"As a District One Commissioner, I would like to say that I have fallen short of my own standard," said Commissioner Mark Ozias during Tuesday's weekly meeting.
"So, to the Jamestown Tribal Council and members of the Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe, I'd like to take this moment to apologize for my lack of communication. I believe that the Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe is our most important partner in local governance whether we're talking about healthcare, or habitat restoration, or transportation, or emergency management, or economic development, or any of the myriad of areas that we work together for this community, and I hope to do better in meeting that standard in the future."
Commissioner Ozias offered this apology after reporting that he had met privately with Jamestown Tribe's CEO Ron Allen and Vicechair Loni Greninger a day after a Town Hall in which Ozias was the only commissioner not to participate. The Town Hall focused on the importance of transparency in local government.
"I had a call from Chairman Allen last week and he invited us to come and have a discussion about the Dungeness Levee Setback Project," reported the Commissioner.
"So, I reached out to Director Emery and Director Emery and I met with Chairman Allen and Vicechair Greninger on Friday to talk a little bit about the project and I really appreciated the opportunity to hear a little bit more about their concerns and their ideas related to the Levee Setback Project. In essence, they reemphasized their desire to better understand the engineered drainage plan.
“They shared a willingness and an enthusiasm to partner with Clallam County on working to really build out a vision for the trail asset, or the trail component of the project, and they reminded us that, at least from their perspective, the trail has always been a key component of this project and just because the initial plans had the trail system in the floodplain and the river decided to immediately utilize the entirety of the floodplain from their perspective, didn't mean that the trail component should be minimized now which is what has led them to provide us some encouragement to think a little bit more creatively about that."
According to the commissioner, the meeting resulted in Director Emery promising that the technical teams of the county and tribe would work together on the engineered drainage plan.
"We, the Board of Commissioners, have not yet formally acknowledged their communications regarding the Towne Road project," Ozias said regarding the Tribe's letters received in October and January. He plans to finalize a response at Monday's 9:00 am work session. [Watch the video here starting at timestamp 12:40.]
Commissioner Ozias' standards of communication, and the county's important partnership in local governance with the Jamestown Tribe, have resulted in an interesting dynamic during the $20 million, decades-long Dungeness Levee Setback Project and relocation of Towne Road. The project partners haven’t always shared the same vision: according to a 2013 document, the Jamestown Tribe preferred that the county road be gated and closed to all but one landowner.
Two years ago, without communicating their intentions to the county, project partner Jamestown Tribe deliberately breached the original dike ahead of schedule. To protect downriver communities from flooding, the county was forced to declare a budgetary emergency which released funds for expedited levee construction. This emergency also circumvented the required competitive bidding process. When protests arose from the Jamestown Tribe that the resolution assigned blame to the Tribe, Commissioner Ozias offered to "wordsmith" the document and absolve them of wrongdoing. [Resolution available in “Towne Road Timeline” by scrolling to August 1, 2022.]
That was the first time Commissioner Ozias assisted in keeping Towne Road closed, a road that was never to be closed for even one day.
Clean-up of contaminated soil under the century-old roadbed cost the county over a million dollars. But, in February of 2023, the county's engineer and biologist announced that the Department of Ecology would fully reimburse the county’s remediation cost. However, this "financial uncertainty" was cited as the reason for Towne Road's closure seven months later at the community informational meeting in September. Continuing to broadcast this misinformation about the project's funding was Commissioner Ozias' second attempt to delay Towne Road. [This February 2023 video starting at 51:52 is where Ozias learns that funding has been reimbursed.]
In February of 2023, Commissioner Ozias prevented the surfacing of Towne Road from going out to bid because "over 200 signatures" had been received from “several petitions” requesting that the public road remain closed — he claimed he had only received one phone call in support of reopening Towne Road. Public documents reveal only two petitions, totaling 98 signatures, were received asking that Towne Road remain closed, and those petitioners predominantly lived in a neighborhood that had experienced a drastic reduction in traffic due to the closure.
Meanwhile, two petitions with 140 signatures had been received requesting that Towne Road be reopened. Upholding less than a hundred signatures to prevent the completion of a publicly funded infrastructure project, while concealing that a majority of the community wanted the road reopened, was Ozias' third attempt to keep Towne Road closed.
