Thank you Ozias for leading the charge to ruin this beautiful county. Your greed and ignorance shows no bounds. If I didn't have to work like a slave just to keep my head above water I would come down to your meeting and make an absolute fool out of you and your cronies. .
Good job, Jeff. You know the Homeless Industrial Complex in PA is really going to hate you today because harm reduction subsidizes jobs at Peninsula Behavioral Health, OMC, NOHN, JKT, Serenity House and Rediscovery plus giveaway programs at places like TAFY. It’s not about the homeless — it’s about supporting the flow of tax grants to organizations that provide services to them. They’ll hate you because you’re over the target and to steal some socialist lingo, you’re “talking truth to power” about what’s going on in Clallam County and PA.
Jeff writes: "The arithmetic is simple: when government promises more “free,” either taxes go up, services get cut elsewhere, or both." Sadly, in the increasingly hard-left political climate that is Washington state as well as Clallam County, the only part of that equation that is true is that taxes go up, but government programs never shrink or get cut. Ever. Somebody in charge has to be a daddy and say no to that extra bowl of ice cream, and your credit cards are maxed out, so you have to pay them off before spending more money. And can we quit calling street people "homeless" and go back to using a more proper term, like vagrants?
About five years ago when I was briefly unemployed, I volunteered with a group (labelled by the Lefties as “vigilantes”) called Helping Hands and we cleaned up homeless encampment sites in PA. We also encountered plenty of homeless; they had no problems because they had EBT cards for all their food needs. Some of them were homeless snowbirds who wintered down in California and enjoyed the warmer months up here.
Four generations have been born and raised since Lyndon Johnson introduced the government dependency programs termed the Great Society. It's no wonder that an ever-increasing segment of our populatiin believes everything is or should be free.
The number of young mothers with strollers in a grocery checkout line using their SNAP card (and likely living in subsidized housing after birthing that baby with Medicaid) is a typical example of our nanny state.
Society has devolved to create a situation in which that child can grow up without an employed set of patents, yet there's food on the table and at school, a roof and warmth and just enough to subsist - and that's just fine and normal. All the necessities just miraculously appear.
An easy fix for Washington State would be DNA testing for all children. The mom and dad are identified by the DNA test. A deadbeat parent gets the monthly bill for the raising of the child (or more than 1 if prolific at this). The state thus provides NO $$$s. Do you hear us Olympia? Quick and easy solution! Go for it!
Actually Geoff, Thankfully Wa State does have laws to collect child support whether the parent works in or out of state. It's easily enforced when the deadbeat parent gets a job and the Social Security # pops up (wages are automatically garnished) It gets harder if the parent is paid under the table. It always catches up, the is no statue of limitation on back child support.
RCW 74.20.040 Duty of department to enforce child support
(1) Whenever the department receives an application for public assistance on behalf of a child, the department shall take appropriate action under the provisions of this chapter, chapter 74.20A RCW, or other appropriate statutes of this state to establish or enforce support obligations against the parent or other persons owing a duty to pay support moneys.
I could not point to when and how Government drifted astray from Government functions. Infrastructure like roads, making laws and law enforcement, maintaining order and safety and protecting citizen rights are Government's charge. How that charge has morphed into drug use reinforcement, preferential ethnicity programs, supporting the arts, festivals and celebrations, etc. is where and how Governance has become unaffordable. There is no "free". When you start feeding the pigeons you get more pigeons. It is no different with indigence, homelessness and drug addiction. The drugs that the addicted use are already illegal to procure and use. Yet we support not only that using, but the entire production and trafficking of illegal drugs. Only a fool would consider that to be compassion.
John, What do you get when you cross the Climate Migrant Pigeon to the Homing Pigeons? (A Clallam livia domestica) A selectively bred bird that finds its way to FREE feedings in nicer climates over extremely long distances.
Time to reopen the State mental institutions. Housing the misfits and ending local hometown freebies. Thirty days in the drug-free cold-turkey cell. Then we could shift our focus on the children that may still show a glimmer of hope for the future. Mamas don’t let your babies grow up to be dependent of freebies.
And who was opposed to state mental institutions? Gov. Jay Inslee who pushed more local treatment options, i.e., what we currently see in Clallam County. Thanks, Jay!
