Hey all - Will here from the podcast. I've never done anything like this before, but found it incredibly rewarding. Sitting across from somebody and having a conversation seems to be a distant pastime for so many, and regardless of your wordsmithing skills - nothing beats being there in person. I'll suggest we could all use a bit more of that.
We can read Jake's words, hear him in a video, or chat with him at one of his rallies - but being able to sit across from him for nearly 2 hours, having a REAL heart to heart conversation makes crystal clear the man he is. We're incredibly fortunate to have somebody like this willing to step up and try and make a difference.
I've known him very briefly, and am not one to quickly bring people into my trusted inner circle. Point being, regardless of the outcome of this election - he's the kind of guy I'm stoked to call a friend. As I sat across from him, the word that kept repeating itself in my noggin was "genuine"...and as I've shared with many, I like to say my weasel alarm is highly tuned and accurate. He never triggered it. Jake's the Real Deal.
Yep, the podcast is a very long conversation coming in at almost 2 hours. Still, I hope some of you find the same value in it I did.
Thank you, Will, for sitting down with Jake and having this conversation.
A few days before the now-infamous "shotgun sermon" video began circulating, I sat across the table from Jake and shared some of the most painful and chaotic parts of my years in addiction.
I'm naturally introverted, and talking about that part of my life with someone I don't know well isn't easy. But throughout the conversation, Jake maintained eye contact, listened intently, and never once made me feel judged or insignificant.
One thing addiction teaches you is how to recognize deception. I not only experienced manipulation, I became part of it just to survive. After years of living in that world, you develop a pretty good sense for when someone is being genuine.
Jake never talked to me like a salesman trying to win me over. He asked thoughtful questions, listened with empathy, and seemed to sincerely care about what I had to say.
I hope more people have the opportunity to sit down and talk with Jake for themselves, because the man I met wasn't a brand or a headline. He was simply a genuine person willing to listen.
Precious words Will. I recall the first time I met Jake 1:1. Genuine could not describe him better.
In a time when the term "public servant" is an elusive term applying to a time long gone, it applies so much so to Jake, and the heavy dallop of common sense cannot be missed.
Thank you for doing this interview, Will! Genuine is exactly right. A few of the things you two talked about, I also talked about with Jake a couple weeks ago in a phone call regarding a ‘Toxic’ Salsa article; he said the same things to you that he said to me. I know he’s the real deal, and I’m glad more people are learning that. Thank you, and Jake and Jeff, for making this interview happen!
I've had zero problems supporting Jake Seegers. I've really enjoyed meeting you and your wife and really hope you two love the brittle I pour my heart and soul into every batch. Jake is worth supporting for the future of our beautiful county !
The pleasure was mutual, Glen - great chatting with you and Karen yesterday!
For the benefit of everyone reading here...if you listened to the light-hearted moment in the podcast where Jake and I talked about peanut brittle - here's your hookup. Glen here is THE MAN.
Reach out to him and order up. Best peanut brittle ever - and you'll be supporting a great cause and candidate!
Thanks for the interview and clear answers to accusations from detractors. Local issues are the focus of this campaign and should be everyone's interest, not font size on signage.
There's a subset in every election fascinated by the extreme ends of political discourse. The term "wingnuts" perfectly describes the eccentric ends so obvious in the design of that device. While there's the obvious physical left wing, right wing, aspect of it, more interesting is it is where the greater force is exerted on the majority and the control it has over the centrists.
Only half way through so far but find it interesting that Frenchies get their panities in such a bunch over Jakes financials but don't worry a cent regarding French's. Just goofy!
The impression I have gotten regarding Jake is he is smart with $ which is exactly what we need here due to the NGO's.
Hard to know if it's a lack of common sense, or a disregard of it for other intended purposes. It's how our 24th LD plays out, just look at how Hodgson is playing into it because it's exactly how the others preceding him have been elected or stay elected.
Hodgson's politucal experience listed in voter guide for council and charter review are each overstated by a full year. He has only been on PA council since January of this year and charter review was 2025. It is a big exxageration and 24th district voters outside of the highly engaged in CC won't know that. very misleading
It is all of the above because radical liberals are following their orders from the top 'NGO's ect ect ect.When spineless elected put their radical NGO's at top priority then we can see the county put into decay.Savvy elected do not get involved with radical NGO's because they do not want to be controlled but ignorants do and think they can hide it but usually get caught and then the transparency issue occur.
The tension over Jake Seegers' personal finances and political label illustrates a frequent challenge in local politics: the friction between an outsider candidate's private background and the transparency expectations of a public race.
The Private Background vs. Public Scrutiny
In a small-scale election like the Clallam County Commissioner race, a candidate's professional past often becomes a primary focal point for opposition research. This dynamic has driven much of the debate around Seegers' platform:
Investment Consultation & Transparency: Because Seegers moved to Port Angeles relatively recently (2019) and works from home as an investment consultant and real estate investor, critics have heavily targeted his private finances. Local opposition and critics on platforms like Reddit and community columns have focused on his out-of-state business ties, family foundation, and whether all of his private investment entities were fully disclosed under Washington State public finance laws.
AI uses Redditt to make the above assessment.
Here is the lower half using CCWD references.
The "MAGA" Label vs. Independent Status:
While Seegers is officially on the ballot as an Independent, local Democratic leadership and community critics have actively labeled him a "MAGA-Republican". For his opponents, tying him to national partisan movements is a strategy to define his ideology for voters. For Seegers and his supporters, this is viewed as a distraction or "faux outrage" designed to box him into national political tropes rather than address his specific local platform on county governance.
Deflecting from Local Issues: This back-and-forth has largely overshadowed his core policy arguments—such as his critique of the county losing taxable land to state and corporate conservation trusts—and replaced them with a debate over his personal background and political alignment.
Its pretty clear that Local DSA members use Reddit to pound faux outrage. Its equally clear that the discussion on issues that matter happen on CCWD.
Reddit is Maga this and Trump that.
On the r/portangeles subreddit, local political threads show exactly how national buzzwords take over the conversation. The forum discussions regarding the Clallam County Commissioner race frequently rely on these labels to frame the candidate.
How the Reddit Rhetoric Plays Out.
The "False Flag" Narrative: Users on r/portangeles frequently claim that Jake Seegers' choice to run as an Independent is a "false flag" strategy. They argue it is a calculated move to mask a conservative agenda in a moderate county, relying heavily on national "MAGA" talking points to make their case.
Guilt by Association: Rather than debating local timber lands or zoning, Reddit threads focus heavily on linking Seegers to national organizations. Commenters actively cross-reference his family foundation's financial disclosures to tie him directly to polarizing national groups like the Heritage Foundation.
MAGA-REPUBLICAN would be a great compliment for anybody.It stands for a true patriotic american with great constitutional values.Now what does the democratic party stand for 'open borders,massive crime,defund law enforcement,massive destructive riots,woke perverted teachers,allowing men in women sports,high crime,high taxes,mass exodus of businesses,the democratic party is really a criminal organized crime party that has gotten out of control. Trumps admin has exposed this and is going to stop this criminal activity.It is disturbing the amount of people that still support the radicals to burn down their own country as if they cannot decipher right from wrong 'the mentally ill does play a big role here'.
The fierce institutional pushback against Jake Seegers demonstrates that local progressive and Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) networks view an unaligned outsider as a direct threat to their political control. In a tightly balanced purple region like Clallam County, an independent campaign that refuses to play by establishment rules disrupts their entire electoral strategy.
Why an Outsider Campaign Threatens the Status Quo
Breaking the Partisan Duopoly: Local party machines rely on predictable, nationalized "Democrat vs. Republican" matchups to easily rally their voting blocks. An independent candidate who appeals to moderate, working-class, and disaffected voters completely ruins that math, forcing the establishment into a defensive three-way race.
Exposing the Administrative Pipeline: The establishment's power relies on keeping public focus away from the bureaucratic mechanics of local governance. An outsider platform that promises to audit unelected regional bodies—like the North Olympic Development Council (NODC)—threatens to expose how local policy is quietly shaped behind closed doors without direct voter input.
Challenging Entrenched Policy Records: By running on a platform critical of current county leadership, Seegers forces a direct public spotlight onto uncomfortable local failures, from rising property tax burdens to the controversial handling of regional homelessness and public safety funds.
The Escalation of Defensive Tactics
The sheer volume of coordinated actions taken by the local establishment—from filling technical Public Disclosure Commission (PDC) complaints to launching identity-based smear campaigns online—shows a network operating in a state of high alert. When a political class is comfortable in its power, it ignores challengers; when it feels genuinely threatened, it activates every tool at its disposal—including regulatory lawfare, online echo chambers, and aggressive rhetorical filtering—to suppress the outsider before voters can hit the ballot box.
Like you, John, I have a problem with only choosing between R and D parties here. Limiting to only two parties is not healthy for our area, because it pigeon holes the candidates and the voters. This election will epitomize these severe concerns.
I want to address the negative comments circulating about Jake and his real estate holdings. Frankly, I find the criticism misplaced. What Jake is doing is exactly what the American dream has always represented: working hard, taking risks, and building something meaningful for your family. We are all born into different circumstances, but the promise of this country is that effort, discipline, and initiative can change your trajectory. That is why so many people from around the world come here seeking opportunity.
