Mike French’s camp has a talking skunk. A county-funded drop-in center has taken sides. A wildlife meeting is tonight, a Seegers rally is Saturday, and Tumwater Creek is still flushing tents, needles, and propane tanks into the harbor. This week’s potpourri is about who gets your money, who gets a pass, and who suddenly hates the idea of opening the books.
When the Skunk Becomes Official Opposition
Mike French supporters released a video urging voters to stick with the incumbent commissioner. The narrator is a skunk — the unofficial anti-Jake Seegers mascot.
They are not the only ones wearing the stripe. The Answer For Youth (TAFY), a Port Angeles NGO, has put skunk imagery on its official vehicle.
That is not a joke sticker on a private bumper. That is an organization that takes public homelessness money announcing which candidate it does not want.
TAFY is a drop-in center for homeless and at-risk people and their families. It defines “youth” as anyone under 35. It hands out food, hygiene items, clothing, tents, sleeping bags, and other survival gear — and does not hide it.
In January 2026, the Peninsula Daily News quoted executive director Susan Hillgren saying TAFY “provided 43 tents, supplied propane to 33 clients.” TAFY’s donation list asks for sleeping bags, tents, blankets, tarps, and gas/propane vouchers.
That is the record. The question is whether issuing camping gear and propane, then acting shocked when Tumwater Creek fills with abandoned bags, canisters, and fire risk, is charity — or a subsidy for the mess the rest of the county lives with.
Hillgren recently posted a Facebook photo of a skunk sticker defacing a local business, captioned “someone is spreading good thoughts!”
The sticker carried a QR code to a transcript of Jake Seegers’ 2024 church speech. So the director of a county-funded agency is amplifying vandalism aimed at a candidate who wants NGOs that take public money to show their books.
Why the heat? Because Clallam County awards public homelessness funds to TAFY. In 2025, the Homelessness Task Force recommended, and Mike French approved, awards that included $60,000 in operational funding for TAFY and $24,000 for TAFY’s STAR program — six-month housing for men coming from treatment or jail/prison. Later 2026 budget coverage listed the same two TAFY requests at the same recommended amounts.
Clallam County has become a gravy train for NGOs. Money goes out with thin metrics and thinner accountability. Seegers is running on a platform that would demand to see the books of organizations that take county funds. That threatens people who prefer the current arrangement, and an incumbent board that rubber-stamps requests and then acts surprised when another deficit year arrives.
Seegers is not running against a cartoon skunk. He is not even running against Mike French. He is running against a system that treats taxpayer money as a revolving donation plate with no receipt required.
Tonight: Dungeness and Protection Island
Wednesday, September 23, 2:45–4:00 p.m.
Cape George Clubhouse
44 Marina Drive, Cape George (Port Townsend)
6th District congressional staff will meet the public to discuss the future of Dungeness Wildlife Refuge and Protection Island National Wildlife Refuge, and plans to transfer them to the Jamestown Corporation. Show up, ask questions, and say whether these refuges should remain public wildlife land or slide into a transfer the public did not vote on.
Questions: Lorna Smith, 425-879-9708.
Saturday: Seegers Sign-Wave at River Road
Saturday, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., River Road overpass. Bring a sign. Stand for accountability and transparency. Tell the county it is not too late to demand change.
StreamFest by the Hall, Catastrophe by the Creek
Forever StreamFest drew a crowd in Port Angeles. The Peninsula Daily News ran a photo of Clallam Conservation District Supervisor WendyRae Johnson in an orca costume in front of Field Hall. The event’s mission is to connect families with groups working to preserve, protect, and restore North Olympic Peninsula resources.
The irony writes itself. Roughly a half mile away, salmon-bearing Tumwater Creek is an open-air dump: needles, human waste, tents, mylar blankets, and garbage flushing toward Port Angeles Harbor from homeless encampments. Volunteers try to keep up. County, city, and Conservation District leadership ignore it.
You can dress as an orca for a festival. The creek still has to carry what the camps leave behind.
The Pool Is Not a Harm-Reduction Annex
After a push by Commissioner Mike French and the Shore Pool board, people picking up free paraphernalia at the county’s Harm Reduction Health Center are again allowed to shower at the pool beside children and families.
