This morning the commissioners will read an Indigenous Peoples’ Day proclamation that no one requested, and that last year no one showed up to receive. A counter-proclamation sent September 9 is still unanswered. The reading shames the taxpayers who fund it, then clears the ground for the grants and land deals that follow.
Nobody asked
County Administrator Todd Mielke explained the rule a month ago. Proclamations get on the agenda because somebody asks. A club. A nonprofit. County employees who want a diaper drive. Staff writes it up and puts it on the calendar.
Asked at a commissioners’ forum where this one came from, Mark Ozias said he did not know if anyone requested it, and he did not recall how it began. He has been on the board eleven years. What he did recall is why he supports it. He “personally believes” the public needs a lesson in systemic discrimination, and that residents who say they had nothing to do with colonization hundreds of years ago have missed the point.
That is the origin story. Not a request. A commissioner using county letterhead for his own theory of inherited guilt. He said it is not a performance. A proclamation nobody requested, delivered to a room that nobody showed up to receive last year, is indeed a performance.
Commissioner Mike French agreed and said Ozias had explained it very well. He added a headcount: four federally recognized tribes have territory here. He also did not know how the proclamation got started.
Randy Johnson’s name is on the signature block with theirs. Three commissioners. None of them are tribal members. Salaries on the order of $118,000, paid for by taxpayers. Don’t forget, the second installment of your property taxes is due at the end of this month regardless of your ancestry, unless the land is held in exempt tribal status.
What they will not say
The proclamation does not say tribal people once lived here. It says the borders “encompass Tribal ancestral land” and that they have lived here “since time immemorial.” That is the phrase in the League of Women Voters textbooks given to third, fourth, and fifth-graders in this county.
A courtesy resolution does not rewrite a property deed. But it puts the sentence on county letterhead, so the next time a shoreline permit, a refuge handover, or Towne Road comes up, “ancestral land” is already baked into the county’s own language.
Leaving out the part that doesn’t fit
In 1847, about 150 Klallam warriors joined Suquamish fighters under Chief Seattle in an attack Suquamish oral history called a war of extermination against the Chemakum. Men were slaughtered. Women and children were taken as slaves. Klallam people then occupied that region, including today’s Port Townsend.
On May 8, 1792, Peter Puget, ashore with Vancouver’s expedition near present-day Port Townsend, found three poles topped with human skulls.
Before dawn on September 21, 1868, S’Klallam men led by Lame Jack killed seventeen Tsimshian tribal members camped on Dungeness Spit, including five women and two children. The party was resting before continuing to British Columbia. Jamestown’s own history page says captive-taking was common. Attacks, genocide, and extermination of rival tribes did a lot of damage to Indigenous peoples. The proclamation mentions none of it.
Watch the other account
Matt Walsh’s The Real History of the American Indians runs about 65 minutes, free on YouTube as What Schools Don’t Teach You About American Indians. Snow White, Cinderella, and smallpox blankets, he says, have one thing in common. They are fairy tales.
Walsh explains that raiding, scalping, and captive-taking were ordinary intertribal war practices long before Europeans arrived. The phrase "Trail of Tears" came later, after the event (many of the Indians owned black slaves who also made the journey). “Stolen land” works as a slogan, similar to the impulse behind a land acknowledgment.
Walsh’s point is simpler than the proclamation. When the United States won, it sent many of the defeated tribes to reserved land. A victorious tribe on this coast usually killed the men and took the women and children. The film is worthwhile. It is still a harder account than the “whereas” clauses in a proclamation that Mike French praises Mark Ozias for.
What the reading buys
No county money moves this morning. The vocabulary does all the work.
French chairs Recompete, the $35.6 million federal grant he is running on. One slice buys Jamestown a hydroseeder and a mini excavator so a tribal enterprise can enter a business local contractors already do. Jamestown has a budget of over $100 million, with about 213 members living in the area. The same premise of repairing historical injustices nearly led the commissioners to give Towne Road to the Jamestown corporation. The same proclamation underpins a current proposal to hand two national wildlife refuges to the Jamestown tribal government, which also runs commercial seafood harvest operations. The proclamation does not transfer the land. It tells the public the transfer would be justice.
This board let the twenty-fifth anniversary of September 11th arrive with no proclamation until the morning of. Shaming colonizers, with no one in the room, is a yearly ritual.