The key here is personal responsibility, not governmental accountability. It is easy to say, "be kind, be compassionate," with someone else's time and money. We want to help hungry children, homeless people and substance addicts, but the "help" we are giving is NOT helping. The answer? Obviously we don't know.
I've been around people in ways that has let me see the problem, and solution. We can't stomach the solution because we've watched Bambi one too many times.
I'm always willing to give someone a fish if they're hungry and are in a fix, but the caveat that they then learn to fish for themselves is tied to my generosity. Don't want to learn how to fish? Meet survival of the fittest. Anything less is unwitting complicity in the enslavement of the minds of the subset of people our minds force us to help so that we can sleep at night. Society thinks that it's doing people a favor, but in reality it's an internal failing of the helper that makes it worse.
Unintended consequences. A skill Dems do not have. Even after the harm they cause is revealed, they dig in deeper and the problems get worse. Keep voting Dem folks, you ARE making a difference. If earthquakes and tsunamis do not sink the penninsula, you will.
Government needs dependency. It can not exist without dependency. Anything free from the government is designed to create dependency and perpetuate the need. Even government workers need the free programs so they can justify their jobs by showing the need. Find a need, give it money, grow it, hire more government dependent workers, perpetuate the need and never fix it. That is the system we live in. Those of us outside that system are getting less and less every day while the dependent get more and more. Almost time to shrug.
That Know Overdose flyer is disgusting, showing a happy group shooting up like it's such fun everyone should try it. If that's how friends "take care of each other" who needs enemies?
Kathy, if I read what you wrote and didn't know it was true, I would have thought, "That's a ridiculous thing to say." I can't fathom how far the harm reduction has gone!
Maybe in my quick read I missed it. Sequim Schools many years ago went to giving all kids vouchers for the free food. The district apparently did not want a stigma attached to those kids who needed and who used the voucher.
The people in power are probably afraid of not being reelected, so from their pulpit they dictate there will be little to no law enforcement (vagrancy, sex offenders, driving laws etc.). Remember with me the Executive Branch enforces the Laws the Legislature enacts.
Mom use to tell me, "it's the maids day off". And so us kids did chores like dishes, cook, dust, vacuum and so on -add your own list of farm chores too boot!. Today, that free pantry door is opened, items removed, consumed, and the trash tossed so somebody else gets to be their maid. And if luck holds for them you can clean up their excrement!
Why is it that the family of that homeless person won't take them back into the fold?? So if the family doesn't want to open the door, SUCKER (there's one born every minute according to PT Barnum) what makes you think you can change what they know as the good free life?
Remember the old days when you felt good when your child could walk to their nearby school and not pass the homeless, the druggies, needles on the path. Play in the park unattended!
Whatever happened to the Sequimites who vandalized the school after graduation? Probably invited back for their 5th reunion and in time to trash the new school?
How to right the ship? remember the cartoon a few days ago with Daryl rowing away? OMC ain't the only sinking ship?!?
Most of the problems in Clallam County are imported. From the imported mindset of the residents/ voters. To the the imported drug addicts and the drugs they use. And as if that wern't enough, we now are a dumping/ hiding ground for the Washington state sanctuary city policies. We need ICE and the National Gaurd to come im and clean up.
The PDN teamed up with the usual Clallam players in 2018 to produce a series of articles about homelessness. Yes, I was an editor there at the time but I was powerless to stop it. Why? The publisher loved to tell his story about being homeless when he was a child. The executive editor was closely tied to the Democrats in Clallam and now produces press releases for OMC.
Ozias’ and Nichols’ parts in it probably cemented bigger grants to the usual NGOs when the COVID money began to flow in early 2020.
Just the beginning folks. Kroger is closing 7 Fred Meyers in the Puget Sound Metro. They are right up front with their reasons. Unprofitable due to theft and costs of increased security. 1700 jobs eliminated not to mention all the outside vendors that stock those stores from the Beverage Companies to Produce to the Frito-Lay representative.
Having long term experience with our local govt funding of harm reduction and also being an addict in long term recovery I can share some thoughts.
First. dead addicts don't recover. I was once one of the street people constantly loaded. Staying high was my focus. Grateful that people did not write me off as hopeless. It is easy to quite using {I did it many times} but staying off drugs and alcohol is where the real works comes in.
