Mike French wants a public apology for a two-year-old church announcement. His supporters then book a private “election protection” workshop in a Sequim church, reserve the right to refuse anyone at the door, and keep a skunk on the invite. Meanwhile, deputies hunt a 120-mph suspect who first showed up on a 2020 prison-release list; a familiar name from Jefferson County is back in the Clallam jail, and 500 locals have already put their names behind Jake Seegers. The CCWD comments section is livelier than the official articles; you should read them.
When “separation of church and state” only runs one way
The standout moment from last month’s candidate conversation was not policy. It was Commissioner Mike French demanding that Jake Seegers apologize for remarks Seegers made to his own congregation two years ago.
French said he believes in the separation of church and state. He described a childhood of Sunday school, Sunday night services, and Bible study. If someone had stood in his church and told the congregation to vote for a specific candidate or party, he said, they would have been shouted out of the room.
Naming a party or a candidate, French said, was crossing the line. “With respect, Jake, you could have just said vote.” Then: “I think you should apologize.”
Seegers’ actual remarks, now endlessly recut as the “shotgun sermon,” were a 2024 church announcement asking people to vote. He has said the shotgun story was a metaphor for using the tools already in your hands—not a call to violence. French, who has branded himself a free-speech absolutist, treated a church announcement as a hanging offense and spent precious debate time on it instead of the county’s current issues.
The hypocrisy did not stay on stage.
French’s campaign has tapped Indivisible for canvassing and sticker production. Indivisible Sequim is hosting an “Election Protection Workshop” this Saturday at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Sequim.
The event is advertised on their website, but listed as private on Facebook. Guest speaker: Ellen Menshew, chair of the Clallam County Democrats. The invite carries the skunk graphic that has become shorthand for the anti-Seegers campaign. It also says, “We’d love to see you”—and, in the next breath, “this is a private event and we reserve the right to refuse entry to anyone.”
Congressional candidate Teresa Fox put it bluntly: they reserve the right to refuse anyone at a how-to-get-candidates-elected session. Why?
Now pull their own website. Indivisible Sequim’s About page says the goal is a government that is “inclusive, responsive, open, and respectful,” where “individual liberties and rights are protected,” and where “caring, compassion, and common decency guide” officials. Their primary objective is to “support and elect people.” Their committees include a 2026 Election Taskforce that “concentrates efforts on assessing, endorsing, and supporting.”
So: inclusive—except at the church door. Open—except when the guest list is curated. Separation of church and state—except when the church hosts the slate. Free speech absolutism—except when a businessman talks to his own congregation.
French can demand an apology for a church announcement. His affiliated activists can hold a closed political workshop in a church and post a skunk on the flyer. That is not principle. That is a one-way rule.
Still looking for the 120-mph driver
Deputies are still searching for Port Angeles resident Brian J. Arnold after a vehicle pursuit that hit about 120 mph.
On September 11, deputies contacted him at the Jamestown S’Klallam Longhouse on Highway 101 on a suspected drug-use call. When they tried to detain him, he fled westbound, driving into oncoming lanes. A supervisor ended the chase at Blue Mountain Road. Minutes later came a two-vehicle hit-and-run at Deer Park Loop. Arnold’s vehicle was found abandoned in Port Angeles. He was not.
This was not his first pursuit. In September 2024 he led deputies through Sequim at more than 85 mph, tossed items from the car, and was arrested on felony elude, DUI suspicion, and drug charges.
It was not his first appearance in official papers, either. In May 2020, Sheriff Bill Benedict warned residents about early prison releases under Governor Inslee’s emergency commutation, DOC’s Rapid Reentry program, and emergency furloughs. Among those released to Clallam County was Brian J. Arnold, listed for possession of a controlled substance via rapid re-entry—on the same roster as burglars, firearm cases, and a hit-and-run injury conviction. Benedict asked people to lock doors, watch mailboxes, and call if they saw something. The warning was not abstract. It had names.
The 2020 list was sold as public-health emergency. Six years later, the same name is attached to 120 mph on Highway 101. That is the policy, not a coincidence.
The paper used to have standards
Sequim’s David LeRoux told the Peninsula Daily News that Jake Seegers “finished his political sermon with a prayer like a Christian nationalist would do”—politics stuffed in a Bible, wrapped in a flag, no separation of church and state. The paper published the letter.
Define the term: Christian nationalism is not private faith in public life. It is the claim that the United States should be reconstituted as a Christian state, and that civil law should enforce one creed on everyone else. A man asking his own church to vote, then praying, is not Christian nationalism. It was church announcements, not a commissioner meeting. Prayer in church is not a political coup.
If the PDN will print a smear over a prayer in church, the standard has to run both ways.
The same paper would almost certainly refuse a letter calling French an anarchist because he promotes property destruction.
It would also refuse a letter calling him a money launderer because thousands of county dollars move through a Sequim church to the NGO he sits on. A serious newspaper does not print labels it cannot prove.
That is the rule. If the paper will not print crime labels it cannot prove, it should not print “Christian nationalist” for a man talking to his church and closing in prayer.
No one should be surprised by David LeRoux. He is an Indivisible protester and a reliable straight-ticket Democrat. An independent running against a Democrat will never get his vote. That is his right.
However, it is not a license for the newspaper. The letters page does not have to launder a faction’s nickname for the other candidate. Seegers spoke in church. French wants an apology—while his allies hold a closed political meeting in another church, play gatekeepers at the door, and stamp a skunk on the invite. Voters can see the double standard. If the PDN is going to publish name-calling, it should have standards.