The one they ignored
On September 9, I emailed the commissioners and Administrator Mielke. I asked who requested this proclamation. I also asked that a second one be read beside it: residents of every background pay the taxes, no culture is innocent, and inherited guilt is not a governing program.
Under Mielke’s rule, a request plus draft language gets you on the calendar. Diaper-awareness week made it. Food waste made it. Dark skies made it. This proclamation did not. Nobody replied.
This was my proposed proclamation:
WHEREAS, the residents of Clallam County—of every background and ancestry—work, pay taxes, and sustain the government that serves them; and
WHEREAS, history shows that no culture or nation is without conflict or harm, and that the story of humanity is one of migration, struggle, and survival, not moral perfection; and
WHEREAS, people first arrived on this continent by migration thousands of years ago, long before modern borders existed, and all who live here today share the same earth and the same duty to treat one another with respect; and
WHEREAS, using history as a tool to divide present-day citizens or to assign inherited guilt risks deepening resentment rather than healing it; and
WHEREAS, working families in Clallam County already shoulder heavy burdens—rising costs, limited opportunities, and repeated calls to raise their own property taxes—while county funds often go to symbolic or politically fashionable projects instead of core needs such as infrastructure, public safety, and housing people can actually afford; and
WHEREAS, proclamations that emphasize virtue-signaling rather than measurable improvement distract from accountability and good government; and
WHEREAS, public officials are elected to represent all citizens equally, not to advance the interests of select organizations or donors; and
WHEREAS, lasting progress comes not from guilt or grievance, but from ensuring that every resident—regardless of ancestry—has the same chance to succeed through effort, education, and enterprise;
NOW, THEREFORE, we, the citizens of Clallam County, proclaim that unity, fairness, and shared responsibility are the foundation of a healthy community.
We call on our elected leaders to pursue fiscal responsibility, transparency, and equal respect for all taxpayers; to focus on opportunity rather than division; and to remember that the strength of this county lies not in rewriting the past, but in building a fair future together.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, we dedicate this day to the residents of Clallam County—those who keep its lights on, its roads repaired, and its spirit alive.
This morning
The board meets at 10 a.m. in the commissioners’ boardroom at the Clallam County Courthouse. The first public comment can address an agenda item, such as the Indigenous Peoples’ Day Proclamation. Remote comment is available via Zoom (click here for instructions). If you cannot be there, email all three commissioners at the Clerk of the Board: loni.gores@clallamcountywa.gov.
Comment as neighbors, not as categories. Everyone in that room is a Clallam County resident, and the outcomes worth arguing over are the same ones: roads, housing, public safety, and a tax bill that buys something real. Tell the commissioners the shaming is finished. Ancestry is not a debt, and genetics are not a governing program. Ask them who requested the proclamation. Then ask them to represent the county, and all the people who live in it.
Stay Engaged This Week
PABA Seegers / French forum this morning
The forum will be broadcast live on PABA’s Facebook page.
Todd Ortloff Show: Seegers / French conversation
Today – Candidate forum for Clallam County Commissioner District 3 with incumbent Mike French and challenger Jake Seegers. 1 pm on 1450AM, 101.7 (Port Angeles), 101.3 (Sequim), or listen online.
Sequim comprehenisve plan
The City of Sequim’s Planning Commission will be holding a Continued Public Hearing on the Draft 2025 Comprehensive Plan and Draft Title 18 Proposed Revisions today, Tuesday, October 6. The meeting will begin promptly at 5:30 p.m. PDT at the Sequim Civic Center (152 W Cedar St.) in the Council Chambers.
For more information, you can visit the Comprehensive Plan Page or view the meeting agenda.
Forks Seegers / French candidate forum Wednesday morning
Jake Seegers and Mike French will be in Forks on Wednesday for the Chamber of Commerce meeting for a Candidate Forum! Wednesday, October 7, Blakeslee's Bar & Grill 1222 S. Forks Ave 11:30 am - 1 pm.
Teresa Fox Town Hall Wednesday
Wednesday, October 7, 2026, 6:00 p.m., Sequim Prairie Grange at 290 Macleay Rd. She will open, then turn it over to the room. Incumbent Emily Randall is invited. Fox’s case is that Randall has been missing local forums while campaigning for candidates outside the state, and that the district deserves someone who shows up. She is running as a business professional and emergency manager, not a career politician. Details at foxforwa.com or info@foxforwa.com.
