A former Sequim school board member and current French endorser just compared the Calico Cat Club, Jake Seegers, and Clallam County Watchdog to the Ku Klux Klan. French was given a deadline to say whether he stands by that endorsement. He stayed silent — while the same relationship helps move more than $118,000 in county money through Stoffers church and into French’s NGO. That, and more, this Social Media Saturday.
History Isn’t Repeating. A Smear Is.
Last weekend the Peninsula Daily News published a “Back When” column on the rise and fall of the Klan on the North Olympic Peninsula. Sequim resident and Indivisible activist Jim Stoffer commented: “Looks like History is repeating itself via the Calico Cat Club, Jake Seegers, and CCWD.”
The Calico Cat Club holds public candidate forums. Jake Seegers is running against Commissioner Mike French. CCWD is this publication. Stoffer compared all three to the Klan.
Stoffer was twice elected to the Sequim School Board and twice elected to the charter review commission. His endorsement is featured on Mike French’s campaign website.
On September 8, Clallam County Watchdog emailed Commissioner Mike French seeking comment about Stoffer’s post, but French did not respond.
French needs Stoffer, who is Safety Chair at Trinity United Methodist Church. As commissioner, French approved more than $118,000 in payments to TUMC for the county’s safe-parking program, which has struggled with enrollment. The church then pays French’s NGO, OlyCAP, to manage the program.
Once the money leaves the county, public transparency disappears. French is not answering questions about where the $118,000 went. Neither is the church. Neither is OlyCAP.
Stoffer’s church is the pass-through from the county to French’s NGO. It is a closed loop. It still does not justify labeling a political opponent, a public candidate forum, and a local blogger as heirs to a history of racial terror. Stoffer is also a leader in the local Clallam County Democrats. French still features the endorsement.
Voters can decide what that silence means.
Kids Watch the Adults
On the one-year anniversary of Charlie Kirk’s death, Port Angeles High School made regional news after students were photographed in blood-stained shirts and fake neck wounds.
Kids learn from adults. When a former school board member treats disagreement as a license to tie people to the Klan, do not act shocked when teenagers treat political violence as costume theater.
According to Brandi Kruse, the Port Angeles School District said clothing that “depicts, promotes, or celebrates violence is not permitted or tolerated,” but would not say what discipline, if any, followed.
Adults do not have to act like children. Especially school-board veterans.
Same Name. Same Highway. Two Years Later.
The Olympic Herald reported that officials were asking for the public’s help finding a Port Angeles man after a Friday morning chase on Highway 101.
According to the Sheriff’s Office, 42-year-old Brian J. Arnold drove away from deputies near the Jamestown Longhouse Gas Station in Blyn after they suspected drug use and told him he was detained. The pursuit headed west on Highway 101 at speeds near 120 mph, including travel into oncoming lanes. A supervisor ended the chase at Blue Mountain Road. About two minutes later came a two-vehicle hit-and-run at Deer Park Loop. The other driver was not injured. Arnold’s vehicle was found abandoned at Deer Park Road and Wall Street. A search warrant turned up suspected methamphetamine, digital scales, and drug paraphernalia. Deputies said they had probable cause for attempting to elude, hit-and-run, possession of methamphetamine, and obstructing.
He was not in custody. The public was asked to help find him.
Now look at the Peninsula Daily News from almost exactly two years earlier. On a Friday night in September 2024, Brian Joseph Arnold — then 40 — led deputies on a chase that topped 85 mph from Old Olympic Highway to Barr Road, U.S. 101, Taylor Cutoff, and Lost Mountain Road. A passenger tossed items from the window. He was booked on investigation of driving under the influence of drugs, eluding, driving with a suspended license, and possession of a controlled substance. Methamphetamine and paraphernalia were found.
Same man. Same drugs. Same highway. Higher speed the second time.
This was not a surprise. It was a sequel. When the system treats a high-speed, drug-fueled eluding case as a booking instead of a turning point, the next chapter is a 120 mph run, a canceled pursuit, a hit-and-run, and a wanted flyer. Soft-on-crime policy does not stay in the courtroom. It shows up on Highway 101.
Subscribe for free to the Olympic Herald.
Jefferson County Is Looking at the Exit
The Port Townsend Leader reports that Mike French’s NGO, OlyCAP, is preparing to step away as lead agency for roughly $2.2 million in state homelessness funding. Jefferson County may take over the role in 2027.