Not everyone is charmed. One Yelp review described being “appalled at the fully dressed person in the hot tub picking and cleaning their feet for over a half hour.”
There are showers at sites that exist to serve unsheltered people. A public pool is a pool. If you want it to stay a family facility, say so and sign the petition.
The Health Officer Who Called the Cops on Criticism
County Health Officer Allison Berry attended the last Board of Health meeting remotely after filing a police report because she felt threatened by criticism — speech that is First Amendment protected. During the meeting, her online profile listed her pronouns as “she/they.”
Clallam and Jefferson counties should expect a health officer who can tell criticism from a crime. Instead, they have a doctor running the show who apparently cannot decide what gender she is, or how many of her there are — then calls the police when someone uses their First Amendment rights.
Aloha Smoothies Still Pays for Supporting Seegers
Aloha Smoothies and Sweets keeps getting vandalized for backing Jake Seegers. That is the political climate: support the wrong candidate, get targeted.
Reward the business instead. The weather is cooling, and the menu is still built for year-round traffic: real-fruit smoothies (dairy- and gluten-free options), milkshakes, shave ice, boba, BBQ chicken, mac salad, Spam musubi, loco moco, Umami Ramen. Taste the islands in Port Angeles. Support local.
Aloha Smoothies is at 412 S Lincoln St in Port Angeles.
Comment Section: Dale vs. the Climate Veto
CCWD’s comment threads keep doing the work elected bodies will not. Dale answered MRC Chair LaTrisha Suggs’ claim that climate change should be a deciding factor in stripping property rights and making housing even less affordable. Read the thread. The people paying for it are done being lectured by the people designing the shortage.
Shoona Riggs and the SAVE Act Two-Step
County Auditor Shoona Riggs told the Port Angeles Business Association she would follow the SAVE Act if it became law. Then, after pressure from county commissioners, she signed a letter to Sen. Patty Murray asking her to oppose it.
So the official position is: fight it in Washington, obey it if it wins, and hope nobody notices the pivot.
Timothy Weller’s Memory of a County That Built Things
Longtime local Timothy Weller took CCWD readers back to a Clallam County where small businesses were numerous, celebrated, and central to prosperity — before grants, NGOs, and special interests ate local politics. That is not nostalgia for its own sake. It is a baseline. Measure today’s “partners” against a Main Street that used to stand on customers, not contracts.
East Sequim Reality Check
If you shop the east end — QFC and the businesses around it — look at the broken-down RV surrounded by garbage and ask whether that tableau would have been tolerated four years ago.
Decline has a look. It is sitting in the parking-lot ecosystem.
Peninsula College Cuts the Useful Classes, Keeps the Political Ones
The Peninsula Daily News reported Peninsula College beginning a term already carved up by budget cuts. The college removed 44 arts and science courses: 13 in communication studies, 11 in natural sciences, eight each in humanities and social sciences, two in math, and two elective health courses.
It kept 12 Klallam and Makah language courses, then moved them off the instructional budget and onto the Peninsula College Foundation.
President Suzy Ames said the college is “committed to offering the Native American languages that are represented on the Peninsula,” and that “you can’t substitute a Makah class for an English class and offer the same education.”
Then stop pretending a foundation slush fund for language courses is a substitute for the science, math, and communications seats students actually need. If those language classes are a tribal priority, the tribes can fund them. A college in financial trouble should not gut transferable academics to protect a political exhibit.
Sabor Opened. The Dignitaries Stayed Home.
The Sequim Gazette celebrated the opening of Sabor, a new juice bar. Look at the ribbon-cutting photo. Where is the city council? The mayor? The county commissioners?
If the tribe had cut a ribbon on another expansion, they would be there. If Habitat for Humanity were soaking up more public money, they would be there. They nearly trampled each other when Peninsula Behavioral Health used $4 million in county funds to open its new luxury homeless housing complex in Port Angeles.
A small business that will actually generate taxes? Crickets. Give it time. Recompete will fund a subsidized competitor and call it economic development. Then the dignitaries will be in the photo.
Don’t Miss Seegers at Deer Park
Been to Deer Park Cinema lately? Jake Seegers has an ad running before the feature.
Awards season is coming. If they handed out Oscars for “Best Candidate to Demand the Receipts,” he’d be in the envelope.
