At a Port Angeles City Council meeting, a supporter of Commissioner Mike French was allowed to spend his full three minutes off-agenda attacking Jake Seegers and warning of “hate squads.” Deputy Mayor Navarra Carr—French’s campaign manager—ran the meeting and did not interrupt. The episode reveals deeper ties between Carr and French, years of progressive activism, and a pattern that raises serious questions about process, priorities, and whose interests are being served.

The Comment That Should Have Been Stopped

At the July 21 regular Port Angeles City Council meeting, the first public commenter was resident Jon Redmond who spent three minutes discussing the “optics of homelessness.” He argued that the county sheriff is pushing homeless individuals into the cities and that Port Angeles is receiving the lion’s share.

Then he turned to politics. Redmond warned that “hate squads” exist—most of whom, he claimed, report directly to Jake Seegers—and that they are “very, very ready to take your jobs based on the optics.” He added that “4PA is happy to share the optics.”

The first public comment period is reserved for items on the agenda. Homelessness, unsanctioned camping, and Jake Seegers were not on the agenda. Under normal practice, such a comment is interrupted and the speaker is directed to the final comment period. Councilmember Mark Hodgson is known for strictly enforcing rules and routinely calling points of order. Yet neither Hodgson nor any other councilmember intervened. Redmond used his full time.

Redmond has emerged as one of Commissioner Mike French’s most vocal supporters in French’s bid for a second term. Deputy Mayor Navarra Carr was running the meeting in Mayor Kate Dexter’s absence. Carr is also Mike French’s campaign manager.

Carr’s Path to Power

Navarra Carr moved to the Olympic Peninsula from California.

She first ran for Port Angeles City Council in 2019 and won by just three votes.

Her professional background is rooted in the NGO sector, including organizations that rely heavily on public and county funding—North Olympic Land Trust, Jefferson Land Trust, and Habitat for Humanity.

She campaigned on safe communities, affordable housing, climate resiliency, economic development, and addressing the opioid crisis. Four years later she sought a second term, highlighting her role as secretary of the North Olympic Development Council (NODC), an unelected nonprofit led by Commissioner Mark Ozias that shapes much of the county’s comprehensive planning.

The NODC website carries a land acknowledgment stating that residents live and work on the “appropriated homeland and territory” of multiple tribes.

Carr also chaired the Clallam County Board of Health—a seat later filled by Mike French—and served on the county’s Homelessness Task Force. During her Board of Health tenure she supported a resolution praising Dr. Allison Berry for leadership against COVID-19 and fighting “medical misinformation.”

She won reelection in 2023 by nearly 800 votes.

Her second campaign raised more than $8,000. Top donors included the Jamestown Corporation and a union (each giving the maximum $1,200).

The third-largest contribution was $1,000 from Commissioner Mike French.

Carr now works as a public defender in Jefferson County.

Her résumé includes AmeriCorps service, nonprofit finance and administration roles focused on housing and homelessness, and internships with the Attorney General’s Office, public defenders, tribal legal offices, and workers’ rights clinics.

She has leaned heavily on identity in her political branding—repeatedly noting that she is the first openly LGBTQ person elected to the Port Angeles City Council and the only current member who rents rather than owns a home.

Progressive groups such the Lesbian Political Action Commitee (LPAC) have endorsed her on those grounds.

This isn’t about qualifications — it’s pure identity politics.

Carr has also publicly stated that most residents of Clallam County are guests on ancestral land, regardless of property ownership. That framing aligns with the NODC land acknowledgment on which she has served as secretary.

Shared History on the Pool Board and Beyond

Carr and French’s relationship runs deeper than campaign contributions. Both served on the William Shore Memorial Pool District board when the State Auditor’s Office released a November 2025 fraud report.

Auditors found that the Executive Director had personally benefited from more than $40,000 in public funds through unsupported self-insurance payments, a $14,338 tax refund belonging to the district, and personal credit-card charges. The district lacked basic internal controls, and the case was referred to prosecutors.

Those failures occurred under the board on which French and Carr served. Public funds—tax dollars—were misused because they had failed to install basic safeguards.

During the same period the county’s harm-reduction health center launched a shower-voucher program that continues to allow active drug users to shower at the pool alongside children and families.

Pushing Radical Planning Changes

In late 2025 Carr, alongside outgoing Councilmember Lindsey Schromen-Wawrin, was a driving force behind attempting to insert Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) language and a shift from “no net loss” to “net ecological gain” into Port Angeles’ 20-year Comprehensive Plan. FPIC is a United Nations doctrine designed for major extractive projects in developing countries. It requires tribal consent—not mere consultation—before projects proceed, imposes no deadlines, demands documentation in the tribe’s language, and effectively creates a veto power.

No other city in Washington has adopted it for local zoning, housing, utilities, or permitting. Applying it to a municipal comprehensive plan would have been unprecedented and could have delayed or blocked routine development.

Carr’s progressive activism extends further.

She was featured in a People’s World article (a publication historically affiliated with the Communist Party USA) about efforts to stop clear-cut logging in the Elwha River watershed.

Through lawsuits and protests, activists like the Legacy Forest Defense Coalition have postponed enough timber sales that Clallam County anticipates a substantial shortfall in timber revenue. Those delays affect the county budget that Commissioner French oversees and the Shore Pool budget on whose board Carr once sat.

Carr is part of an activist network that includes friendship with Tim Wheeler, one of Clallam County’s most prominent communists.

In a Clallam Democrats Rising interview she described her parents as community organizers, cited Rules for Radicals as an influence, and spoke of learning to fight for Democratic values through protests and organizing.

Campaign Managers and Double Standards

Much has been made of Jake Seegers’ campaign. Until recently I served as his campaign manager. A formal complaint to the State’s Public Disclosure Commission demands a $30,000 fine, alleging it was improper for me to operate Clallam County Watchdog while managing the campaign.

I resigned that role; Jake’s campaign has retained counsel. Critics have used my involvement as a reason to oppose Seegers.

I have never been paid by Jake Seegers or his campaign, and I never will be.

My work is voluntary and rooted in my support of Jake’s policies.

Contrast that with Mike French’s 2022 campaign: of more than $14,000 raised, the single largest expenditure was $3,000 to Navarra Carr for “Management and consulting services.”

There is nothing wrong with elected officials endorsing candidates. There is a meaningful difference between an endorsement and a sitting city councilmember actively functioning as campaign manager or operative for another race. Residents expect their elected officials to represent the whole community, not to use the apparatus of city government—including the chair’s control of meetings—to advance a preferred candidate.

Carr allowed a clear rules violation that turned a Port Angeles City Council meeting into a platform for attacking French’s opponent. At the same time she has pushed United Nations doctrine into local planning and publicly described most county residents as guests on ancestral land.

The Choice Before Voters

Does Mike French support Navarra Carr’s more radical positions? He donated $1,000 to her last campaign. The record of shared service, mutual support, and aligned priorities suggests the answer is yes.

If voters want Port Angeles-style progressive policies—drug paraphernalia littering parks, the occupation of public spaces by unsanctioned encampments, open-air drug use, identity-driven governance, and the export of those approaches county-wide—then Mike French is the candidate who carries that agenda.

Transparency, consistent application of rules, and accountability still matter. On July 21 those principles were set aside and local governance took a back seat to candidate bashing.

Residents should take note.

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While the Board of Health refuses public questions and email engagement, its leaders are rolling out a social media campaign defending two decades of harm reduction. Meanwhile, Commissioner Mike French’s self-promoted “accomplishments,” a proposed “Dignity Bus,” and other local stories raise the same question: is any of this making Clallam safer or healthier?

Harm Reduction Propaganda vs. Public Accountability

Amid rising scrutiny, missing metrics, and questionable claims about harm reduction from Clallam County’s Board of Health, Board of Health Chair Commissioner Mike French and Health Officer Allison Berry have chosen a revealing strategy. They refuse to address public concerns at meetings and decline email correspondence, yet they are launching a social media campaign partnering with NGOs and sovereign nations that benefit from the harm-reduction and homelessness industry.

The message doubles down on “meeting people where they are”—which, in practice, means trapped in active addiction. It is growing harder to persuade the public that the best way to help an addict and protect the community is to place a meth pipe and foil in that addict’s hand.

Clallam County has pursued this approach for two decades. Are things better?

Commissioner French’s Highlight Reel Needs a Fact-Check

The Clallam County Democrats are urging Facebook readers to celebrate Commissioner Mike French’s work.

The first accomplishment listed is the 36-unit North View affordable housing complex. The article omits that the units are prioritized for people with criminal records and substance-use issues, and that the cost exceeded $350,000 per unit.

Next comes “a new Joint Public Safety Facility to co-locate our regional 911 center and Emergency Management staff.” Design was completed and a contractor selected in 2025; construction is supposedly set to finish in 2026. However, the facility has not yet broken ground. Completing it in roughly four and a half months may make it the fastest public-safety operations building ever constructed.

A third claim centers on “significant investments in its workforce”—negotiating union agreements for higher public-sector pay and benefits, plus filling HR and IT director roles. In short, government salaries and benefits grew; private-sector job creation did not.

The fourth item is the federal Recompete grant, promoted as bringing 900 jobs to the North Olympic Peninsula. In its first year, it produced 31.

It may be time for a clearer accounting of French’s record. Read about Commissioner Mike French’s accomplishments here.

Is Common Sense Making a Comeback?

Two posts on Nextdoor.com stood out this week.

Seattle’s Bathroom Experiment Lasted Two Weeks

Remember Port Angeles Councilmember Mark Hodgson’s push for two new public bathrooms that would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to build, with city staff reporting that half a million dollars has already been spent on cleaning just three bathrooms since 2023? Seattle tried a similar approach. The facilities were vandalized within two weeks of installation.

Even Family Says: Stop Giving Her Cash

Family members of one local homeless woman are publicly pleading with residents not to give her money. “She is going to use the money for drugs,” the post states.

Clark County’s Warning Signal

We do not need a crystal ball to see where Clallam County could be headed. In Clark County (Vancouver area), more than 50 criminal cases were dismissed because of a public defender shortage, reigniting debate over accountability and justice-system capacity.

OlyCAP’s “Dignity Bus” Raises More Questions Than It Answers

OlyCAP—the nonprofit whose board Commissioner Mike French sits on—is exploring a “Dignity Bus”: a mobile homeless shelter with up to 21 comfortable sleeping pods.

Locals are already asking practical questions: Where will it park? What happens to shopping carts? How are pets handled? How is this meaningfully different from people living in their cars? And is it needed when OlyCAP’s $118,000 safe-parking program has been so underutilized?

Sequim Gazette’s Annual River Alarm

The Sequim Gazette, after partnering with the League of Women Voters and now WSU Extension, is once again sounding the alarm that the Dungeness River is flowing at “critically low levels.” Legitimate questions and counterpoints are appearing in the comments section.

Ferguson’s Office Sat on Climate Data Correction for Weeks

Gov. Bob Ferguson’s office delayed releasing a correction to wildly inflated Climate Commitment Act emissions numbers for roughly two weeks after the Department of Ecology begged to come clean. Ecology had claimed projects would cut 8.6 million metric tons of greenhouse gases; the real figure was only 1.2 million. The fix sat in the governor’s office until a conservative analyst publicly exposed the discrepancy—then it suddenly appeared. The episode is the latest example of Ferguson’s unusually tight media-control policy that requires most agency communications to clear his staff first.

The Climate Commitment Act has driven up costs of everything in Clallam County from energy and housing to gas and groceries, while disproportionately awarding funds to special interest groups and sovereign nations. Read the full article here.

Honoring Billy Frank Jr. with a Thirsty Golf Course

The Billy Frank Jr. Classic golf tournament kicked off this weekend. Frank was an environmental leader and advocate of treaty rights.

Right now, as the Dungeness River runs at critically low levels, water is being shut off to irrigators and locals are being asked to conserve so treaty-protected salmon have enough flow to swim upstream and spawn. What better way to honor Frank than a golf tournament on 122 acres of grass kept verdantly green during the driest part of the year—while everyone else is told to cut back?

From the Scanner

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A downtown Sequim commercial property sold for nearly three times its assessed value to a tribal corporation and sits shuttered—yet no one reported it. Meanwhile, sales-tax negotiations, race-based phone discounts, and selective storytelling continue under the radar. Here’s what the local papers left on the cutting-room floor this week.

Downtown Sequim Property Sold for Nearly 3× Assessed Value—Silence Follows

What if a prominent commercial property in a downtown business district sold for more than twice its assessed value a year and a half ago and then remained shuttered? Would that make the local news? What if the buyer was a sovereign nation operating through a tax-advantaged corporation? Wouldn’t that warrant coverage?

That exact scenario played out at 120 West Bell Street in Sequim—one block south of Washington Street and steps from Sequim Avenue, once home to the popular Riverhouse Bakery and Bistro.

Despite a county assessed value of just $363,203, records show the property sold in January of last year for $1,041,000 to the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe.

This is another key parcel in Sequim’s downtown core acquired by the Jamestown Corporation, which already owns the entire block that includes Hurricane Coffee on the northwest corner of the main intersection.

According to the Tribe’s own newsletter, Jamestown is “in the negotiation process on a compact to allow Tribes to collect the sales tax collected by non-Tribal businesses on Tribal lands. This would mean additional revenue for Jamestown.”

That could mean sales tax collected at places like Hurricane Coffee and other businesses in the Sequim Trading Plaza would flow to the Tribe rather than to the city, county, and essential public services—even though the businesses themselves are not tribal. And if the property is put in tribal trust status, the property tax obligations will be shifted onto other taxpayers.

It is not hard to picture a downtown Sequim where people spend money, yet the taxes collected benefit a sovereign nation instead of the surrounding community. This pattern could expand. So far, no one else is reporting on it.

AT&T Ad Highlights a Separate Tax Reality

Readers of the Sequim Gazette may have noticed an AT&T advertisement promoting discounted service under the Lifeline Program. Service is available for $19.74 a month for those who qualify.

In the fine print, the ad says: “If you live on Tribal lands and qualify, you could get Enhanced Lifeline support… for as little as $1 a month.”

Documentation required for enrollment includes the prior year’s state, federal, or Tribal tax return.

Do tribal members file tax returns that differ from those filed by other U.S. citizens?

Brazilian Dance Night Delivers More Than Music

Tonight, Civic Field in Port Angeles hosts a Brazilian song-and-dance performance presented by the North Olympic Healthcare Network and Kitsap Bank. Proceeds benefit the Olympic Medical Center Children’s Clinic and the OMC Foundation scholarship fund.