Executive Director Holly Morgan told the Jefferson County Housing Fund Board on September 3 that after months of discussion, “maybe it’s time for that.”
OlyCAP is the lead grantee for the Consolidated Homeless Grant. Jefferson County can decide in early 2027 whether to take the next two-year cycle.
Maybe Jefferson County is noticing what Clallam County is starting to notice: an organization that can move more than $118,000 through a church for a handful of safe-parking spaces may not be the most efficient use of public money.
“Permanent” Is the Word They Hope You Skip
Peninsula Behavioral Health is selling Permanent Supportive Housing as “a foundation for recovery, stability, and hope.” Housing First in nicer language.
Permanent Supportive Housing is… permanent. The public obligation does not sunset. The client does not age out of the subsidy. The model assumes ongoing taxpayer support for housing plus voluntary services, indefinitely.
The claims are familiar: less homelessness, better health, fewer ER visits, more stability. The part that rarely makes the flyer is the dependency. “Everyone deserves the opportunity to thrive” is not a budget, a performance metric, or an exit plan.
Change Is Only Good When Hope Williams Wants It
Indivisible activist Hope Williams is warning voters not to support Jake Seegers because he represents “change,” and that is supposedly why people voted for Trump.
Linking a Clallam County independent to Washington, D.C. is lazy politics. Six years ago, Williams was telling people to “vote for change” to replace Trump.
The rule is simple: change is virtuous when it delivers her outcome. Otherwise it is dangerous.
Indivisible Polls the Megaphone, Not the Neighborhood
Indivisible activists are surveying members on whether to keep using the megaphone at weekly protests.
Some want the bullhorn while they “save the world” and defend the “rule of law” — a rule that apparently did not apply to Indivisible activist Tim Wheeler, filmed causing thousands of dollars in damage to public DNR land and walking away.
Much of the fight is over Lewis Bennett’s bullhorn.
Bennett is the same activist with a blood-streaked yard sign about Jake Seegers.
While Indivisible argues about megaphone volume and national talking points 3,000 miles away, downtown businesses live with hours of bucket-banging, blocked sidewalks, and protest signs driving customers away.
Indivisible: Poll the shop owners. Read the room.
Want to Hear What Dispatch Hears?
Clallam and Jefferson County scanner traffic is now live — police, sheriff, State Patrol, and EMS — with timestamps and transcripts, not just raw audio. Pursuits, welfare checks, overdoses, and the calls that never make the next day’s brief.
Check out the Clallam and Jefferson Scanner here.
Kissing the Ring
State House hopeful Kaylee Kuehn was photographed at a local coffee shop with three-term Commissioner Mark Ozias.
If you have ever wanted Ozias’ ear and gotten silence, the shortcut appears to be running for office with a “D” next to your name. What a candidate learns from a commissioner with nearly 11 years of special-interest politics and collapsing public trust is anyone’s guess. The photo suggests she intends to find out.
PBH “By the Numbers” Does Not Add Up
Peninsula Behavioral Health posted a “by the numbers” graphic. The timeframe is unclear.
If the agency served 4,000 people, the slide implies:
23.7 services per person
4.2 therapy sessions per person
4.2 telehealth sessions per person
1.9 crisis services per person
34 total services per person
and 0.3 appointments per person
The last line breaks the rest. Either the categories overlap, the population is wrong, or the graphic is a decoration. An agency that lives on public money should be able to publish math that survives a first pass.
If San Francisco Can Drop the Ideology, Can Clallam?
Former Seattle Councilmember and interim Mayor Tim Burgess asks whether “the San Francisco miracle” could work in Seattle. San Francisco hit bottom, then Mayor Daniel Lurie traded slogans for results.
Clallam County is not San Francisco. It is watching the same Housing First, harm-reduction, and NGO pipeline produce full jails, unmanaged encampments, and disappearing accountability. Ideology is optional. Outcomes are not.
Read Tim Burgess’ article here.
Attract the Chaos, Pay for the Beds
Sheriff Brian King says the Clallam County Jail hit 100 inmates over the holiday weekend, up from an average daily population near 80. The jail has 120 beds, but behavioral-health cases force separations, so capacity tightens before the building is full.
King says the care load is “like operating an ER.” The jail books about five people a day. Officials discussed booking restrictions but did not impose them. Planning continues for a possible new jail west of Port Angeles.