Next our system of treatment is a real part of the problem. Getting into treatment is difficult. You have to find a place to take you, get an assessment then hopefully there will be a bed available. It can take weeks and longer to get through the red tape to treatment. We need to eliminate the red tape and have treatment available at the time someone asks. That is when they are most ready and will show most success. A brief 1 month in patient treatment is pretty useless without a very strong aftercare plan is rarely useful. If a person leaves treatment without aftercare the successful is pretty dismal. If you go back to where you were getting loaded, you don't have a very good chance at success. We have a saying in recovery {you must change your playgrounds and playmates}. Community support is critical. There is no such thing as willpower when getting clean. It is not a choice to use it is a necessity to live once you are addicted. It takes about 1 year for your brain to be rewired back to a level of functioning without the distorted wiring drugs cause.
In Clallam County we no longer have a detox facility. Local treatment dropped their detox option for inpatient because the inpatient options pay higher monetary returns. Treatment is a business with a bottom line. Local folks must travel to go to detox. Our hospital used to have a good screening into detox but that has been lost with no more options.
I could share lots of info about treatment and recovery. It is not a simple as "just say No". Addiction is a cunning foe that must be managed daily. Even being in long term recovery requires daily maintenance.
A question for you. What made you decide to seek treatment, to change? Was it free needle exchange, a safe place to do your drugs, being held accountable by the criminal justice system, or something else?
'There is no such thing as willpower when getting clean.' I take exception to that comment. I know many that HAVE the willpower and are still clean; but some have had an A.A. 12-step program to adhere to. Group support is really valuable.
Thank you Ozias for leading the charge to ruin this beautiful county. Your greed and ignorance shows no bounds. If I didn't have to work like a slave just to keep my head above water I would come down to your meeting and make an absolute fool out of you and your cronies. .
Ozias has plenty of 'free' help.
Good job, Jeff. You know the Homeless Industrial Complex in PA is really going to hate you today because harm reduction subsidizes jobs at Peninsula Behavioral Health, OMC, NOHN, JKT, Serenity House and Rediscovery plus giveaway programs at places like TAFY. It’s not about the homeless — it’s about supporting the flow of tax grants to organizations that provide services to them. They’ll hate you because you’re over the target and to steal some socialist lingo, you’re “talking truth to power” about what’s going on in Clallam County and PA.
They will cut back too and blame Trump.
Jeff writes: "The arithmetic is simple: when government promises more “free,” either taxes go up, services get cut elsewhere, or both." Sadly, in the increasingly hard-left political climate that is Washington state as well as Clallam County, the only part of that equation that is true is that taxes go up, but government programs never shrink or get cut. Ever. Somebody in charge has to be a daddy and say no to that extra bowl of ice cream, and your credit cards are maxed out, so you have to pay them off before spending more money. And can we quit calling street people "homeless" and go back to using a more proper term, like vagrants?
About five years ago when I was briefly unemployed, I volunteered with a group (labelled by the Lefties as “vigilantes”) called Helping Hands and we cleaned up homeless encampment sites in PA. We also encountered plenty of homeless; they had no problems because they had EBT cards for all their food needs. Some of them were homeless snowbirds who wintered down in California and enjoyed the warmer months up here.
Four generations have been born and raised since Lyndon Johnson introduced the government dependency programs termed the Great Society. It's no wonder that an ever-increasing segment of our populatiin believes everything is or should be free.
The number of young mothers with strollers in a grocery checkout line using their SNAP card (and likely living in subsidized housing after birthing that baby with Medicaid) is a typical example of our nanny state.
Society has devolved to create a situation in which that child can grow up without an employed set of patents, yet there's food on the table and at school, a roof and warmth and just enough to subsist - and that's just fine and normal. All the necessities just miraculously appear.
An easy fix for Washington State would be DNA testing for all children. The mom and dad are identified by the DNA test. A deadbeat parent gets the monthly bill for the raising of the child (or more than 1 if prolific at this). The state thus provides NO $$$s. Do you hear us Olympia? Quick and easy solution! Go for it!