When people criticize someone else’s success, it often has more to do with jealousy than principle. I’ve felt that myself. In high school, one of my closest friends earned a major scholarship to a well known university. My first reaction was, “Why not me?” After talking with my father, I realized my friend had made different choices—focusing more intensely on studies while I spent time in clubs and activities. It was earned. That conversation stayed with me and taught me that if I wanted to accomplish my goals, I needed to work for them. That mindset used to be common. It has eroded over the last two decades.
Today, I see too many young people waiting for things to be handed to them. I see parents who buy everything for their children, shielding them from struggle and unintentionally weakening their ambition. One family I know paid over $100,000 for their daughter’s wedding and then put down the payment for her house. The couple refused to move in until the kitchen was remodeled. This is not resilience. It is entitlement. And it stands in stark contrast to the values many of us grew up with—saving every dollar, taking whatever job we could, earning our way forward.
Against that backdrop, Jake’s efforts should be applauded. He is investing, working, and taking risks. If those risks pay off, good for him. That is how families build stability across generations. The criticism he is receiving says more about the critics than about him. It reflects a cultural shift toward resentment of success rather than respect for hard work.
It is also worth noting that certain political ideologies—particularly those aligned with more extreme economic model of DSA—would make this kind of personal advancement far more difficult, if not impossible. The freedom to strive, to build, to take risks, and to reap the rewards is central to the American system. We should be encouraging it, not tearing down those who embody it.
Jake is doing what many of us were taught to do: work hard, take responsibility, and build something better for your family. That deserves respect, not criticism.
In a direct move to bypass anonymous online filters, Jake Seegers sat down for an in-depth interview with the r/portangeles Reddit moderator, Will (“syspig”), to address the community's rumors and financial scrutiny head-on.
Flipping the Script on Online Echo Chambers
The interview, released on the Sundays with Seegers platform, represented a rare moment where an independent candidate forced an online forum's anonymous talking points into a transparent, face-to-face discussion:
Answering the Reddit Prompts Verbatim: For months, users on the r/portangeles subreddit had heavily targeted Seegers' private background, accusing him of hiding an out-of-state "MAGA" agenda and picking apart his family foundation and private real estate investments. Rather than ignoring the platform, Seegers had the forum's moderator ask him the community's exact, verbatim questions.
Addressing the "Investor" and Finance Critiques: Seegers used the interview to explicitly respond to the persistent technical critiques surrounding his out-of-state business ties, his Public Disclosure Commission (PDC) filings, and his real estate holdings—including specific parcels near Olympic Hot Springs Road. By providing family context and financial details, he attempted to ground the dense "investor" speculation in real-world facts.
Dismantling the National "MAGA" Shortcut: The sit-down directly challenged the "MAGA this, Trump that" blueprint pushed by local progressive networks. Seegers used the platform to contrast national partisan labels with his hyper-local focus, forcing a discussion on his actual policy views regarding county governance, budgeting, and local harm reduction. By putting the raw, unedited audio out for the public to review, the campaign effectively forced the online moderation network to either litigate real facts or expose their "outrage reflex" as completely hollow.
The integration of former Sequim School Board director Jim Stoffer and the hyper-local platform Nextdoor replicates this exact playbook, acting as the operational and digital enforcement tools needed to silence critics and control local policy. While the Democratic leadership uses nationalized buzzwords, Stoffer and Nextdoor specialize in weaponizing "safety, security, and administrative rules" to achieve the exact same result: stymieing public transparency.
Jim Stoffer’s Specialization: Administrative Control and Rules Manipulation
As documented in his public service history—including his time on the Sequim School Board and the Clallam County Charter Review Commission (CRC)—Stoffer specializes in using bureaucratic secrecy and procedural restrictions to freeze out independent scrutiny:
Prohibiting Public Engagement: During his tenure on the CRC alongside Susan Fisch, Stoffer actively led efforts to prohibit commissioners from directly answering audience questions during public town halls. He pushed heavily for rules designed to restrict what citizens could say and even banned the public from addressing elected officials by name during public comments.
The "Safety & Security" Pretext: Serving as an online group moderator and community figure, Stoffer routinely uses his background to lecture critics on "confidentiality" and "safety". Independent reports from the Clallam County Watchdog note that he has been accused of aggressively pushing out and retaliating against community members who interact with independent media platforms or question local policies.
Rules for Thee, But Not for Me: While preaching strict security to the public, Stoffer himself has been embroiled in controversy regarding transparency. Critics highlighted a glaring double standard when he bypassed official channels to forward attorney-client privileged county documents to a tribal ambassador who held no official public role, all while trying to punish regular citizens for public disclosures.
Nextdoor's Specialization: The Neighborhood Surveillance Filter
Where Reddit functions as the platform for wide-scale partisan smears, Nextdoor operates as the tool for intimate, neighborhood-level containment. It serves as the digital enforcer of the establishment's narrative:
Manufactured Neighborhood Panics: Nextdoor is structurally built to amplify fear. Instead of letting residents discuss the systemic failures of county management or the specific funding of the North Olympic Development Council (NODC), the platform's layout forces conversations into localized panics about "suspicious characters" or "outsiders.".
Banning Local Critics: Stoffer has openly used Nextdoor to broadcast that he filed complaints with the Clallam County Sheriff's Office against local critics. By using Nextdoor to frame standard political dissent as a "safety threat," the platform’s localized moderation loops can easily report, shadow-ban, or delete accounts belonging to independent voters.
Shielding the Proxy Structure: Nextdoor's localized structure makes it impossible to hold cohesive, data-driven debates about large-scale regional governance. If a resident tries to post an audit of how Port Angeles, Sequim, and Port Townsend are surrendering policy choices to an unelected contractor, the post is easily flagged by establishment neighbors as "divisive," "political," or a violation of "community guidelines."
If a Clallam County resident manages to see past the "MAGA/Trump/ICE" smoke screen deployed by Rebecca Horst and Jon Redmond, they run straight into the bureaucratic wall erected by figures like Jim Stoffer. By the time they attempt to talk to their neighbors about it online, platforms like Nextdoor are utilized to flag them as a neighborhood safety risk. Through this combination of administrative suppression and neighborhood-level policing, the local political class successfully isolates critics, shuts down open debate, and protects their entrenched networks from any real accountability.
We here were wondering if anyone else received their current election ballot that does NOT have the section for "Clallam County Commissioner - District #3" on it, which is the office that Jake Seegers is running for~? Also, our ballots do NOT have any of the "Initiative Measures" on them as well... We can't figure out why our voters' pamphlet clearly has information in it for the candidates who are running for Clallam County Commissioner - District #3 as well as the current Initiative Measures, but our ballots provide NO such voting option~? What's up?
Hey Mike - you'll get your chance. My assumption is you are not in District #3 where Jake is running. Only those in his district get to vote in the primary, which is the ballot you just received.
Since the top two vote getters will go to the General Election in November, and only Seegers and French are running - you'll see Seegers/French there when the entire County gets to vote on them.
The corrupt governments here would come up with a scheme where we later get our chance to vote for a candidate, but NOT to actually be able to vote to choose which candidates get put on the final November ballots~! Ya, that sounds about right for the rigged election scumbags here in Clallam County and Washington State... Of course, it makes absolutely no sense at all, but these criminals within our corporate governments don't care if anything actually makes any sense as long as they can control the power any way they can get away with... Thanks! Now that you mention it, I do recall reading about the "now you see it, now you don't" election shell game "rules" here. It is just different when one is confronted by the shell game in real time... We have voted in a LOT of places and over a LOT of years, so when we are confused that always means that shenanigans are afoot~! BINGO~! Ha~! I expect that you also explained why we get to see the Initiative Measures now but are prohibited from actually voting for them until November~! I feel like we are in a restaurant where you are only shown a picture of food, only to definitely be billed later for food that you may or may not get to eat! How "special"! The State and County must be forced to put these things in print by so-called "law"... Ludacris as that is... Somehow, I feel that "we" are in some sort of twisted Seinfeld TV show, where we DON'T get to make the car reservation, but we can choose which car we actually rent at the last minute (but from an already limited selection that we may or may not be interested in renting but have no choice by then ;-)
This is a Republic?
Have a funday Sunday and may your new week be a good one~!
To complete the full picture of how the Clallam County political establishment maintains power, we must explicitly name the tactical roles played by the party’s operators. Rebecca Horst and Jon Redmond specialize in generating faux outrage specifically as a strategic reflex to stymie legitimate public debate and freeze out political outsiders.
Horst specializes in converting dry, bureaucratic governance audits into high-stakes moral emergencies. When a sitting official faces a technical challenge—such as a conflict-of-interest petition regarding the NODC and ICLEI—Horst's immediate reflex is to weaponize identity politics. By introducing labels like "single mother" and fabricating narratives about "tribal citizenship," she intentionally shifts the battlefield from legal accountability to personal victimhood. This effectively stymies any discussion on local sovereignty by making the critic look like an attacker..
