Clallam County Watchdog

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

Holding County Leaders Accountable www.ccwatchdog.com

  1. 1h ago

    A Tale of Two Waterfront Towns

    Last week in Excelsior, Minnesota, County Commissioner Candidate Jake Seegers found a waterfront town that looks a lot like Port Angeles—except the storefronts were full, the trails were spotless, and no one was camping, dealing, or using drugs in public. The difference wasn’t luck or isolation. It was rules that get enforced, services that aren’t concentrated in one small city, and residents who still expect parks to be parks. If Excelsior can sit 20 miles from Minneapolis and refuse to surrender its downtown, Sundays With Seegers argues Port Angeles can stop treating outdoor living and open addiction as the only compassionate option. Last week, I had the pleasure of attending my youngest brother’s wedding in Minnesota. My entire family made it—my parents, my sister, my six brothers, their spouses, and my nephews and niece. For a few days, we all stayed together in an old guest house in downtown Excelsior, Minnesota. It was a wonderful week. But as I walked, ran, ate, and shopped my way around Excelsior, I couldn’t stop thinking about home. In many ways, Excelsior reminded me of Port Angeles. Two Waterfront Towns Excelsior sits on the shore of Lake Minnetonka, less than half an hour from Minneapolis. It is small—only about one square mile with roughly 2,300 residents—but its historic downtown serves as a commercial and recreational hub for the surrounding area. Its main commercial corridor is appropriately named Water Street. Walk down Water Street toward the lake, and you find many of the same ingredients that should make Port Angeles thrive. A boutique grocery store and small-business shopping center welcome shoppers downtown. This reminded me of Country Aire and Armory Square. There are local restaurants. And coffee shops. A brewery. A pizza shop. A little shop to grab charcuterie. Specialty apparel stores. Art galleries. A toy and candy shop. A bookstore. A bike shop The Lake Minnetonka Regional Trail, which runs directly through downtown, along the lake, through forests and across scenic bridges. And, when you reach the waterfront, ice cream and kayak rentals. Then there is The Commons—a beautiful waterfront park with a swimming beach, playground, a baseball field, picnic areas, and gathering spaces. Excelsior is beautiful. It is walkable. It is surrounded by incredible nature. It attracts visitors who want to experience the waterfront and spend money at local businesses. Sound familiar? But there were also differences. Empty storefronts - I didn’t see them. Excelsior’s main commercial corridor appeared packed with attractive, thriving local businesses. But that wasn’t the biggest difference. Where were the encampments and open substance abuse? What struck me most was what I didn’t see. I didn’t see open drug use.I didn’t see encampments.I didn’t see people screaming obscenities at pedestrians.I didn’t see piles of garbage accumulating along the waterfront.I didn’t see syringes, foil, or human waste.I didn’t see stolen shopping carts piled high with locally distributed freebies.I didn’t see people openly dealing drugs. Not once did I see a business owner who would need to remove a sleeping bag, trash, or an intoxicated individual from the doorstep of their storefront. The early mornings were calm, peaceful, perfect. For several mornings, I ran along the regional trail before sunrise. I would stop periodically in the dark for a set of burpees. And I realized something that shouldn’t have been remarkable: I wasn’t worried about what I might put my hands in. The trail was spotless. That shouldn’t be shocking. But coming from Clallam County, it was. So I started asking people a simple question: Where is the homelessness and open drug use? The answer I repeatedly received was essentially: “That’s a Minneapolis problem. Not here.” That made me even more curious. Excelsior isn’t some isolated rural town hundreds of miles from an urban center. Downtown Minneapolis is only 20 miles away. So how does a beautiful waterfront community sitting on the doorstep of a major metropolitan area avoid many of the problems we have increasingly accepted as inevitable in Port Angeles? Maybe Public Policy Matters Excelsior has rules governing public spaces — rules that are enforced. Excelsior’s city code generally prohibits drinking alcohol in its parks without a permit. Alcohol consumption on public sidewalks, streets, and parking lots is also prohibited without a permit. Its public parks are closed between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. The ordinance specifically prohibits remaining in a park—or remaining in a vehicle on public park grounds—during those hours, with limited exceptions. The city also prohibits overnight parking on Water Street from 1 a.m. to 7 a.m. In other words, Excelsior has established an expectation that public spaces remain public spaces. Several residents