The event also carries an explicit social-justice message, according to lead dancer Deise Costa. From the coverage:

Even a children’s clinic fundraiser, it seems, must come with a history lesson on resistance and systemic struggle.

Strong Letters on Budget and Public Safety—Keep Them Coming

Last week’s Peninsula Daily News featured excellent letters to the editor on budget priorities and public safety.

If you have an issue or candidate you care about, write a letter to the editor. Submit to the Peninsula Daily News here, the Sequim Gazette here, or the Forks Forum here.

If your letter gets rejected, send it to Clallamity Jen at clallamityjen@gmail.com and have it published in Clallam County Letters.

Read Clallam County Letters

King County Passes Ethics Reforms—A Model for Clallam?

KOMO News reports that King County Council members unanimously approved a sweeping set of ethics reforms aimed at preventing county employees from using their positions to benefit relatives or people with whom they have personal relationships.

The legislation followed an investigation that found a county program manager had overseen roughly $813,000 in grant payments to businesses connected to five of her relatives. This fall, Clallam County voters will decide on a charter amendment that would create an enforceable ethics code for elected officials. If King County can do it, so can we.

Buyer Beware: Free Dinner and Big Promises

A reader contacted CC Watchdog this week after receiving a glossy mailer for a complimentary dinner and 90-minute presentation on “Regenerative Therapy” at Seven Cedars on Monday, August 17 (3:30 or 6:30 p.m.).

“It’s the same fraud scam under a new name that they tried to get my wife and I for 2½ years ago,” the reader wrote.

“They promised to ‘cure us’ for tens of thousands of dollars for special stem cell therapy treatments. They use the same Time Share – Snake Oil Therapy tactics to ‘Sign a Contract for Treatments,’ make you pay a healthy amount up front (which by the way is illegal to charge up front before medical treatments are rendered) and then threaten with half of the contract amount if you don’t pay.”

The reader continued: “Because they are so ‘slick,’ they rely on even if just a few seniors who are attending to not have the knowledge and/or ability to know how to figure it out that it’s all fraudulent… Even if they get just a couple victims it more than pays for their effort. We are only trying to help our most vulnerable… from becoming the next gravy train victim ‘Before it Happens’!”

The reader filed a report with the Sheriff’s Office, which was sympathetic but noted the limited options without a current victim.

These free-dinner seminars follow a well-documented national pattern. Operators invite older adults to a meal and “educational” presentation promising dramatic relief from joint pain, arthritis, or other chronic conditions through regenerative or stem-cell treatments. High-pressure sales tactics often follow—sometimes at the event, sometimes in follow-up home visits—pushing contracts for treatments that can cost thousands to tens of thousands of dollars, frequently with large upfront payments.

The FDA and FTC have repeatedly warned that many such offerings are unproven, unapproved, and illegally marketed. Documented harms have included infections, vision loss, and other serious complications. Regulators have banned companies, ordered multimillion-dollar refunds, and highlighted that legitimate regenerative therapies remain limited and tightly regulated. Free dinners, miracle claims, pressure to sign on the spot, and demands for large prepayments are classic red flags.

If you or a loved one receives one of these invitations, pause. Ask hard questions, consult your own physician, and remember that if a treatment sounds too good to be true—and requires thousands of dollars before any care is delivered—it usually is.

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The County’s long-awaited Comprehensive Plan draft is out, and it singles out Three Crabs and similar shorelines as high-risk zones for sea-level rise. Official language now supports restrictions on armoring and recommends managed retreat. Residents who want to protect their homes have a narrow window to speak up before the County Commissioners make it policy.

The Comp Plan is finally here, and residents of the Three Crabs area in Dungeness should pay attention. Last year the County’s Marine Resources Committee told the Board of Commissioners to consider “retreat or removal” of roads and homes along Three Crabs Road.

Climate change and sea-level rise were the stated reasons.

The restoration of Meadowbrook Creek, which many residents say made the flooding worse, got a free pass. Commissioners refused to address the letter from the MRC, saying they’d wait for the Comprehensive Plan update.

That draft is now public.

What the Plan Actually Says About Three Crabs

Buried in the Sequim-Dungeness Regional Plan is this:

The areas of Three Crabs Road, Seashore Lane, and portions of Jamestown Road and Jamestown Beach Lane are low-bank shoreline. Sea-level rise and stronger storms put them at risk of erosion, flooding, salt-water intrusion, and septic failure. The plan flags the cumulative damage from bulkheads, questions whether the area can still support septic systems and wells, and calls for public outreach so residents can “solve” the problem together instead of fighting for individual protections.

County-wide policies prefer soft approaches over hard armoring. New development is supposed to be designed so it never needs shoreline stabilization. The new Climate Element goes further: overlays and special zoning to keep new building out of high-risk areas, climate risks written into property considerations, and “long-term visioning” that explicitly includes managed retreat and relocation of the most vulnerable uses.

Partnership with Tribes and NGOs is written in as a feature, not a footnote.

Sea-Level Rise and Managed Retreat Are Now Official Language

Sea-level rise is in the document. Managed retreat is in the document. Directing development—and eventually people—away from these shorelines is the direction of travel.

This is not an order to bulldoze anyone’s house tomorrow. It is the policy foundation that makes the MRC’s earlier advice much easier to carry out later. Property owners who want to protect what they already own will face a steeper hill. Official documents now brand their neighborhoods high-risk. That has consequences for insurance, lending, rebuilding, and long-term value.

Follow the Connections

None of this appeared out of thin air.

In 2021, the Strait Ecosystem Recovery Network (SERN) workshop—whose fiscal agent has been the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe—talked openly about changing comprehensive plans to relocate homeowners out of harm’s way and making sure taxpayer buyouts didn’t pay full price.

The North Olympic Development Council (NODC) was named as a potential partner in property acquisition.

County Commissioner Mark Ozias sits on the NODC board. He is in the unusual position of helping approve taxpayer funding and contracts that flow to an NGO he helps lead. The NODC has been involved in crafting certain elements of the Comprehensive Plans outside of public view. Those documents then come back to the Board of County Commissioners—where Ozias sits—for approval.

The Jamestown Tribe, which is represented on the NODC board and hosted SERN’s 2021 workshop, has also been Ozias’s largest campaign donor.

Ozias also serves as the County’s Tribal Liaison to Jamestown.

Residents can decide for themselves whether this arrangement produces neutral, property-rights-respecting policy or something more one-sided. What is not in dispute is that the same network of players who discussed retreat and below-market acquisition years ago now has the climate language and zoning tools they said they needed inside the County’s primary long-range plan.

Three Crabs and the other low-bank neighborhoods are not being protected as stable residential areas. They are being managed as climate problems. The draft does not seize land, but it does create the conditions under which continued private ownership of these shorelines becomes harder and more expensive while partnership with Tribes is elevated.

The Planning Commission has already forwarded its recommendation. The Board of County Commissioners still has to act. Written comments are still being accepted. The public hearing window is the last clean shot most residents will get before this language becomes official County policy for an entire generation.

If you live on the water in these areas, read the actual documents. The risk language is already in black and white. The only question left is how hard the county commissioners intend to lean on it.

What Can You Do?

This does not just affect Three Crabs. Anyone in Clallam County who owns property along the shoreline, or who cares about how the County regulates development, armoring, septic systems, and long-term property rights on the water, has a stake in this plan.

If you have concerns, put them in writing and send them to the entire Board of County Commissioners through the Clerk of the Board at loni.gores@clallamcountywa.gov.

Copy the Director of the Department of Community Development, Bruce Emery, at Bruce.Emery@clallamcountywa.gov.

A public hearing that will allow public comment is scheduled for Tuesday, September 8, 2026, at 10:30 a.m. at the Clallam County Courthouse. Written comments are accepted up to the hearing and any continuances.

The Planning Commission has already forwarded its recommendation. Once the Board adopts this language, it becomes the County’s official policy roadmap. The window to be heard is open—but it will not stay open long.

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Stay Engaged: Coffee with PAPD Chief Smith Today

Tax dollars flow to programs that struggle, a wanted man with a long record slips away (then gets caught), more land leaves the tax rolls, and the same old addiction crisis keeps costing lives and money while supply finds every opening. Wednesday’s Watchdog “Potpourri” returns with these Clallam County stories.

Safe Parking Program Graduates Four—But Still Needs More Money

Sequim’s Trinity United Methodist Church’s newsletter reported progress on its county-funded safe parking program. The first four guests have graduated into stable housing. Two new guests are using the program part-time, with a third expected soon.

Yet the church newsletter states the program’s costs “far exceed the resources of TUMC,” and it is pursuing grants to continue. Clallam County authorized more than $118,000 in taxpayer funds for a three-space program that struggled for months to attract even one participant. Now that participants have come and gone, the church says it is running short.

As previously reported, a large portion of the approved funding passes through the church to salaries and benefits for OlyCAP employees. Commissioner Mike French sits on the OlyCAP board. French has not responded to multiple emails seeking clarification on the program’s costs.

Hatfield: All the Signs Were There

On Monday, the Clallam County Sheriff’s Office asked for the public’s help locating 30-year-old Port Angeles resident Aaron J. Hatfield after a reported felony domestic violence incident.

Around 2:32 p.m., deputies responded to a residence on South Bay View Avenue near the Eastside Safeway in Port Angeles. A 911 caller reported that Hatfield assaulted the reporting party, damaged a Ring security camera with an axe, and broke a cell phone before fleeing west on foot into a wooded area while armed with a knife.

He had been seen shirtless and wearing gray sweatpants. Deputies and Port Angeles police, using a K9 team and drone, searched extensively but did not locate him at the time.

Yesterday, Clallam County Scanner Report indicated that Hatfield was taken into custody.

Hatfield has been linked to numerous crimes and incidents over the years.

This is the predictable result in a county with few consequences, open-air drug use, and soft-on-crime policies.

Police responses, paramedic calls, and ER visits pile up. Taxpayers foot the bill while the underlying problem persists.

This week’s incident was a long time coming. Hopefully Hatfield finally receives the help he needs.

Jamestown Corporation Seeks Another Parcel for Tribal Trust

The Jamestown Corporation has requested yet another parcel be removed from the county tax rolls and converted to tribal trust land.

The notice to the Board of Commissioners listed neither an address nor the acreage involved. Every such transfer shifts more of the tax burden onto remaining property owners.

Clallamity Jen Examines French’s Recompete Claims

Clallamity Jen’s Substack is free and goes well beyond entertaining memes. This week she delivered a deep dive into Commissioner Mike French’s claims about the Recompete federal grant, now a centerpiece of his campaign.

Jen writes:

“There is a massive difference between government spending that leaves behind something productive and spending that disappears the second the funding ends.”

Read Clallamity Jen and subscribe for free.

Visit Clallamity Jen

NYC Homeless Deaths and the Local Drug Crisis

A recent New York City report found that nearly half of homeless deaths in a recent one-year period were tied to drug overdoses or alcohol abuse.

Of 634 deaths, 285 were linked to addiction; drug-related causes alone accounted for 40 percent. The same pattern plays out in Clallam County’s ongoing drug and homelessness crisis. Soft policies, open-air use, and programs that enable rather than interrupt addiction keep the cycle turning—at significant cost to public safety, emergency services, and taxpayers.

Read the full New York Post piece for the details.

SC on Substack: A Candid Look at Addiction

Are you reading and subscribed to “SC” on Substack yet?

This local voice offers an unfiltered view of life before, during, and after active addiction. Her recent essay, “The 2 Men I Married,” peels back another layer on addiction and relationships.

Read SC's Substack

More Tribes Enter High-Reimbursement Treatment Market

Senator Mike Chapman’s latest newsletter highlighted two new facilities on the Peninsula: the Quinault Wellness Center in Aberdeen and an expansion at Summit Pacific Medical Center in Elma. Both will expand substance-use disorder treatment.

The Quinault Wellness Center, which opened in 2022 with a $20 million investment by the Quinault Indian Nation, quickly reached its original 250-patient capacity. Additional capital funding will raise capacity to 600 patients and serve both tribal and non-tribal members. This reimbursement structure has already proven lucrative for the Jamestown Corporation. Now the Quinault are entering the same system that allows higher tribal reimbursement rates than traditional providers.

Elwha Watershed Study: More Trust Lands at Risk?

The Washington Department of Natural Resources is conducting a legislatively directed study of the ecological and conservation values of state trust lands in the Elwha watershed.

Funded with $250,000, the analysis includes a Natural Heritage Program survey of rare plants and communities, identification of structurally complex forests and scenic features, current recreational and cultural uses, and recommendations on whether any lands should be designated as Natural Area Preserves or Natural Resources Conservation Areas. A report is due to the Legislature by October 1, 2026. As part of the process, DNR is conducting Government-to-Government consultations with the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe.

This looks like another push to remove County Trust Lands from productive timber use. Even if the county and junior taxing districts received payments in lieu of lost timber revenue, that would not replace the lost jobs for loggers, truck drivers, and mill workers, nor the sales tax generated by the lumber produced.

Strait Shooter Delivers Satire Twice a Week

Need a chuckle twice a week? Read the Strait Shooter—a satirical take on Clallam County’s favorite pastime: government inefficiency. It delivers straight-faced “journalism” on rising taxes, county commissioner drama, and absurdities from La Push to Sequim. Read it for laughs. Stay for the therapy.

This week the Strait Shooter reviewed the third county commissioner to receive an action figure in his likeness.

Read Strait Shooter

Fentanyl and Meth Pipeline—and Clallam Creates the Demand

A man was recently sentenced to more than 12 years in federal prison for brokering large shipments of fentanyl and methamphetamine from Arizona (linked to Mexican cartels) to Western Washington, including packages sent to Whidbey Island.

One intercepted load alone involved kilograms of fentanyl pills and powder plus over 10 kilograms of pure meth; additional shipments brought the total far higher.

If cartels and major drug shipments are reaching Whidbey Island, they are certainly reaching Clallam County. Local policies that effectively subsidize use—providing the tools of addiction—create demand. Supply follows.

Stay Engaged: Campground Design

The Olympic National Forest is seeking community feedback on the conceptual design for the new Klahanie Campground outside of Forks.

Over the past several years, the Forest has completed foundational work, including early engagement with local partners, tribes, and the City of Forks, as well as decommissioning outdated water systems.

View the designs and share your feedback by clicking here.