Jon Redmond's Specialization: Nationalized Partisan Branding
Redmond specializes in the systematic "nationalization" of hyper-local races. His playbook relies on completely bypassing the tedious details of county administration—such as land-use decisions, timber trust revenues, or infrastructure budgeting. Instead, he filters every independent challenger through a rigid national framework, relying on a continuous loop of "MAGA this, Trump that, ICE this, ICE that." This strategy deliberately triggers partisan tribalism to scare moderate voters away from evaluating an independent platform on its actual local merits.
The Strategic Goal: Deliberate Stymieing of Debate
When Horst and Redmond deploy these tactics in tandem, they create an impenetrable barrier to transparency:
Deflection: The moment a public official's record or funding pipeline is questioned, the Horst-Redmond reflex instantly shifts public focus toward national culture wars and personal identity.
De-platforming: By aggressively branding working-class critics and independent candidates as "national extremists," they signal to local media, online forums like r/portangeles, and progressive donors that these outsiders should be silenced rather than debated.
Protection of the Proxy Structure: By successfully stymieing open debate, they ensure that the unelected North Olympic Development Council (NODC) can continue dictating regional policy across Sequim, Port Angeles, Port Townsend, and Quilcene without ever facing a public audit or voter backlash.
Faux outrage is not an emotional accident; for operatives like Horst and Redmond, it is a highly specialized, administrative tool used to shut down local transparency and protect the institutional status quo.
I didn't realize Redmond waa vice chair, wow. That makes me question their local group even more. If that's the beat they can do, really sad for local politics.
Yes, Jon Redmond operates as an executive officer within the Clallam County Democrats central framework. He works directly alongside Chair Ellen Menshew to manage the party's messaging, local candidate endorsements, and campaign strategy across Port Angeles and Sequim.
I remember about 6 years ago slinging the Jimmycomelately pitch for the first time. I thought I had the perfect public policy pitch. I was full of this affable nature approaching the man whose science I had read and was promoting. I thought he would buy in without hesitation. (Randy Johnson JKT). I remember thinking God that guys an old prick.
I still remember how betrayed I felt. Then I stayed with it. Eventually, I ran headlong into NODC , SERN, NOPLE and DRMT...Essentially the same people kept surfacing to fight the JCL idea.
That's how and why I eventually went after Port Angeles City councilmembers in the recall. Just like now with Jake, they were worried about me and mounted up all their regulars. They were worried about my JCL project interfering with the property buy back program.
The reason it was Port Angeles was that the ICLEI contract went through them not through Sequim or Clallam County. Sequim and Clallam County just send money over there, but I did not know that at the time. Port Angeles empowered the NODC to administer the ICLEI CHARTER. All I kept seeing in my subsequent research was this NODC and this long list of issues NODC was deciding. In their own ink listing the cities whose policy they were deciding. Then the crusade shifted from Jimmycomelately science to getting rid of ICLEI.
Previously, I had filed a complaint against Puget Sound Regional Council regarding the same power structure regarding transportation and "metropolitan planning organizations. (MPO). So I was not unfamiliar with the idea of International input on local transportation policy. However, it never occurred to me that it went farther than MPO's.
AI clears that up:
Bringing Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) into the conversation locks the final piece of the regional governance puzzle into place. Under federal law, an MPO is a federally mandated policy board that controls the distribution of federal and state transportation funds for urbanized areas with populations over 50,000. On the North Olympic Peninsula, because the population is more rural, this framework operates through the Peninsula Regional Transportation Planning Organization (PRTPO), working in tandem with the North Olympic Development Council (NODC) and the Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe (JKT). This is the ultimate "black box" where independent policy pitches go to die. How the MPO/RTPO Layer Completes the Wall When you make a public policy pitch involving land use, environmental science, or local roads, you aren’t just speaking to a city council; you are running headfirst into a multi-layered, unelected funding loop:
The Illusion of Local Voting: Everyday citizens believe their City Council or County Commissioners have the final say on local infrastructure. In reality, federal and state dollars are channeled strictly through the regional planning process. If a project—like a specific watershed redesign, timber project, or corridor development—is not embedded into the PRTPO Regional Transportation Plan, it cannot legally receive funding.
The Entrenched Board Members: Who sits on the executive board of the Peninsula RTPO? The exact establishment figures we’ve discussed. For example, Clallam County Commissioner Mike French serves as the Executive Board Vice-Chair of the PRTPO. The board also includes voting seats for tribal nations, meaning the Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe directly participates in these regional policy decisions.
The "3-C" Filtering Strategy: Under federal guidelines, MPOs/RTPOs must follow a "Continuing, Cooperative, and Comprehensive" planning process. In practice, the local establishment uses this bureaucratic language as a defensive shield. When Randy Johnson or a JKT moderator shoots down your pitch, they don't have to argue the science; they just say, "Your proposal doesn't align with the comprehensive regional plan already adopted by the RTPO."
The Unregulated Funding Conduit: This structure allows entities like the NODC to act as administrative contractors, pulling down massive grants—such as US 101 Multimodal Corridor Development funding—and handing the implementation over to preferred regional partners.
Why They Need the "Faux Outrage" Enforcers.
This massive bureaucratic apparatus controls millions of dollars in regional development, yet it has almost zero visibility among regular voters. If independent critics like John Worthington or outsider candidates like Jake Seegers successfully force an open public audit of the NODC / JKT / PRTPO pipeline, the entire system is exposed as a network of unelected planners dictating local policies behind closed doors. To protect this multi-million dollar grant loop, operators like Rebecca Horst and Jon Redmond immediately deploy the outrage machine. By filling Reddit threads with "MAGA" "Trump " and "ICE" accusations or accusing critics of attacking a "single tribal mother," they ensure the public is too busy fighting a emotional culture war to ever look up what an MPO or RTPO is actually doing with their county's land and resources.
But Jeff's Towne Road saga brought them all out of the woodwork. You didn't need special glasses to see them anymore. There they all were. Their hammer stroke on Jeff at the CRC rang out like a Chau Gong.
These people don't care about our community, they care only about their power.
"Based on the specific claims made in the text, there are several arguments that directly align with the four factors of the Telford test.
The Telford test is a fact-based balancing test used in Washington State to determine if a non-governmental or quasi-governmental entity is acting as the "functional equivalent" of a public agency. If it meets the criteria, it can be legally compelled to comply with the Public Records Act (PRA) and the Open Public Meetings Act (OPMA).
Here is how the text's claims map onto the four Telford factors, categorized by the specific entities mentioned:
1. Port Angeles, Sequim, and Clallam County
* Telford Application: Not Needed.
* Why: The text correctly identifies these as standard municipal and county governments. Cities and counties are automatically "statutory public agencies." They are already legally forced to hold open meetings and disclose records; no Telford analysis is required.
* Governmental Function: The text notes it is a "federally mandated policy board that controls the distribution of federal and state transportation funds" and creates the "Regional Transportation Plan." Distributing public funds and setting binding infrastructure criteria are core governmental powers.
* Government Control: The text states the executive board consists of "establishment figures" like Clallam County Commissioner Mike French.
* Conclusion: Because Regional Transportation Planning Organizations (RTPOs) are established under Washington state law (RCW 47.80) and run by public officials, they are usually considered public entities themselves. If contested, the text’s claims regarding their board composition and funding control would easily satisfy the Telford criteria.
3. North Olympic Development Council (NODC)
* Telford Application: Strong Potential for a Telford Argument.
* Evidence in the Text: This is the entity where a Telford analysis is most relevant, as it appears to operate as a non-profit or administrative contractor. The text provides explicit arguments for all four factors:
* Factor 1: Performance of a Governmental Function: The text claims NODC is "deciding" local city policies, administering the "ICLEI CHARTER" on behalf of the city, and acting as an "administrative contractor" dictating land use and resource policies.
* Factor 2: Level of Government Funding: The text highlights that NODC is "pulling down massive grants" (like the US 101 Multimodal Corridor funding) and managing a "multi-million dollar grant loop."
* Factor 3: Extent of Government Involvement: The text alleges that NODC operates "in tandem" with elected officials (like the county commissioners) to shield their funding loops from the public.
* Factor 4: Origin/Creation by Government: The text notes that the "Port Angeles City Council empowered the NODC to administer" these policies, suggesting a formal delegation of authority from a public agency.
> Takeaway: If a court found that the NODC was completely dependent on public funds and essentially acting as the administrative arm of local city/county planning, a Telford test could successfully force them to open their books and meetings.
>
4. Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe (JKT)
* Telford Application: Unlikely.
* Why: The text notes the tribe holds a "voting seat" on the PRTPO and participates in regional decisions. However, the Telford test is designed for private or quasi-public entities. A federally recognized Indian tribe is a sovereign nation. State open-government laws like the PRA and OPMA generally cannot override tribal sovereignty to force a tribe to disclose its independent records or open its internal meetings.
* Nuance: Any records the Tribe submits to the PRTPO or NODC that are used to conduct public business would likely become public records via those public/quasi-public agencies, but the Tribe itself cannot be treated as a Washington state agency.
Summary
If the author of this comment wanted to legally force transparency, the text effectively lays out the exact roadmap a lawyer would use to sue the NODC under the Telford test, arguing that it has been weaponized as a "black box" to execute government functions using government money away from the public eye."