Actually Geoff, Thankfully Wa State does have laws to collect child support whether the parent works in or out of state. It's easily enforced when the deadbeat parent gets a job and the Social Security # pops up (wages are automatically garnished) It gets harder if the parent is paid under the table. It always catches up, the is no statue of limitation on back child support.
RCW 74.20.040 Duty of department to enforce child support
(1) Whenever the department receives an application for public assistance on behalf of a child, the department shall take appropriate action under the provisions of this chapter, chapter 74.20A RCW, or other appropriate statutes of this state to establish or enforce support obligations against the parent or other persons owing a duty to pay support moneys.
I could not point to when and how Government drifted astray from Government functions. Infrastructure like roads, making laws and law enforcement, maintaining order and safety and protecting citizen rights are Government's charge. How that charge has morphed into drug use reinforcement, preferential ethnicity programs, supporting the arts, festivals and celebrations, etc. is where and how Governance has become unaffordable. There is no "free". When you start feeding the pigeons you get more pigeons. It is no different with indigence, homelessness and drug addiction. The drugs that the addicted use are already illegal to procure and use. Yet we support not only that using, but the entire production and trafficking of illegal drugs. Only a fool would consider that to be compassion.
Garry, great line you wrote, " When you start feeding the pigeons you get more pigeons"
Climate migrant pigeons.
John, What do you get when you cross the Climate Migrant Pigeon to the Homing Pigeons? (A Clallam livia domestica) A selectively bred bird that finds its way to FREE feedings in nicer climates over extremely long distances.
Do not confuse it with the Passenger Pigeon who gets here by FREE bus rides.
Time to reopen the State mental institutions. Housing the misfits and ending local hometown freebies. Thirty days in the drug-free cold-turkey cell. Then we could shift our focus on the children that may still show a glimmer of hope for the future. Mamas don’t let your babies grow up to be dependent of freebies.
And who was opposed to state mental institutions? Gov. Jay Inslee who pushed more local treatment options, i.e., what we currently see in Clallam County. Thanks, Jay!
The key here is personal responsibility, not governmental accountability. It is easy to say, "be kind, be compassionate," with someone else's time and money. We want to help hungry children, homeless people and substance addicts, but the "help" we are giving is NOT helping. The answer? Obviously we don't know.
I've been around people in ways that has let me see the problem, and solution. We can't stomach the solution because we've watched Bambi one too many times.
I'm always willing to give someone a fish if they're hungry and are in a fix, but the caveat that they then learn to fish for themselves is tied to my generosity. Don't want to learn how to fish? Meet survival of the fittest. Anything less is unwitting complicity in the enslavement of the minds of the subset of people our minds force us to help so that we can sleep at night. Society thinks that it's doing people a favor, but in reality it's an internal failing of the helper that makes it worse.
Unintended consequences. A skill Dems do not have. Even after the harm they cause is revealed, they dig in deeper and the problems get worse. Keep voting Dem folks, you ARE making a difference. If earthquakes and tsunamis do not sink the penninsula, you will.
I am sure that Mr. Walt just needs Housing First™️ then he will be right as rain
To think all of this could have been avoided if he had a dishwasher and a dog-washing station.
Don’t forget a charging station for his EV.
And FREE PIZZA
Now you know why a family doesn't want the old abuser back in the fold and kicked his ass out the door. "and don't you come back no more, no more".
Government needs dependency. It can not exist without dependency. Anything free from the government is designed to create dependency and perpetuate the need. Even government workers need the free programs so they can justify their jobs by showing the need. Find a need, give it money, grow it, hire more government dependent workers, perpetuate the need and never fix it. That is the system we live in. Those of us outside that system are getting less and less every day while the dependent get more and more. Almost time to shrug.
That Know Overdose flyer is disgusting, showing a happy group shooting up like it's such fun everyone should try it. If that's how friends "take care of each other" who needs enemies?
Kathy, if I read what you wrote and didn't know it was true, I would have thought, "That's a ridiculous thing to say." I can't fathom how far the harm reduction has gone!
With their contribution to overdoses maybe they should call it friend reduction instead.
Maybe in my quick read I missed it. Sequim Schools many years ago went to giving all kids vouchers for the free food. The district apparently did not want a stigma attached to those kids who needed and who used the voucher.