told me that outdoor camping simply isn’t tolerated. One woman put it this way: “The police would have a dozen calls within the hour and would take care of it.” That’s anecdotal, not a statistical study. But it speaks to something government policy can never completely manufacture: Community expectations. Residents expect their parks to remain parks. Businesses expect sidewalks to remain sidewalks. Families expect trails to remain trails. And when something threatens those expectations, residents expect government to respond. Then I Noticed Something Else Another major difference existed between Excelsior and Port Angeles. The service infrastructure. I started looking. Where was Excelsior’s equivalent of the Harm Reduction Health Center?Where was its syringe exchange?Where was its methadone clinic?Where was its dedicated opioid treatment center?Where was its crisis stabilization facility?Where was the large behavioral-health infrastructure?Where were the homelessness outreach programs? I couldn’t find comparable facilities located in Excelsior. That doesn’t mean Excelsior residents are denied treatment. Far from it. Excelsior is in Hennepin County, which has an extensive behavioral-health, addiction-treatment, and harm-reduction system. Residents have access to those services throughout the metropolitan area. But much of the high-intensity infrastructure is located elsewhere—particularly Minneapolis and other larger population centers. That’s very different from Port Angeles. Here, an enormous amount of behavioral-health, homelessness, and addiction infrastructure is concentrated in one relatively small city. We have methadone treatment.Medication-assisted treatment.Syringe and drug use supply distribution.Homeless outreach.Multi-million dollar behavioral-health enterprises.Permanent supportive housing.An inpatient treatment center with a Department of Corrections contract.And millions upon millions of taxpayer dollars flowing through the system. Some of these services undoubtedly help people. But when a small community concentrates an extraordinary number of services for homelessness and active addiction while simultaneously tolerating outdoor living, open drug use, and the degradation of public spaces, it inadvertently creates a destination for the very problems it is trying to solve. Compassion Without Accountability Isn’t Working For years we have been told that enforcing laws against public camping is cruel. That removing encampments is criminalizing homelessness. That requiring accountability is stigmatizing addiction. That distributing more supplies for drug use is harm reduction. That permanent housing must come before expectations of sobriety or self-sufficiency. Meanwhile, residents have watched public spaces deteriorate, and businesses have borne the consequences. Taxpayers have spent more. And people struggling with addiction continue dying. At some point, compassion has to be measured by results. Are people graduating from addiction into recovery?Are they moving from homelessness into self-sufficiency?Are our public spaces getting safer?Is our environment more protected? If not, spending more money doing the same things isn’t a solution. It’s a failure to change course. Washington Cities Are Beginning to Change Course Clallam County wouldn’t be alone if it chose to pivot. Communities elsewhere in Washington are reconsidering policies that effectively surrendered public spaces to outdoor living. In July, the Tukwila City Council voted to prohibit camping on city-owned property, including parks, sidewalks, rights-of-way, and environmentally sensitive areas. The ordinance gives police an enforcement mechanism, while city officials have described enforcement as a last resort. Spokane has gone further. In 2025, Spokane adopted a citywide ban on unauthorized camping as part of a broader strategy that combines engagement with enforcement. The city’s stated approach is to connect people to services first while maintaining a clear enforcement mechanism when people refuse to comply. And Renton is considering a similar direction. As of this writing, Renton’s proposed ordinance would prohibit camping and unauthorized storage of property on city property and establish stronger trespass provisions. The City Council considered the proposal on September 14 but sent it back to committee for further deliberation. A community can offer compassion without surrendering its public spaces. Treatment and accountability are not opposites.Shelter and enforcement are not opposites.Compassion and expectations are not opposites. We can help someone while still telling them that living indefinitely in a park, using fentanyl on a sidewalk, or destroying a critical area isn’t acceptable. Could Excelsior’s Story Be Ours? I don’t pretend that Excelsior and Port Angeles are identical. Excelsior is much smaller. It sits within a wealthy metropolitan region. Port Angeles is the governmental, medical, and commercial center of a huge rural county. We face geographic, economic, and social ch

