Allison Berry wants deputies to referee her critics. Board of Health Chair Mike French sits beside her and laughs through the same public comments. The people who pay both of them get the smirk—and a police report.
Clallam County Health Officer Allison Berry called the Sheriff’s Office because she did not like a Facebook post.
That is not a paraphrase. That is Case 2026-00013825.
On August 4, 2026, Berry contacted the Sheriff’s Office about “potential threats” from Jesse Farmer. A friend had sent her a screenshot. The meme had two panels. The top showed Berry smiling in a group during the COVID years—no masks, no distancing—while her office was still pressuring businesses over vaccine passports, distancing, and masking. The bottom showed a child and a dog with their heads in a homemade breathing box labeled “YOUR CHILD.” The caption: “These people are still in your community. It’s time to get rid of them.”
Berry wanted to know if the meme “crossed the line”—meaning, was it a crime.
What the sheriff found
Sergeant Steffen Estep called Farmer. Farmer said he has been clear: he wants Berry out of the health-officer job. Elect people who will fire her. He said he has a right to oppose a public official. Estep agreed. Farmer said he has never made a physical threat and would not. He told the sergeant to pass along a message: the Sheriff’s Office is “not her political Gestapo.” Estep told him the office was not trying to silence political speech.
Then Estep called Berry. The CAD log is blunt:“I ADVISED ALLISON OF MY CONVERSATION WITH JESSE AND THAT HE WAS PRACTICING HIS RIGHT TO FREE SPEECH… SHE WILL CONTINUE TO UPDATE THE SO ON ANY THREATS SHE MAY RECIEVE… I SPOKE WO HER ABOUT COURT ORDERS AS WELL.”
And: “JESSE IS PRACTICING HIS 1ST AMENDMENT RIGHTS. THERE IS NO CRIME.”
That is the whole law-enforcement product of Berry’s complaint. A sergeant spent a workday on the phone and typing up reports so a county official could test whether a political cartoon was arrestable.
Berry’s answer: blame the critic
Farmer later wrote Sheriff Brian King after watching the body-cam conversations. He asked the obvious question: if the officer said the post was too vague to be actionable, why was there an investigation at all? He said Berry “knows exactly what the meme means,” then “giggles along and pretends it is just some random personal attack.” He asked at what point her complaint becomes a false complaint.
In the podcast: Hear the phone calls between the Deputy and Farmer and Berry.
Berry’s answer to Farmer was not an apology for using deputies as a speech referee. It was a lecture:
“I have not spoken publicly about this recent incident. The only reason so many people are aware of your conduct is because you yourself regularly post about it on your platforms. If there has been any damage to your reputation from this incident, it has been by your own doing.”
She called the sheriff. He documented it. Then she blamed Jesse Farmer for the public knowing about it.
On September 2, 2026, CC Watchdog emailed Berry at her county address seeking comment on the harassment complaint, including any threats she reported perceiving and any context she believed relevant. The note gave her a Sunday-noon deadline and said that if she did not respond, the article would state she was contacted and did not provide comment. She did not respond.
A county habit, not a one-off
That is the pattern. Officials in this county treat criticism as a safety emergency and their own conduct as none of the public’s business.
It happened on Towne Road. When landowners who wanted a public road turned into something closer to a private driveway emailed Commissioner Mark Ozias that they “need help” with a critic of Towne Road, Ozias did not tell them to file a routine report and wait in line. He pulled in the Sheriff’s Office and the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office. The investigation of Towne Road supporters ran nearly a month on allegations of harassment, intimidation, bullying, and stalking that never produced the case the landowners wanted. The critic was Jeff Tozzer and Clallam County Watchdog. The story is still up: “We need help,” family begs county.
It happened with Charter Review Commissioner Jim Stoffer. A resident called him a name during public comment. Stoffer wanted armed security. His friend, Commissioner Ozias, arranged an armed guard for Stoffer. Taxpayers paid Security Services NW $57.50 an hour to protect Stoffer while the county talked about layoffs and deficits.
It happened in the courthouse hallway. After resident John Worthington used public comment to challenge Commissioner Mark Ozias, Ozias’s wife, Lisa Boulware, followed him out of the meeting and confronted him. Worthington described it as an “attack from behind.” An eyewitness said she was the aggressor. County leadership did not treat that as harassment, even though it was caught on camera.
That was not her first turn at the microphone. On January 30, 2024, Boulware used public-comment time to address the audience instead of the Board, identified herself as Ozias’s wife, and tore into residents for their “perceived grievances.” She cursed. Commissioner Mike French thanked her. He did not stop her, did not remind her of the three-minute rule applied to critics, and did not send a sergeant to ask if her words “crossed the line.”
The rule in county government is simple. If you are aligned with power, you may scold the public in the chamber or in the hall. If you criticize power, you may get a case number.
Being insulted at a public meeting was enough to put a guard in the room. Wanting a public road left public was enough to loop in the prosecutor’s office. Following a commenter into the hallway was not enough to draw a warning. Seeing a meme was enough to generate a case number for Allison Berry.
When county officials want protection, law enforcement is on speed dial. When residents want officials to listen, they get the smirk.
