Transportation priorities
A look at which projects the government prioritizes, ignores, and hands off
Commissioner Mark Ozias champions tax reform to fix another county’s road, while 3 Crabs faces another setback. Uncertainty swirls over a U.S. 101 roundabout now led by a sovereign nation that regularly thwarts public engagement. As Ozias looks outward for solutions, many wonder when Clallam County’s own roads will get the same attention.
Clallam County Commissioner Mark Ozias recently launched a monthly column in the Sequim Gazette. His first piece focused on the washout of Upper Hoh Road — a county road located in neighboring Jefferson County — and the implications the closure has for tourism in Clallam County’s West End communities.
Ozias pointed to declining gas tax revenues and the 1% cap on property tax increases as key reasons why funding repairs is challenging. He noted that these limitations are prompting counties, including Clallam, to consider long-term solutions such as a pay-per-mile tax and possibly tripling the allowable increase in local property taxes.
Ozias is currently working with a special interest group in Olympia to replace the gas tax with a pay-per-mile system and to triple the limit counties can raise property taxes.
"This story highlights several fundamental requirements for good governance and problem solving,” Ozias wrote. “Strong individual communication and ongoing relationship between governments, the importance of experienced professional staff, the need for persistence and creative thinking and the key element of broad community involvement.”
A fine list of values — but ones the commissioner has openly ignored at home.
When Clallam County was nearing completion of the long-stalled Towne Road project, Ozias rejected the advice of experienced professional staff like the County Engineer, Habitat Biologist, Community Development Director, the Sheriff, two fire chiefs, the Community Emergency Response Team (CERT), the State’s Tsunami Program Manager, the Department of Ecology, the Army Corps of Engineers, and the project’s own consultant. Instead, he deferred to the Trails Advisory Committee — a volunteer group — which pushed for converting the roadbed into a trail.
Ozias declared in the article, “Roads are both a primary reason for existence and an ongoing challenge for counties.”
3 Crabs residents get shrugged off
In 2023, the Clallam County Board of Commissioners voted to halt the final phase of the Towne Road project. At the time, grant funding was in place to support completion. However, by stopping the project and funneling those funds to the Jamestown Tribe, the County effectively defunded Towne Road. As a result, Clallam County taxpayers had to absorb an unnecessary $1.4 million cost to finish the work later. Now, the county is broke.
For years, residents in the 3 Crabs area have raised concerns about worsening seasonal flooding after a creek restoration project removed a dike and realigned the road. Residents say that the concerns brought to Commissioner Ozias were either dismissed or overlooked. With the County now facing budget constraints, the only path forward for 3 Crabs is to seek federal or state grants for flood mitigation.
So, who’s responsible?
Not Ozias, who spent years focusing on pet projects and neglecting residents who invested tens of thousands to repair flood damage. Not the Board of Commissioners, who made the Towne Road decision that cost the County $1.4 million. Not even the State of Washington, which lets tribal gas stations keep 75% of collected gas taxes, thereby reducing available funding for public transportation infrastructure.
Instead, Ozias has directed the blame toward a distant target: Washington, D.C.
In an email sent to residents earlier this month, Commissioner Ozias wrote:
Well, I don’t have great news. We just learned the day before yesterday that the Trump Administration has dissolved FEMA’s BRIC (Building Resilient Infrastructure) program. The application will stay in the system and we plan to apply for a different grant, likely HMGP (Hazard Mitigation Grant Program.) We originally applied for the BRIC grant in lieu of the HMGP grant because our Hazard Mitigation Plan hasn’t been approved yet. Once that’s approved, in June we’re expecting, it will open up other grant opportunities.
This was just one of several FEMA programs that have gone away in the blink of an eye. I will keep you posted as we are able to apply for a Hazard Mitigation grant.
At the state level, counties have been lobbying hard to encourage the Legislature to create a first-ever funding source for local roads like this and it appears that we will be successful in at least establishing a pilot program this Legislative session. When a local access road program exists, it will provide a state-level alternative to the federal funding we’ve been necessarily focused on to-date.
For now, 3 Crabs residents are likely facing several more winters of seasonal flooding.
Taking the “US” out of US Highway 101
If roads are, as Ozias says, a primary reason for existence, none is more critical than US Highway 101 — the Olympic Peninsula’s primary route to the outside world.
So, when the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe appeared to be quietly reviving plans for a roundabout at US 101 and Sophus Road in the name of climate resiliency, Clallam County residents had questions. CC Watchdog reached out to Steve Roark, WSDOT’s Region Administrator, for details.
Roark replied:
"The Jamestown S’klallam Tribe is the lead agency for the proposed roundabout at Sophus Road and US 101. The WSDOT is not currently working on anything related to the project, so I would recommend reaching out to the tribe to determine if they are reinitiating the project. Wendy Clark-Getzin is the tribe’s Transportation Program Manager.
In other words: the state transportation department doesn’t know what’s happening with a redesign of a U.S. highway. A sovereign tribe has taken the lead, and there’s no transparency or public oversight.
Watchdog then contacted the Tribe’s Transportation Program Manager, Wendy Clark-Getzin, with three simple questions:
Is the Tribe reinitiating the roundabout project?
Are engineering plans available to the public?
Will any private property be taken for the design?
That was in early February — no response was ever received.
The double standard
Our government:
Halted a project, left a road incomplete for two years, and ignored expert staff.
Ignored concerns from flooded residents while secretly planning to install taxpayer-funded electric automatic gates for the exclusive use of one family.
Has handed over leadership of a U.S. highway project to a sovereign nation.
Lobbied to repair roads in another county.
And now, we’re being told the fix is to raise property taxes and charge by the mile for driving — all while Clallam’s most vulnerable infrastructure continues to deteriorate.
If this is what “good governance” looks like, maybe it’s time to revisit the definition.
Abandoned trailer update
A month and a half after it first appeared—and just one day after The Unwelcome Guest was published—the abandoned trailer vanished from in front of the Sequim Prairie Grange. CC Watchdog doesn't know where it went or how it was moved, but Grange members are thrilled that their first post-remodel event took place without the parking lot eyesore.
It is way past time to recall Ozias. This guy is a straight crook.
According to Jefferson CO public works, the problem with the hoh road repair is the loss of institutional knowledge and environmental regulators.. Guess which ones are the professionals?
Roads into the ONP like Deer Park and the Hoh have had federal support to maintain them for the benefit of ONP and counties. While deer park was closed as usual this winter, plows continued to run all the way to the closed gate, but the Hoh, typically open year round, was delayed funds, causing further damage. That decision was also made before Trump took office. Ozias and other Dems insist the tribes are the best stewards of the land and water because they were here first, but the pioneers and laborers who built and build the trails, roads and more are dismissed and shunned. Bring back the common sense of the people and by the people.