  2. 3d ago

    French’s “Easy Answer” Leaves Out the Invoice

    At last month’s Calico Cat Club forum, resident Karen Parker asked what non-tribal taxpayers gain when public money subsidizes jobs and business growth for sovereign nations that don’t carry the same tax load—and how that stacks against lost local revenue. Mike French called the benefit “easy and obvious”: Jamestown Healthcare filled the hole Virginia Mason left, then added a healing center and a 16-bed psychiatric facility. Gaps filled, trust built, a rising tide. That’s one way to tell things, but it isn’t the whole story. The clinic campus started with the public hospital The Fifth Avenue clinic French treats as proof of rescue did not appear from nowhere. In 2007, Olympic Medical Center—the taxpayer-owned hospital district—announced the new Jamestown medical center would sit on 2.5 acres donated by OMC. The public hospital gave up the land. The tribe built a clinic open to the general public and grew it into a regional operation. French is not wrong that access improved. He is incomplete when he stops there. The county’s largest employer helped plant a competitor that is now the county’s second-largest employer, while OMC spent the following years fighting for cash. This is no longer a small tribal clinic Jamestown’s own reports treat the clinics as enterprises, not a last-resort charity shop. The tribe has said for years that the Family Health and Dental clinics run on a business model: income has to cover costs. By the 2024 report, that business was regional—about 18,000 Family Health Clinic patients, more than 65,000 visits, 131 employees, plus dental volume and more than 290 Healing Clinic patients, most of them Clallam residents. Those are the same people still underwriting OMC. The payment rules are not the same. Jamestown has publicized Medicaid encounter rates in the mid-$600s and participates in the federal 340B drug program. In the 2024 Report to Tribal Citizens, as reported by Clallam County Watchdog, the tribe listed $85.9 million in total revenue. A commenter itemizing that same report’s revenue table put “Charges for Services/340B” at $47.2 million—the largest line on that list. The published description does not split that amount among primary care, MAT, dental, and 340B pharmacy. Even without that breakout, health billing and 340B sit at the center of the year the tribe put on paper. Same community. Different rulebook. Salish Seasons: public dollars, tribal ribbon French’s ribbon-cutting line skips the invoice. Jamestown Salish Seasons, the 16-bed psychiatric facility next to the Healing Clinic, is a needed service. It is also a publicly financed building the tribe will own and run. Reported cost: about $31.25 million. State capital budgets put $13 million, then $15 million, toward the project—$28 million before other grants. Jamestown’s 2023 citizen report said the quiet part: the tribe was “in a unique position to manage the facility but is not funding it with Tribal dollars.” A separate Commerce behavioral-health grant of about $3.2 million sits beside those appropriations. If it landed on the same project, the taxpayer contribution nearly equals the full construction cost. The original plan was that the tribe would own the site and OMC would operate the unit. After the hospital’s finances collapsed, Jamestown took the operating role too. French presents that as the tribe filling a gap. It is also a public hospital too weak to run a service it was supposed to run, while a state-built facility opened under a different set of reimbursement rules. The hospital is not a side note OMC remains the county’s largest employer. It has posted years of operating losses, watched reserves collapse, drawn auditor “going concern” warnings, and lost providers. Jamestown did not single-handedly break a rural hospital. Medicare mix, labor, and management all matter. What French’s answer omits is the competitive reality that Karen Parker asked him to weigh: a large non-tribal patient base, encounter-rate Medicaid, 340B, grants, tax-exempt status, and a shared labor pool—on land the public hospital once donated. “Build trust” is not an accounting entry French said the commissioners’ most important job is to build trust with the tribes and let them fill gaps. Trust is a real governing task. It is not an answer to the tax question. Jamestown already employs at scale, runs clinics as businesses, takes state capital money, and bids against local firms. Recompete has been used to buy the tribe a hydroseeder and excavator for a new commercial line. Contractors who paid for their own equipment get to watch “workforce” funds capitalize a competitor that does not sit on the same tax footing. Parker asked about subsidy and lost revenue. French answered with a clinic tour. The clinics are real. The access is real. So are the donated acres, the millions in taxpayer-funded state grants, the health-business surplus, and the hospital still asking this county to keep it alive. A rising tide is a nice phrase. It is not a ledger. “There is no such thing as a free lunch.” — Milton Friedman Tonight Clallam County Watchdog’s Jeff Tozzer is the guest speaker at this month’s Republican Women of Clallam County meeting. Anyone is welcome — including non-Republicans (like me) and non-women (like me). If transparency in local government is important to you, come. I look forward to answering your questions. Potluck tonight (Thursday) at 5:30. I speak at 6:00. It’s in Happy Valley, a few minutes south of downtown Sequim. For the address and to RSVP, email Tanya Unruh at tanyanewdesign@gmail.com. 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

