The Stories Local News Won’t Tell
A weekly look at what legacy media covers, ignores, and how it frames the news
A downtown Sequim commercial property sold for nearly three times its assessed value to a tribal corporation and sits shuttered—yet no one reported it. Meanwhile, sales-tax negotiations, race-based phone discounts, and selective storytelling continue under the radar. Here’s what the local papers left on the cutting-room floor this week.
Downtown Sequim Property Sold for Nearly 3× Assessed Value—Silence Follows
What if a prominent commercial property in a downtown business district sold for more than twice its assessed value a year and a half ago and then remained shuttered? Would that make the local news? What if the buyer was a sovereign nation operating through a tax-advantaged corporation? Wouldn’t that warrant coverage?
That exact scenario played out at 120 West Bell Street in Sequim—one block south of Washington Street and steps from Sequim Avenue, once home to the popular Riverhouse Bakery and Bistro.
Despite a county assessed value of just $363,203, records show the property sold in January of last year for $1,041,000 to the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe.
This is another key parcel in Sequim’s downtown core acquired by the Jamestown Corporation, which already owns the entire block that includes Hurricane Coffee on the northwest corner of the main intersection.
According to the Tribe’s own newsletter, Jamestown is “in the negotiation process on a compact to allow Tribes to collect the sales tax collected by non-Tribal businesses on Tribal lands. This would mean additional revenue for Jamestown.”
That could mean sales tax collected at places like Hurricane Coffee and other businesses in the Sequim Trading Plaza would flow to the Tribe rather than to the city, county, and essential public services—even though the businesses themselves are not tribal. And if the property is put in tribal trust status, the property tax obligations will be shifted onto other taxpayers.
It is not hard to picture a downtown Sequim where people spend money, yet the taxes collected benefit a sovereign nation instead of the surrounding community. This pattern could expand. So far, no one else is reporting on it.
AT&T Ad Highlights a Separate Tax Reality
Readers of the Sequim Gazette may have noticed an AT&T advertisement promoting discounted service under the Lifeline Program. Service is available for $19.74 a month for those who qualify.
In the fine print, the ad says: “If you live on Tribal lands and qualify, you could get Enhanced Lifeline support… for as little as $1 a month.”
Documentation required for enrollment includes the prior year’s state, federal, or Tribal tax return.
Do tribal members file tax returns that differ from those filed by other U.S. citizens?
Brazilian Dance Night Delivers More Than Music
Tonight, Civic Field in Port Angeles hosts a Brazilian song-and-dance performance presented by the North Olympic Healthcare Network and Kitsap Bank. Proceeds benefit the Olympic Medical Center Children’s Clinic and the OMC Foundation scholarship fund.
The event also carries an explicit social-justice message, according to lead dancer Deise Costa. From the coverage:
Even a children’s clinic fundraiser, it seems, must come with a history lesson on resistance and systemic struggle.
Strong Letters on Budget and Public Safety—Keep Them Coming
Last week’s Peninsula Daily News featured excellent letters to the editor on budget priorities and public safety.
If you have an issue or candidate you care about, write a letter to the editor. Submit to the Peninsula Daily News here, the Sequim Gazette here, or the Forks Forum here.
If your letter gets rejected, send it to Clallamity Jen at clallamityjen@gmail.com and have it published in Clallam County Letters.
King County Passes Ethics Reforms—A Model for Clallam?
KOMO News reports that King County Council members unanimously approved a sweeping set of ethics reforms aimed at preventing county employees from using their positions to benefit relatives or people with whom they have personal relationships.
The legislation followed an investigation that found a county program manager had overseen roughly $813,000 in grant payments to businesses connected to five of her relatives. This fall, Clallam County voters will decide on a charter amendment that would create an enforceable ethics code for elected officials. If King County can do it, so can we.
Buyer Beware: Free Dinner and Big Promises
A reader contacted CC Watchdog this week after receiving a glossy mailer for a complimentary dinner and 90-minute presentation on “Regenerative Therapy” at Seven Cedars on Monday, August 17 (3:30 or 6:30 p.m.).
“It’s the same fraud scam under a new name that they tried to get my wife and I for 2½ years ago,” the reader wrote.
“They promised to ‘cure us’ for tens of thousands of dollars for special stem cell therapy treatments. They use the same Time Share – Snake Oil Therapy tactics to ‘Sign a Contract for Treatments,’ make you pay a healthy amount up front (which by the way is illegal to charge up front before medical treatments are rendered) and then threaten with half of the contract amount if you don’t pay.”
The reader continued: “Because they are so ‘slick,’ they rely on even if just a few seniors who are attending to not have the knowledge and/or ability to know how to figure it out that it’s all fraudulent… Even if they get just a couple victims it more than pays for their effort. We are only trying to help our most vulnerable… from becoming the next gravy train victim ‘Before it Happens’!”
The reader filed a report with the Sheriff’s Office, which was sympathetic but noted the limited options without a current victim.
These free-dinner seminars follow a well-documented national pattern. Operators invite older adults to a meal and “educational” presentation promising dramatic relief from joint pain, arthritis, or other chronic conditions through regenerative or stem-cell treatments. High-pressure sales tactics often follow—sometimes at the event, sometimes in follow-up home visits—pushing contracts for treatments that can cost thousands to tens of thousands of dollars, frequently with large upfront payments.
The FDA and FTC have repeatedly warned that many such offerings are unproven, unapproved, and illegally marketed. Documented harms have included infections, vision loss, and other serious complications. Regulators have banned companies, ordered multimillion-dollar refunds, and highlighted that legitimate regenerative therapies remain limited and tightly regulated. Free dinners, miracle claims, pressure to sign on the spot, and demands for large prepayments are classic red flags.
If you or a loved one receives one of these invitations, pause. Ask hard questions, consult your own physician, and remember that if a treatment sounds too good to be true—and requires thousands of dollars before any care is delivered—it usually is.
The Tribe should not be able to charge and keep sales tax on retail sales if it doesn’t go to the city. A sales tax is meant for financing schools,infrastructure, roads, and many other amenities the Tribe is privy to use. That said why should they reap the benefits and circumvent the retail tax burden. I see on the whole picture that we have paid the price already for their losses many centuries ago. When doesn’t the cash cow stop giving? Enough has been paid back. I think that they should nave to pay God back because he made the Earth they did not invent fish or water or land. Who says they got screwed out of the property they call sovereign? This all smells fishy to me. Jeff you have exposed more corruption again. Why would someone pay 3x the value. Did somebody own the property getting a favor or a windfall? What I am saying is they should not be able to keep the shapes tax they get it should go to the city of Sequim.
Yawn.....