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A week after the ribbon-cutting at North View—the 36-unit luxury permanent supportive housing complex in Port Angeles featuring quartz counters, dishwashers, and harbor views—Peninsula Behavioral Health CEO Wendy Sisk appeared on “Coffee With Colleen” to push back against critics. She dismissed concerns about prioritizing criminals and drug addicts as “misinformation,” insisted the program requires clean-and-sober living, and defended PBH’s rapid growth on the public dime. Her own prior statements, PBH materials, and funding sources tell a different story.

Sisk’s “Misinformation” Defense

Appearing as a guest on last week’s Economic Development Council’s “Coffee With Colleen” (hosted by Communications Manager Mitch Koonz in place of Executive Director Colleen McAleer, who was out of the office), Sisk said:

“I’ve heard a lot of misinformation that we’re prioritizing criminals and drug addicts and I don’t really know where that came from… Yes, some of our clients have struggled with addiction and… we’re going to continue to support them in their recovery. Yes, we require that people agree to be clean and sober in our housing because drugs and alcohol don’t mix well with behavioral health conditions… There’s been a lot of misinformation out there about how we’re going to operate our program and… what a rundown place it’s going to be in 6 months.”

Much of that scrutiny has come from Clallam County Watchdog reporting on costs, outcomes, enforcement, and the low-barrier model.

Targeting High-Risk Recidivists

Sisk’s claim that PBH is not prioritizing criminals clashes with her own August 26, 2024, remarks to the county commissioners:

“We would like to try to target some of our folks that we know are at high risk of recidivism of the jail because they are in and out of jail without a place to land and not having a place to be, and having chronic health conditions including behavioral health conditions, is not a recipe for long life or happiness or success.”

You can listen to that statement here [timestamp 15:05].

Prioritizing Those Recovering from Substance Use Disorders

PBH’s own materials confirm prioritization of addicts recovering from substance use disorders (SUD) among other vulnerable groups. The January 2025 newsletter states:

“North View will prioritize housing for those who are vulnerable, including individuals with disabilities, mental health challenges, and those recovering from substance use disorders.”

The 2025 Annual Report describes North View as serving people facing “chronic homelessness, disabilities, mental health challenges, and substance use disorders.”

“Clean and Sober” vs. Relapse Tolerance

Sisk’s assertion that residents must agree to be clean and sober contradicts her May 2024 statement. Asked if residents need to be sober, she answered that existing housing is “dry,” then added that the new facility “won’t be exclusively dry. So people have to be working their treatment program, but we have people who have relapses occasionally, and we just wrap services and support around them.”

Sobriety is binary. While drug and alcohol use may be discouraged and a no-drugs/alcohol policy is signed, relapse is tolerated with added support. This is the soft, low-barrier approach critics have highlighted.

Growing the NGO Payroll on Tax Dollars

Sisk highlighted PBH’s expansion toward 185 employees and a budget expected to exceed $20 million, with the “vast majority” going to salaries and benefits.

She noted that 75% of employees make $25 an hour or more, framing the jobs as living-wage positions whose paychecks recirculate locally on rent, groceries, and entertainment.

In an earlier presentation, Sisk acknowledged that roughly 75–80% of the budget goes to staffing. As an NGO, PBH does not create market products or generate independent revenue; it relies heavily on taxes from Clallam County, Washington State, and the federal government. High-wage public-sector and NGO jobs funded by extracting money from private taxpayers do not expand the tax base—they increase the burden on an already economically strained county. The Economic Development Council should recognize the difference between genuine private-sector growth and taxpayer-subsidized payroll expansion.

Peninsula Behavioral Health is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and accepts donations. According to the organization’s most recent publicly available Form 990, CEO Wendy Sisk received total compensation of approximately $281,000 ($264,799 in base pay plus other compensation).

That figure is more than four times the median household income in Clallam County (roughly $70,000–$74,000 in recent Census estimates).

Recompete Funds Flowing to the Same Network

PBH is also a recipient of Recompete funding—the federal investment (roughly $35–40 million across the North Olympic Peninsula) pitched as a job generator for depressed Clallam and Jefferson Counties and championed by Commissioner Mike French, who has made it the cornerstone of his reelection campaign.

The stated goal of the Recompete grant is closing the prime-age employment gap with “good-paying jobs” defined locally at $26+/hour.

What has emerged is heavy emphasis on wraparound services—housing, healthcare, life skills, childcare, transportation, and “job navigation”—delivered largely through the existing network of NGOs.

A clear example: PBH advertises free Mental Health First Aid and de-escalation trainings for local businesses, explicitly funded by the Olympic Community of Health Recompete grant.

Useful training, yes—but the “jobs” created often remain inside the NGO ecosystem rather than expanding the private tax base.

Residents should insist that Recompete’s success be measured by net new private-sector jobs, retention, wage growth, and reduced dependency—not enrollments, services delivered, or grant-funded training calendars.

The Next Project: Youth & Families Center

PBH is already looking ahead to a youth and families service center targeted to open in 2028—approximately 15,000 square feet with 22 clinical offices, autism evaluations and services, play therapy, art therapy, a sensory room, group therapy, family meeting space, and outdoor therapeutic areas.

North View came in at more than $350,000 per unit. Sisk’s presentation offered no price tag, no location details, and no funding plan for the planned 15,000-square-foot Youth & Families Service Center. Taxpayers deserve far more than a glossy wish list: How much will this next project cost Clallam County residents, and who will pay for it?

Stay Engaged: Seegers/French Debate in Sekiu

Don’t miss the next candidate debate as Jake Seegers challenges incumbent Mike French for the District 3 county commissioner seat.

• Wednesday, August 19 · 6:00 p.m.

• Sekiu Community Center

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Commissioner Mike French’s reelection Facebook page lights up with polished claims of bipartisan goodwill and moral high ground—connecting his opponent to key groups “no matter who wins” and publicly denouncing smear blogs. A polite email from CC Watchdog seeking simple clarification exposes the gaps. The replies and the record reveal selective memory, private forums recast as public stands, and silence toward crude personal attacks from allies while decrying “innuendo” elsewhere.

The Campaign Posts

Commissioner Mike French’s campaign Facebook page has recently sprung to life with three months remaining in the race for a second term on the Clallam County Board of Commissioners. Two posts stand out.

In one, French tells a constituent he “connected Jake to the West End Business group, so no matter who wins… the next Commissioner already has the right connections to represent the West End.”

In another, he addresses the anonymous blog Salsa Picante, which has targeted his opponent Jake Seegers and Seegers’ former campaign manager (me): “I don’t support anyone making personal attacks or doxxing people. I don’t support the Salsa Picante blogger, who in my opinion is trafficking in innuendo and rumors—I don’t think their articles are factual and I actively encourage my supporters not to share them. For the record, I’ve said all of that in public at a meeting Mr. Tozzer attended, so he knows that I’m not a supporter of Salsa Picante.”

On the surface, these statements project strong leadership: a sitting commissioner mentoring a rival for the good of the district and publicly rejecting smear tactics. But do the claims hold up?

Seeking Clarification

I emailed French’s campaign address seeking clarification.

I asked about the West End Business Group claim, noting my understanding that Jake attended his first meeting before announcing his candidacy, without French’s help. I also asked which public meeting French was referring to regarding Salsa Picante, as I recalled none matching his description.

Hi Mike,

I read the comments under your recent post regarding your reelection campaign for Clallam County Commissioner. A couple of your statements confused me, and I’m hoping you could clarify them.

You wrote:

“I’ve also connected Jake to the West End Business group, so no matter who wins (we’re both from the Port Angeles area), the next Commissioner already has the right connections to represent the West End.”

Could you explain what you meant by saying you connected Jake to the West End Business group? My understanding is that Jake attended his first meeting there before he even announced his candidacy, and I was under the impression that he found and attended that meeting without your assistance. If I’m mistaken, I’d appreciate any clarification you can provide.

You also wrote:

“I don’t support anyone making personal attacks or doxxing people. I don’t support the Salsa Picante blogger, who in my opinion is trafficking in innuendo and rumors - I don’t think their articles are factual and I actively encourage my supporters not to share them. For the record, I’ve said all of that in public at a meeting Mr. Tozzer attended, so he knows that I’m not a supporter of Salsa Picante.”

I’m unaware of any public meeting where you stated that Salsa Picante’s content should not be shared or that its articles are not factual, nor do I recall attending a meeting where you made those remarks. Could you please clarify which meeting you’re referring to and explain how I would know that you are not a supporter of Salsa Picante?

Thank you for taking the time to clarify these points.

Sincerely,

Jeff Tozzer

French replied promptly:

Sure.

After our meeting where the BoCC approved the Clallam Conservation District fee, Jake approached me in person and asked what motivated me to vote no. We talked for a good 10 or 15 minutes, and I told him I had a long discussion about this issue at the West End Business meeting and told Jake when and where they met. He began regularly attending their meetings soon after that conversation. You’re correct that this was before he officially announced his candidacy.

I made those comments about Salsa Picante (without using the name of the blog) at the Realtor’s Association meeting just a short while ago, where you were in attendance. I’m honestly surprised that you don’t remember this. The last question of the forum was literally about your blog, and in answering it I spoke about a left-wing blogger who was trafficking in rumor and innuendo who I didn’t support and encouraged people who wanted to support me to stick to verifiable facts.

Mike

Setting the Record Straight on the West End Claim

County government frequently campaigns against “misinformation.” In that spirit, the record needs correcting.

Start with the West End claim. Jake and Mike did speak after the Conservation District fee vote.

Jake recalls French encouraging him to run for public office—specifically for county assessor. This was in September, a month and a half before Jake announced he was running for county commissioner. When Jake later appeared at his first West End Business Association meeting (also before he announced he was running), French seemed surprised to see him.

The idea to attend those meetings originated in a conversation between Jake and his then-campaign manager (me). French may have mentioned attending the group in passing, but packaging a casual tip as having “connected Jake to the West End Business group” so the district would be well-served regardless of the election outcome stretches the facts into something more self-serving.

The “Public Meeting” That Wasn’t

The second claim also requires scrutiny. Yes, I attended the event and remember French’s remarks. It was not a public meeting. It was a private candidates’ forum hosted by the Realtor’s Association, attended primarily by realtors and industry-connected individuals.

Here is French’s statement from that debate, verbatim:

“In the spirit of disclosure and transparency, Jeff Tozzer is sitting in the room, he’s Clallam County Watchdog, and runs the blog. He’s the former campaign manager for my opponent and he’s the current treasurer for my opponent.

Again, I think that you [speaking to Jake] summarized what he does very well. He’s an opinion blogger who blogs about Clallam County and other—usually public governments—but also nonprofits throughout the area. I generally disagree with what he writes, and I’m happy to talk to anyone about that.

I will say, very clearly, I fully support his American right to criticize government. I think that’s fundamental. What he does, he considers independent journalism, is definitely with an opinion, he definitely has a slant, and he acknowledges that.

But I fully support that right, and there have been people who have tried to get blogs going in opposition from the left, or whatever, and many of those, I think, have criticized him in unfair ways. They’ve put graphics and said things that are blatantly homophobic, and I don’t support that and, you know, if there are people who are trying to do what he did from the left, I would encourage them to be factual and to not—I’m not saying that Jeff’s not factual—but what I’ve seen is people who have started their own blogs trying to oppose Mr. Tozzer and they have not always been factual and I can’t support that.”

That is the full statement. It was not made publicly. It was not at a meeting. French never named Salsa Picante. He did affirm CC Watchdog’s right to criticize government, acknowledged the opinionated nature of the writing, and criticized unnamed left-leaning bloggers for unfair and “blatantly homophobic” attacks.

However, his concerns about untruthfulness, personal attacks, and homophobia could apply to multiple sources of criticism directed at this author.

Selective Outrage and Double Standards

Consider the Clallam County Democrats’ monthly newsletter, which claimed that “Tozzer and Seegers are personally intimidating and threatening and harassing” County Health Officer Allison Berry “regularly.”

These are serious allegations with potential legal implications. When Clallam County Watchdog contacted the Clallam County Democrats and asked for specific examples, the email went unanswered. Such unsubstantiated claims do not align with the factual standards French says he values.

Or consider Paul Pickett, a frequent contributor to Clallam Democrats Rising who has written multiple pieces praising French’s record as commissioner. Pickett posted an image of one dog sniffing another’s rear and labeled it “Clallam County Crotchdog.”

Personal attack? Crude? French offered no public rebuke in that instance.

Then there is Jesse Charles and his regular “Top Down Report” Facebook dispatches (over 1,600 followers). The short clips often cover local news with a focus on Jake Seegers and Clallam County Watchdog.

Charles, a Port Angeles native and Lower Elwha Klallam tribal member, previously served as Director of Mental Health for the tribe (2019–2022) and Director of Youth Operations at Serenity House. He now works as a Social Services Specialist for the Washington State Department of Children, Youth and Families.

In one dispatch about me, while wearing a t-shirt with his Lower Elwha Tribal identification, he said: “If he wants to continue dick-riding Seegers. I mean go ahead, but get a room you two.”

Imagine the reaction if Clallam County Watchdog had made comparable sexual jokes about high-profile Democratic figures like the former President and Vice President. Or this scenario: French’s own campaign manager is a female, Navarra Carr. What if I aimed comparable innuendo at them? It would trigger widespread, and warranted, condemnation of me and my “slanted blog.”

Has Mike French publicly denounced the “Top Down Report” from Jesse Charles? No; however, he recently accepted the endorsement of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe.

When a tribal member levels a homosexual personal attack on French’s opponent and that opponent’s former campaign manager, his response has been silence—paired with vague generalities about opposing “innuendo.”

Cherry-Picking Outrage

In 2020, French posted on Facebook that “we need to recognize the damage that’s being done to our boys by misogyny and homophobia and racism,” referencing events in Kenosha, Wisconsin—two thousand miles away.

Selective attention to distant national controversies while remaining quiet about crude local attacks is classic cherry-picking. It is a pattern familiar from both Mike French and the Clallam County Democrats: tokenize and express outrage when politically useful, stay silent when the target is an opponent or the source is an ally.

This is the same county leadership that remained quiet when I was written into a local play as a dog that eats human feces. “Dick-riding” the candidate I support—who aims to put this county on a better path—apparently counts as an upgrade. The League of Women Voters and the Clallam County Democrats often speak the language of civility and anti-hate. Perhaps those standards apply only in June.

What the Record Actually Shows

French’s campaign posts project integrity and leadership. The record—emails, meeting transcripts, and the pattern of selective silence—tells a more complicated story. Voters can decide which version deserves a second term.