  3. 4d ago

    Church Rules for Thee, Campaign Rules for Me

    Mike French wants a public apology for a two-year-old church announcement. His supporters then book a private “election protection” workshop in a Sequim church, reserve the right to refuse anyone at the door, and keep a skunk on the invite. Meanwhile, deputies hunt a 120-mph suspect who first showed up on a 2020 prison-release list; a familiar name from Jefferson County is back in the Clallam jail, and 500 locals have already put their names behind Jake Seegers. The CCWD comments section is livelier than the official articles; you should read them. When “separation of church and state” only runs one way The standout moment from last month’s candidate conversation was not policy. It was Commissioner Mike French demanding that Jake Seegers apologize for remarks Seegers made to his own congregation two years ago. French said he believes in the separation of church and state. He described a childhood of Sunday school, Sunday night services, and Bible study. If someone had stood in his church and told the congregation to vote for a specific candidate or party, he said, they would have been shouted out of the room. Naming a party or a candidate, French said, was crossing the line. “With respect, Jake, you could have just said vote.” Then: “I think you should apologize.” Seegers’ actual remarks, now endlessly recut as the “shotgun sermon,” were a 2024 church announcement asking people to vote. He has said the shotgun story was a metaphor for using the tools already in your hands—not a call to violence. French, who has branded himself a free-speech absolutist, treated a church announcement as a hanging offense and spent precious debate time on it instead of the county’s current issues. The hypocrisy did not stay on stage. French’s campaign has tapped Indivisible for canvassing and sticker production. Indivisible Sequim is hosting an “Election Protection Workshop” this Saturday at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Sequim. The event is advertised on their website, but listed as private on Facebook. Guest speaker: Ellen Menshew, chair of the Clallam County Democrats. The invite carries the skunk graphic that has become shorthand for the anti-Seegers campaign. It also says, “We’d love to see you”—and, in the next breath, “this is a private event and we reserve the right to refuse entry to anyone.” Congressional candidate Teresa Fox put it bluntly: they reserve the right to refuse anyone at a how-to-get-candidates-elected session. Why? Now pull their own website. Indivisible Sequim’s About page says the goal is a government that is “inclusive, responsive, open, and respectful,” where “individual liberties and rights are protected,” and where “caring, compassion, and common decency guide” officials. Their primary objective is to “support and elect people.” Their committees include a 2026 Election Taskforce that “concentrates efforts on assessing, endorsing, and supporting.” So: inclusive—except at the church door. Open—except when the guest list is curated. Separation of church and state—except when the church hosts the slate. Free speech absolutism—except when a businessman talks to his own congregation. French can demand an apology for a church announcement. His affiliated activists can hold a closed political workshop in a church and post a skunk on the flyer. That is not principle. That is a one-way rule. Still looking for the 120-mph driver Deputies are still searching for Port Angeles resident Brian J. Arnold after a vehicle pursuit that hit about 120 mph. On September 11, deputies contacted him at the Jamestown S’Klallam Longhouse on Highway 101 on a suspected drug-use call. When they tried to detain him, he fled westbound, driving into oncoming lanes. A supervisor ended the chase at Blue Mountain Road. Minutes later came a two-vehicle hit-and-run at Deer Park Loop. Arnold’s vehicle was found abandoned in Port Angeles. He was not. This was not his first pursuit. In September 2024 he led deputies through Sequim at more than 85 mph, tossed items from the car, and was arrested on felony elude, DUI suspicion, and drug charges. It was not his first appearance in official papers, either. In May 2020, Sheriff Bill Benedict warned residents about early prison releases under Governor Inslee’s emergency commutation, DOC’s Rapid Reentry program, and emergency furloughs. Among those released to Clallam County was Brian J. Arnold, listed for possession of a controlled substance via rapid re-entry—on the same roster as burglars, firearm cases, and a hit-and-run injury conviction. Benedict asked people to lock doors, watch mailboxes, and call if they saw something. The warning was not abstract. It had names. The 2020 list was sold as public-health emergency. Six years later, the same name is attached to 120 mph on Highway 101. That is the policy, not a coincidence. The paper used to have standards Sequim’s David LeRoux told the Peninsula Daily News that Jake Seegers “finished his political sermon with a prayer like a Christian nationalist would do”—politics stuffed in a Bible, wrapped in a flag, no separation of church and state. The paper published the letter. Define the term: Christian nationalism is not private faith in public life. It is the claim that the United States should be reconstituted as a Christian state, and that civil law should enforce one creed on everyone else. A man asking his own church to vote, then praying, is not Christian nationalism. It was church announcements, not a commissioner meeting. Prayer in church is not a political coup. If the PDN will print a smear over a prayer in church, the standard has to run both ways. The same paper would almost certainly refuse a letter calling French an anarchist because he promotes property destruction. It would also refuse a letter calling him a money launderer because thousands of county dollars move through a Sequim church to the NGO he sits on. A serious newspaper does not print labels it cannot prove. That is the rule. If the paper will not print crime labels it cannot prove, it should not print “Christian nationalist” for a man talking to his church and closing in prayer. No one should be surprised by David LeRoux. He is an Indivisible protester and a reliable straight-ticket Democrat. An independent running against a Democrat will never get his vote. That is his right. However, it is not a license for the newspaper. The letters page does not have to launder a faction’s nickname for the other candidate. Seegers spoke in church. French wants an apology—while his allies hold a closed political meeting in another church, play gatekeepers at the door, and stamp a skunk on the invite. Voters can see the double standard. If the PDN is going to publish name-calling, it should have standards. Five hundred names—and they can’t boycott all of them The first batch of endorsements is up on Jake Seegers’ campaign page. If a name is missing, the next batch is coming. If a name was never sent, there is still time. Five hundred residents, businesses, and elected officials have already put their names on the line. That is a lot of people for the League of Women Voters and Indivisible to boycott and excommunicate. Endorsing is not joining a secret society. It is saying, in public, that the current results are not good enough. They cannot shame half the county into silence, but they can try. The list keeps growing. Remember Mohabo Boughton? Last December, Clallam County Watchdog reported that 32-year-old Mohabo Aliyu Boughton had been booked into the Clallam County Jail for first-degree criminal trespass—and, given local catch-and-release habits, was out in record time. A single trespass charge would be noise. The record is the story. In March 2018, Peninsula Daily News reported an attempted assault on Jefferson County’s Larry Scott Memorial Trail: a woman on a bicycle confronted by a man with an orange baseball bat. Deputies found Boughton with the bat and an 8-inch fixed-blade knife. He told officers they were arresting him “because I’m a black man.” The arrest was for the bat, the knife, and the trail. Boughton is back. He was arrested in Clallam County earlier this month for criminal trespass and released the next day. Clallam is not a wealthy dumping ground for criminals. Free transit, free meals, free paraphernalia, low-barrier housing, and thin enforcement are a magnet. Residents pay it in 911 calls, jail bookings, and the next trespass. Doorbells, not press releases The Seegers campaign is building its doorbelling and canvassing team now. The work is neighbors talking to neighbors. People willing to knock should email volunteer@jakeseegers.com with a phone number, the general neighborhood, and whether they can travel a bit. First-timers count. Every porch conversation is one more place the official narrative does not get the last word. Clallam is not won from a library meeting that reserves the right to refuse entry. It is won on the front stoop. Burien tried the thing Port Angeles will not say out loud John Curley at MyNorthwest sat down with former Burien Mayor Kevin Schilling after Burien’s camping ban and tighter policing. Reported crime in Burien fell more than 20 percent from 2024 to 2025. Robbery dropped about 43 percent, burglary about 49 percent, auto theft about 38 percent. Schilling’s line was blunt: this is not a housing shortage first. It is drugs and mental illness, and word of mouth that “you can get help here” is how tents migrate. Tukwila followed. Renton is next. Federal Way already moved. Schilling is leaving office anyway. “You can’t fight crazy with crazy,” he said. “The antidote to craziness is normalcy.” Port Angeles and Clallam have been running the opposite experiment: services first, enforcement last, and surprise when the waterfront looks like a third-world country. Burien’s numbers are not ideology. T