When policy draws in addiction, repeat crime, and untreated illness, the bill arrives as overtime, medical staff, and a bigger jail.
Read the article here.
No Money for Hatcheries. $4.75 Million for Electric Tribal Boats.
From Badger Fishing: the state cannot fund hatcheries or fishery monitoring, but it can find about $4.75 million for electric tribal monitoring and fishing boats.
Reported examples include:
Quinault Indian Nation: $352,000 for an all-electric test-fishery boat in waters where recreational anglers cannot fish without a tribal guide
Samish Indian Nation: $886,000 for a 26-foot all-electric landing craft
Lummi Nation: $1.18 million to convert a commercial fishing vessel to electric
Colville Tribes: $1.13 million for a community tour boat
Swinomish Tribe: $1.18 million to convert a commercial fishing boat to electric
Taxpayers fund the boats. The tribes get the assets. The recreational public gets the lecture.
Filing Week Is Coming
After Port Angeles Deputy Mayor and French campaign manager Navarra Carr pushed sweeping critical-areas expansion that would choke development, residents are already looking to next year, when Carr’s term ends.
Filing week is this spring. If you want a different Port Angeles, run.
TAFY Is Not Just Serving Youth
TAFY — The Answer For Youth — boasts 294 sleeping bags, 206 tents, and 727 bottles of propane distributed in a one-year window.
TAFY is no longer just a youth agency. It supplies homeless adults. The tents on Peabody Street, the sleeping bags in Tumwater Creek, and the unsanctioned camp stoves did not appear from nowhere. Propane in illegal camps is not compassion. It is fuel. A neighborhood fire is not a hypothetical.
Habitat Has a Native Liaison. Where Are the Others?
Habitat for Humanity’s Native American Housing Liaison, now going by Sylvan instead of Rick, met with the Quileute Housing Authority. A commenter hopes to “see cedar bark lodges” again.
Habitat takes county taxpayer dollars. If the organization needs ethnic liaisons, where is the White liaison, the Latino liaison, the Asian liaison? Public money, private books: that is the local NGO model. Habitat is not the exception.
Narcan for Everybody, Profit for the Same Companies
Narcan is no longer marketed as an emergency tool for overdoses. It is now for toddlers, teenagers, tired parents, grandparents, and strangers.
The same industry that flooded the country with opioids is now flooding every demographic with the antidote. That is not a public-health victory. It is a second product line.
They “Raised” $37 Million. You Paid It.
Native Peoples Network says the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe “raised” $37 million to restore the Lower Big Quilcene River.
Not from the casino, the golf course, or the cannabis shop. From taxpayer-funded grants drawn from tax systems many tribal enterprises do not pay into. You raised the money. They got to cut the ribbon.
I am legitimately so sad, all of this, the hate, the smear campaigns on public streets during days that people just want to go home and not see it. I have lived in this area my entire life, and I don't think I have been more upset than I am recently about the state of people. What happened to the Sequim I grew up in? What happened to respecting even if you don't agree? I saw a "Stop Fake Jake" and other signs going against people running for office. I just get even more tired, cause these protests have happened every Friday that I'm aware of, at this point, I just don't want to see it anymore.
Port Angeles High School? They won't do anything, they never have, I walked out of that place junior year and went to Sequim. I now hate both. Not dislike. Hate.
I don't know how the hate grew so harshly, I don't know why its so hateful, it doesn't matter. What matters is the message it sends to children. The message it sends to teenagers who are already apparently learning from those around them.
When I say I am sad about the state of how people treat each other, the favoritism towards certain parties and such.
I mean a gut wrenching, deep sadness because I grew up around here and if I ever have children, I won't be raising them in Clallam county. Not anymore.
I respect and acknowledge that people have their own opinions as well, these are my opinions. Thank you <3
Ironic that Stoffer would use a Democrat KKK as a fighting point. The organization was founded by the dems and had plenty of members. When you can’t oxplain your inactions in CC then resort to this toxic political agenda. As for the parking lot there is many churches in Sequim that would do this housing RV park for FAR less. My question is who determined the $118k? Then no accountability by anyone and these same people complain about the font on a campaign sign. Jeff you show us the hypocrisy that exists with the CC bearacrats The church should have to account for money for Gods sakes alone. Stoffer we are waiting?