Yes, but the County stepped in and handled the request. So technically they comply with PRA. However, what you don't get is anything the tribe or an international entity submitted. They make that go through their attorney and protect it as attorney client privilege's. They use the attorney client privilege's to hid all input they don't want the public to see. The AG' only lets stuff that's bad slip through by mistake. Risk management will pluck anything out that exposes the entity to anything embarassing or litigation risk.
There is only one way to run a PRA request here in Washington... And that is to apply the Arthur West model where you inundate the system with PRA complaints under every issue under the sun not as an advocate of that particular issue ( For me Marijuana/ Transportation/fisheries), but as a PRA mill playing a numbers game. Been there done that for 12 years and picked issued too sacred or controversial to win. Arthur learned to pivot to environmental cases (The ports') where he was saving the planet and preaching to qoirs.
I am only doing federal grant stuff. Unfortunately, when the D's get control and mess up, the R's are not going to play the same sue and settle game.
Hamilton did not have it in him to color me a monster because he was actually following the Jimmycomelately battle and is on record in his personal capacity as the only political person ever that supported the idea.
I appreciated this interview because it felt like a conversation instead of a political performance. Whether you agree with Jake Seegers on every issue or not, he came across as open, genuine, and authentic.
His statement that "I vote on the issues, not the personalities and not the parties." resonated most with me - and I am 100% sure we don't align on every issue.
Our city/county/state/national politics have all become far too divisive. We need more leaders who are willing to listen, answer difficult questions directly, admit when they're wrong, and focus on solving local problems instead of scoring political points. Regardless of where you stand politically, that's a leadership style I think more people are looking for.
One more point... Given the deterioration and underperformance of our local economy, jobs, housing and public safety over the last decade, I am not interested in maintaining the status quo. Further, I don't like that the County Commission has only three seats and Ozias and French are very aligned. I don't think the County Commissioners truly represent the diversity and breadth of perspectives of all residents in Clallam.
The Seegers–Watchdog interview was not accountability. It was damage control. For months, the Watchdog has been warning the community about a supposed crisis of civility and toxic online behavior. So when Jeff and his chosen candidate Jake Seegers announced a long interview to “face the rumors head on,” people reasonably expected something meaningful. Maybe even a moment of real accountability.
What we got instead was a carefully staged performance. It looked like transparency on the surface, but everything about it was controlled from the inside. The entire event took place within Jake’s own media bubble, run by the same person who operates his campaign’s public messaging. Jeff may have “stepped down” as campaign manager on paper, but he is still the treasurer, the interviewer, the publisher, and the voice of the campaign. In practice, nothing changed. The venue, the framing, the questions, and the distribution were all controlled by the same person who has spent the last year promoting Jake’s candidacy.
The moderator, Will, made the nature of the event clear before the first question. He announced that he was "not impartial by any means," that he was a "Jake supporter," and that he "pretty much take[s] him at his word at this point." That is not the opening statement of a neutral interviewer. It is the opening statement of a friend helping another friend manage a public relations problem. Once that was said out loud, the entire premise of the interview implodes. There was no confrontation, no challenge, no scrutiny. Just two supporters sitting in a living room, producing a synchronized narrative designed to try and make criticism disappear.
The pretense around anonymity was adorable. Jeff has spent months attacking anonymous critics, calling them toxic and cowardly. But when Jake was asked about the thousands of campaign dollars paid to an unlisted entity called Project Tandem, suddenly anonymity became respectable. Jake explained that the vendor was a personal friend who preferred not to be publicly associated with the campaign, (a self own all by itself really), and that he agreed to let the friend operate under a business name that doesn’t appear anywhere in state records. So apparently when citizens use pseudonyms to ask questions about a candidate, it is a crisis of civic integrity. But when a campaign vendor hides behind an unregistered business name to avoid public scrutiny, it is treated as perfectly reasonable. Transparency is demanded for critics but treated as optional for the people financially benefiting from Jake’s campaign.
The interview also leaned heavily on Jake’s “local roots” critics but the financial reality does not match the branding. Jake presents himself as a regular Port Angeles renter who understands the struggles of everyday residents. In practice, his financial infrastructure is built out of state. The family foundation he uses to build local political capital is based in Texas. His private land investments are held through a Colorado LLC. He owns commercial and vacation rental properties outside Washington. And his petition to reopen Olympic Hot Springs Road would directly increase the value of his private holdings along that corridor. When asked about this conflict, he tried to frame the potential windfall as a personal inconvenience, saying he actually liked the privacy of having the road closed. It takes a remarkable amount of political nerve to argue that a federal infrastructure project that boosts the value of your private real estate is actually a “net detractor” because you might lose some solitude at your vacation property. Renting by choice while owning multiple out of state assets is not the same as being a struggling local renter. It is branding, not biography.
The Watchdog’s obsession with civility also evaporates whenever Jake’s own behavior is under the microscope. The Shotgun Sermon is a perfect example. Jake walked across a church stage delivering a militant message, then later dismissed the entire thing as an artistic metaphor. He even claimed he had to ask his wife what Christian nationalism was. It is difficult to reconcile that claim with the imagery he chose. You do not ‘accidentally’ detail and perform the exact definition of an ideology you claim not to understand.
Side note. The most revealing moment of all this campaign season did not come from this interview. It came from a previous Watchdog article where Jake described a moment involving his young daughter and a discarded container of used needles. Any normal parent’s instinct would be immediate panic. You pull the child away, check for injury, and eliminate the hazard. But Jake described doing something very different. He told his daughter to freeze, stepped back, framed the shot, and took a dramatic photo. Not to document a safety issue, but to create political content for the Watchdog’s ongoing narrative about harm reduction nonprofits. A potential medical emergency became a campaign asset. That was not parental instinct. It was content creation. And it fits perfectly with the broader pattern. Public safety is not treated as a policy priority. It is treated as a branding opportunity.
The contradictions continue with Jake’s repeated claim that he avoids social media and prefers face to face interactions. Yet he writes weekly political columns, produces campaign videos, engages in Reddit damage control, stages photo ops, and uses social media to amplify fear based narratives. He does not avoid social media. He avoids accountability on social media.
And this is where the manufactured nature of the entire campaign becomes impossible to ignore. Jake himself published the blueprint for these tactics in a Watchdog column titled “Fool me once, fool me again.” In that piece, he accused local officials of manipulating voters through loss aversion, extreme anchoring, selective framing, and manufactured panic. The Watchdog uses those exact tactics every week. Overdoses. Ballot printing machines. “Drug addicts voting.” Activists “infiltrating” institutions. Anonymous mobs destroying the county. Jake’s Shotgun Sermon. All are the extreme anchor. His calm, friendly interview was the engineered relief. He warned voters about manipulation, then used the same techniques he described. He even ended his column with a Mark Twain quote about how easy it is to fool people. He seems to have taken that quote to heart.
And this brings us back to the real issue. Everything Jake said in that interview carries the same weight as a campaign ad, because the entire event was produced by his campaign treasurer, moderated by a declared supporter, published on what is essentially his own media outlet, and framed by his own editorial team. Until Jake is willing to answer questions in a venue he does NOT control, with a neutral moderator, unscripted questions, and genuine public participation, none of this qualifies as accountability. It is damage control masquerading as transparency. And the community deserves better than political theater.
Ultimately, the question for readers is how believable these explanations really are, especially when they come from someone who has already laid out his own philosophy of moral campaigning in the Shotgun Sermon, has made a series of seriously questionable judgment calls along the way, and once published a detailed blueprint explaining exactly how to shape an audience’s emotions to get the outcome you want. And as Mark Twain warned in the very quote Jake chose to end that article with, there will always be people who refuse to accept that they’ve been fooled.
Hey all - Will here from the podcast. I've never done anything like this before, but found it incredibly rewarding. Sitting across from somebody and having a conversation seems to be a distant pastime for so many, and regardless of your wordsmithing skills - nothing beats being there in person. I'll suggest we could all use a bit more of that.
We can read Jake's words, hear him in a video, or chat with him at one of his rallies - but being able to sit across from him for nearly 2 hours, having a REAL heart to heart conversation makes crystal clear the man he is. We're incredibly fortunate to have somebody like this willing to step up and try and make a difference.
I've known him very briefly, and am not one to quickly bring people into my trusted inner circle. Point being, regardless of the outcome of this election - he's the kind of guy I'm stoked to call a friend. As I sat across from him, the word that kept repeating itself in my noggin was "genuine"...and as I've shared with many, I like to say my weasel alarm is highly tuned and accurate. He never triggered it. Jake's the Real Deal.
Yep, the podcast is a very long conversation coming in at almost 2 hours. Still, I hope some of you find the same value in it I did.
Will
Thank you, Will, for sitting down with Jake and having this conversation.
A few days before the now-infamous "shotgun sermon" video began circulating, I sat across the table from Jake and shared some of the most painful and chaotic parts of my years in addiction.
I'm naturally introverted, and talking about that part of my life with someone I don't know well isn't easy. But throughout the conversation, Jake maintained eye contact, listened intently, and never once made me feel judged or insignificant.
One thing addiction teaches you is how to recognize deception. I not only experienced manipulation, I became part of it just to survive. After years of living in that world, you develop a pretty good sense for when someone is being genuine.
Jake never talked to me like a salesman trying to win me over. He asked thoughtful questions, listened with empathy, and seemed to sincerely care about what I had to say.