  4. 5d ago

    Nine Years of Mike French: The Promises That Never Arrived

    Mike French entered Port Angeles politics in 2017 talking jobs, roads, housing, and common sense. The voters’ pamphlets show how the pitch evolved—and how little the results matched it. After nine years, Clallam is still being sold the same lines while the books, the roads, and the downtown tell a different story. Mike French’s first printed promise was simple. Port Angeles was his lifelong home. He would work “tirelessly” for a robust economy, job opportunities, good roads, affordable housing, and a thriving business community. He would use common sense. He would be a voice of reason. He would respect the community and the Council. That was 2017. He had never held office. He owned the First Street Haven restaurant. He listed the Hamilton PTO, the symphony, Light Opera, the Chamber, and the Downtown Association. He did not glide in unopposed. In the August primary, he beat incumbent Lee Whetham and finished ahead of Jacob Oppelt, 1,449 to 1,281 to 1,003. That part he earned. Oppelt then moved outside city limits, checked the RCW with the auditor, and suspended the campaign too late to remove his name from the ballot. The November result—70.3% to 29.7%—was the score of a race that had already ended. Oppelt quitting did not put French in the general or remove Whetham. French had already done both. The blowout was what a withdrawn name looks like on Election Day. Two years later he filed for Charter Review Commission in District 3—eleven names, vote for five, no primary. The pamphlet was a stub: one term on council, restaurant owner, school lines, PTO and clinic board, and no statement. He reported nothing raised and nothing spent. Voters ranked him 10th of 11 named candidates, 1,835 votes, 7.97 percent. When the office was city council, he wrote a statement. When the office was a low-effort multi-winner commission, he filed and left the statement blank. He was already on council. He did not treat CRC as a job he meant to win. The second council race, and the housing-first turn In 2021, he ran again for Position 2. The pamphlet now listed four years on council and a record: Chamber partnership on a downtown plan, zoning reforms and tax incentives for housing, work with Peninsula Housing Authority and the Olympic Peninsula Community Clinic to move “our unhoused population into secure permanent housing,” and social workers paired with police. The election was real this time. John Madden took him to November. French won 3,665 to 2,539 (58.92%–40.82%). Samantha Rodahl was out after the primary. By then, “affordable housing” in his materials meant the housing-first model that has since been tested in public. The Tempest, a Serenity House project, did not age into a success story. It closed after a short, ugly run—fire, flooding, explosives, and the kind of street-level chaos residents do not need a consultant to describe. Current units billed as “solutions” have landed in the $350,000 to $500,000 range. That is subsidized housing with a luxury price tag, as Clallamity Jen has said, not a ladder for working families. The people being prioritized are not the same people French’s 2017 pamphlet implied. Countywide, on a changed map In 2022 he ran for county commissioner against Bill Peach. There were only two names. After a charter change, that seat was decided countywide for that cycle. French lost District 3—the district he would represent—and won the county. The east end carried him. Peach still won the district after a DUI weeks before the general. The 2022 pamphlet added homelessness, public safety, climate change, and a promise that has since become a punchline: “I will prioritize robust public engagement.” Anyone who sits through a commissioner meeting knows what that phrase has meant in practice. Questions get parked. Emails go unanswered. Public comment is a three-minute timer, not a conversation. * He worked behind the scenes with arts interests on a Cultural Access Tax the commissioners could impose without a public vote. * He has not explained, in any satisfactory way, how $118,000 in county money contracted to Trinity United Methodist Church in Sequim then flows into OlyCAP—an NGO on whose board he sits. * He chairs Recompete and is buying a hydroseeder and excavator for Jamestown Corporation, a sovereign government with a nine-figure budget, while local contractors who paid for their own equipment watch a tax-funded competitor roll onto the same jobs. That is not “outreach to the business community.” That is picking winners. Public safety, in this record, includes giving shower vouchers to active drug users at the Shore Aquatic Center, a family pool. Common sense, in this record, includes letting Towne Road stay closed for two years while he tried to appease activists who wanted a trail. Meanwhile, a house burned. The fire engine could not take the direct route due to Towne Road’s unnecessary closure, and a family became homeless. Dungeness lost its direct route to Sequim. County staff had said to finish the road before the grants died, and then the grants died. The extra cost to the Clallam County Taxpayer was $1.5 million. None of that is “common sense.” Civil dialogue is not a Facebook post calling speakers “unhinged conspiracy theorists” or wondering why listening to public comment would have changed a Board of Health vote. Respect is not laughing at citizens who give public comment. Property and protest are not the same thing; French has argued that property destruction is “usually the only way we’ve ever seen actual change happen.” He can explain the Boston Tea Party. He has a harder time explaining why the same standard never applies to the people he governs. The economy French keeps promising Steve Pelayo’s charts on Facebook are not campaign literature. Real GDP in Clallam lagged the state and the country for a lost decade. Property- and sales-tax growth put the county and Port Angeles near the bottom of their peer sets. “Job opportunities” in the current pitch often means grant machinery: dollars in, two hires to run a program, hopes for a third. Recompete is the exhibit, not the exception. Mike French’s 2026 pamphlet drops the “robust community engagement” language and reaches for something softer: he wants his own story to be possible for every resident. Then it claims conservative budgeting—maintain services, avoid debt, protect reserves—while the board has stared at a growing deficit every cycle he has been on it. A poet laureate on county payroll is not “conservative budgeting.” Peninsula Behavioral Health’s North View is the physical punchline: permanent supportive housing dressed as luxury condos with a view, built at a cost working families will never see, reserved for the housing-first caseload—homeless residents, many with active addiction and criminal records—and sold as how you “get ahead” in Clallam County. The case after nine years French did not stumble into every office. He beat an incumbent in a three-way primary in 2017. He won a contested council race in 2021. He won a countywide commissioner race in 2022 after the rules changed. Those are facts. The other facts are the ones the pamphlets cannot outrun. * The robust economy did not arrive. * The roads project that became a two-year closure cost a family a house and the county a million and a half dollars. * Affordable housing became high-cost supportive units. * Public engagement became a process when it suited him and silence when it didn't. * Common sense became overriding the people who told him the grants would expire. * Civil dialogue became an arrogant verdict on the public—speakers tagged as unhinged, hearings treated as theater—from the same official who once wrote that property destruction is “not only fine,” and “usually the only way we’ve ever seen actual change happen.” Nine years is enough time to test a slogan. The slogans are still on the page. The outcomes are on Towne Road, at The Tempest, in the Recompete equipment list, in the Board of Health comment queue, and in Pelayo’s charts. New outcomes require different people. The old promises have had their election seasons. “Politicians and diapers should be changed often — and for the same reason.” — Mark Twain Stay Engaged This Week Today, 7:30 a.m. — PABA breakfast Port Angeles Business Association, Jazzy Joshua’s (113 Del Guzzi Drive, east Port Angeles). PUD District 2 candidates Rick Paschall and Randy Brackett speak. Breakfast meeting runs until 8:30. Livestream is on PABA’s Facebook page. Joshua’s charges $5 if you don’t order food. This is open to the public, but PABA members get to ask questions first. Today, 10:00 a.m. — County commissioners Regular weekly meeting, including the monthly Commissioners’ Forum — the only two-way session where residents can question the board and get answers on the record. Thursday, 5:30 p.m. — I’ll be speaking in Happy Valley Clallam County Watchdog’s Jeff Tozzer is the guest speaker at this month’s Republican Women of Clallam County meeting. Anyone is welcome — including non-Republicans (like me) and non-women (like me). If transparency in local government is important to you, come. I look forward to answering your questions. Potluck at 5:30. I speak at 6:00, followed by my personalized hair care tips. It’s in Happy Valley, a few minutes south of downtown Sequim. For the address and to RSVP, email Tanya Unruh at tanyanewdesign@gmail.com. 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