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Get engaged tomorrow!

Tuesday, August 11 at 7:30 am — the Port Angeles Business Association hosts a candidates’ debate for Clallam County Assessor at Joshua’s Restaurant. Hear Lee Hancock and Antonio Price share their visions for the office, ask your questions, and learn how their plans affect our local business community.

It’s a great chance to raise issues such as assessor office staffing after recent budget cuts, as well as technologies like EagleView aerial imagery, Cyclomedia street-level imaging for property valuation, and private property rights.

PABA often streams and archives these debates on their Facebook page. Breakfast is available for purchase (or a $5 surcharge if you’re just attending). Priority to members, but the public is welcome. Show up, listen, ask questions, and help shape local government.

See you there!

Seegers reflects on the primary, the humbling support of ordinary residents who want “common sense” solutions, and the personal toll of balancing family life with a year-long campaign. He calmly debunks circulating rumors—party stories, staged needle photos, and more—while detailing real cleanups along Tumwater Creek and Clallam Bay. Listeners hear firsthand how harm-reduction programs distribute tens of thousands of syringes (and paraphernalia) with little accountability, leaving used and unused needles for volunteers and children to find.

The second half of the episode features “SB,” a longtime downtown Port Angeles resident with lived experience of addiction, trauma, and recovery. With clear-eyed honesty, she describes what she sees daily: open fentanyl and meth use in parking lots and parks, hand-to-hand deals at Safeway, signs of sex trafficking and exploitation of vulnerable women, territorial dealers, and registered sex offenders cycling through transient camps. She recounts encounters that left even her formerly addicted adult son stunned by how blatant the activity has become.

SB explains why Clallam County has become a destination: mild weather, abundant hiding places, minimal border monitoring, and an overly tolerant culture that treats intimidating behavior, shoplifting, and public intoxication as normal. She challenges the narrative that most unhoused people are simply “elderly women who missed a mortgage payment,” and questions whether subsidized housing and cascading referrals are truly helping people heal—or simply sustaining a system that measures inputs and grant numbers rather than outcomes.

In a moving close, SB shares her Clallam County dream—freedom for herself, her family, and those still trapped on the streets.

In a follow-up email, she expands on that vision:

I shared with you that my Clallam county dream is freedom for myself and my loved ones. I want that same level of freedom for others including those I see suffering on the streets daily.

The current practice of “meeting folks where they are at” with everything they need to continue narcotic abuse and little to no concrete plan to guide them out of “where they are at” is the opposite of freedom. The persons suffering on the streets and behind closed doors in their addiction and life of crime are prisoners and slaves of a different kind, held hostage by a homeless/addiction industrial complex that spends more money and effort expanding it’s business model than it does actually helping people heal. Some of those addicted also frequently victimize others, thus reducing the freedom of others to live safely in our community.

Freedom for all Clallam citizens will require a level of accountabilty and fiscal responsibilty from government and private agencies that is currently rare and elusive. I believe those who I see struggling and suffering in public are capable of thriving and deserve opportunities to build a life worth living, not to just be kept barely alive and dependent “where they are at.”

I encourage all those with lived experience to continue speaking up, and to continue asking for more accountabilty and true leadership from public and non profit officials. I am extremely grateful to all those who continue to speak up and share their voices and personal experiences.

This episode is raw, local, and urgently relevant. Whether you live in Port Angeles, Sequim, or anywhere in Clallam County, Sundays With Seegers gives voice to the people on the ground who are tired of being told the problems aren’t real. Press play and hear why so many residents believe the status quo is failing—and why real change starts with honest conversation.

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Local politics, public health debates, and online chatter collided this week across Clallam County. One candidate courted voters amid pointed questions about partisanship and election oversight, while officials pushed contested policies and special interests offered surprising perks. Here’s an unfiltered Social Media Saturday of what people are talking about.

Unity of Effort Event

See Jake Seegers today at Unity of Effort in Sequim. Come meet the county commissioner candidate and stay for an excellent music lineup plus the chance to honor our military, law enforcement, first responders, and security personnel.

Indivisible, French, and the Canvassing Board

We know that Commissioner Mike French has harnessed the power of Indivisible to doorbell for him, and he’s gone onto the Indivisible Facebook page to praise its members for making stickers that denigrate his opponent Jake Seegers. Knowingly or not, he has also harnessed the energy of some of the county’s most vocal protesters.

Yesterday, during a sunny afternoon in Sequim’s downtown business district, Indivisible occupied the intersection to beat on buckets, wave signs, and wear hats calling the president a pedophile. Several of the signs declared, “A vote for Seegers is a vote for Trump.”

Indivisible is promoted, supported, and amplified by the League of Women Voters, a self-described “nonpartisan” activist group that participates in Indivisible rallies. The LWV is also observing ballots being processed at the courthouse and is allowed to do so because Clallam County considers it a nonpartisan organization.

• Is it appropriate for the LWV to back a partisan group?

• Is it appropriate for Mike French, who chairs the canvassing board that will certify and maintain the integrity of this election, to collaborate with Indivisible during this campaign?

• Is it appropriate for Mike French to chair the canvassing board and oversee an election when he is on the ballot?

Apparently, in Clallam County it is.

Welcome to Port Angeles

“When you see someone on the street who’s shouting at somebody who doesn’t appear to be there, often the solution to that is not jail. It’s a sandwich and a water and a quiet place to be.” — Health Officer Allison Berry

Watch this video and ask yourself: does this man just need a sandwich, a water, and a quiet place to be?

Harm Reduction’s Hard Sell

What happens when Health Officer Allison Berry and Commissioner Mike French restrict public comment, refuse to answer emails about harm reduction, and can’t explain discrepancies in the numbers they provide to the public? They launch a social media campaign to reinforce that handing meth pipes to people trapped in active addiction is an “evidence-based approach to public health that helps reduce the risks associated with substance abuse” and that providing people more ways to use illicit street drugs is “safe, healthy, and connected to care.” Then they limit who can comment on the social media post to silence dissent—much as they do at their Board of Health meetings.

If harm reduction were working after two decades, there wouldn’t be a need to sell it to the public and avoid answering basic questions.

Chaos Coordinator’s Real Focus

Commissioner French’s newest appointee to the Homelessness Task Force—an Indivisible activist named Jamie Porter—has rebranded herself online as “Chaos Coordinator.” Her energy isn’t spent championing Mike French or his seven years of local political accomplishments. Instead, she’s criticizing CC Watchdog for allegedly creating “strife and anger in the community while tearing down non-profits and other organizations doing good work.”

If asking questions and demanding accountability creates strife and anger, then those “good organizations” may have far more to hide than anyone realizes.

Hodgson’s Next Chapter

Mark Hodgson didn’t make it past the primary.

Perhaps he can focus more on his new City of Port Angeles councilmember position, where he is pushing for expensive new public bathrooms, and join Commissioner Mike French in keeping the voucher program that allows homeless drug addicts to shower with families and children at the Shore Pool in Port Angeles—as a board member of the pool. Or in his role as a member of the Homelessness Task Force, which continues to funnel $118,000 into three underused safe parking places.

Commissioner Mike French believed in his values so strongly that he donated $250 to Hodgson’s campaign.

Nextdoor’s Fleeting Clarity

Nextdoor.com had a moment of common sense this week.

It then reverted back to being a heavily censored cesspool controlled by the fringes.

DSA Loyalty on Display

Former state representative candidate Bradley “Nemo” Callaway took to Substack to explain the Democratic Socialists of America’s recommendation for Commissioner Mike French. While conceding that French was not the perfect candidate, Callaway noted that “the DSA voting guide does recommend him.” In other words, party before people—he’ll follow what his handlers tell him because he’s a party loyalist and ideologue.

Jamestown’s Gas Discount Irony

The Jamestown Corporation, which prides itself on environmental stewardship, is offering discounts on gas at its station of up to 30 cents per gallon.

Jamestown lobbied heavily for the Climate Commitment Act and has received millions from the CCA for charging stations, solar transitions, energy efficiency for its Airbnbs, and electric vehicles. So the CCA, which has driven up gas prices for everyone in Clallam County, has funneled money to special interests that are now able to offer discounts on gasoline.

Kamloops Claims Revisited

According to the C2C Journal, despite widely publicized claims from 2021, five years have passed with no actual discovery of missing Indigenous children’s graves at the Kamloops residential school or any other site.

This crucial lack of evidence contradicts the initial allegations that fueled widespread public outrage and monument removals. The Canadian public is reportedly “waking up” to these facts, signaling a growing willingness to question emotionally driven narratives and seek historical truth.

These claims have formed much of the basis driving calls for reparations and the Landback movement.

Landback Across the Strait

If you’re curious about the Landback movement, look no further than across the Strait of Juan de Fuca to Victoria. According to recent reports highlighted on Western Standard’s Hannaford politics show, British Columbia’s government is negotiating a treaty with local First Nations that would transfer high-value public land in the heart of Victoria to the Songhees First Nation.

The deal reportedly includes two provincially owned downtown properties—one beside the legislature and another on the waterfront across from Bastion Square—with a combined assessed value of $47 million. These are to be transferred in fee simple as treaty lands, with additional transfers including property valued at $48 million.

Port Angeles Safety Rumors

Rumors are swirling online about a series of rapes allegedly occurring throughout Port Angeles. Could local law enforcement and legacy media please address these concerns and brief the community about the validity of this threat?

From the Scanner

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This week’s local coverage offered a candidate prioritizing public safety, a tribal chair reminding agencies they still have “a lot more to teach,” and a major fire story stripped of key background. A street-corner rant in the weekend edition while an out-of-state activist appeared under “Community Voices.” Meanwhile, local opinions continue to face closed doors. Here’s the rundown.

Clallam County Commissioner Race: Seegers Narrowly Ahead

The Peninsula Daily News reported that challenger Seegers holds a slight lead over incumbent Commissioner Mike French. Seegers listed his priorities clearly: public safety first as the foundation for everything else, followed by economic development, then balancing the county budget so taxpayers keep more of their money.

French emphasized running a campaign focused strictly on the issues and said he wants no aggressive or negative attacks from his supporters.

Indigenous Burial Sites: Tribal Chair Frances Charles Featured Prominently

An article in the Salish Current notes that disturbance of Indigenous burial sites remains common in the region.

Lower Elwha Klallam Tribal Chair Frances Charles was featured prominently in the article. She stated: “Fortunately, we have some good relationships with the agencies around Port Angeles — the city, the port, the school district, the museum. They understand to a point. But we still have a lot more to teach them.”

Spokane Fire Coverage Omits Critical Background

The Peninsula Daily News ran a New York Times syndicated report on the fire that devastated the Spokane area.

While it noted a man had been arrested, it left out widely reported details: the suspect had previously killed his father, entered a plea that removed the possibility of a life sentence, served 12 years, and was released in Arizona before arriving in Washington.

Weekend Edition Focuses on Local Street Mess

The weekend edition of the PDN included a rant about the ongoing mess at Peabody and 2nd streets.

Just one question. Is that the east side of Peabody and 2nd…

Or the west side of Peabody and 2nd?

Has anyone tried to get an opinion published in the Sequim Gazette?

When I served on the Charter Review Commission, after reading a “pro water steward” article in the Gazette, I wanted to write a contrasting opinion. Commissioner Ozias had a monthly article, other citizens were getting published, but I was denied, and the editor contacted the Charter Review Commission. This article, featured under “Community Voices,” is from a director of a Human Rights organization in Idaho.

Is this what our local paper considers a “Community Voice” while refusing to publish local opinions?

Today’s Tidbit: Unity of Effort This Saturday in Sequim – Stop by Jake Seegers’ Booth

Unity of Effort returns Saturday, August 8, for its annual free community celebration honoring military, law enforcement, first responders, and security personnel. Held at Security Services Northwest headquarters (250 Center Park Way, Sequim), the family-friendly event features helicopter arrivals, police K9 demonstrations, emergency and military vehicle displays, live music (including headliner Lita Ford), kids’ activities, food vendors, and community booths. Gates open at 10 a.m.; free parking is available on-site.

While you’re there, visit the Jake Seegers for Commissioner booth from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Pick up a yard sign, meet Jake, share your concerns about Clallam County and what you want from local government, and sign the petition to reopen Hot Springs Road into the Elwha Valley and the interior of Olympic National Park.

See you there!

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A 60% collapse in timber revenue isn’t just a forestry story. It’s a county budget story. It’s a property tax story. And it’s a story about who pays when legally approved timber sales are delayed or stopped. As environmental litigation and activist campaigns continue targeting public timber sales, county officials acknowledge that financial consequences are already showing up in the budget. The question now is whether taxpayers understand what’s at stake.

Perhaps the most revealing number buried in last week’s county commissioner Mid-Year Budget Status Review wasn’t the overall budget—it was a single line item: Timber revenue is down 60 percent compared to last year.

During the presentation, county Chief Financial Officer Mark Lane explained the reason.

“This is largely due to the pauses that have been placed on many timber sales within our area, either due to litigation and/or other policy actions that have been taken.”

That single sentence carries enormous implications.

Revenue from county timber sales doesn’t simply disappear into a general fund. Those dollars help support county government and roads. That money also funds schools, fire districts, libraries, hospitals, and other public services. When those revenues decline, taxpayers eventually make up the difference—either through higher taxes, reduced services, or both.

The Cost of Delay

For years, several environmental organizations have challenged timber sales on county and state lands through litigation, public campaigns, and administrative appeals.

Readers may remember that the Clallam County Board of Commissioners has, on multiple occasions, devoted lengthy meeting time to presentations from activists opposing timber harvests—an opportunity rarely afforded to ordinary taxpayers wishing to address county government in similar depth.

The controversy surrounding the Doc Holliday timber sale is only one example of a broader debate over how public forests should be managed and whether harvesting can coexist with environmental protection.

Last year, readers also watched the controversy surrounding an activist who occupied a tree in the Elwha watershed to halt another approved timber project.

The debate extends beyond courtroom filings. In another widely discussed incident, activists documented removing Department of Natural Resources timber sale boundary markers from the approved Doc Holliday timber sale and delivering them to DNR headquarters in Olympia. State officials characterized the removal as vandalism that disrupted an approved timber operation and resulted in significant costs.

Regardless of where one stands on forest policy, the financial consequences of delayed or cancelled timber sales are becoming increasingly visible.

A Former Legislator Examines the Facts

Former Washington State Representative Jim Buck has spent decades working on natural resource policy and rural economic issues.