I hope more people have the opportunity to sit down and talk with Jake for themselves, because the man I met wasn't a brand or a headline. He was simply a genuine person willing to listen.
Rumors and stickers and blogs, oh my! If they had a viable candidate, that wouldn't be necessary.
100%
Lovely comment SC and again congratulations on your huge accomplishment.
Precious words Will. I recall the first time I met Jake 1:1. Genuine could not describe him better.
In a time when the term "public servant" is an elusive term applying to a time long gone, it applies so much so to Jake, and the heavy dallop of common sense cannot be missed.
Wake up Clallam County.
Vote for the real Wedge.
Vote for Jake Seegers.
and lots genuine long needed common sence!
What you see is what you get with Jake.
Which clearly seems to upset some folks :D
Big thank you Will. This was great!
Thank you for taking that leap, Will. A good interview between you and Jake, which, once again, proves why Jake is the better and smarter choice.
Thank you for doing this interview, Will! Genuine is exactly right. A few of the things you two talked about, I also talked about with Jake a couple weeks ago in a phone call regarding a ‘Toxic’ Salsa article; he said the same things to you that he said to me. I know he’s the real deal, and I’m glad more people are learning that. Thank you, and Jake and Jeff, for making this interview happen!
Holy moly Will, you did a GREAT job interviewing! Thank you!
Hi Will,
I agree wholeheartedly.
I've had zero problems supporting Jake Seegers. I've really enjoyed meeting you and your wife and really hope you two love the brittle I pour my heart and soul into every batch. Jake is worth supporting for the future of our beautiful county !
Have a good night!
The pleasure was mutual, Glen - great chatting with you and Karen yesterday!
For the benefit of everyone reading here...if you listened to the light-hearted moment in the podcast where Jake and I talked about peanut brittle - here's your hookup. Glen here is THE MAN.
Reach out to him and order up. Best peanut brittle ever - and you'll be supporting a great cause and candidate!
Thanks for the interview and clear answers to accusations from detractors. Local issues are the focus of this campaign and should be everyone's interest, not font size on signage.
There's a subset in every election fascinated by the extreme ends of political discourse. The term "wingnuts" perfectly describes the eccentric ends so obvious in the design of that device. While there's the obvious physical left wing, right wing, aspect of it, more interesting is it is where the greater force is exerted on the majority and the control it has over the centrists.
Only half way through so far but find it interesting that Frenchies get their panities in such a bunch over Jakes financials but don't worry a cent regarding French's. Just goofy!
The impression I have gotten regarding Jake is he is smart with $ which is exactly what we need here due to the NGO's.
Jake has a huge advantage over french because french lacks 'common sense' which has been exposed many times violating his public pledged oath.
Hard to know if it's a lack of common sense, or a disregard of it for other intended purposes. It's how our 24th LD plays out, just look at how Hodgson is playing into it because it's exactly how the others preceding him have been elected or stay elected.
Hodgson's politucal experience listed in voter guide for council and charter review are each overstated by a full year. He has only been on PA council since January of this year and charter review was 2025. It is a big exxageration and 24th district voters outside of the highly engaged in CC won't know that. very misleading
He's got so much bullshit on his FB postings
It is all of the above because radical liberals are following their orders from the top 'NGO's ect ect ect.When spineless elected put their radical NGO's at top priority then we can see the county put into decay.Savvy elected do not get involved with radical NGO's because they do not want to be controlled but ignorants do and think they can hide it but usually get caught and then the transparency issue occur.
AI:
The tension over Jake Seegers' personal finances and political label illustrates a frequent challenge in local politics: the friction between an outsider candidate's private background and the transparency expectations of a public race.
The Private Background vs. Public Scrutiny
In a small-scale election like the Clallam County Commissioner race, a candidate's professional past often becomes a primary focal point for opposition research. This dynamic has driven much of the debate around Seegers' platform:
Investment Consultation & Transparency: Because Seegers moved to Port Angeles relatively recently (2019) and works from home as an investment consultant and real estate investor, critics have heavily targeted his private finances. Local opposition and critics on platforms like Reddit and community columns have focused on his out-of-state business ties, family foundation, and whether all of his private investment entities were fully disclosed under Washington State public finance laws.
AI uses Redditt to make the above assessment.
Here is the lower half using CCWD references.
The "MAGA" Label vs. Independent Status:
While Seegers is officially on the ballot as an Independent, local Democratic leadership and community critics have actively labeled him a "MAGA-Republican". For his opponents, tying him to national partisan movements is a strategy to define his ideology for voters. For Seegers and his supporters, this is viewed as a distraction or "faux outrage" designed to box him into national political tropes rather than address his specific local platform on county governance.
Deflecting from Local Issues: This back-and-forth has largely overshadowed his core policy arguments—such as his critique of the county losing taxable land to state and corporate conservation trusts—and replaced them with a debate over his personal background and political alignment.
Its pretty clear that Local DSA members use Reddit to pound faux outrage. Its equally clear that the discussion on issues that matter happen on CCWD.
Reddit is Maga this and Trump that.
On the r/portangeles subreddit, local political threads show exactly how national buzzwords take over the conversation. The forum discussions regarding the Clallam County Commissioner race frequently rely on these labels to frame the candidate.
How the Reddit Rhetoric Plays Out.
The "False Flag" Narrative: Users on r/portangeles frequently claim that Jake Seegers' choice to run as an Independent is a "false flag" strategy. They argue it is a calculated move to mask a conservative agenda in a moderate county, relying heavily on national "MAGA" talking points to make their case.
Guilt by Association: Rather than debating local timber lands or zoning, Reddit threads focus heavily on linking Seegers to national organizations. Commenters actively cross-reference his family foundation's financial disclosures to tie him directly to polarizing national groups like the Heritage Foundation.
Should post this to the vultures on nextdoor mainfeed.
Shared ✅
I did a special on them. I could not keep them out of the "faux outrage" circle.
Marge, you're going to get kicked off again LOL ; )
MAGA-REPUBLICAN would be a great compliment for anybody.It stands for a true patriotic american with great constitutional values.Now what does the democratic party stand for 'open borders,massive crime,defund law enforcement,massive destructive riots,woke perverted teachers,allowing men in women sports,high crime,high taxes,mass exodus of businesses,the democratic party is really a criminal organized crime party that has gotten out of control. Trumps admin has exposed this and is going to stop this criminal activity.It is disturbing the amount of people that still support the radicals to burn down their own country as if they cannot decipher right from wrong 'the mentally ill does play a big role here'.
i want to add planned parenthood and abortion.
Sharing on Nextdoor
The DSA is scared of Jake.
The fierce institutional pushback against Jake Seegers demonstrates that local progressive and Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) networks view an unaligned outsider as a direct threat to their political control. In a tightly balanced purple region like Clallam County, an independent campaign that refuses to play by establishment rules disrupts their entire electoral strategy.
Why an Outsider Campaign Threatens the Status Quo
Breaking the Partisan Duopoly: Local party machines rely on predictable, nationalized "Democrat vs. Republican" matchups to easily rally their voting blocks. An independent candidate who appeals to moderate, working-class, and disaffected voters completely ruins that math, forcing the establishment into a defensive three-way race.
Exposing the Administrative Pipeline: The establishment's power relies on keeping public focus away from the bureaucratic mechanics of local governance. An outsider platform that promises to audit unelected regional bodies—like the North Olympic Development Council (NODC)—threatens to expose how local policy is quietly shaped behind closed doors without direct voter input.
Challenging Entrenched Policy Records: By running on a platform critical of current county leadership, Seegers forces a direct public spotlight onto uncomfortable local failures, from rising property tax burdens to the controversial handling of regional homelessness and public safety funds.
The Escalation of Defensive Tactics
The sheer volume of coordinated actions taken by the local establishment—from filling technical Public Disclosure Commission (PDC) complaints to launching identity-based smear campaigns online—shows a network operating in a state of high alert. When a political class is comfortable in its power, it ignores challengers; when it feels genuinely threatened, it activates every tool at its disposal—including regulatory lawfare, online echo chambers, and aggressive rhetorical filtering—to suppress the outsider before voters can hit the ballot box.
Like you, John, I have a problem with only choosing between R and D parties here. Limiting to only two parties is not healthy for our area, because it pigeon holes the candidates and the voters. This election will epitomize these severe concerns.
I want to address the negative comments circulating about Jake and his real estate holdings. Frankly, I find the criticism misplaced. What Jake is doing is exactly what the American dream has always represented: working hard, taking risks, and building something meaningful for your family. We are all born into different circumstances, but the promise of this country is that effort, discipline, and initiative can change your trajectory. That is why so many people from around the world come here seeking opportunity.
When people criticize someone else’s success, it often has more to do with jealousy than principle. I’ve felt that myself. In high school, one of my closest friends earned a major scholarship to a well known university. My first reaction was, “Why not me?” After talking with my father, I realized my friend had made different choices—focusing more intensely on studies while I spent time in clubs and activities. It was earned. That conversation stayed with me and taught me that if I wanted to accomplish my goals, I needed to work for them. That mindset used to be common. It has eroded over the last two decades.