  5. 6d ago

    French’s ORCAA Vote: More Process, Higher Fees, and the Same Unfunded Mandate

    ORCAA spent $345,000 last year on outdoor burning and recovered $27,400 in fines. Clallam County Commissioner Mike French voted to expand the agency’s tracking system anyway. Rural board members from Grays Harbor and Mason Counties called it a first step toward more rules and fees. Property owners who clear land now pay more than double. A local shipyard that wanted to add jobs paid a six-figure penalty and waited years for approval. Voters should ask who that record serves. ORCAA (Olympic Region Clean Air Agency) is the regional air agency for six counties, including Clallam. It enforces rules on outdoor burning, land-clearing fires, industrial air permits, asbestos, and wood-stove smoke. It also runs state-funded programs that pay homeowners to remove uncertified wood stoves and replace them with heat pumps, gas, pellet, or electric units — or remove the stove altogether. The agency is dedicated to creating more process around burning and building, and it’s one of more than 20 boards, liasonships, and committees that Clallam County Commissioner Mike French sits on. On November 12, 2025, that board voted 5-2 to direct staff to implement a “regionwide voluntary educational outdoor burning notification system” in time for the fall 2026 burn season. French voted yes. Grays Harbor County’s Georgia Miller and Mason County’s Randy Neatherlin voted no. Staff framed the system as education, not a new permit. Thurston County already requires it. The motion was not a formal rule change. Board members who opposed it said the writing was on the wall: once the list of burners exists, the next board can make it mandatory and attach a fee. That is not a conspiracy theory. It is what the meeting itself recorded. The $345,000 program taxpayers already fund Outdoor burning is ORCAA’s largest enforcement workload. Staff said 73 percent of all complaints are outdoor burns. Thurston County alone generated 459 of 668 complaints. The agency spent about $345,000 on the program in the last fiscal year — money it described as unfunded. Fine revenue collected was $27,400. Average cost per complaint, including enforcement, ran a little over $500. Those dollars do not come from a dedicated burn tax. They come from the core grant (already under pressure) and from assessments every resident in the six-county region pays, including people who live in cities where residential burning is already illegal. French compared the problem to county code enforcement: expensive, politically unpopular, and never enough. His solution was to give staff a database of who plans to burn so inspectors in Olympia can call instead of driving to Forks or Elma. That is an agency efficiency argument. It is not a taxpayer-relief argument. Miller pointed out the outreach itself costs money the agency does not have. She also noted the idea had already been discussed at the finance committee as a possible future revenue source. French liked “reframing” the program as a notification rather than a permit. He also liked that Thurston’s system allows 10-foot piles instead of the four-foot default in state rules. Most rural landowners do not burn four-foot piles. Neatherlin was blunt: he would support building a tool counties could choose to use. He would not support ORCAA implementing it over county authority, because “if this is implemented, it will become an enforcement action on the counties down the road.” The chair pushed for a vote that night. The motion carried. Fees that already went up Separate from the notification debate, ORCAA raised the land-clearing burn permit fee from $131 to $275 per acre in the FY2026 budget — more than a 100 percent increase — to move the program toward “full cost recovery.” Staff said it costs about $275 per permit to run. Most permits are for one acre. The agency issues roughly 225 a year. That fee hits people clearing land for houses, businesses, or pasture. Staff said the increase is not “overly burdensome” relative to development costs. People who actually pay it may disagree. The same budget draws $446,518 from unreserved fund balance, leaves a financial specialist position vacant, and flags outdoor burning and parts of new-source review as unfunded or underfunded. Federal core grant revenue was reduced 20 percent in the projection because of uncertainty in Washington, D.C. Assessments and fees already make up 59 percent of revenue. When grants shrink, the pressure moves to fees and assessments. French sits on that board. He also campaigns on economic development and housing affordability. The Platypus file Platypus Marine wanted to put a new building on Marine Drive to work on boats — including spray finishing and crew-transport vessels. Company president Chris Feffer told the Port Angeles Business Association the first phase would take about 35 full-time workers, with more if the building grew. ORCAA’s own notices tell the air-permit story. Platypus filed Notice of Construction 23NOC1612 on Aug. 31, 2023, for expansion and an “after-the-fact” review of a three-sided booth. In the July 10, 2024 board packet, that file was still marked “draft in progress.” A later order, 25NOC1730, covering stack changes at 535 Marine Drive, was approved Jan. 26, 2026. Rule 6.1 requires that you get that approval before you build or modify. ORCAA putting “after-the-fact” on the first notice means the booth was not lined up as a clean, before-construction permit. Separately, Platypus and the City of Port Angeles fought in court over whether Building 535 counted as part of a “marina” and whether spray work could go forward. In August 2025, Judge Brent Basden sent the land-use question back to the city. French is a former Port Angeles councilmember, an ORCAA board member, and a candidate who runs on jobs. The ORCAA file and the city lawsuit are public. Neither shows French using that seat to get a Port Angeles employer through the agency he helps govern. That is the pattern, not a one-off: more process for the agency, more cost and delay for people who build, and a commissioner who sided with the majority while the rural counties on the board said no. French’s jobs pitch is a federal Recompete grant he chairs — money that buys things like a hydroseeder and excavator for the Jamestown Corporation — not a record of cutting tape so an existing Port Angeles boatyard can hire. Grant equipment is easier to announce than getting a local employer through ORCAA and City Hall. Who he represents French is running for a second term. His campaign emphasizes Recompete grants, housing, and infrastructure. Those are real projects. They do not cancel the ORCAA record. The November vote did not ban burning. It did not instantly impose a new fee on backyard piles. It did create a region-wide list of burners, staff access to their emails, and a template already used in Thurston County. Opponents on the board said they did not trust the next step. The budget already shows the agency seeking cost recovery for land-clearing burns and warning that outdoor burning is an unfunded drain. Clallam residents pay assessments into that system. They pay higher land-clearing fees. They wait on permits while the agency talks about “substantial benefits to the agency.” French voted to keep moving in that direction. That is a fair question for November: does District 3 want another four years of a commissioner who treats ORCAA as an agency to be accommodated, or as a body that should be forced to justify every new list, fee, and delay to the people who actually live here? “The analogy that makes sense to me as a county commissioner is code enforcement… We would love to do more. We know it’s really expensive… I’m glad that we’re having the conversation, and I certainly have some opinions…” — Mike French during an ORCAA meeting Stay Engaged This Week Tuesday, 7:30 a.m. — PABA breakfast Port Angeles Business Association, Jazzy Joshua’s (113 Del Guzzi Drive, east Port Angeles). PUD District 2 candidates Rick Paschall and Randy Brackett speak. Breakfast meeting runs until 8:30. Livestream is on PABA’s Facebook page. Joshua’s charges $5 if you don’t order food. This is open to the public, but PABA members get to ask questions first. Tuesday, 10:00 a.m. — County commissioners Regular weekly meeting, including the monthly Commissioners’ Forum — the only two-way session where residents can question the board and get answers on the record. Thursday, 5:30 p.m. — I’ll be speaking in Happy Valley Clallam County Watchdog’s Jeff Tozzer is the guest speaker at this month’s Republican Women of Clallam County meeting. Anyone is welcome — including non-Republicans (like me) and non-women (like me). If transparency in local government is important to you, come. I look forward to answering your questions. Potluck at 5:30. I speak at 6:00, followed by the swimsuit and talent portions of my presentation. It’s in Happy Valley, a few minutes south of downtown Sequim. For the address and to RSVP, email Tanya Unruh at tanyanewdesign@gmail.com. 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 13