The people in power are probably afraid of not being reelected, so from their pulpit they dictate there will be little to no law enforcement (vagrancy, sex offenders, driving laws etc.). Remember with me the Executive Branch enforces the Laws the Legislature enacts.
Mom use to tell me, "it's the maids day off". And so us kids did chores like dishes, cook, dust, vacuum and so on -add your own list of farm chores too boot!. Today, that free pantry door is opened, items removed, consumed, and the trash tossed so somebody else gets to be their maid. And if luck holds for them you can clean up their excrement!
Why is it that the family of that homeless person won't take them back into the fold?? So if the family doesn't want to open the door, SUCKER (there's one born every minute according to PT Barnum) what makes you think you can change what they know as the good free life?
Remember the old days when you felt good when your child could walk to their nearby school and not pass the homeless, the druggies, needles on the path. Play in the park unattended!
Whatever happened to the Sequimites who vandalized the school after graduation? Probably invited back for their 5th reunion and in time to trash the new school?
How to right the ship? remember the cartoon a few days ago with Daryl rowing away? OMC ain't the only sinking ship?!?
Geoff, I think the difference when Daryl departed the ship, he had a band
Most of the problems in Clallam County are imported. From the imported mindset of the residents/ voters. To the the imported drug addicts and the drugs they use. And as if that wern't enough, we now are a dumping/ hiding ground for the Washington state sanctuary city policies. We need ICE and the National Gaurd to come im and clean up.
Lloyd, I second you wholeheartedly.
The PDN teamed up with the usual Clallam players in 2018 to produce a series of articles about homelessness. Yes, I was an editor there at the time but I was powerless to stop it. Why? The publisher loved to tell his story about being homeless when he was a child. The executive editor was closely tied to the Democrats in Clallam and now produces press releases for OMC.
Ozias’ and Nichols’ parts in it probably cemented bigger grants to the usual NGOs when the COVID money began to flow in early 2020.
https://www.peninsuladailynews.com/news/clallam-county-officials-tell-of-one-night-in-homeless-shelter.
Eye opening information here.
Just the beginning folks. Kroger is closing 7 Fred Meyers in the Puget Sound Metro. They are right up front with their reasons. Unprofitable due to theft and costs of increased security. 1700 jobs eliminated not to mention all the outside vendors that stock those stores from the Beverage Companies to Produce to the Frito-Lay representative.
Having long term experience with our local govt funding of harm reduction and also being an addict in long term recovery I can share some thoughts.
First. dead addicts don't recover. I was once one of the street people constantly loaded. Staying high was my focus. Grateful that people did not write me off as hopeless. It is easy to quite using {I did it many times} but staying off drugs and alcohol is where the real works comes in.
Next our system of treatment is a real part of the problem. Getting into treatment is difficult. You have to find a place to take you, get an assessment then hopefully there will be a bed available. It can take weeks and longer to get through the red tape to treatment. We need to eliminate the red tape and have treatment available at the time someone asks. That is when they are most ready and will show most success. A brief 1 month in patient treatment is pretty useless without a very strong aftercare plan is rarely useful. If a person leaves treatment without aftercare the successful is pretty dismal. If you go back to where you were getting loaded, you don't have a very good chance at success. We have a saying in recovery {you must change your playgrounds and playmates}. Community support is critical. There is no such thing as willpower when getting clean. It is not a choice to use it is a necessity to live once you are addicted. It takes about 1 year for your brain to be rewired back to a level of functioning without the distorted wiring drugs cause.
In Clallam County we no longer have a detox facility. Local treatment dropped their detox option for inpatient because the inpatient options pay higher monetary returns. Treatment is a business with a bottom line. Local folks must travel to go to detox. Our hospital used to have a good screening into detox but that has been lost with no more options.
I could share lots of info about treatment and recovery. It is not a simple as "just say No". Addiction is a cunning foe that must be managed daily. Even being in long term recovery requires daily maintenance.
A question for you. What made you decide to seek treatment, to change? Was it free needle exchange, a safe place to do your drugs, being held accountable by the criminal justice system, or something else?
'There is no such thing as willpower when getting clean.' I take exception to that comment. I know many that HAVE the willpower and are still clean; but some have had an A.A. 12-step program to adhere to. Group support is really valuable.
Some how certain democrat states get away with aiding-abetting illegal activity.