In June of last year, while the completion of Towne Road was still funded but on hold, the Jamestown Tribe approached the Board of Commissioners with a sudden concern that hadn't been addressed during decades of planning: additional measures needed to be taken to protect a section of levee that was a quarter mile away from the river. Commissioner Ozias funneled the last of the Department of Ecology's grant funding, originally intended to surface the road, to the Jamestown Tribe so engineered logjams could be installed in a former cow pasture to prevent water from reaching the levee. As a result, Towne Road's completion became unfunded. This was the fourth setback a severed community suffered at the hands of Ozias.
In early December of last year, overwhelming support for the completion of Towne Road prompted Department of Community Development Director Bruce Emery to recommend a trail/road hybrid design (option #2) to complete Towne Road. Before a packed gallery, as Commissioners Johnson and French seemed poised to commit to that design, Commissioner Ozias seized control of the work session by offering a circular, rambling, repetitive, on-again, off-again delay in making a binding decision. His filibuster succeeded and ultimately, the “decision to make a decision” was chosen as a path forward; no vote was taken, no option was ratified, and no choice was made during Ozias' fifth attempt to stop Towne Road. Later that month, when it was clear a majority would oppose him, Ozias reluctantly supported the trail/road hybrid option.
During this time, unbeknownst to the public, Commissioner Ozias was working feverishly to install a network of three automatic, electric, tax-funded gates that would close Towne Road to everyone but emergency vehicles and a handful of privileged landowners. The gates, estimated to cost $125,000, were backordered so Ozias' sixth attempt to ban the public from using the road they had funded (and would continue to fund) didn't materialize.
The seventh attempt by Commissioner Ozias to close a public road was the politicization of the Trails Advisory Committee. He attended their recent monthly meeting and encouraged the committee to pass a motion that called for a pause in completing Towne Road so the surface could be entirely redesigned. Ignoring the professional opinions of the sheriff, fire chief, and the Community Emergency Response Team (CERT), and discounting the input from the county biologist, county engineer, Department of Ecology, Army Corps of Engineers, Department of Community Development, and county's engineering consultant, Commissioner Ozias urged his fellow commissioners to prioritize the trail committee's wish that a public road be converted into a trail to replace the one that the Jamestown Tribe had demolished atop the old dike.
Not only was Ozias the sole commissioner to vote against the Towne Road surfacing project going out to bid, but he was also the only commissioner to break his December 26th promise, recorded as a unanimously passed resolution, to complete Towne Road this year. His doubting of the stormwater filtration system and request to see moisture-wicking calculations were a thinly veiled eighth attempt to go against the people’s will and ban the public from using their own road.
Commissioner Ozias' recent private meeting with the Jamestown Tribe regarding the fate of a public road, held mere hours after a Town Hall where all panelists agreed that transparency is a fundamental component for local government to succeed, seems out of touch. From the closed-door meeting in 2015 that determined home insurance rates and emergency response times would increase for Dungeness residents if Towne Road were closed, to the clandestine editing of documents that reassigned blame away from the commissioner’s top campaign donor, the undercurrent of distrust is eroding residents' faith in local government faster than hardworking county staff can place the sandbags.
The road was designed with the benefit of fish and wildlife at the core of every decision. Petitions led to public polling and three times a majority of the community said they wanted Towne Road reopened. When money was funneled away from the project, the county engineer allocated more funds and redesigned the surface under budget. When only a road was proposed, a compromise was reached in which the county would replace the trail destroyed by the Jamestown Tribe with a design that addressed (at considerable cost) the desires of pedestrians, cyclists, wheelchair users, equestrians, e-trike riders, and vehicles.
The most environmentally friendly road in the county is close to reopening, but it’s also close to being handed over to a commissioner's political and private interests.
Commissioner Ozias has fallen short of the standard expected by his constituents. He has fallen short of the Commissioners' Mission Statement prioritizing effective communication and exemplary public service. He has also fallen short of his oath to faithfully and impartially serve those depending on him for representation.
But will he apologize for it?
Announcement coming next month
Clallam County Watchdog is finalizing plans for a special guest to attend next month’s meetup on Saturday, May 11th (Irrigation Festival Parade Day). She’s no stranger to holding leaders accountable, and now she wants to see firsthand how a rural county’s constituents have gained momentum and are becoming engaged in local government. Subscribers will receive event info.
Once again, fantastic coverage of this "project".
How silly of me to think the tax paying citizens of Clallam County are the most important partner. Good to have it in writing that we are not. Wonder how this will be remembered in 26’s County Elections.