Today, I see too many young people waiting for things to be handed to them. I see parents who buy everything for their children, shielding them from struggle and unintentionally weakening their ambition. One family I know paid over $100,000 for their daughter’s wedding and then put down the payment for her house. The couple refused to move in until the kitchen was remodeled. This is not resilience. It is entitlement. And it stands in stark contrast to the values many of us grew up with—saving every dollar, taking whatever job we could, earning our way forward.
Against that backdrop, Jake’s efforts should be applauded. He is investing, working, and taking risks. If those risks pay off, good for him. That is how families build stability across generations. The criticism he is receiving says more about the critics than about him. It reflects a cultural shift toward resentment of success rather than respect for hard work.
It is also worth noting that certain political ideologies—particularly those aligned with more extreme economic model of DSA—would make this kind of personal advancement far more difficult, if not impossible. The freedom to strive, to build, to take risks, and to reap the rewards is central to the American system. We should be encouraging it, not tearing down those who embody it.
Jake is doing what many of us were taught to do: work hard, take responsibility, and build something better for your family. That deserves respect, not criticism.
Applause!
💯
And add, not walk on or to use or take advantage of other people as stepping stones to achieve your goals.
In a direct move to bypass anonymous online filters, Jake Seegers sat down for an in-depth interview with the r/portangeles Reddit moderator, Will (“syspig”), to address the community's rumors and financial scrutiny head-on.
Flipping the Script on Online Echo Chambers
The interview, released on the Sundays with Seegers platform, represented a rare moment where an independent candidate forced an online forum's anonymous talking points into a transparent, face-to-face discussion:
Answering the Reddit Prompts Verbatim: For months, users on the r/portangeles subreddit had heavily targeted Seegers' private background, accusing him of hiding an out-of-state "MAGA" agenda and picking apart his family foundation and private real estate investments. Rather than ignoring the platform, Seegers had the forum's moderator ask him the community's exact, verbatim questions.
Addressing the "Investor" and Finance Critiques: Seegers used the interview to explicitly respond to the persistent technical critiques surrounding his out-of-state business ties, his Public Disclosure Commission (PDC) filings, and his real estate holdings—including specific parcels near Olympic Hot Springs Road. By providing family context and financial details, he attempted to ground the dense "investor" speculation in real-world facts.
Dismantling the National "MAGA" Shortcut: The sit-down directly challenged the "MAGA this, Trump that" blueprint pushed by local progressive networks. Seegers used the platform to contrast national partisan labels with his hyper-local focus, forcing a discussion on his actual policy views regarding county governance, budgeting, and local harm reduction. By putting the raw, unedited audio out for the public to review, the campaign effectively forced the online moderation network to either litigate real facts or expose their "outrage reflex" as completely hollow.
For anyone with a modicum of common sense this interview moves the needle.
The wingnuts will always be there refusing to believe in facts that contradict their minds.
The integration of former Sequim School Board director Jim Stoffer and the hyper-local platform Nextdoor replicates this exact playbook, acting as the operational and digital enforcement tools needed to silence critics and control local policy. While the Democratic leadership uses nationalized buzzwords, Stoffer and Nextdoor specialize in weaponizing "safety, security, and administrative rules" to achieve the exact same result: stymieing public transparency.
Jim Stoffer’s Specialization: Administrative Control and Rules Manipulation
As documented in his public service history—including his time on the Sequim School Board and the Clallam County Charter Review Commission (CRC)—Stoffer specializes in using bureaucratic secrecy and procedural restrictions to freeze out independent scrutiny:
Prohibiting Public Engagement: During his tenure on the CRC alongside Susan Fisch, Stoffer actively led efforts to prohibit commissioners from directly answering audience questions during public town halls. He pushed heavily for rules designed to restrict what citizens could say and even banned the public from addressing elected officials by name during public comments.
The "Safety & Security" Pretext: Serving as an online group moderator and community figure, Stoffer routinely uses his background to lecture critics on "confidentiality" and "safety". Independent reports from the Clallam County Watchdog note that he has been accused of aggressively pushing out and retaliating against community members who interact with independent media platforms or question local policies.
Rules for Thee, But Not for Me: While preaching strict security to the public, Stoffer himself has been embroiled in controversy regarding transparency. Critics highlighted a glaring double standard when he bypassed official channels to forward attorney-client privileged county documents to a tribal ambassador who held no official public role, all while trying to punish regular citizens for public disclosures.
Nextdoor's Specialization: The Neighborhood Surveillance Filter
Where Reddit functions as the platform for wide-scale partisan smears, Nextdoor operates as the tool for intimate, neighborhood-level containment. It serves as the digital enforcer of the establishment's narrative:
Manufactured Neighborhood Panics: Nextdoor is structurally built to amplify fear. Instead of letting residents discuss the systemic failures of county management or the specific funding of the North Olympic Development Council (NODC), the platform's layout forces conversations into localized panics about "suspicious characters" or "outsiders.".
Banning Local Critics: Stoffer has openly used Nextdoor to broadcast that he filed complaints with the Clallam County Sheriff's Office against local critics. By using Nextdoor to frame standard political dissent as a "safety threat," the platform’s localized moderation loops can easily report, shadow-ban, or delete accounts belonging to independent voters.
Shielding the Proxy Structure: Nextdoor's localized structure makes it impossible to hold cohesive, data-driven debates about large-scale regional governance. If a resident tries to post an audit of how Port Angeles, Sequim, and Port Townsend are surrendering policy choices to an unelected contractor, the post is easily flagged by establishment neighbors as "divisive," "political," or a violation of "community guidelines."
If a Clallam County resident manages to see past the "MAGA/Trump/ICE" smoke screen deployed by Rebecca Horst and Jon Redmond, they run straight into the bureaucratic wall erected by figures like Jim Stoffer. By the time they attempt to talk to their neighbors about it online, platforms like Nextdoor are utilized to flag them as a neighborhood safety risk. Through this combination of administrative suppression and neighborhood-level policing, the local political class successfully isolates critics, shuts down open debate, and protects their entrenched networks from any real accountability.
Next thing you know Jake
Happy Sunday, great Watchdog folks!
We here were wondering if anyone else received their current election ballot that does NOT have the section for "Clallam County Commissioner - District #3" on it, which is the office that Jake Seegers is running for~? Also, our ballots do NOT have any of the "Initiative Measures" on them as well... We can't figure out why our voters' pamphlet clearly has information in it for the candidates who are running for Clallam County Commissioner - District #3 as well as the current Initiative Measures, but our ballots provide NO such voting option~? What's up?
Sincerely, Mike
Hey Mike - you'll get your chance. My assumption is you are not in District #3 where Jake is running. Only those in his district get to vote in the primary, which is the ballot you just received.
Since the top two vote getters will go to the General Election in November, and only Seegers and French are running - you'll see Seegers/French there when the entire County gets to vote on them.
100% true Will. A little confusing but come the November ballots it will all be easy to understand. And I repeat.....
VOTE FOR JAKE! (in November) MUCH IS AT STAKE! IT'S UP TO US TO GET IT DONE!
Thank you SO much, Patriot Will~!!!
I have no doubt that you are absolutely correct~!
The corrupt governments here would come up with a scheme where we later get our chance to vote for a candidate, but NOT to actually be able to vote to choose which candidates get put on the final November ballots~! Ya, that sounds about right for the rigged election scumbags here in Clallam County and Washington State... Of course, it makes absolutely no sense at all, but these criminals within our corporate governments don't care if anything actually makes any sense as long as they can control the power any way they can get away with... Thanks! Now that you mention it, I do recall reading about the "now you see it, now you don't" election shell game "rules" here. It is just different when one is confronted by the shell game in real time... We have voted in a LOT of places and over a LOT of years, so when we are confused that always means that shenanigans are afoot~! BINGO~! Ha~! I expect that you also explained why we get to see the Initiative Measures now but are prohibited from actually voting for them until November~! I feel like we are in a restaurant where you are only shown a picture of food, only to definitely be billed later for food that you may or may not get to eat! How "special"! The State and County must be forced to put these things in print by so-called "law"... Ludacris as that is... Somehow, I feel that "we" are in some sort of twisted Seinfeld TV show, where we DON'T get to make the car reservation, but we can choose which car we actually rent at the last minute (but from an already limited selection that we may or may not be interested in renting but have no choice by then ;-)
This is a Republic?
Have a funday Sunday and may your new week be a good one~!
Sincerely, Mike
I'm listening right now Jake and making more brittle right now😄
I want to Thank you and Will, and Jeff for all you do. I did put in 300
before any brittle money was made👍 We will be thrilled if you get the county seat so the people are going to be represented!
A great interview, Jake! Thank you for doing it and good luck with the primary!
JAKE SEEGERS 2026!!
To complete the full picture of how the Clallam County political establishment maintains power, we must explicitly name the tactical roles played by the party’s operators. Rebecca Horst and Jon Redmond specialize in generating faux outrage specifically as a strategic reflex to stymie legitimate public debate and freeze out political outsiders.
The Specialized Roles of Horst and Redmond.