The smirk is the policy
Watch a Board of Health meeting. Berry giggles through testimony about overdoses, needles, and kids in parks. She rolls her eyes. She talks past people who live with the mess her programs leave on the ground. Chair Mike French does the same: dismiss, cut off, lecture about “respect,” then shut down the follow-up. French once posted that it was “incredible” the public “really think their nonsense should be convincing”—as if a hearing would have changed the Board’s mind.
That is the man who chairs the body that is supposed to supervise the health officer.
Residents pay these salaries. Public records showed Clallam paying Berry $137,007 in 2020 (under her prior name, Unthank) and $161,735 in 2021. Jefferson County separately contracted her in 2021 at $63,291 a year. She still works part time at Jamestown’s clinics. None of that buys the public the right to be treated like a nuisance when they object to policy. It also does not buy Berry a personal deputy.
The double standard is the point. Berry can be openly contemptuous of the people in the room. French can model that contempt from the chair and call it leadership. A resident posts a harsh political collage, and suddenly there is a deputy, a body-worn camera recording, a case number, and a conversation about court orders.
When asked for comment on the record, Berry had nothing to say.
The statute Berry did not use on herself
Resident Vanessa Baker has now put the professional question on paper. She filed a request for notice and hearing under RCW 70.05.050 and 70.05.060 seeking for-cause removal proceedings against Berry and HHS Director Kevin LoPiccolo. Her complaint is not about a meme. It is about discarded sharps in parks and trails, exposure risk to children and workers, reported Hepatitis C concerns, and a claimed failure to abate known hazards tied to the Harm Reduction Health Center and syringe program.
She alleges failure to perform statutory duties, failure to control infectious disease, gross negligence, malfeasance, and incompetence. She also flags Berry’s “diversionary tactics” toward people giving testimony.
That filing does what Berry’s police call did not: it uses the statute written for this office. RCW 70.05.050 lets the Board remove a health officer for cause after notice and hearing. RCW 70.05.060 says the Board has to enforce public health laws and act on conditions that require intervention. RCW 70.05.070 says the health officer must control infectious disease, keep sanitary conditions, and abate nuisances.
A Facebook caption is not a nuisance. Needles in a playground are.
Human Resources and the Board of Health should treat Baker’s request as what it is: a demand that the county apply the same seriousness to Berry’s fitness that Berry tried to apply to Farmer’s speech. If smirking through bereaved families, reframing accountability as a wish that people “get AIDS and die,” suggesting that organizations cleaning up our public spaces are committing theft, calling deputies over protected political speech, and declining to answer for it is compatible with the job, the Board should say so on the record after a hearing. If it is not, the statute already tells them what to do.
Who used what
French’s dismissiveness and ridicule of the public set the tone for the Board of Health. Berry built on it and used county resources to target a critic. Farmer used the First Amendment. The Sheriff’s Office correctly found no crime. Asked to explain herself, the health officer went silent.
The habit remains: officials who cannot stand being mocked still expect the public to sit still while they mock the public.
What you can do
All three county commissioners—Mark Ozias, Randy Johnson, and Mike French—sit on the Board of Health that oversees Allison Berry. French chairs it.
Ask them to put Vanessa Baker’s request for notice and hearing on the agenda, and to explain why a political meme became a sheriff’s case while discarded needles and open contempt for the public have not.
Email the Clerk of the Board: loni.gores@clallamcountywa.gov. A few lines is enough. Name the case (2026-00013825), name the statute (RCW 70.05.050), and ask for a public hearing.
Stay Engaged This Week
The courthouse is closed today for Labor Day. The weekly work session is tomorrow at 9 a.m. followed by the regular meeting at 10 a.m.
PABA to host State Rep candidates
Tomorrow, September 8, 7:30–8:30 a.m.
Jazzy Joshua’s Restaurant, 113 Del Guzzi Drive, East Port Angeles
Also livestreamed on PABA’s Facebook page
The Port Angeles Business Association is hosting Eric W. Pratt and Adam Bernbaum, candidates for State Representative, Position 1, 24th Legislative District.
Eric Pratt will attend virtually. This is PABA’s first virtual debate, so expect some technical bumps.
In-person seating is at Joshua’s. There is a $5 charge if you do not order breakfast—so order something tasty. PABA members get the first chance to ask questions.
Commissioners’ Work Session
The commissioners will take up a draft letter to Sen. Patty Murray asking Congress to keep SAVE America Act provisions out of the NDAA and any reconciliation package. The same morning, they are expected to approve it.
The letter says Clallam already has 59,693 voters in the pipeline, ballots go to print September 11, and the bill would take effect immediately with no funding and new criminal exposure for election workers.
That’s a fair operational point. But the urgency is a giveaway.
For more than a decade, the Bureau of Indian Affairs has asked these same commissioners to comment when parcels go into tribal trust and off the tax roll. They did not answer until very recently, and only after public mounting pressure.
A tax-base letter sat for ten years. This one is on a same-day track. Ask why. All three commissioners can be reached by emailing the Clerk of the Board: loni.gores@clallamcountywa.gov
Weekly Commissioner Meeting Tomorrow
At 10:00 a.m., the Board will read a proclamation. Not for the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks. For “Diaper Need Awareness Week.”
America swore it would never forget. The commissioners apparently did.