Recently, he authored a detailed analysis of the Bakers Dozen timber sale, arguing that much of the public discussion surrounding the project omits important facts.

His paper deserves careful consideration.

Letter Ennis Creek Baker Dozen

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Buck says that according to the Washington Department of Natural Resources, the Bakers Dozen timber sale encompasses 164 gross acres near Ennis Creek south of Monroe Road.

If the sale is cancelled, DNR estimates:

• Clallam County taxpayers would lose approximately $751,671 in revenue.

• The regional economy would lose an estimated $5.76 million in labor, equipment, transportation, and material spending.

Those numbers alone explain why local governments closely watch timber litigation.

More Than One-Third Is Left Untouched

Buck notes that 51 acres—approximately one-third of the entire sale—will not be harvested.

Those protected areas include:

• Riparian stream buffers

• Wetland buffers

• Steep-slope protections

• Old-growth retention

• Leave-tree areas

The contract also protects every tree larger than five feet in diameter. According to Buck, preserving these additional large trees alone reduces the harvest’s economic value by more than $1.7 million. In other words, the project already incorporates significant conservation measures before a single tree is cut.

Salmon Protection

One of the primary concerns raised by opponents involves salmon habitat. Buck argues the existing Habitat Conservation Plan addresses those concerns. Standard riparian buffers already require 175 feet of protection on each side of Ennis Creek.

In many locations, additional steep-slope buffers extend protection to more than one-quarter mile. Combined with adjacent unharvested forest, Buck says the project maintains a continuous wildlife corridor from Highway 101 to the headwaters.

He argues there is no documented evidence that harvests conducted under these Habitat Conservation Plan standards harm salmon habitat.

Who Benefits?

According to Buck, revenue generated from the sale supports numerous local public services, including:

• Port Angeles School District

• Clallam County roads

• County government

• Fire District No. 2

• Olympic Medical Center

Buck’s broader argument is straightforward. The debate should not be framed as “trees versus fish.” Instead, he argues Washington’s Habitat Conservation Plan was specifically designed to achieve both environmental protection and sustainable timber production.

A Bigger Financial Picture

The Bakers Dozen sale represents only a fraction of the county’s overall timber program. The larger concern is cumulative. When multiple sales are delayed or challenged simultaneously, the financial consequences begin appearing in county budgets—as CFO Mark Lane’s 60 percent revenue decline now demonstrates.

For taxpayers, the issue extends beyond forestry. It becomes a question of whether public services should continue receiving revenue from sustainably managed public forests or whether those costs will increasingly shift onto property owners.

Could Managed Forests Also Improve Water Supplies?

Another aspect of forest management receives far less attention: its potential effect on groundwater recharge.

A growing body of research from the arid Southwest suggests that reducing overly dense forests can increase the amount of water that reaches soils and groundwater. A comprehensive review published in Ecological Engineering found that thinning forests in semi-arid regions generally increased groundwater recharge by reducing evapotranspiration—the process by which trees return water to the atmosphere—and by decreasing rainfall intercepted by dense forest canopies.

More recent research in northern Arizona has examined fire-adapted ponderosa pine forests and found that thinning reduced stand-level water use, leaving more water available in the watershed. While the amount of groundwater recharge ultimately depends on factors such as precipitation, soils, and geology, researchers concluded that strategic forest restoration has the potential to improve watershed function while also reducing the risk of catastrophic wildfire.

Much of this work has been conducted by researchers at Northern Arizona University as part of long-term efforts to better understand how forest restoration influences wildfire resilience and water resources.

Of course, Clallam County’s forests are dramatically different from Arizona’s dry ponderosa pine ecosystems. Western Washington receives far more precipitation, supports different tree species, and has different soils, geology, and hydrology. The findings from Arizona should not be assumed to apply directly here.

Even so, they raise an important question for the Sequim-Dungeness region, where water availability and aquifer recharge have been longstanding concerns.

Could strategic forest management provide hydrologic benefits in portions of Clallam County? That question deserves scientific study, field measurements, and careful analysis—not political rhetoric.

The Bottom Line

The county’s own financial presentation confirms timber revenue has fallen dramatically. The causes include litigation and policy decisions that have delayed or paused timber sales. Reasonable people can disagree about where the balance between conservation and timber harvest should be drawn. But taxpayers also deserve to understand the financial tradeoffs.

Every timber sale that is postponed, reduced, or cancelled carries consequences—not only for the forest, but for county budgets, public services, and the property tax bills that eventually arrive in mailboxes across Clallam County.

Today’s Tidbit: League of Women Voters Calls for New Water Task Force

The League of Women Voters of Clallam County is urging the Dungeness River Management Team (DRMT) to create a new Water Resources Task Force for eastern Clallam County, arguing that water supplies face growing pressure from climate change, limited hydrogeologic data, and uncertainty between legal “paper water” rights and actual groundwater availability.

The proposal calls for more regional coordination, updated data review, and a unified conservation plan. The effort aligns with a long-standing LWV priority of creating a county-level “Water Steward” position within county government to oversee water issues.

While water planning is an important discussion, the letter raises questions about whether another task force is the answer. The key question: will a new committee produce measurable results—or simply add another layer of government planning?

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Stickers of Jake Seegers with neck wounds have appeared across Port Angeles deliberately echoing Charlie Kirk’s assassination. Blood-smeared signs and open threats followed, while Mike French and the League of Women Voters stay silent. A local commissioner race has turned toxic — but one candidate is refusing to sink to that level.

The Stickers Arrive

Indivisible activist Danielle “Rae” Heselbach — recently appointed by Commissioner Mike French to the County’s Developmental Disability Advisory Board — promised more Jake Seegers stickers were coming in a private Indivisible Facebook group.

It appears new stickers have arrived.

One now sits in downtown Port Angeles on a crosswalk button post: Jake’s face, altered, with the words “Charlie Kirk Reinvented.”

A Mark on the Neck

Mitch Zenobi noticed what others might have missed. The image of Jake carries deliberate a marking on his neck. The rest of the sticker is clean.

“There’s a mark on the neck in the sticker. This is absolutely a threat of violence,” he wrote.

Activist Charlie Kirk was assassinated by a gunshot to the neck. Local activist Alexandria Fermanis made the connection unmistakable when she posted the moment of impact on Facebook with the caption, “Charlie Kirk finally leaning left on the gun issue.”

The Email and the Escalation

Fermanis later emailed Jake directly: “I’m going to do everything within my power not to get you elected.”

Shortly after that email, the stickers multiplied across Sequim and Port Angeles.

They even appeared at the top of the Seegers family driveway.

Indivisible continues producing stickers for Mike French.

The stickers degrade Jake and invite people to laugh at him — Indivisible has adopted a skunk to represent Jake. Mike French himself took to Indivisible’s Facebook page to express how pleased he was with the effort.

Blood-Smeared Signs

Indivisible member Jon Redmond has gone further, manufacturing signs that declare “A vote for Seegers is a vote for Trump.”

One stands across from Crown Park in Port Angeles, smeared with fake blood.

Property records show the land belongs to Lewis Bennett.

Bennett’s Facebook reveals a dedicated focus. Hour after hour of posts attempt to fuse the President, pedophilia, Hitler, and Nazis. There’s also an intense focus on Jake Seegers.

Lewis Bennett’s photos show him attending local Indivisible rallies where activists routinely compare the president to Satan, Hitler, and Nazis—and openly float the idea that the presdient needs to be “86’d.”

Now a blood-smeared sign sits in his front yard linking that same president to Jake Seegers.

How We Got Here

How did a county commissioner race three thousand miles from the White House become this? One clear accelerant is organizations like the League of Women Voters of Clallam County. They paid for a full advertisement in the Peninsula Daily News that did far more than issue a mild warning.

Under the bold headline “LWVUS Condemns Trump Administration’s Weaponization of Government Against Americans,” the League reprinted a national press release claiming that in the administration’s first 17 days the country had witnessed “nothing short of the weaponization of government against Americans.”

The ad accused the administration of “terrorizing of the immigrant community,” showing “blatant disregard for the well-being of the American people,” weakening civil rights work, launching “continued attacks on people of color and the LGBTQIA+ community,” and putting “many Americans’ livelihoods at stake.”

It went further, charging Congress with undermining checks and balances and calling on elected officials to “stand up to tyranny, protect our democracy, and honor their oath to the American people.”

This is not neutral civic education. This is high-voltage national rhetoric, paid for with local League dollars and dropped into a Clallam County newspaper. When an organization that insists it is nonpartisan spends money to declare that democracy itself is in “deep jeopardy” and that tyranny must be confronted, it should surprise no one that local activists feel licensed to escalate.

The same League promotes Indivisible events, attends their rallies, and lends its century-old brand of respectability to a movement that now produces stickers with neck wounds and blood-smeared signs.

They had the time and the budget to run a fear-laden ad filled with words like “weaponization,” “terrorizing,” “tyranny,” and “deep jeopardy.” Yet they could not find the time to answer a simple, direct email.

As the “G” in LGBTQIA+, I emailed the League of Women Voters of Clallam County after their ad appeared. I asked a straightforward question: Exactly which of my rights are under attack? Which rights am I about to lose? How, specifically, am I being targeted by the current administration?

They ignored the email. I followed up. Still nothing.

An organization willing to spend money declaring that entire communities are under assault somehow has no capacity to explain its own claims to a member of one of those communities. That selective urgency—loud enough to buy newspaper space, silent when asked for evidence—tells you everything about how a local commissioner race three thousand miles from the White House became nationalized, radicalized, and toxified.

That is how we arrived here.

What Charlie Kirk Stood For

I did not know who Charlie Kirk was until the day he died. What I have learned since is that he believed respectful, peaceful dialogue was a cornerstone of democracy. He was also a husband and a father. Somewhere there is a family that no longer has either.

When I look at Jake Seegers, I respect his policy focus, his consistent courtesy toward supporters and critics alike—including his opponent—and the sheer volume of work he has poured into this campaign. But what stands out most to me is the kind of father and husband he is.

Getting to know the Seegers family this past year has been a genuine gift.

What This Race Is Really Revealing

It is deeply troubling that people trying to bring transparency, reduce addiction, and clean up homeless encampments now face threats and retaliation. It is more troubling still that the League of Women Voters, the Clallam County Democrats, and Commissioner Mike French remain silent while everyone can see what is happening.

What we are witnessing goes beyond ordinary political hardball. Amid the intimidation and the harassment, something clearer is emerging: a true leader. A statesman.

Today’s Tidbit: The Great Debate

The Calico Cat Social Club of Clallam County is hosting a Candidate Conversation featuring District 3 County Commissioner candidates Mike French and Jake Seegers.

When: Thursday, August 27, 2026
Time: 6:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Where: Sequim Grange Hall, 290 MacLeay Road, Sequim

Each candidate will give a brief opening statement. The rest of the evening is audience-directed Q&A, with priority given to Calico Cat Club members. Questions will be asked of the panel as a whole, and discussion between the candidates is encouraged. No strict time limits.

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What happens when the people who control county contracts and set public policy also sit atop a community foundation that decides which nonprofits get grant money—including groups that regularly appear before the Board of Commissioners seeking public funds? In Clallam County, that is not a hypothetical. It is the structure of the Olympic View Community Foundation.

A community foundation is supposed to be a neutral, tax-exempt 501(c)(3) vehicle that pools local philanthropy and returns it to the community through grants. The Olympic View Community Foundation (OVCF) describes itself in classic terms: connecting people who care with causes that matter, building endowments in perpetuity, and supporting local nonprofits.

On paper, it sounds wholesome. In practice, its leadership and operations raise serious questions about whether it functions as an independent charitable entity or as an extension of local political power.

Who Actually Runs OVCF

According to the foundation’s own website, the Board of Trustees includes:

• Mark Ozias, President — Clallam County Commissioner

• Jennifer Oppelt, Vice President — Clallam County Deputy Director of Health and Human Services

• Jesse Major, Secretary — Clallam County Public Records Officer

• Adam Bernbaum, Trustee — State Representative, 24th District

Three of the seven trustees are current Clallam County government officials or employees. A sitting county commissioner chairs the board. A state representative sits as a trustee. The people who vote on county budgets and oversee health and human services contracts also control a foundation that awards grants to many of the same organizations that lobby those same officials for public money.

This is the core problem.

When elected officials and senior county staff serve on the boards of NGOs that benefit from county connections, the line between public service and private influence blurs. The appearance of a self-reinforcing political machine is hard to dismiss.

Confidential Giving and Public Money

OVCF openly markets itself as a vehicle for anonymous philanthropy. On its “Partner With Our Foundation” page, it states that it serves as “your conduit to nonprofit organizations seeking funding to ensure your charitable giving remains confidential if you so desire.”

That language is not subtle.

Donors who prefer to keep their contributions hidden from public view can route money through OVCF. At the same time, the foundation lists among the defining characteristics of community foundations that they “Receive support from private and public donors.”

In other words, OVCF positions itself to accept government money while offering donors a way to obscure their own giving. There can be legitimate reasons for donor privacy. But when sitting elected officials and county employees promote an organization that advertises the ability to hide contributions—and simultaneously seek or receive public support—the tension with open-government principles becomes obvious.

What standards of transparency do these same officials apply when they act in their official capacities?

The Peninsula Home Fund and the Same Cast of Characters

OVCF administers the Peninsula Home Fund, the long-running charitable effort originally established by the Peninsula Daily News.

The foundation now decides which nonprofits receive those grants. Recent recipients include organizations that routinely interact with Clallam County government for contracts, funding, or support: Serenity House of Clallam County, Habitat for Humanity of Clallam County, Sequim Food Bank, Port Angeles Food Bank, and others.

These are the same players who cycle through the commissioner boardroom seeking public resources. The foundation controlled by a county commissioner, a state representative, and senior county staff helps determine which of those organizations receive additional private and Home Fund dollars.

Influence compounds. Political goodwill is cultivated.

The local newspapers, which have a long partnership with the Home Fund and regularly publish promotional coverage, function more as cheerleaders than independent scrutinizers.

And It Gets Worse: Scholarships

OVCF also helps determine who receives privately funded scholarships.

That function is fine—even valuable—when the organization is genuinely independent. But when elected officials and senior county staff sit on the board that oversees those awards, the arrangement starts to look like public officeholders handing out money.

Whether or not there is any explicit understanding that the recipient’s future vote or political support is expected in return, that is a probable practical result. The problem is compounded when public money helps sustain the very organization making those decisions.