Five hundred names—and they can’t boycott all of them
The first batch of endorsements is up on Jake Seegers’ campaign page. If a name is missing, the next batch is coming. If a name was never sent, there is still time.
Five hundred residents, businesses, and elected officials have already put their names on the line. That is a lot of people for the League of Women Voters and Indivisible to boycott and excommunicate.
Endorsing is not joining a secret society. It is saying, in public, that the current results are not good enough. They cannot shame half the county into silence, but they can try. The list keeps growing.
Remember Mohabo Boughton?
Last December, Clallam County Watchdog reported that 32-year-old Mohabo Aliyu Boughton had been booked into the Clallam County Jail for first-degree criminal trespass—and, given local catch-and-release habits, was out in record time.
A single trespass charge would be noise. The record is the story. In March 2018, Peninsula Daily News reported an attempted assault on Jefferson County’s Larry Scott Memorial Trail: a woman on a bicycle confronted by a man with an orange baseball bat. Deputies found Boughton with the bat and an 8-inch fixed-blade knife. He told officers they were arresting him “because I’m a black man.” The arrest was for the bat, the knife, and the trail.
Boughton is back. He was arrested in Clallam County earlier this month for criminal trespass and released the next day.
Clallam is not a wealthy dumping ground for criminals. Free transit, free meals, free paraphernalia, low-barrier housing, and thin enforcement are a magnet. Residents pay it in 911 calls, jail bookings, and the next trespass.
Doorbells, not press releases
The Seegers campaign is building its doorbelling and canvassing team now. The work is neighbors talking to neighbors.
People willing to knock should email volunteer@jakeseegers.com with a phone number, the general neighborhood, and whether they can travel a bit. First-timers count. Every porch conversation is one more place the official narrative does not get the last word.
Clallam is not won from a library meeting that reserves the right to refuse entry. It is won on the front stoop.
Burien tried the thing Port Angeles will not say out loud
John Curley at MyNorthwest sat down with former Burien Mayor Kevin Schilling after Burien’s camping ban and tighter policing. Reported crime in Burien fell more than 20 percent from 2024 to 2025. Robbery dropped about 43 percent, burglary about 49 percent, auto theft about 38 percent. Schilling’s line was blunt: this is not a housing shortage first. It is drugs and mental illness, and word of mouth that “you can get help here” is how tents migrate. Tukwila followed. Renton is next. Federal Way already moved. Schilling is leaving office anyway. “You can’t fight crazy with crazy,” he said. “The antidote to craziness is normalcy.”
Port Angeles and Clallam have been running the opposite experiment: services first, enforcement last, and surprise when the waterfront looks like a third-world country. Burien’s numbers are not ideology. They are a before-and-after.
Protection Island is not a corporate farm
Mark the calendar for the upcoming meeting on the future of Protection Island. The fight is whether a national wildlife refuge stays in public trust or gets transferred toward tribal commercial control—the Jamestown Corporation already co-manages the refuge and has pushed legislation to move ownership into trust, with critics warning about commercial shellfish and the loss of public land. Details about a September 23rd meeting at Cape George are here: Good News for Protection Island.
An island set aside for birds should not become an asset for a commercial shellfish harvesting corporation. Show up before the transfer language hardens.
Bison, NGOs, and the model that never has to earn a return
Cowboy State Daily’s piece on the American bison rebound is worth the click. The herds came back because ranchers turned conservation into commerce. Ken Klemm, past president of the National Bison Association, said non-profit conservation tends to stall: “It requires someone to tax somebody. Or somebody to donate money with no return on investment. It’s not a very good model for growth, that’s the bottom line.”
That sentence describes half the Olympic Peninsula’s industry. Conservation nonprofits, harm-reduction shops, and housing NGOs live on grants and levies. They do not need a customer who can walk away. They need a commissioner who will not. When the bison model works, the animal multiplies because someone has to sell the meat. When the NGO model works, the client list multiplies because someone else pays the invoice.
What a no-camping rule would actually do here
FOX 13 reports Renton is voting on a public camping ban: no camping or stored belongings on city property, leave when ordered, no abandoned carts. Misdemeanor penalties up to 90 days and $1,000. The Supreme Court’s Grants Pass decision gave cities the tool. Critics say it only moves people. Supporters say parks and sidewalks are not housing.
Ask the obvious question in Port Angeles: what would a real no-camping rule do to the waterfront, the trailheads, and the courthouse lawn? If the answer is “we don’t have the political will,” that is the admission. The ordinance is not the mystery. The vote is.
River Road, signs in the air
Mark your calendar. There is a rally for Jake Seegers with sign-waving on the River Road overpass in a week and a half.
Parking is at 111 River Road. This is as grassroots as politics gets. The change in the air is not a metaphor if people show up.
The article is half the story. The comments are the other half.
Only half of any Watchdog piece lives in the article. The rest is in the comments—the place where a former elected official can compare Jake Seegers to the KKK and get answered by people who actually live here.
Read the thread. That is the county talking without a moderator from Nextdoor.com.
Chickens on the waterfront
A photo taken recently along the Port Angeles waterfront shows not just another encampment. It shows chickens kept alive in a portable pen.
That is not a housing emergency. That is a settlement. When will the City Council and the Board of County Commissioners say out loud that they let it go too far? The chickens are waiting for North View to open at the end of this month.
