At a Port Angeles City Council meeting, a supporter of Commissioner Mike French was allowed to spend his full three minutes off-agenda attacking Jake Seegers and warning of “hate squads.” Deputy Mayor Navarra Carr—French’s campaign manager—ran the meeting and did not interrupt. The episode reveals deeper ties between Carr and French, years of progressive activism, and a pattern that raises serious questions about process, priorities, and whose interests are being served.
The Comment That Should Have Been Stopped
At the July 21 regular Port Angeles City Council meeting, the first public commenter was resident Jon Redmond who spent three minutes discussing the “optics of homelessness.” He argued that the county sheriff is pushing homeless individuals into the cities and that Port Angeles is receiving the lion’s share.
Then he turned to politics. Redmond warned that “hate squads” exist—most of whom, he claimed, report directly to Jake Seegers—and that they are “very, very ready to take your jobs based on the optics.” He added that “4PA is happy to share the optics.”
The first public comment period is reserved for items on the agenda. Homelessness, unsanctioned camping, and Jake Seegers were not on the agenda. Under normal practice, such a comment is interrupted and the speaker is directed to the final comment period. Councilmember Mark Hodgson is known for strictly enforcing rules and routinely calling points of order. Yet neither Hodgson nor any other councilmember intervened. Redmond used his full time.
Redmond has emerged as one of Commissioner Mike French’s most vocal supporters in French’s bid for a second term. Deputy Mayor Navarra Carr was running the meeting in Mayor Kate Dexter’s absence. Carr is also Mike French’s campaign manager.
Carr’s Path to Power
Navarra Carr moved to the Olympic Peninsula from California.
She first ran for Port Angeles City Council in 2019 and won by just three votes.
Her professional background is rooted in the NGO sector, including organizations that rely heavily on public and county funding—North Olympic Land Trust, Jefferson Land Trust, and Habitat for Humanity.
She campaigned on safe communities, affordable housing, climate resiliency, economic development, and addressing the opioid crisis. Four years later she sought a second term, highlighting her role as secretary of the North Olympic Development Council (NODC), an unelected nonprofit led by Commissioner Mark Ozias that shapes much of the county’s comprehensive planning.
The NODC website carries a land acknowledgment stating that residents live and work on the “appropriated homeland and territory” of multiple tribes.
Carr also chaired the Clallam County Board of Health—a seat later filled by Mike French—and served on the county’s Homelessness Task Force. During her Board of Health tenure she supported a resolution praising Dr. Allison Berry for leadership against COVID-19 and fighting “medical misinformation.”
She won reelection in 2023 by nearly 800 votes.
Her second campaign raised more than $8,000. Top donors included the Jamestown Corporation and a union (each giving the maximum $1,200).
The third-largest contribution was $1,000 from Commissioner Mike French.
Carr now works as a public defender in Jefferson County.
Her résumé includes AmeriCorps service, nonprofit finance and administration roles focused on housing and homelessness, and internships with the Attorney General’s Office, public defenders, tribal legal offices, and workers’ rights clinics.
She has leaned heavily on identity in her political branding—repeatedly noting that she is the first openly LGBTQ person elected to the Port Angeles City Council and the only current member who rents rather than owns a home.
Progressive groups such the Lesbian Political Action Commitee (LPAC) have endorsed her on those grounds.
This isn’t about qualifications — it’s pure identity politics.
Carr has also publicly stated that most residents of Clallam County are guests on ancestral land, regardless of property ownership. That framing aligns with the NODC land acknowledgment on which she has served as secretary.
Shared History on the Pool Board and Beyond
Carr and French’s relationship runs deeper than campaign contributions. Both served on the William Shore Memorial Pool District board when the State Auditor’s Office released a November 2025 fraud report.
Auditors found that the Executive Director had personally benefited from more than $40,000 in public funds through unsupported self-insurance payments, a $14,338 tax refund belonging to the district, and personal credit-card charges. The district lacked basic internal controls, and the case was referred to prosecutors.
Those failures occurred under the board on which French and Carr served. Public funds—tax dollars—were misused because they had failed to install basic safeguards.
During the same period the county’s harm-reduction health center launched a shower-voucher program that continues to allow active drug users to shower at the pool alongside children and families.
Pushing Radical Planning Changes
In late 2025 Carr, alongside outgoing Councilmember Lindsey Schromen-Wawrin, was a driving force behind attempting to insert Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) language and a shift from “no net loss” to “net ecological gain” into Port Angeles’ 20-year Comprehensive Plan. FPIC is a United Nations doctrine designed for major extractive projects in developing countries. It requires tribal consent—not mere consultation—before projects proceed, imposes no deadlines, demands documentation in the tribe’s language, and effectively creates a veto power.
No other city in Washington has adopted it for local zoning, housing, utilities, or permitting. Applying it to a municipal comprehensive plan would have been unprecedented and could have delayed or blocked routine development.
Carr’s progressive activism extends further.
She was featured in a People’s World article (a publication historically affiliated with the Communist Party USA) about efforts to stop clear-cut logging in the Elwha River watershed.
Through lawsuits and protests, activists like the Legacy Forest Defense Coalition have postponed enough timber sales that Clallam County anticipates a substantial shortfall in timber revenue. Those delays affect the county budget that Commissioner French oversees and the Shore Pool budget on whose board Carr once sat.
Carr is part of an activist network that includes friendship with Tim Wheeler, one of Clallam County’s most prominent communists.
In a Clallam Democrats Rising interview she described her parents as community organizers, cited Rules for Radicals as an influence, and spoke of learning to fight for Democratic values through protests and organizing.
Campaign Managers and Double Standards
Much has been made of Jake Seegers’ campaign. Until recently I served as his campaign manager. A formal complaint to the State’s Public Disclosure Commission demands a $30,000 fine, alleging it was improper for me to operate Clallam County Watchdog while managing the campaign.
I resigned that role; Jake’s campaign has retained counsel. Critics have used my involvement as a reason to oppose Seegers.
I have never been paid by Jake Seegers or his campaign, and I never will be.
My work is voluntary and rooted in my support of Jake’s policies.
Contrast that with Mike French’s 2022 campaign: of more than $14,000 raised, the single largest expenditure was $3,000 to Navarra Carr for “Management and consulting services.”
There is nothing wrong with elected officials endorsing candidates. There is a meaningful difference between an endorsement and a sitting city councilmember actively functioning as campaign manager or operative for another race. Residents expect their elected officials to represent the whole community, not to use the apparatus of city government—including the chair’s control of meetings—to advance a preferred candidate.
Carr allowed a clear rules violation that turned a Port Angeles City Council meeting into a platform for attacking French’s opponent. At the same time she has pushed United Nations doctrine into local planning and publicly described most county residents as guests on ancestral land.
The Choice Before Voters
Does Mike French support Navarra Carr’s more radical positions? He donated $1,000 to her last campaign. The record of shared service, mutual support, and aligned priorities suggests the answer is yes.
If voters want Port Angeles-style progressive policies—drug paraphernalia littering parks, the occupation of public spaces by unsanctioned encampments, open-air drug use, identity-driven governance, and the export of those approaches county-wide—then Mike French is the candidate who carries that agenda.
Transparency, consistent application of rules, and accountability still matter. On July 21 those principles were set aside and local governance took a back seat to candidate bashing.
Residents should take note.