In short, the same people who set policy and control public contracts also influence which young people in the community receive financial help for education. The potential for soft political leverage is obvious, and the optics are poor.

A Sweet Arrangement—for the Insiders

Consider the incentives this structure creates:

• Politicians and county officials gain influence with the local newspaper through the Home Fund partnership.

• They build political support among the nonprofits they fund.

• Those nonprofits, in turn, serve constituents and can mobilize goodwill.

• Donors seeking confidentiality receive a helpful service from an organization led by public officials.

• The foundation itself is positioned to receive support from public donors.

Remove the elected officials and county employees from the board, and OVCF could still perform a valuable community function—making grants, encouraging philanthropy, and strengthening local nonprofits—without the appearance of being part of a political apparatus. With them in place, the risk of the foundation serving as a soft-power extension of local government is real.

How can the Peninsula Daily News fairly perform its duty to provide a check on government when governmental officials are helping and working for the press? When the same elected official who chairs a foundation that funnels money and goodwill to the newspaper also sits on the county board the newspaper is supposed to scrutinize, the conflict is not theoretical. Independent journalism requires distance. This arrangement collapses that distance.

Community foundations exist to serve the public, not to expand the reach of public officials. When the same individuals who allocate taxpayer dollars, award county contracts, and oversee public policy also sit in judgment over private charitable grants—and scholarships—to many of the same organizations and people, the conflict is structural.

Clallam County residents deserve a clearer separation between those who hold public office and those who control the flow of charitable influence. Until that separation exists, the Olympic View Community Foundation will remain more political machine than pure community asset.

Today’s Tidbit: $900K in CCA Cash for 7 Cedars Chargers

State taxpayers recently handed the Jamestown Corporation $900,000 in Climate Commitment Act (CCA) money — funneled through the Department of Commerce’s Electric Vehicle Charging Program — to install six fast chargers at their 7 Cedars Resort.

That’s nearly a million dollars so resort guests can conveniently juice up while they gamble, eat, and spend money at a tribal enterprise that already generates well over $100 million in annual revenue.

The same Climate Commitment Act that is driving Washington’s sky-high gas prices (and hitting ordinary Clallam County drivers hardest) is now subsidizing charging stations for customers of a wealthy corporation that publicly supported the CCA and is planning to open a full-service truck stop and fueling center.

Fair? You decide.

Stay Engaged

Who is tomorrow’s guest on the weekly Coffee With Colleen at 8:00 a.m. tomorrow? Wendy Sisk, CEO of Peninsula Behavioral Health.

Fresh from the ribbon-cutting of the new North View permanent supportive housing complex for addicts experiencing homelessness and frequent incarceration, she joins to discuss PBH’s newest initiative: the proposed Youth & Family Services Center. This center aims to expand specialized behavioral health services for children, youth, and families across Clallam County.

Click HERE and scroll to the bottom for instructions to attend online.

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Clallam County Health and Human Services showcased soft “success stories” at its July Board of Health meeting while expanding its campaign against misinformation. When Jake Seegers presented coroner data, near-zero treatment conversion rates, and a history of shifting overdose counts, Health Officer Allison Berry defended the department’s numbers, and Commissioner Mike French immediately shut down any follow-up. The exchange laid bare a culture that treats critical residents as disruptions and selected experts as beyond serious scrutiny.

Soft Stories, Hard Costs

At the July 21 Board of Health meeting, the County’s Health and Human Services (HHS) highlighted three “Success Stories” from the Harm Reduction Health Center. One participant used a computer to apply for a job; staff printed a resume, provided a folder, and supplied interview clothes from the closet. Three others received food, a place to rest, and wound care from the Olympic Peninsula Community Clinic and community paramedics. A third was given “a calm and welcoming space to regroup” after losing cash.

The center’s annual budget is approximately $530,000. Officials offered no information on whether any of these participants entered recovery, reduced their drug use, or simply received more supplies that enabled continued addiction in the woods. The stories were presented as progress. The harder metrics were left unmentioned.

The Misinformation Pivot

Officials then turned to expanding HHS’s “spotting misinformation” initiative, including a possible monthly educational piece. The timing was revealing: the same meeting that celebrated feel-good moments and announced a fight against bad information immediately faced data the department preferred not to examine in public.

Seegers Brings the Numbers

Public commenter Jake Seegers went straight at the issue:

“If we are focused on misinformation, we need to also focus on misinformation coming from the county.”

He noted that the HHS Opioid Gaps Report conflicted with data from the coroner’s office. Last year the county recorded 25 overdose deaths—three times the 2018 total when it fully embraced harm reduction. “That means that every Board of Health meeting, we lose two people,” he said.

Mid-year figures already showed seven confirmed overdose deaths and five suspected, tracking last year’s pace with no clear improvement.

Seegers cited HHS’s own figures: the center had been logging roughly 1,000 encounters a month, or about 12,000 a year. From those 12,000 opportunities, the county performed only 27 treatment assessments—a 0.2 percent conversion rate.

“Any salesperson making that conversion rate would be out on the streets as well. It’s because we’re not selling treatment, we’re not selling a way out, we’re selling continued addiction down at the Harm Reduction Health Center.”

According to the same data, each encounter averaged eight syringes—even as officials claim injection is no longer the most common method—and every other encounter received one dose of naloxone.

“This is not working. We need a path to treatment,” Seegers told the Board. “I’m tired of losing two people per month.”

Berry Defends, French Cuts Off

Health Officer Allison Berry responded at length directly to Seegers. She insisted HHS and the coroner are “not in conflict” but simply count differently—residence versus place of death—and that the numbers are “only slightly different on any given year.”

She explained that some people from outside the area travel to the west end intending to die by suicide because of Clallam County’s natural beauty. This means that a non-resident who receives supplies from the Coutny’s Harm Reduction Health Center and overdoses in a tent along Tumwater Creek is recorded by the coroner as a local death but is not counted by HHS as a Clallam County resident death. A Clallam resident who dies in a Seattle hospital is counted by the health department as a local death.

When Seegers began a follow-up question—“Why…”—Commissioner Mike French cut him off immediately: “We’re not going to get into a back and forth.”

Seegers pointed out that Berry had already engaged by speaking directly to him. French raised his voice: “We’re going to have respect for the meeting that’s going on, we’re going to follow an agenda, and we’re going to not get into a back and forth… We’re going to have respect for the people that showed up here.”

Berry then declared, “We don’t respond to an individual commenter”—immediately after having done exactly that.

A History of Moving Numbers

Berry’s claim that the figures differ only “slightly” sits uneasily with a documented record of large swings. In a January 2019 Peninsula Daily News article, she cited an “Opioid Surveillance Dashboard” showing overdose deaths dropping from 10 in 2017 to just 2 in 2018, attributing the decline to expanded naloxone access.

Three months later, the same dashboard was quietly updated to show 10 deaths in 2018.

A later case-by-case review by Deputy Coroner Rebecca Shankles revised the verified 2018 total to 8. When headline numbers shift that dramatically, questions about the reliability of the data used to declare policy success become unavoidable. That history makes the decision to allocate $25,000 for HHS to produce its own Gaps Report particularly sensitive: the same department that designed and runs the programs is tasked with evaluating their effectiveness.

Steeper Surge, Higher Baseline

Berry attributed the large surge from 2021 to 2023 to the arrival of fentanyl. That factor is real. Yet Clallam County and Washington State—both strong embracers of harm reduction—experienced steeper proportional increases than many jurisdictions that restricted drug-use supply distribution.

From 2018 to peak, Clallam’s overdose deaths rose 538 percent and Washington’s 207 percent, while states that limited or prohibited syringe programs averaged roughly 94 percent increases. Idaho, with far tighter restrictions, saw only a 58 percent rise and peaked earlier.

Clallam’s 25 deaths in 2025 remain more than triple the eight recorded by the coroner in 2018, and its rate per 1,000 residents stays higher than Idaho’s and the average among restrictive states. Recent declines from the peak have not erased a baseline that is still roughly three times higher than it was when the county fully committed to the harm reduction approach.

Experts First, Public Second

French has long made his view of public participation clear. During COVID he dismissed critical speakers as “unhinged conspiracy theorists spouting complete nonsense.”

French also expressed amazement that residents believed their arguments “should be convincing. Like, if the Board of Health had a public hearing and let them voice their positions, the decision would’ve been different?”

More recently, he described himself as a skeptic who practices “constant vigilance” against confirmation bias, affinity bias, and sunk-cost fallacy while deferring to expertise.

In practice, that skepticism stops at Health Officer Berry. Data that challenges the harm-reduction record is met with defense of the expert and rapid shutdown of the resident presenting it.

The contrast with prior meetings is stark. Last year, when advocates pushed to rename the courthouse in honor of Justice Susan Owens—a change French supported—he allowed unscheduled residents to speak from the gallery and even invited them to sit with the commissioners during a work session to advocate for the renaming. French called those supportive voices “stakeholders.” Residents who opposed the change were denied the same access and participation.

It has been a consistent pattern throughout Commissioner French’s time on the Board of Commissioners. Whether the issue is harm-reduction advocates, opponents of reopening Towne Road, or environmental activists, voices that align with his positions are welcomed into the conversation. Those who point out erroneous information or question the policy are ruled out of order and told they lack respect.

The Culture in Clallam County

Moments after launching an intensified fight against misinformation, county leaders refused the simplest form of clarification: answering questions about their own numbers and results. French and Berry proved that three minutes is allowed, but follow-up is not when it challenges the preferred narrative.

The result is a $530,000 program without metrics, overdose deaths still triple 2018 levels, almost no conversion to treatment, and a governing culture that protects selected expertise while treating the public’s demand for evidence as the real problem.

Today’s Tidbit: Indivisible on the Attack

Rather than making the case for why Commissioner Mike French deserves another four years in office, Indivisible continues to campaign by attacking his opponent, Jake Seegers. Their latest target isn't just Jake—it's 4PA, a widely respected nonprofit where Jake volunteers. The organization has removed thousands of pounds of trash from some of Port Angeles' most ecologically sensitive areas, making it an unlikely target in a political campaign.

Socialist candidate for State Representative Bradley Callaway has been repeating a claim also made by Health Officer Allison Berry—that groups like 4PA are stealing from homeless people.

Callaway goes on to describe 4PA as the "PAPD's little lapdog" and invokes the acronym "ACAB" ("All Cops Are Bastards"), a slogan that gained widespread prominence during the "Defund the Police" movement.

Danielle "Rae-Rae" Heselbach, whom Commissioner Mike French recently appointed to the Developmental Disabilities Advisory Board, claimed that Jake Seegers is using his volunteer work with 4PA as nothing more than a public relations campaign to benefit his election.

Indivisible member Ron Richards identified the common thread behind these allegations: they all originated from the anonymous blog "Salsa Picante."

Perhaps the most troubling aspect is that this is the group the League of Women Voters of Clallam County has chosen to support, amplify, and lend credibility to while presenting itself as a nonpartisan defender of democracy.

Indivisible has called for boycotts of local businesses, published a questionnaire targeting Jake Seegers while promoting Commissioner Mike French in a favorable article, and accused critics of being “outsiders” when they attended a public meeting at a public library—leading to a call for law enforcement to remove them.

Yet this is the organization the League of Women Voters of Clallam County has embraced.

That is politics in Clallam County.

Seen at the Sequim Farmer’s Market

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Americans are free to move wherever they choose—but local policies decide which communities become magnets. Clallam County’s expanding services, open camping tolerance, and taxpayer-funded projects like North View’s 36 units risk drawing homelessness and addiction from far beyond our borders while working families are priced out. County Commissioner Candidate Jake Seegers asks: What kind of community will these policies create for the people who call Clallam County home?

Notice: Commissioners’ Work Session and Meeting canceled this Monday and Tuesday.

The Right to Move

During a recent debate, Mike French and I were asked about the homeless, addicted, and mentally ill being bused to Port Angeles from other communities.

Mike answered,

“This is something that obviously, like, I’ve heard since I’ve been in public office from individuals. People have the right to move around the country; that’s how America works. So, people move around. People come here, people leave here, there’s nothing we can do to stop that.”

On that point, Commissioner French is absolutely correct. Americans are free to move wherever they choose. Government should not decide where someone is allowed to live.

Policy Shapes the Destination

However, the government often influences why people choose one community over another.

Every community attracts certain demographics based on the opportunities, incentives, and quality of life it offers. Some people move for jobs. Others seek warmer weather, lower taxes, better schools, outdoor recreation, or proximity to family. Public policy shapes many of those decisions.

The same principle applies to people struggling with homelessness, addiction, or untreated mental illness. Communities that concentrate abundant services while placing fewer restrictions on public camping, panhandling, and open drug use inevitably become more attractive than communities that do not.

Encounters with the consequences of widespread homelessness and addiction are becoming increasingly common in Clallam County.

Recently, while driving on the Tumwater Truck Route, I noticed a woman slumped over the steering wheel of her vehicle. I stopped to check on her. She was breathing but unresponsive. While I was there, the same State Trooper drove past three times. I tried to flag them down each time, but they never stopped. Concerned for her safety, I called for a welfare check.

A Growing Reputation

During a Homelessness Task Force meeting on December 2^nd last year, board members were asked why Clallam residents are not prioritized on the waiting list for local housing. Viola Ware, Director of Housing for Olympic Community Action Programs (OlyCAP), which provides housing and emergency shelter in Clallam and Jefferson counties, offered her perspective:

“If you’re looking at low barrier and permanent supportive housing, the prioritization is the need. A lot of us move to where we think our lives are going to benefit the most…that is a human thing. We seek what’s going to benefit us and our family.”

In other words, people relocate to places where they perceive they'll receive the most support.

In her interview, Chelsea Jones described moving from Missouri to Port Townsend after hearing it was a community where panhandling was allowed and generously rewarded.

Local policies welcomed her with hassle-free camping in a public forest. Social workers delivered drug use supplies to her tent. According to Jones, those policies made it easier to sustain her addiction rather than overcome it. As she candidly recalled:

“Every dollar I got flying a sign went to drugs.”

Whether every story is identical isn’t the point. Information travels quickly through social networks, outreach organizations, and online communities. People talk. Communities develop reputations.

Clallam County has increasingly developed that reputation with policies that make it a magnet for homelessness and substance abuse.

An Expanding Network of Services

Over the past several years, local government has expanded an extensive network of services for individuals experiencing homelessness and addiction.

Free food is widely available. WSU Extension maintains an up-to-date directory of local food resources here.

