You know Mike French is up for reelection when the paper tells you not to believe your eyes. This week’s potpourri is the gap between the official story and the street: a front report on crime dropping, a backpack taken at gunpoint, a $22-an-hour parking job, and a Colorado judge-threat suspect now on the Clallam jail roster.
The front page disconnect
You know Mike French is up for reelection when the Peninsula Daily News leads with “Police Chief: Crime, homelessness not necessarily connected in PA.”
The October 3 Emily Hanson feature treats a one-year dip as the story. Port Angeles Police Chief Brian Smith told the paper the law prohibits only specific conduct, so officers are limited when behavior is offensive but not criminal. That part is true, and it frustrates both the neighborhood and the cops who get the call. What the piece does not do is give a longer trend, count the people who stopped reporting because the same offenders cycle back onto the street, or dwell on OPNET’s lost funding, a thin 2025 patrol roster, or weakened pursuit rules.
Patrick Murphy, who works in the Prosecuting Attorney’s office and is running for District Court 1 judge, put it plainly: the comparison is 2024 to 2025, without context, and without the offenses that never make the spreadsheet.
His question is the right one. Do you trust a statistic stripped of the conditions that produced it, or what you watch happening on Front Street? Accountability is what he says he will bring to that bench.
The same feature cites a point-in-time count of 337 unhoused people in Port Angeles. The Census Bureau put the city at 20,146 in July 2025. That is about 1.67 percent of the population. The unanswered question is what share of city, county, fire, police, and NGO budgets that slice absorbs — EMT runs, police calls, harm-reduction programs, and staff time inside agencies that still describe themselves as underfunded. Most of any government budget is salary, benefits, and retirement. Even after that, the story nobody ran is the disproportion.
At some point the question is personal responsibility. Mental illness belongs in treatment. Addiction belongs in sobriety. Refusal is a choice, and it should end the claim on the taxpayer. When crime and encampments rise, and leaders tell you the rise is a misperception, that is the textbook definition of gaslighting.
At gunpoint, for a backpack
Is crime down? On September 24, just after 10:30 p.m., Port Angeles dispatch logged a different set of numbers.
A reporting party said a white male, about 40, in a black hoodie, blue pants, and black shoes stole a backpack, pulled a gun, cocked it, and aimed it. A second caller, a block south, heard the word “gun” and ran inside. Units set a perimeter near 9th and Laurel. County units checked east 9th. Officers spoke with an AM/PM employee, and asked for parking-lot video from 10:00 to 10:40. He had not heard anything, and nobody had reported a disturbance in the lot. The call cleared with a report.
Stealing a backpack, at gunpoint, on a weeknight in Port Angeles. Was that the Tuesday-night pattern here four years ago? The local paper didn’t report on this incident last month. Instead, it treated the annual spreadsheet as news.
From Mesa County to the Clallam roster
Terry Lynn Betts is listed in custody at the Clallam County Jail on the county’s public inmate roster.
In April 2016, about fifteen minutes after release from the Mesa County Jail in Grand Junction, Colorado, he walked into the City Market on Rood Avenue, asked for a pen, and wrote: “This is a robbery.” He was not armed. He later told police he wanted to be arrested again, and asked the clerks what was taking so long. He pleaded guilty to menacing and was sentenced to 18 months. From jail, he had written Chief Judge Brian Flynn asking for a life sentence, because he would be happier in prison.
In October 2018, a letter arrived for the same judge: “I plan on killing you with my 9mm handgun when I get out, which is soon. I plan on killing you for all the prison time you gave me in the past.” It was signed with Betts’s name, prison number, and date of birth. He was charged with retaliation against a judge and menacing.
That record now belongs to a man on the Clallam roster. Clallam has become a magnet for people who wore out their welcome somewhere else, and once they are booked here, the bill does not stay in Colorado. Defense counsel, food, medical care, and everything else that comes with a jail bed lands on the local taxpayer. People with this history are not staying where they were sentenced. They arrive here, and we pay for their stay.