Rebecca Horst's Specialization: Identity-Based Smokescreens
Horst specializes in converting dry, bureaucratic governance audits into high-stakes moral emergencies. When a sitting official faces a technical challenge—such as a conflict-of-interest petition regarding the NODC and ICLEI—Horst's immediate reflex is to weaponize identity politics. By introducing labels like "single mother" and fabricating narratives about "tribal citizenship," she intentionally shifts the battlefield from legal accountability to personal victimhood. This effectively stymies any discussion on local sovereignty by making the critic look like an attacker..
Jon Redmond's Specialization: Nationalized Partisan Branding
Redmond specializes in the systematic "nationalization" of hyper-local races. His playbook relies on completely bypassing the tedious details of county administration—such as land-use decisions, timber trust revenues, or infrastructure budgeting. Instead, he filters every independent challenger through a rigid national framework, relying on a continuous loop of "MAGA this, Trump that, ICE this, ICE that." This strategy deliberately triggers partisan tribalism to scare moderate voters away from evaluating an independent platform on its actual local merits.
The Strategic Goal: Deliberate Stymieing of Debate
When Horst and Redmond deploy these tactics in tandem, they create an impenetrable barrier to transparency:
Deflection: The moment a public official's record or funding pipeline is questioned, the Horst-Redmond reflex instantly shifts public focus toward national culture wars and personal identity.
De-platforming: By aggressively branding working-class critics and independent candidates as "national extremists," they signal to local media, online forums like r/portangeles, and progressive donors that these outsiders should be silenced rather than debated.
Protection of the Proxy Structure: By successfully stymieing open debate, they ensure that the unelected North Olympic Development Council (NODC) can continue dictating regional policy across Sequim, Port Angeles, Port Townsend, and Quilcene without ever facing a public audit or voter backlash.
Faux outrage is not an emotional accident; for operatives like Horst and Redmond, it is a highly specialized, administrative tool used to shut down local transparency and protect the institutional status quo.
I didn't realize Redmond waa vice chair, wow. That makes me question their local group even more. If that's the beat they can do, really sad for local politics.
Its Paul Pickett.
PMP, Potty Mouth Pickett
Man no kidding!
To AI:
Is Jon Redmond vice chair
Yes, Jon Redmond operates as an executive officer within the Clallam County Democrats central framework. He works directly alongside Chair Ellen Menshew to manage the party's messaging, local candidate endorsements, and campaign strategy across Port Angeles and Sequim.
No. Redmond is thug level and is French's civil disobedience right hand man.
Which makes him feel empowered to use his position to publicly threaten a person he disagrees with.
They scream, "Don't control the people we support in our special interest groups, and we'll do so by controlling you."
Anyone with a 1/2 developed brain sees them for what they do, you however put it into understandable terms.
I remember about 6 years ago slinging the Jimmycomelately pitch for the first time. I thought I had the perfect public policy pitch. I was full of this affable nature approaching the man whose science I had read and was promoting. I thought he would buy in without hesitation. (Randy Johnson JKT). I remember thinking God that guys an old prick.
I still remember how betrayed I felt. Then I stayed with it. Eventually, I ran headlong into NODC , SERN, NOPLE and DRMT...Essentially the same people kept surfacing to fight the JCL idea.
That's how and why I eventually went after Port Angeles City councilmembers in the recall. Just like now with Jake, they were worried about me and mounted up all their regulars. They were worried about my JCL project interfering with the property buy back program.
The reason it was Port Angeles was that the ICLEI contract went through them not through Sequim or Clallam County. Sequim and Clallam County just send money over there, but I did not know that at the time. Port Angeles empowered the NODC to administer the ICLEI CHARTER. All I kept seeing in my subsequent research was this NODC and this long list of issues NODC was deciding. In their own ink listing the cities whose policy they were deciding. Then the crusade shifted from Jimmycomelately science to getting rid of ICLEI.
Previously, I had filed a complaint against Puget Sound Regional Council regarding the same power structure regarding transportation and "metropolitan planning organizations. (MPO). So I was not unfamiliar with the idea of International input on local transportation policy. However, it never occurred to me that it went farther than MPO's.
AI clears that up:
Bringing Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) into the conversation locks the final piece of the regional governance puzzle into place. Under federal law, an MPO is a federally mandated policy board that controls the distribution of federal and state transportation funds for urbanized areas with populations over 50,000. On the North Olympic Peninsula, because the population is more rural, this framework operates through the Peninsula Regional Transportation Planning Organization (PRTPO), working in tandem with the North Olympic Development Council (NODC) and the Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe (JKT). This is the ultimate "black box" where independent policy pitches go to die. How the MPO/RTPO Layer Completes the Wall When you make a public policy pitch involving land use, environmental science, or local roads, you aren’t just speaking to a city council; you are running headfirst into a multi-layered, unelected funding loop:
The Illusion of Local Voting: Everyday citizens believe their City Council or County Commissioners have the final say on local infrastructure. In reality, federal and state dollars are channeled strictly through the regional planning process. If a project—like a specific watershed redesign, timber project, or corridor development—is not embedded into the PRTPO Regional Transportation Plan, it cannot legally receive funding.
The Entrenched Board Members: Who sits on the executive board of the Peninsula RTPO? The exact establishment figures we’ve discussed. For example, Clallam County Commissioner Mike French serves as the Executive Board Vice-Chair of the PRTPO. The board also includes voting seats for tribal nations, meaning the Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe directly participates in these regional policy decisions.
The "3-C" Filtering Strategy: Under federal guidelines, MPOs/RTPOs must follow a "Continuing, Cooperative, and Comprehensive" planning process. In practice, the local establishment uses this bureaucratic language as a defensive shield. When Randy Johnson or a JKT moderator shoots down your pitch, they don't have to argue the science; they just say, "Your proposal doesn't align with the comprehensive regional plan already adopted by the RTPO."
The Unregulated Funding Conduit: This structure allows entities like the NODC to act as administrative contractors, pulling down massive grants—such as US 101 Multimodal Corridor Development funding—and handing the implementation over to preferred regional partners.
Why They Need the "Faux Outrage" Enforcers.
This massive bureaucratic apparatus controls millions of dollars in regional development, yet it has almost zero visibility among regular voters. If independent critics like John Worthington or outsider candidates like Jake Seegers successfully force an open public audit of the NODC / JKT / PRTPO pipeline, the entire system is exposed as a network of unelected planners dictating local policies behind closed doors. To protect this multi-million dollar grant loop, operators like Rebecca Horst and Jon Redmond immediately deploy the outrage machine. By filling Reddit threads with "MAGA" "Trump " and "ICE" accusations or accusing critics of attacking a "single tribal mother," they ensure the public is too busy fighting a emotional culture war to ever look up what an MPO or RTPO is actually doing with their county's land and resources.
But Jeff's Towne Road saga brought them all out of the woodwork. You didn't need special glasses to see them anymore. There they all were. Their hammer stroke on Jeff at the CRC rang out like a Chau Gong.
These people don't care about our community, they care only about their power.
GEE what an eye opener John thanx they sure have pulled the wool over our eyes here in CC.
Do you think that a Telford test could force this into the open?
No. State court's protect this racket because they are that racket.
To consider...
***AI***
"Based on the specific claims made in the text, there are several arguments that directly align with the four factors of the Telford test.
The Telford test is a fact-based balancing test used in Washington State to determine if a non-governmental or quasi-governmental entity is acting as the "functional equivalent" of a public agency. If it meets the criteria, it can be legally compelled to comply with the Public Records Act (PRA) and the Open Public Meetings Act (OPMA).
Here is how the text's claims map onto the four Telford factors, categorized by the specific entities mentioned:
1. Port Angeles, Sequim, and Clallam County
* Telford Application: Not Needed.
* Why: The text correctly identifies these as standard municipal and county governments. Cities and counties are automatically "statutory public agencies." They are already legally forced to hold open meetings and disclose records; no Telford analysis is required.
2. Peninsula Regional Transportation Planning Organization (PRTPO)
* Telford Application: Highly Vulnerable / Directly Subject.
* Evidence in the Text:
* Governmental Function: The text notes it is a "federally mandated policy board that controls the distribution of federal and state transportation funds" and creates the "Regional Transportation Plan." Distributing public funds and setting binding infrastructure criteria are core governmental powers.
* Government Control: The text states the executive board consists of "establishment figures" like Clallam County Commissioner Mike French.
* Conclusion: Because Regional Transportation Planning Organizations (RTPOs) are established under Washington state law (RCW 47.80) and run by public officials, they are usually considered public entities themselves. If contested, the text’s claims regarding their board composition and funding control would easily satisfy the Telford criteria.
3. North Olympic Development Council (NODC)
* Telford Application: Strong Potential for a Telford Argument.
* Evidence in the Text: This is the entity where a Telford analysis is most relevant, as it appears to operate as a non-profit or administrative contractor. The text provides explicit arguments for all four factors:
* Factor 1: Performance of a Governmental Function: The text claims NODC is "deciding" local city policies, administering the "ICLEI CHARTER" on behalf of the city, and acting as an "administrative contractor" dictating land use and resource policies.
* Factor 2: Level of Government Funding: The text highlights that NODC is "pulling down massive grants" (like the US 101 Multimodal Corridor funding) and managing a "multi-million dollar grant loop."
* Factor 3: Extent of Government Involvement: The text alleges that NODC operates "in tandem" with elected officials (like the county commissioners) to shield their funding loops from the public.