Showers are available at Serenity House, the Salvation Army, The Answer for Youth (TAFY), and now in the same locker rooms used by children and families at the taxpayer-funded William Shore Memorial Pool.

City-owned property has become a largely unregulated option for outdoor camping, substance abuse, and illegal dumping.

Clallam Transit connects many of these services throughout the county at no cost.

Many neighborhoods have experienced the consequences firsthand, with residents documenting open drug use, drug dealing, illegal camping, illegal dumping, and persistent panhandling in many of the same areas where services are concentrated.

The North View Example

Central to all of these services is Peninsula Behavioral Health’s (PBH) new North View 36-unit apartment complex, which is scheduled to welcome its first occupants in September.

Peninsula Behavioral Health’s new North View Apartments — mostly studio and one-bedroom units with a price tag topping $350,000 per unit — is a project that exemplifies this local policy direction.

My campaign manager and I toured North View earlier this week.

The apartments are beautiful. The quality of construction is exceptional. The setting is quiet, the views are spectacular, and each unit was comfortably air-conditioned despite the summer heat.

My first thought was simple:

“Who wouldn’t want to live here?”

That is precisely why the public policy behind the project deserves discussion.

North View was built primarily with taxpayer funding and government financing. Clallam County alone contributed more than $111,000 per apartment, with additional funding coming from state and federal programs.

Yet, according to staff, occupancy cannot be based on whether someone has lived in Clallam County for decades or arrived last week. Instead, qualified applicants referred by participating service providers enter a lottery.

Local Residents Compete With Outsiders

That reality becomes even more significant when viewed alongside Clallam County’s broader housing data.

The 2025 Point-in-Time Count identified approximately 310 individuals experiencing homelessness in Clallam County, including 176 who were unsheltered.

Yet, in 2024, 2,408 households were on the waiting list for housing in Clallam County.

By 2025 — only twelve months later — the waitlist had nearly doubled.

How does a county with roughly 310 homeless individuals end up with nearly 4,500 households waiting for affordable housing?

During a December 2025 Homelessness Task Force meeting, Peninsula Housing Authority Executive Director Debbi Tesch explained why:

“That does not represent just people living in Clallam County. Anybody can apply for our housing. It’s not unusual to have people living in California apply to live here.”

Applicants can apply from anywhere.

When publicly subsidized housing cannot prioritize longtime local residents, thousands of people from outside Clallam County may compete alongside local families for the same limited units.

Federal fair housing requirements and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) funding rules often restrict the use of residency preferences. The result – government-funded NGO housing projects are limited in their ability to prioritize local residents.

In other words, government grants, government loans, and state-approved sales taxes often come with strings attached. Those conditions can limit local control and, in practice, seem to attract out-of-county residents to services and housing that many taxpayers believed would primarily benefit local residents.

There is no debating that Clallam County needs more housing across the income spectrum. But we need more housing for the people living in our community. Not housing that will attract individuals experiencing homelessness, addiction, and mental health challenges from out of county.

North View has committed to serving individuals making 60% or less of Area Median Income (AMI) for the next 50 years. For context, HUD set Clallam County’s 2025 AMI for a family of four at $90,400, down nearly 4% from $93,900 in 2024. HUD’s published 60% income limit is $39,840 for a one-person household and $56,880 for a family of four.

During a May 14^th 2024 Behavioral Health Advisory Board meeting, PBH CEO Wendy Sisk asked the board for $2 million to help build North View. She claimed that most future residents would be 30% of AMI or lower (33:30). That means the majority of North View’s apartments are intended for individuals earning $19,950 or less per year.

Lessons From Bloomside

What does the foreseeable future look like for North View’s neighbors? In 2024, the Seattle-based behavioral health and housing NGO Downtown Emergency Service Center (DESC) opened Bloomside, a 90-unit permanent supportive housing complex in downtown Burien with on-site wraparound services. As North View’s closest comparable project, Bloomside offers valuable early clues about how this housing model can perform in a similar community setting.

One year later, in a B-Town Blog letter to the editor, Burien resident John L. White asks,

“Have you been by the DESC (Downtown Emergency Service Center) building in Burien lately? What you’ll see are crowds of drug users gathered out front, openly dealing and using drugs in the middle of the day. Where are they getting those drugs? Many are supplied directly by tenants inside the building, just as has happened at other DESC locations in downtown Seattle.”

Mr. White goes on to claim that:

“These individuals are not Burien residents. They are drawn here to buy and sell drugs. To fund their addictions, they are committing crimes throughout our community.”

In its response to local criticism, DESC admits that only one-third of Bloomside tenants are from Burien:

“We also know this work matters to Burien directly: approximately one-third of Bloomside tenants were formerly living unsheltered in Burien.”

The broader policy question is whether Clallam County has thoughtfully considered the long-term consequences of building and expanding a system that attracts applicants from across the nation while local residents and working families continue struggling to afford housing.

Shifting Housing Priorities

This same philosophy extends beyond supportive housing.

In recent years, local governments have adopted zoning changes that encourage greater density, accessory dwelling units (ADUs), and multifamily construction.

Permit fee waivers and other incentives have increasingly favored these housing types, while permit costs, energy code requirements, and construction expenses for traditional single-family homes have continued to climb.

In late 2021, the Port Angeles City Council, including then-Councilmember Mike French, adopted Ordinance 3688, implementing major portions of the City’s 2019 Housing Action Plan. The ordinance substantially revised the zoning code to encourage ADUs, duplexes, townhouses, cottage housing, and multifamily development, reflecting a policy shift toward “missing middle” and higher-density housing over traditional single-family development.

During a recent Port Angeles Business Association Debate, Commissioner French claimed:

“Eight years later you can walk around Port Angeles and see the results of those reforms. You can see duplexes being constructed…you can see ADU’s thickening up neighborhoods naturally. And, if you go down to Oak Street, you can see a 36-unit apartment [North View] being constructed opening later this year.”

But, the result of these reforms has not been an acceleration in overall homebuilding, but rather a shift in the type of housing being built.

Excluding North View’s 36 units — supported by nearly $5 million from Clallam County and the City of Port Angeles, including a $100,000 permit fee waiver — the City’s total annual housing permits fluctuated between just 47 and 66 units from 2022 through 2025.

Meanwhile, despite the 2019 Housing Action Plan recognizing a substantial need for additional single-family homes, annual single-family permits declined from 39 in 2022 to just 17 in 2025.

It has changed the type of housing being built and, ultimately, the demographics those policies encourage.

Young families — the demographic crucial to economic growth — are leaving Clallam County, often citing affordability and public safety concerns.

Yet, Clallam County and the City of Port Angeles continue to prioritize projects like North View at the cost of the single-family housing necessary to attract workers in the 80-120% of AMI categories.

In fact, the City projects that only 13 new homes will be needed to serve households earning up to 120% of Area Median Income (AMI) by 2045. Instead, its focus is almost entirely on housing below 80% of AMI, including 954 units for households earning 0–30% of AMI.

The Economic Cost

This emphasis reflects a broader policy direction, as evidenced by Clallam County’s employment trends. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, total employment declined by approximately 400 jobs from 2022 to 2025.

Although nonfarm payrolls increased by 564 jobs during the same period, that growth was driven primarily by government and nonprofit employment, while private-sector jobs in construction, timber, and manufacturing shrank substantially.

Our community has increasingly invested in programs, grants, housing models, and incentives that primarily serve very-low-income households while making it more difficult and expensive for young working families to build or purchase homes here.

Meanwhile, Clallam County’s natural beauty continues attracting households from more expensive metropolitan areas, placing additional upward pressure on single-family housing prices.

The result is a widening gap. Middle-income working families increasingly find themselves priced out from both directions.

Choosing the Future

Mike French was right about one thing:

We cannot decide who moves to Clallam County. But we absolutely can decide what kind of community our policies encourage.

Every budget, every zoning decision, every grant application, every permit fee, and every enforcement decision sends a message about the future we are building.

Clallam County should continue helping people in crisis. But we should measure success by recovery, independence, safer neighborhoods, and stronger families for those residing here — not simply by the number of programs we fund that serve indiscriminately across geographies.

My priority is to build a county where young families can afford to stay, businesses are confident investing, neighborhoods are safe, and public resources first strengthen the people who already call Clallam County home.

We cannot choose who comes here.

But we can choose the policies that shape the future of the place we all love and call home.

What Can You Do?

In April, John DeBoer—a formerly homeless resident who serves on Clallam County’s Homelessness Task Force and has managed shelters—spoke bluntly at a public safety town hall:

“We’ve reached the point where the money is doing more harm than good… Homelessness became big business… it became a racket.”

More grants, more NGO funding, more taxes, and more government have not fixed homelessness in Clallam County. They have expanded a system that prioritizes bureaucracy over results.

It’s time to demand better. Write the commissioners today and tell them clearly:

• Stop chasing grants and funding streams that perpetuate the problem.

• Reject the “more money = more success” approach that has failed.

• Prioritize only those programs and spending that deliver measurable outcomes for Clallam residents—real reductions in homelessness, safer streets, and accountable use of taxpayer dollars.

All three commissioners can be reached by emailing the Clerk of the Board at loni.gores@clallamcountywa.gov. One short email from you can help shift the conversation from more of the same to results that actually matter.

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Editor’s note: This blog is published by Jeff Tozzer, the former campaign manager for Jake Seegers. None of the content here has ever been paid for by Jake Seegers for Commissioner. To learn more about Jake Seegers, visit JakeSeegers.com.

Summer is here and the campaign season is heating up across Clallam County. From festival booths and sticker wars to locked grocery-store restrooms and questions about who really pulls the strings on local policy, this week’s Social Media Saturday captures the pulse of the county. Ballots are already in voters’ hands—make sure yours counts. Here’s what residents are talking about right now.

Joyce Daze & the Candidate on the Ground

Summer has officially started, and it’s Joyce Daze today. Head out to Joyce for the parade and find the Jake Seegers for Commissioner booth.

The highlight of Jake’s campaign is meeting people face-to-face from all over the county and learning what they want from county government. See you there!

French Turns to Indivisible for Ground Game

Commissioner Mike French appears to be harnessing the power of Indivisible to help with doorbelling on the weekends leading up to the District 3 primary.

French is also relying on the group to distribute “I’m Feelin’ French” stickers and skunk stickers that have become the unofficial mascot against challenger Jake Seegers.

Alan Clark, French’s appointee to the Marine Resources Committee (MRC), approves. The MRC has recommended that Three Crabs Road be removed and residents relocated due to sea-level rise. French called the stickers “great work.”

While Indivisible has called for boycotts of local small businesses, summoned police when non-members attend their public library meetings, and removed people from their group for reading CC Watchdog, it remains an active and organized force French can lean on over the next three months—handmaids and all.

Don’t Miss the Postmark Deadline

The League of Women Voters reminds voters that ballots must be POSTMARKED by Election Day—not simply dropped in a mailbox on Tuesday.

The safest option right now is a secure ballot drop box.

Ballot Drop Box Locations

New Signs at Dungeness Refuge

The Jamestown Corporation is moving ahead with installing new signage at the Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge.

French’s First Re-Election Post Skips the Voters

Commissioner Mike French’s first Facebook post of his re-election campaign has made waves online—but it forgot to mention the most important part of the job: the voters and citizens who elected him and pay his salary.

Ozias Returns from New Orleans

Commissioner Mark Ozias is back after a three-week stretch away from the courthouse. Photos of the Washington State delegation at the National Association of Counties conference in New Orleans show a good time was had by all.

The Sign That Has People Scratching Their Heads

Can someone explain this sign that has become popular among Indivisible followers?

It claims a vote for one county commissioner candidate is somehow a vote for a president who cannot run for re-election. Inquiring minds want to know.

Free Housing, Cash & New Luxury Complex

An Aberdeen man was arrested on drug charges while carrying $53,000—and living in free government housing.

In related news, North View, Peninsula Behavioral Health’s new upscale homeless-housing complex, expects its first residents next month.

Reddit Debate & a Candidate’s Handle

Over on Reddit, discussions are not focused on the benefits of another four years of Mike French. Instead, users are debating whether it is best to burn, spray-paint, or simply steal Jake Seegers’ signs.

Who is “bemused_alligators”? That is the handle of Democratic Socialist Party candidate Bradley “Nemo” Callaway, currently running for state representative.

And why wouldn’t Callaway embrace property destruction when it’s promoted by our local leadership?

Callaway’s campaign emphasizes a compassionate, human-centered approach.

Fireworks Ban & Behind-the-Scenes Coaching

One resident working on a county-wide fireworks ban reports meeting with Commissioner Mike French, who is coaching her on how to form a coalition and build support for the proposal—which would then come before the Board of Commissioners.

“Astroturfing” is the practice of creating the illusion of grassroots support while the real direction comes from behind the scenes. Does every other cause receive this level of coaching from the commissioner?

Locked Restrooms in Port Angeles

If Clallam County feels more like Seattle lately, you’re not imagining it. Teresa reports that restrooms at one downtown Port Angeles grocery store are now locked and require door codes for customer entry—while the city has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on free public restrooms.

Where the Drug Money Comes From

In a county that distributes drug paraphernalia to addicts and remains soft on drug dealers and open-air use, where do users get the cash to buy the drugs encouraged by Health Officer Allison Berry? Increasingly, it comes from theft. Burglary is not a victimless crime.

Independent Research Continues

Resident David Rogers continues his own research—through public-records requests—into the effects of harm-reduction policies in our community.

Junk RVs & Safe-Parking Irony in Sequim

Sequim is changing. Junk RVs are appearing more frequently. Ironically, the same church that holds an $118,000 contract with the county to provide safe parking allegedly asked a resident to leave its lot while the resident was helping people living in their vehicles.

Seattle’s Warning for Our Veterans’ Bell?

In Seattle, a beloved BBQ pavilion in a city park was demolished because it had become a magnet for homelessness and drug activity.

Will that be the fate of the veterans’ bell next to the Clallam County Courthouse?

Track Your Ballot in Under a Minute

You’ve returned your ballot—but has it been received? Accepted? Challenged? Does the signature match?

Track the status of your ballot. It takes less than a minute.

Track My Ballot

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Local papers this week featured a letter praising democratic socialism and the continuation of a contested shower voucher program. Coverage also included contrasting outcomes in two local criminal cases. Here’s a closer look at what made the pages.

Letter Promotes Democratic Socialism

The Peninsula Daily News published a letter to the editor this week from Linda Benson praising democratic socialism and noting its adoption in most Scandinavian countries.