    From Treehouse to Family Enterprise

    In this podcast-only episode of Sundays With Seegers, County Commissioner candidate Jake Seegers sits down with Hans Bailey — the former Sequim pastor who went from no real retirement plan to a family business built on a 120-square-foot treehouse. What began as a kids’ hideaway now draws guests from around the world, employs eight people, and puts hundreds of thousands of dollars in local wages and taxes back into Clallam County. Listen to how one couple used their property to write their own next chapter — and why that kind of opportunity is on the line in the county’s Comprehensive Plan. Hans Bailey spent 25 years as pastor of Calvary Chapel Sequim. When he and his wife looked at retirement, they realized they could not afford to stop working. Their greatest asset was already under their feet: property on a high-bank bluff in Agnew, with open views of the Strait. They had built a 120-square-foot treehouse so their kids would have a place to stay while finishing college. Around 2017 they listed it on Airbnb. It took off. Guests came from around the world. Then the county red-tagged it. There were no codes for a house attached to trees. For more than a year the answer was tear it down. They spent about $20,000 on arborists, geotechs, and surveyors before they could even begin coming into compliance. They lived out of suitcases in the unfinished treehouse — no indoor bathroom, a wood-fired hot tub that took hours to heat, and one family packed into 120 square feet as COVID arrived. They bought an adjoining parcel to solve a setback problem. They hired an engineer and architect and expanded the structure to about 600 square feet so it would meet existing code. No bank would finance it. They kept going because they believed the treehouse could become the engine of their later years. It did. They renovated other properties, including Sequim’s “castle house.” Their sons came home from California. What started as one small rental is now a family business employing eight people and paying nearly $300,000 in wages last year. The treehouse alone can generate well over $100,000 gross. They pay about $20,000 in payroll taxes, $37,000 in property taxes, and $77,000 in sales tax. The money stays here. The treehouse is a destination. People come to Clallam County because of it. That is the power of this place. In many parts of the county, property is still within reach. Land is often a family’s largest asset. Short-term rentals let ordinary people put that asset to work, stay self-reliant, hire neighbors, and keep visitor dollars in local restaurants, shops, and trades instead of sending them to distant hotel owners. It is not easy. It is self-policing. A dirty or unsafe listing does not last. The full conversation with Hans is worth hearing. He is honest about the year of “no,” the risk, the cramped living, and the moment his sons decided to come home. He is just as clear about what the county could do instead of adding another layer of tracking and enforcement. Fire-life-safety inspections for vacation rentals are already required. Many operators have not obtained them. The Department of Community Development wants a tool — including a registry in the Comprehensive Plan — to make people comply. A registry is not a small thing. It creates another county database, another program to run, and another step between owners and the lawful use of their land. Many residents also worry it becomes the on-ramp to caps, the path Port Angeles already took with Type II short-term rentals. There is a better use of this Comprehensive Plan update: give people more legal options with property they already own. * Allow two vacation rentals per parcel. * If a property can legally hold more than one dwelling, the county should not decide that only one may serve visitors. * Allow appropriately sited RVs as vacation rentals. An RV is built for temporary stays. Using it for tourists can take pressure off the permanent housing stock and give owners a lower-cost way to start. * Allow satellite bedrooms — detached habitable space associated with a house — to be rented short-term. Under the proposed approach they are prohibited as vacation rentals. That does not create housing. It just closes an option. A satellite bedroom is not a family home being pulled off the long-term market. If it is safe, permitted, and served by adequate sanitation, owners should be able to use it. “What started out as this little treehouse that if I would have listened to the county and torn it down, there would have been no company. But because we were able to persevere and go through, now we’re employing and feeding $300,000 just into wages.” — Hans Bailey More flexibility can actually help housing. Today’s small visitor unit can become tomorrow’s place for a parent, adult child, caregiver, or long-term tenant. An owner who can earn income from an RV or satellite bedroom may be more willing to put the actual house into the long-term market. Restricting vacation rentals and hoping houses magically become rentals is not a plan. Giving people choices is. Hans did not set out to build a company. He refused to accept “tear it down” as the last word and treated his property as the resource it is. Listen to the podcast. Then ask whether Clallam County’s next 20-year plan will make more of those stories possible — or make the next family stop at the first “no.” Editor’s note: This blog is published by Jeff Tozzer, the former campaign manager of Jake Seegers. Several opinion pieces appearing on this website have been authored by Jake Seegers. In keeping with normal editorial practices, op-eds written by Seegers have been edited for grammar, clarity, length, and style by Jeff Tozzer before publication, with the consent of Jake Seegers. 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 10

    Two New Government Jobs. One Trainee.

