harm-reduction system that hands out drug supplies? Those are not abstract talking points. They are recruitment features. The question voters actually asked Public safety and harm reduction dominated last Thursday’s packed Calico Cat Club candidate conversation in Sequim. One question cut through the slogans: When a business owner arrives to find someone camping in the doorway amid drug paraphernalia or human waste — and cannot even get to the door to open the business — at what point does compassion for the unhoused become an infringement on the owner’s right to safety and livelihood? Should laws against public drug use, dealing, and illegal camping be enforced regardless of housing status? And how does teaching people how to get a better high have anything to do with reducing overdoses or disease? That is the county a lot of people actually live in. French’s answer: call the cops and join a list Mike French’s answer sounded like it belonged to another decade. He leaned on memories of “few problems” from the restaurant he used to operate in downtown Port Angeles. That business chapter is nearly a decade old. Downtown is not the same place. The drugs are not the same. The encampments are not the same. The cost to businesses is not the same. French’s practical advice at the forum was that if someone is camping in a doorway — even amid waste and drug use — the owner can ask them to leave, call police, and join a trespass list. That may be the legal first step. It is not a county strategy. It puts the burden back on the business owner to report the same problem again and again, while officers already say a large share of downtown calls are trespass calls. Paperwork is not the same thing as prevention. This is also the commissioner who sits on the William Shore Memorial Pool District board and supports a shower-voucher program that routes people from the Harm Reduction Health Center — which distributes drug supplies to homeless addicts — into a family aquatic center. He later said he did not know the program existed until social media brought it to light, an unusual admission from someone who is both a county commissioner and a pool-board member. When the policy was revised, his emphasis was on keeping it simple and low-cost, not adding stronger safeguards. French describes harm reduction as practical and evidence-based. He points to treatment investments and has suggested the county consider a sales-tax increase like the one Port Angeles passed for police. On addiction, he notes that it leads people to do things they otherwise would not do. That may be true. It does not explain why the county should treat doorway camping, public drug use, and illegal camping as problems for shopkeepers to manage one complaint at a time. Compassion for people in crisis should not require tax-paying business owners to operate as the front desk of a social-service system. Enforcement, treatment that actually moves people off the street, and clear limits on public disorder are not the opposite of compassion. They are what make compassion workable. Seegers’ answer: stop paying for the magnet Jake Seegers did not offer a trespass list. He named the price tag. Permanent supportive housing, he said, is cost-prohibitive for the scale of the problem, and the units are not prioritized for local people. He pointed to the 36-unit Northview permanent housing complex that prioritizes housing for homeless drug addicts and criminals: about $350,000 a unit, mostly one-bedrooms and studios, beautiful enough that “every single one of us would want to live there” — filled by lottery for people who only have to be “engaged in services” here. That can mean they arrived yesterday or called a provider from out of state. “We need to prioritize the people that are here,” Seegers said. “And if our funding does not allow us to do that, we need to change how we’re funding.” Then he put the budget on the table. The cost of what he called “misguided compassion” is $33 million a year out of a $56 million budget — the 2025 law-and-justice bill for jails, indigent defense, prosecution, law enforcement, and courts. Chief Smith and Sheriff King have both said nearly all crime here is related to drugs. “The cost of compassion is $33 million. That’s how we balance the county’s budget is by prioritizing public safety.” He said ordinances must be enforced, and that should have been done years ago. On the grotesque edge of harm reduction — instructions on how to get “the best high when you boof” — his answer was blunt: absolutely not. He said he finds it hard to believe the county even operates a harm-reduction health center that goes that far. He also described a grant-funded drug-testing machine that would have taken users’ drugs, tested them, and handed them back with an all-clear — “effectively distribution.” The only reason the county does not have that machine, he said, is that “some sane individuals” flagged the liability and underwriters said no. That is the race. French manages the symptoms and calls it compassion. Seegers treats the disorder as what it is: a budget drain, a crime problem, and a choice the county keeps making. The creek taxpayers restored is now a dump This is not only a Port Angeles story. The same policy weather system has been blowing into Sequim. Social-media documentarian Woodie Allen filmed the dry summer bed of Bell Creek where it passes under Washington Street, between the Big Elk Restaurant and Les Schwab, accessed off Brown Road. Inside the culvert: clothing, garbage, food wrappers, needles, foil, tourniquets, and the rest of the harm reduction kits linked to the free paraphernalia the county hands out. Drivers crossing that intersection may be rolling over people trapped in addiction in a pipe that is dry in August and can fill — even flood — in winter. That would be ugly enough if Bell Creek were a forgotten ditch. It is not. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Bell Creek Wildlife Area Unit sits on the east side of Sequim. The state bought the parcels between 1998 and 2001 with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service coastal-wetlands money and Washington Wildlife and Recreation Program funds. The purpose was stream and riparian restoration, Garry oak and prairie conservation, and protection of valley habitat along Bell Creek’s tributaries. Volunteers planted more than 2,600 Garry oak seedlings and 600 acorns and logged more than 5,300 hours over 24 years. Oregon white oak woodland is a priority habitat; only a sliver of the original oak prairie remains. So the public paid to buy it, restore it, plant it, and protect it. The current homelessness-and-harm-reduction regime is filling the culvert with garbage and needles that, in a few months, will be flushed into the restored habitat and into Sequim Bay. Bell Creek is not a separate environmental story from Tumwater Creek. It is the same policy, showing up in a different place: when public disorder is tolerated downtown, it does not stay downtown. It moves into the creeks taxpayers paid to restore. One vote, five outcomes Public safety.Economic prosperity. Harm reduction.Moving vulnerable residents from addiction into treatment. Protecting the County’s most sensitive waterways. These are not five separat

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3.1
out of 5
7 Ratings

About

Holding County Leaders Accountable www.ccwatchdog.com

Information

  • Creator
    Jeff Tozzer
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    382
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Jeff Tozzer
  • Show Website
    Clallam County Watchdog

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