Benson is the past president of the Clallam County League of Women Voters and remains active with the League, which describes itself as a “nonpartisan” organization. Clallam County continues to list the local League of Women Voters chapter as “unaffiliated” ballot observers.

Separately, Democratic Socialists of America National Co-Chair Megan Romer appeared on a news program earlier this week discussing the organization’s long-term goals.

These include abolishing the Senate, replacing the presidency and Supreme Court, abolishing ICE, ending borders and granting amnesty to those currently in the country illegally, defunding the Pentagon, abolishing prisons, and placing most large corporations under government or public ownership.

Shower Voucher Program Continues Despite Petition

Commissioners Mike French and Randy Johnson, along with Port Angeles City Councilmembers Mark Hodgson and LaTrisha Suggs and community member Greg Shield, unanimously voted to maintain the shower voucher program.

The program provides vouchers to homeless individuals with addictions at the harm-reduction center so they can use the showers at the William Shore Memorial Pool, which is also used by children and families. Officials kept the program even though 567 signatures were submitted in opposition.

A petition supporting the program—started by Indivisible activist Jamie Porter, Commissioner French’s newest appointee to the Homelessness Task Force—gathered only 293 signatures.

Contrasting Local Court Cases

The Sequim Gazette reported that a two-day trial has been scheduled for a 70-year-old woman accused of stealing a coffee table from the Habitat for Humanity Thrift Store. She faces up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

In a separate case, Joshua Royal was arrested for breaking into multiple units of an apartment complex, destroying furniture, and chasing a resident.

He was released by court order after two days in Clallam County Jail. His total bail was set at $0.00.

Today’s Tidbit: See You at the Wild Blackberry Festival

If you’re heading to Joyce Daze this Saturday, be sure to stop by and say hello!

I’ll be spending the day at the Jake Seegers for County Commissioner booth, and I’d love the opportunity to meet readers, hear what’s on your mind, and talk about the issues shaping Clallam County.

Whether you’ve been reading the Watchdog for years or just recently discovered us, I’d enjoy meeting you in person.

Hope to see you Saturday in Joyce! 🇺🇸

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Commissioner Mike French condemned “dehumanizing” rhetoric in his first comments on Jake Seegers and called for civility—yet his campaign ecosystem has tolerated vicious personal attacks, family smears, and grotesque fabrications from aligned anonymous outlets. French champions church-state separation in words, but not always in county spending that benefits connected institutions. Voters now face a clear choice: more of the same from French, or fresh, practical leadership from Jake Seegers focused on accountability, public safety, and real results.

French’s Email: Selective Standards

In a widely shared message, Commissioner French distanced himself from divisiveness and urged a positive, issue-based campaign. He highlighted his work on housing policy and the Recompete Pilot Program while emphasizing collaboration across differences. He reaffirmed support for church-state separation and pleaded with neighbors to treat one another with respect, warning against generalizations or dehumanizing language. These are worthy ideals. Yet actions and associations tell a different story.

French voted to direct $118,000 in county funds to a church for a safe parking program tied to an NGO on whose board he serves—raising questions about the consistent application of the separation of church and state.

His call for civility also stands in contrast to his own past remarks suggesting property destruction could be justified for societal change.

Most tellingly, there has been no public rebuke from French when allies have engaged in or amplified the very dehumanizing tactics he claims to oppose.

Vicious Personal Attacks and AI Smears: A Case Study in Hypocrisy

One of the most disturbing examples involves me, Jeff Tozzer, who served as Jake Seegers’ campaign manager earlier in the race. I also run this blog, Clallam County Watchdog.

A Salsa Picante article zeroed in on my personal life, claiming an open marriage and alleging Doug and I recruited a young Latino man for late-night encounters. The piece featured and AI-generated images presented as factual evidence.

This content was widely shared and amplified by members of Indivisible groups and the Clallam County Democrats. The hypocrisy is staggering:

• The League of Women Voters, which partners with and promotes these same organizations, teaches schoolchildren that “Silence is Betrayal.” Yet there was zero public condemnation or outrage when these smears targeted a critic of the status quo.

• The attacks play directly into harmful stereotypes about gay men being promiscuous and unworthy of marriage equality—the very stigmas the Democratic Party and progressive groups claim to oppose. Imagine the reaction if similar AI-generated fabrications had targeted Pete Buttigieg or any ethnic or racial minority. The condemnation would have been swift.

Salsa Picante has also falsely accused a West End business of distributing meth and has repeatedly attacked Seegers’ wife, children, parents, and grandparents with lies.

One of the blog’s frequent commenters—Indivisible and anti-Towne Road activist Jamie Porter—was recently appointed by French to the Homelessness Task Force.

Jake Seegers has not endorsed, directed, or approved any such behavior. His campaign remains focused on policy solutions, and he has consistently engaged in clean, issue-oriented debate.

What Does Fire Up French

French’s selective condemnation is particularly striking given his own past words. In a Facebook post during the Kavanaugh hearings, he lambasted the nominee for petty lashing out and lacking self-awareness, arguing such behavior should be disqualifying and that leaders must offer intellectual heft instead of vitriol.

Yet in Clallam County today, French has issued no public rebuke as allies smear opponents and their families with AI-generated falsehoods and degrading attacks — the very pettiness and dehumanization he once condemned.

Business Harassment: The Aloha Example

Local businesses are also being dragged into the mud. Aloha Smoothies & Sweets displayed a Jake Seegers campaign sign at the owner’s request — standard practice, with no payment involved.

In response, supporters of Mike French have started leaving negative reviews and targeting the business online as punishment.

This is not grassroots enthusiasm for French; it is coordinated economic retaliation against a small local business simply for exercising free speech and supporting a challenger. Once again, French — the candidate calling for civility — has remained silent while his backers engage in these bully tactics. True leadership — from French, the Clallam County Democrats, or the “nonpartisan” League of Women Voters — would condemn such behavior, not benefit from the fear it creates.

The Republican Rebuttal and Broader Pattern

Yesterday’s Salsa Picante piece claimed internal Republican dissent about supporting Seegers. It was quickly refuted by the Clallam County Republican Party, which reaffirmed its strong recommendation of Jake Seegers without reservation.

Time to Refocus the Race

Clallam County needs leaders who match words with actions and focus on what unites us: safe neighborhoods, practical housing solutions, job growth, and responsible government. Jake Seegers brings fresh energy and a commitment to results that serve every family.

Dave Murphy has offered a $250 reward for the identification of the person behind Salsa Picante.

Clallam County Watchdog is matching that amount for a total of $500.

If you believe in free and fair elections and want this commissioner’s race returned to the issues, integrity, and real change, help expose the source of these smears and lies.

Let’s end the distractions and give voters the honest debate Clallam County deserves.

Today’s Tidbit: The Company You Keep

Commissioner Mike French continues to rack up endorsements from the “vote blue no matter who” crowd, including Mark Hodgson and LaTrisha Suggs — his key allies in expanding harm reduction efforts at the William Shore Memorial Pool. Together they have worked to ensure the county provides shower vouchers, allowing drug-addicted transients to shower alongside families and children.

Further support comes from Christy Holy, who attempted to rewrite the Charter Review Bylaws specifically to restrict Clallam County Watchdog from reporting on public meetings and information during the 2025 Charter Review. Holy also championed the Water Steward position that Commissioner French plans to consider during this fall’s budget discussions.

French has also secured the endorsement of Jim Stoffer, who was nearly censured by the Sequim School Board for sharing confidential information (leading to his mid-term resignation) and was later caught passing confidential details to a tribal ambassador while serving on the Charter Review Commission.

In politics, endorsements reveal priorities.

When Commissioner French surrounds himself with individuals known for pushing controversial policies, attempting to silence public scrutiny, and mishandling confidential information, it raises a simple question for voters: What kind of leadership — and what kind of company — does Clallam County truly want?

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Registered sex offenders with histories of child rape and molestation are being arrested for new crimes — including burglary and theft — only to be released back onto our streets within hours. Small businesses face smashed windows and lost revenue while residents wonder who is truly being protected. In Clallam County, the revolving door of justice isn’t just frustrating — it’s endangering families and destroying livelihoods.

Tucker Kahler: A Pattern of Quick Releases

Tucker S. Kahler was arrested Saturday by the Sequim Police Department for driving with a suspended license and released just two hours later.

If the name sounds familiar, it’s because CC Watchdog reported in January that Kahler had been arrested for the same offense by the Port Angeles Police Department — and released two hours later.

In February, he was arrested again for driving with a suspended license and violating a protective order.

Now Kahler is back in jail, this time facing charges of theft and residential burglary. He was arrested Monday and remains incarcerated as of this publishing.

Kahler is a registered sex offender listed as “transient” in Sequim.

He was convicted in 2020 of third-degree rape of a 14-year-old girl after providing her with alcohol. He also has a prior conviction for first-degree child molestation of a 7-year-old boy in 2010.

In 2019, he was wanted for failing to register as a sex offender after providing false information about his whereabouts while living out of a silver Subaru.

What will it take? This repeat offender keeps getting arrested and released back into the community after only hours in jail.

Joshua Mirka: Another Transient Sex Offender Back Behind Bars

Joshua Mirka is back in jail, arrested for theft, malicious mischief, and burglary.

If the name rings a bell, CC Watchdog reported on him last year when he was arrested and released for criminal trespass.

Mirka, 48, is a transient registered sex offender living in the Port Angeles area. His convictions include third-degree rape and indecent liberties from 1997 and 1998.

According to MyClallamCounty.com, detectives believe Mirka may be connected to a string of recent coffee stand burglaries near Port Angeles.

He was booked into jail on a burglary charge after a break-in at Coffee Cottage.

That’s one more small business struggling in a county where crime feels permissive. Owners face repairs, lost revenue, and the daily insecurity of operating in an environment that seems to prioritize offenders over employers. These businesses pay taxes — yet local government often fails to deliver the safe environment needed to generate that revenue.

This isn’t Coffee Cottage’s first ordeal. In December, CC Watchdog reported that the business was forced to shut down temporarily after workers arrived to find both windows smashed.

Security footage led to the suspected offender, Hector Olivarria-Garcia, being identified.

What Happened Saturday Morning in Port Angeles

On Saturday at approximately 3:00 AM, Port Angeles Police Department officers responded to a burglary in progress at an apartment complex. K9 officers located a reporting party who said an unknown person was inside breaking doors.

Officers found two apartments with forcibly kicked-in doors. Inside one unit, they encountered a subject who did not live there and had no permission to be present. The suspect showed signs of intoxication.

Damage was extensive: broken chairs, an overturned dresser and bed, scattered items, a damaged water heater area, a torn shower curtain, and kicked-in doors. The suspect reportedly chased the reporting party at one point. Clallam County Sheriff’s deputies assisted at the scene.

The suspect was arrested and booked on two counts of residential burglary (felony), one count of malicious mischief (felony), and one count of malicious harassment. Follow-up confirmed no prior relationship with the victims. The case has been referred to the Prosecuting Attorney.

What Is Going On in Clallam County?

Just this Sunday, CC Watchdog covered a woman who reviewed her security cameras and discovered a repeat offender attempting to enter her condominium while she slept.

She filed a police report and wanted to press charges, but Michael Severson was merely trespassed for three years — only to later assault two gas station attendants.

Mitch Zenobi recently updated his Facebook followers about the failed prosecution in this county.

On film, he was assaulted by an eco-activist protesting a timber sale in the Elwha Watershed. Zenobi told DNR police that he wanted to press charges, and DNR forwarded the case to the prosecutor. According to Zenobi, the Clallam County Prosecutor’s Office decided not to pursue it. “They don’t prosecute their buddies,” Zenobi told viewers.

Add that to the roughly $10,000 in damage caused to public property—filmed and widely reported—involving eco-activists and local Democratic Party figures like Tim Wheeler, Peter Stedman, and Lisa and Keith Dekker.

DNR police investigated, identified the individuals, and recommended charges after the group removed survey markers and flagging from a timber sale area. The case was referred to the Clallam County Prosecutor’s Office but was ultimately sent to the Kitsap County Prosecutor for an independent review. Despite video evidence, public admissions, and documented costs to taxpayers, no charges were filed. It’s been a year with no resolution.

Two-Tiered Justice in Clallam County

What’s emerging is the appearance of two levels of law in Clallam County. On one tier, certain individuals and organizations seem to receive what locals have dubbed the “Clallam Concierge Service” — rapid response, thorough investigations, and aggressive prosecution. Habitat for Humanity gets an arrest and swift felony charges when a coffee table is stolen from their thrift store.

Well-connected campaign supporters, such as the Eberles, and League of Women Voters activists like Norma Turner appear to benefit from attentive handling and priority treatment when they engage with local authorities.

On the other tier are the average taxpayers and small business owners who fund the system but increasingly feel unrepresented and ignored. They watch repeat sex offenders and transient criminals released within hours, eco-activists causing thousands of dollars in documented public damage walk free, and their own reports of burglary, theft, or harassment met with minimal follow-through.

These residents keep paying their taxes, supporting local services, and trying to build lives and businesses here — yet they sense that the justice system does not work equally for everyone. This growing perception of selective enforcement erodes public trust and fuels the frustration voiced at town halls and online. When government appears to protect the connected while leaving ordinary citizens to fend for themselves, the social contract begins to fray.

Ask Yourself an Honest Question

At a public safety town hall earlier this year, attendees were asked: How many of you feel as safe as you did four years ago? Out of 172 people, only three raised their hands — one being Commissioner Mike French.

Do you feel safer than you did four years ago?

Clallam County residents deserve a justice system that protects victims and law-abiding citizens first — not one that cycles dangerous repeat offenders back onto our streets with minimal consequences. Accountability starts with consistent prosecution and meaningful sentences.

The community is watching.

Today’s Tidbit: A Pricey Performative Parking Program

A derelict truck and camper, surrounded by piles of garbage, sits parked on North Blake Avenue in Sequim — directly in front of Trinity United Methodist Church.

That same church is home to Clallam County’s $118,000 safe parking program— a taxpayer-funded initiative that provides just three designated safe parking spaces.

The irony is striking: the county spent six figures to create a small program inside the church lot, yet the problem is literally parked just outside the parking lot, in plain sight of the “solution.”

So what exactly did taxpayers get for $118,000? Three reserved spots while illegal camping and junk-filled vehicles continue unimpeded right next door?

This is the perfect symbol of Clallam County’s approach to homelessness: expensive programs that fail to deliver visible results while residents and businesses are left dealing with the consequences.