Coffee, candidates, and a club room
The Republican Women of Clallam County are hosting both auditor candidates this Thursday, October 8, at 10 a.m. Virginia Shogren and Shoona Riggs will take questions in the club room at The Vintage Apartments, 1009 W. Brackett Road, Sequim. It is a potluck brunch. Parking is in the field behind the apartments. Seating is limited. RSVP to Tanya Unruh at tanyanewdesign@gmail.com.
The $22-per-hour parking attendant
Commissioner Mike French sits on the OlyCAP board. He voted to move county homeless funds toward Trinity United Methodist Church’s safe-parking pilot program in Sequim; the church then cuts checks to OlyCAP. The contract ceiling is $118,780 for three to five spaces.
WorkSource is now advertising the job that money buys: Safe Parking Host, through OlyCAP, in Sequim, $22 an hour, part-time, with paid time off. The shift is one hour a day, 5 to 6 p.m., five to seven days a week.
This could have been a youth service project, but now taxpayers are funding an NGO with public money for a single hour, with benefits attached. Volunteering would have looked better on a school application. Either nobody asked, or nobody wanted it. A safe parking program, or an OlyCAP jobs program?
No shelter, no animal-control deputy
Clallam no longer has a countywide open-admission animal shelter. The Sheriff’s Office contract for dangerous-dog holds now sits with Rise Rescue Alliance. On top of that, Animal Control Deputy Ed Bauck has been pulled back to the jail through January 1, 2027. Patrol still answers animal calls. That is not the same as having an animal-control officer.
A reader pointed to the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians, which wrote an animal-control ordinance, put $1.5 million into San Bernardino’s shelter, and funded a mobile vet clinic for spay, neuter, vaccines, and chips. Chairman Ken Ramirez has described it as stewardship of people and animals. The local tribes have resources and a stated legacy of caring for the land and what lives on it.
Commissioner Mark Ozias has already said the board has no plan to fill this gap. A tribal partnership is an option on the table. Someone should put it there.
Page 3, before the health summary
Page 3 of the county’s annual public-health report is a land acknowledgment. It names the Jamestown S’Klallam, Lower Elwha Klallam, Makah, and Quileute tribes, honors stewardship, notes historical injustices, and commits the department to reconciliation and respect for cultural heritage, traditions, and rights.
A health department’s job is disease, sanitation, clinics, and vital records. Reconciliation is a political project. Putting it on page 3 of the annual health report, ahead of the work the levy and the general fund actually pay for, tells you which mission the letterhead prefers.
Library holds just got a lot more expensive
The library levy passed. The North Olympic Library System then voted on September 24 to spend it on outdoor hold lockers. The contract is $110,575 plus sales tax to FE Technologies, an Australian firm new to this market, against a $150,000 project budget. Port Angeles and Sequim get double units. Forks and Clallam Bay get singles. Each unit comes with a dehumidifier and a backup power supply. Maintenance is expected to run about $8,000 a year. Deployment is early 2027.
The board also authorized Executive Director Noah Glaude to approve change orders under $50,000 without returning to the board. Each locker gets a custom graphic wrap. NOLS plans to hire an artist.
The stated reasons are 24/7 pickup and privacy for people who do not want their holds sitting on an open shelf. The front desk already does that during library hours. Voters were told that if the levy failed, services would be cut. It passed, and the first new convenience is a locker, a hired artist to wrap it, and $50,000 in change-order authority the director can spend without coming back to the board.
Street legal?
If you could sum up Clallam County in one frame, it would be a derelict RV towing another RV with the front wall missing, parked in the shadow of the courthouse. Are you ready for a change yet?
Stay Engaged!
Forks Seegers / French candidate forum this morning
Jake Seegers and Mike French will be in Forks this morning (Wednesday) for the Chamber of Commerce’s Candidate Forum at Blakeslee’s Bar & Grill, 1222 S. Forks Ave, 11:30 am - 1 pm.
Teresa Fox Town Hall in Sequim this evening
Wednesday, October 7, 2026, 6:00 p.m., Sequim Prairie Grange at 290 Macleay Rd. She will open, then turn it over to the room. Incumbent Emily Randall is invited. Fox’s case is that Randall has been missing local forums while campaigning for candidates outside the state, and that the district deserves someone who shows up. She is running as a business professional and emergency manager, not a career politician. Details at foxforwa.com or info@foxforwa.com.