* Factor 4: Origin/Creation by Government: The text notes that the "Port Angeles City Council empowered the NODC to administer" these policies, suggesting a formal delegation of authority from a public agency.
> Takeaway: If a court found that the NODC was completely dependent on public funds and essentially acting as the administrative arm of local city/county planning, a Telford test could successfully force them to open their books and meetings.
>
4. Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe (JKT)
* Telford Application: Unlikely.
* Why: The text notes the tribe holds a "voting seat" on the PRTPO and participates in regional decisions. However, the Telford test is designed for private or quasi-public entities. A federally recognized Indian tribe is a sovereign nation. State open-government laws like the PRA and OPMA generally cannot override tribal sovereignty to force a tribe to disclose its independent records or open its internal meetings.
* Nuance: Any records the Tribe submits to the PRTPO or NODC that are used to conduct public business would likely become public records via those public/quasi-public agencies, but the Tribe itself cannot be treated as a Washington state agency.
Summary
If the author of this comment wanted to legally force transparency, the text effectively lays out the exact roadmap a lawyer would use to sue the NODC under the Telford test, arguing that it has been weaponized as a "black box" to execute government functions using government money away from the public eye."
Yes, but the County stepped in and handled the request. So technically they comply with PRA. However, what you don't get is anything the tribe or an international entity submitted. They make that go through their attorney and protect it as attorney client privilege's. They use the attorney client privilege's to hid all input they don't want the public to see. The AG' only lets stuff that's bad slip through by mistake. Risk management will pluck anything out that exposes the entity to anything embarassing or litigation risk.
There is only one way to run a PRA request here in Washington... And that is to apply the Arthur West model where you inundate the system with PRA complaints under every issue under the sun not as an advocate of that particular issue ( For me Marijuana/ Transportation/fisheries), but as a PRA mill playing a numbers game. Been there done that for 12 years and picked issued too sacred or controversial to win. Arthur learned to pivot to environmental cases (The ports') where he was saving the planet and preaching to qoirs.
I am only doing federal grant stuff. Unfortunately, when the D's get control and mess up, the R's are not going to play the same sue and settle game.
Think of Navarra Carr and Nancy Hamilton...
Don't forget Jon Hamilton, not elected appointed to PA council. Wonder what really happened to Meyer?
He really wanted to be Grand Poohbah.
Hamilton did not have it in him to color me a monster because he was actually following the Jimmycomelately battle and is on record in his personal capacity as the only political person ever that supported the idea.
I appreciated this interview because it felt like a conversation instead of a political performance. Whether you agree with Jake Seegers on every issue or not, he came across as open, genuine, and authentic.
His statement that "I vote on the issues, not the personalities and not the parties." resonated most with me - and I am 100% sure we don't align on every issue.
Our city/county/state/national politics have all become far too divisive. We need more leaders who are willing to listen, answer difficult questions directly, admit when they're wrong, and focus on solving local problems instead of scoring political points. Regardless of where you stand politically, that's a leadership style I think more people are looking for.
Agreed. For me that distinction is what draws me to Jake.
One more point... Given the deterioration and underperformance of our local economy, jobs, housing and public safety over the last decade, I am not interested in maintaining the status quo. Further, I don't like that the County Commission has only three seats and Ozias and French are very aligned. I don't think the County Commissioners truly represent the diversity and breadth of perspectives of all residents in Clallam.
The Seegers–Watchdog interview was not accountability. It was damage control. For months, the Watchdog has been warning the community about a supposed crisis of civility and toxic online behavior. So when Jeff and his chosen candidate Jake Seegers announced a long interview to “face the rumors head on,” people reasonably expected something meaningful. Maybe even a moment of real accountability.
What we got instead was a carefully staged performance. It looked like transparency on the surface, but everything about it was controlled from the inside. The entire event took place within Jake’s own media bubble, run by the same person who operates his campaign’s public messaging. Jeff may have “stepped down” as campaign manager on paper, but he is still the treasurer, the interviewer, the publisher, and the voice of the campaign. In practice, nothing changed. The venue, the framing, the questions, and the distribution were all controlled by the same person who has spent the last year promoting Jake’s candidacy.
The moderator, Will, made the nature of the event clear before the first question. He announced that he was "not impartial by any means," that he was a "Jake supporter," and that he "pretty much take[s] him at his word at this point." That is not the opening statement of a neutral interviewer. It is the opening statement of a friend helping another friend manage a public relations problem. Once that was said out loud, the entire premise of the interview implodes. There was no confrontation, no challenge, no scrutiny. Just two supporters sitting in a living room, producing a synchronized narrative designed to try and make criticism disappear.
The pretense around anonymity was adorable. Jeff has spent months attacking anonymous critics, calling them toxic and cowardly. But when Jake was asked about the thousands of campaign dollars paid to an unlisted entity called Project Tandem, suddenly anonymity became respectable. Jake explained that the vendor was a personal friend who preferred not to be publicly associated with the campaign, (a self own all by itself really), and that he agreed to let the friend operate under a business name that doesn’t appear anywhere in state records. So apparently when citizens use pseudonyms to ask questions about a candidate, it is a crisis of civic integrity. But when a campaign vendor hides behind an unregistered business name to avoid public scrutiny, it is treated as perfectly reasonable. Transparency is demanded for critics but treated as optional for the people financially benefiting from Jake’s campaign.
The interview also leaned heavily on Jake’s “local roots” critics but the financial reality does not match the branding. Jake presents himself as a regular Port Angeles renter who understands the struggles of everyday residents. In practice, his financial infrastructure is built out of state. The family foundation he uses to build local political capital is based in Texas. His private land investments are held through a Colorado LLC. He owns commercial and vacation rental properties outside Washington. And his petition to reopen Olympic Hot Springs Road would directly increase the value of his private holdings along that corridor. When asked about this conflict, he tried to frame the potential windfall as a personal inconvenience, saying he actually liked the privacy of having the road closed. It takes a remarkable amount of political nerve to argue that a federal infrastructure project that boosts the value of your private real estate is actually a “net detractor” because you might lose some solitude at your vacation property. Renting by choice while owning multiple out of state assets is not the same as being a struggling local renter. It is branding, not biography.
The Watchdog’s obsession with civility also evaporates whenever Jake’s own behavior is under the microscope. The Shotgun Sermon is a perfect example. Jake walked across a church stage delivering a militant message, then later dismissed the entire thing as an artistic metaphor. He even claimed he had to ask his wife what Christian nationalism was. It is difficult to reconcile that claim with the imagery he chose. You do not ‘accidentally’ detail and perform the exact definition of an ideology you claim not to understand.
Side note. The most revealing moment of all this campaign season did not come from this interview. It came from a previous Watchdog article where Jake described a moment involving his young daughter and a discarded container of used needles. Any normal parent’s instinct would be immediate panic. You pull the child away, check for injury, and eliminate the hazard. But Jake described doing something very different. He told his daughter to freeze, stepped back, framed the shot, and took a dramatic photo. Not to document a safety issue, but to create political content for the Watchdog’s ongoing narrative about harm reduction nonprofits. A potential medical emergency became a campaign asset. That was not parental instinct. It was content creation. And it fits perfectly with the broader pattern. Public safety is not treated as a policy priority. It is treated as a branding opportunity.
The contradictions continue with Jake’s repeated claim that he avoids social media and prefers face to face interactions. Yet he writes weekly political columns, produces campaign videos, engages in Reddit damage control, stages photo ops, and uses social media to amplify fear based narratives. He does not avoid social media. He avoids accountability on social media.
And this is where the manufactured nature of the entire campaign becomes impossible to ignore. Jake himself published the blueprint for these tactics in a Watchdog column titled “Fool me once, fool me again.” In that piece, he accused local officials of manipulating voters through loss aversion, extreme anchoring, selective framing, and manufactured panic. The Watchdog uses those exact tactics every week. Overdoses. Ballot printing machines. “Drug addicts voting.” Activists “infiltrating” institutions. Anonymous mobs destroying the county. Jake’s Shotgun Sermon. All are the extreme anchor. His calm, friendly interview was the engineered relief. He warned voters about manipulation, then used the same techniques he described. He even ended his column with a Mark Twain quote about how easy it is to fool people. He seems to have taken that quote to heart.
And this brings us back to the real issue. Everything Jake said in that interview carries the same weight as a campaign ad, because the entire event was produced by his campaign treasurer, moderated by a declared supporter, published on what is essentially his own media outlet, and framed by his own editorial team. Until Jake is willing to answer questions in a venue he does NOT control, with a neutral moderator, unscripted questions, and genuine public participation, none of this qualifies as accountability. It is damage control masquerading as transparency. And the community deserves better than political theater.
Ultimately, the question for readers is how believable these explanations really are, especially when they come from someone who has already laid out his own philosophy of moral campaigning in the Shotgun Sermon, has made a series of seriously questionable judgment calls along the way, and once published a detailed blueprint explaining exactly how to shape an audience’s emotions to get the outcome you want. And as Mark Twain warned in the very quote Jake chose to end that article with, there will always be people who refuse to accept that they’ve been fooled.
MEANWHILE..In the hall of Outrage and Oppression League..Wendy ,Marvin and Underdog..