    Two years into a $35.6 million federal “jobs” program, the public scoreboard is 21 people who finished training and later reported work or higher pay. The sales pitch was 900. The new official target is 603. The money did not shrink with the goal. Commissioner Mike French still wants another term on the strength of a grant that is better at funding government than at putting workers on payrolls. The campaign is built on Recompete Mike French’s reelection pitch is not public safety, government efficiency, or more community engagement. It is Recompete. He chairs the North Olympic Peninsula Recompete Coalition. He told voters the coalition brought $35.6 million in federal money to “create good jobs and train and connect our residents to living-wage jobs.” His own issue paper said the point was to “transition 900 North Olympic Peninsula residents into full-time family wage jobs in a 5-year period.” When he announced he was seeking a second term, he called it one of the county’s “best chances to really change the story of the North Olympic Peninsula.” That is his cornerstone. Check the foundation. The goal shrank. The check did not. Last week the story changed. According to Radio Pacific, Recompete Plan Coordinator Molly Pringle told the Clallam Economic Development Council the program’s five-year workforce goal is now 603 people who go through training and then land a job or raise their income. Through March, that number was 21. “So, our five-year goal for that is 603 individuals, and that’s very ambitious,” Pringle said. “Reporting only 21 in our last day to report that went through March, we understand that we’re lagging there.” She blamed a three-month federal shutdown that became a nine-month wait for mobile training units, then a delay in curriculum. The units are finally running, she said. The 603 target stays. The early years were “getting the programs in place.” Separately, partners reported 45 jobs created through March. That total includes jobs created to run Recompete. The grant is counting some of its own payroll as success. Do the math the way a voter would. Two years into a five-year clock, the public-facing placement number is 21 against a goal already cut from 900 to 603. That is a one-third reduction in promised workers. The award was not cut by a third. Equipment, like the hydroseeder and excavator, will still be purchased with grant dollars for the Jamestown Corporation. The county will still get campaign speeches touting Recompete's success. Year-one county reporting was no better: 208 enrolled, 31 job placements, only 21 of them prime-age. French sold us 900. The jobs pipeline is barely dribbling. Follow the SOW, not the slogan The gap between “900 family-wage jobs” and “21 people reported an outcome” is not a mystery. It is written into the scopes of work (SOW). Take the subaward that moved from the North Olympic Development Council — the NGO where Commissioner Mark Ozias sits as vice president — to the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe. Ozias is also a sitting Clallam County commissioner. French chairs Recompete. Two of three county commissioners are inside the same federal pipeline, one as coalition chair, one on the pass-through board. That is not an independent audit. That is a family photo. Exhibit B, “Approved Services,” is the Tribe’s own statement of what the money will do. The executive summary promises jobs and training for unemployed tribal members ages 25–54. Then the table tells you how. First, hire the grant admins The Tribe will “build capacity” by creating two new government jobs: * Economic Development Project Manager * Workforce Development Coordinator The first “jobs” this program creates are salaried positions inside the Planning Department and Social Services—people whose work product includes comprehensive plans, grant management, coalition meetings, surveys, and outreach publications. Then train almost no one The Workforce Training Program, run through the Lower Elwha Heritage Center, sets: * Estimated enrollment: 3–5 people from the prime-age gap * Completion goal: 60% * Employment outcome: 50% of completers get a “good job in a relevant field” Did you catch that? If five are enrolled × 60% = three finish.Three × 50% = one or two people get the “good job.” If three are enrolled × 60% = two finish.Half of two is one. So the federal investment, on the Tribe’s own numbers, funds two new tribal-government jobs with benefits in order to put one or two unemployed 25-to-54-year-olds into work. That is not a workforce strategy. That is not a jobs program with two staff. It is two staff with a jobs program stapled on. The other “outputs” are paperwork Other deliverables in the same document are not jobs: * planning reports * five project phases (Health & Wellness Center campus design, water comprehensive plan, wastewater / Highway 101 infrastructure design, construction funds “secured”) * a 10% increase in grant proposals * “10 of jobs created” as a line item with no industry, wage, or employer * community surveys * outreach materials * attendance at NOPRC coalition meetings and quarterly NODC sub-recipient meetings * “resource-sharing agreements” and “joint progress reports” A jobs program that measures success in more grant applications is a jobs program for grant writers and that’s what Mike French said his vision was in early 2024 — grants that could be given to local tribes to train and hire grant writers. A jobs program that budgets staff time for coalition meetings is a jobs program for the coalition. The SOW even blurs the titles. One line hires a “Workforce Development Coordinator (EDC)” — mixing the coordinator with the Economic Development Council brand. But the first row already created an EDPM and a WDC. The document reads like capacity-building first, employment second, and accountability last. The hypocrisy fits in one paragraph: taxpayers were told Recompete would pull hundreds of prime-age adults off the sidelines. This approved scope treats those same adults as a reason to expand tribal government—then concedes that the trainees and administrators together would fit on the bench seat of one pickup. The political map is not subtle French is not a distant observer of these tribes. The county directory lists him as Tribal Liaison for Lower Elwha Klallam, Quileute, and Makah. Those are the same governments in the Recompete west-end subawardee list. NODC’s published purpose is to send Recompete sub-grants and technical assistance to Hoh, Quileute, Makah, Lower Elwha, Jamestown, and the City of Forks. Prior reporting put NODC’s slice near $8.27 million. Coalition presentations have put Makah around $2 million and Quileute around $1.25 million. The Lower Elwha SOW is one more pipe off that same main that funnels money to District 3 voters. District 3 is French’s seat, and it is the west end: Forks, Clallam Bay, Beaver, Joyce, Neah Bay, and La Push. He is the liaison to the tribes that live there, the chair of the grant sending them money, and the incumbent asking those same communities for another four years. The Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe has endorsed Mike French. That is not a coincidence sitting off to the side of the grant. French’s camp treats tribal partnership as proof of leadership. The liaison title, the Recompete chair, the subawards, and the endorsement travel together. Follow the money and you are already looking at the campaign. The certified District 3 primary was close — Jake Seegers 3,675 (52.66%), Mike French 3,288 (47.11%). Both advance to November’s county-wide vote. Seegers still has an uphill battle. His opponent is not just an incumbent with a familiar name. French chairs a $35.6 million federal pipeline. It buys hydroseeders. It pays tribal governments and NGOs to hire coordinators, managers, and “capacity” staff. Those payrolls run three more years if the grant stays on track — and if the commissioner who sold it keeps his seat. Call it what it looks like from the cheap seats: public money used as political sway. Recompete is federal cash, but the decisions, the liaison meetings, the subawards, and the endorsements are local. Hundreds of people on coalition, nonprofit, and government payrolls have a reason to prefer the man who keeps the faucet open. A challenger with no grant to pass around is not competing on equal ground. You do not need a precinct spreadsheet to see the conflict. A commissioner who chairs the grant, sits as tribal liaison to the subawardees, collects the endorsement, and runs for reelection in the district that contains those reservations is asking voters to believe the money and the politics never touch. “Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.” — H. L. Mencken The record, not the slogan The Scope of Work says the first hires are inside government. The scoreboard says 21 people. The campaign says 900. That is not a jobs miracle. That is a poor reason to keep the man who sold it. 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

  8. Sep 9

    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

See All (389)

Ratings & Reviews

3.1
out of 5
7 Ratings

About

Holding County Leaders Accountable www.ccwatchdog.com

Information

  • Creator
    Jeff Tozzer
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    389
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Jeff Tozzer
  • Show Website
    Clallam County Watchdog

You Might Also Like