Clallam Concierge Service

Proof that some constituents receive preferential treatment

Feb 05, 2025

3 Crabs community treads water amid bureaucratic delays, and Towne Road isn’t done schooling us on how county government works.

Open photo — King tides, winds, a low-pressure system, and rainfall contributed to flooding on 3 Crabs Road north of Sequim in December.

Residents of flood-prone 3 Crabs Road taught Clallam County a valuable lesson this week — when locals organize, elected officials respond.

In less than two months, the county pivoted from contemplating a “relocation strategy” to consider mitigating flood waters when king tides, low-pressure systems, and heavy rainfall coincide. This new approach could allow residents to remain in their homes and forgo involuntary evictions, an idea proposed in 2021 and revisited in December.

This home was surrounded by flood water.

County Chief Engineer Joe Donisi had initially expected to be applying for a grant by now rather than still being in the pre-application phase. Two years ago, the county sought funding from the FEMA Hazard Mitigation Program but never received a response. At Monday’s commissioner work session, after continued flooding concerns from residents, officials considered re-submitting the request.

Ultimately, they concluded that a hazard mitigation grant wasn’t the right fit and opted instead for a “scoping grant.”

Commissioner Mark Ozias attempted to summarize: “My understanding is that the point of the scoping grant would be to really do the analysis to understand what is the right section of road, how high should it be raised, and would there be implications other places if the road is — you know, if the road is raised here, then what happens there? — so the scoping process would essentially fund the analysis that is necessary.”

In other words, the county wants money to study the issue.

Donisi noted that his department had little time to apply before the February 7th deadline (later extended to the 17th). A decision on the grant is expected in April. If the study proceeds without a consultant, it could take 12 months; hiring a consultant would take longer.

“It’s been a little bit hard to understand the lack of response from FEMA,” said Commissioner Ozias, who has been brushing off concerns from his constituents on 3 Crabs Road for over two years. Donisi clarified that the grant would apply strictly to the county road, not the flooding of private properties.

“Talk a little bit about why it’s so difficult to identify local funding,” prompted Commissioner Ozias. “There’s really not funding available, generally speaking, for local access roads,” he said.

Donisi explained that most county roads don’t qualify for transportation grants, and local access roads like 3 Crabs have no dedicated funding. Ozias acknowledged that this is a widespread issue among counties, with state legislators working on a permanent funding source beyond the $7–$8 million Clallam County collects in road-related property taxes.

However, one key budget decision was left unmentioned.

In June 2023, the commissioners chose to halt the Towne Road project despite it being fully designed, funded, and promised to the community. Engineer Donisi warned that stopping the project would forfeit grant funding, forcing taxpayers to cover approximately $1.4 million. The commissioners stopped the project anyway, redirecting the last of the funds to Commissioner Ozias’ top campaign donor, the Jamestown Tribe. Now, with that money gone, the county is scrambling for a way to fund a study.

Note: the $1.4 million is an estimate based on public records. Despite requests for over a year, the County Commissioners, the Director of the Department of Community Development, and the CFO have refused to provide the Towne Road budget.

The 23-minute discussion on 3 Crabs Road only happened because residents organized and “flooded” officials with emails and phone calls. At Monday’s work session, six residents sat in the front row while ten more watched online, sending a clear message: this time, they expect action.

There are still many unanswered questions. The North Olympic Salmon Coalition (a non-governmental organization) should address whether its reengineering of Meadowbrook Creek worsened flooding. Commissioner Ozias should explain why the FEMA grant application sat idle for two years. And the entire Board of Commissioners must account for its spending priorities — funding poets, pushing for a Cultural Arts Program tax increase, and backing a luxury homeless housing project — while a community faces another season of flooding.

The emails

The following email chain between the residents of 3 Crabs Road (with names redacted) and their commissioner reveals several key points. First, these constituents have spent years trying to gain the attention of their elected representative. Most concerningly, when these emails are compared to events on Towne Road, it becomes evident that a “Clallam Concierge Service” is selectively provided to certain residents. Furthermore, the emails raise questions about whether one commissioner is truly upholding his oath to serve “faithfully and impartially.”

Tuesday, January 3, 2023 5:28 PM

Hi Mark, I am sure you are aware of the flooding on 3 Crabs last week. This time it was worse than last year, we got about 3" of water in the lower level of our house. This affected roughly 2200 square feet of finished living space. The duplex in front of us had $10,000 damage last year from the water and now has repairs amounting to the same or more. I have no idea yet what ours is going to cost but it will not be cheap. Do we have a new person in this community development department that you want us to work with yet? We really need to figure out some sort of solutions down here. Can we get another meeting scheduled? Please let me know what we can do. Thank you.

Wednesday, January 4, 2023 11:45 AM

Thank you for reaching out; I am sorry to hear about the damage you describe.

Yes, we do finally have a newly-elected and seated Director of Community Development. We have a meeting scheduled for early next week and one of the items we’ll be discussing is the periodic flooding along and around the 3 Crabs area. I will ask him to reach out to you for appropriate follow up with you and your neighbors.

Sincerely, Mark Ozias

Wed, Jan 4, 2023 at 1:38 PM

Mark, thank you for your response. I want your meeting to know we have recent photos of the 3 Crabs Road showing the flood as it is just beginning to crest the road in LOW areas of the road. I believe this unintentional yet significant fact has created an inequitable situation where water spills over in these low spots onto properties immediately across and adjacent. We all understand we live at sea level. We all understand tides go up and down and pressure systems aggravate flooding. However, the road which acts as a berm is uneven and perhaps has sunken in areas over the years. At the very least bringing those areas up to ‘level’ would help the situation immensely. Thank you.

1/4/23 1:50 PM

And I think this is definitely a *new* situation that has gotten significantly worse in the last couple of years, perhaps aggravated by the Dungeness River/Meadowbrook Creek revisions? We purchased our property in October'21, and it was affected by the Jan'22 flood. We had $12,000 worth of damage and had to replace all of our insulation. I know it had not been that severe in the past because the insulation I replaced was about 30-yr old insulation, so a flood of that severity had not happened in 30 years. I thought maybe that was a one-off, but once again I'm looking at an additional $12,000 of damage with last week's flood. I can't be replacing tens of thousands of dollars of insulation every single year, and I can't afford to spend tens of thousands of dollars raising the entire foundation of my home, particularly when what's happening yearly is NOT something that had affected my property prior. Open to all options here, and happy to do whatever to contribute to the solution, but I've got a sense of urgency to figure out a solution.

January 4, 2023 at 2:59:29 PM

We agree that the low spots on 3 crabs road are a large part of the problem. Our family has had our property since late 70s and there has been frequent flooding. My husband and I moved here full time in 2014 and the flooding seems worse, mostly from the volume of the water. Seems the expansion of the wetlands has perhaps increased the flooding but I am not sure. I think there are multiple factors contributing to what appears to be flooding increases. Scientifically we won't know unless someone kept records for each year the frequency and the depth of water. Our property is getting water from both the Dungeness bay and water over 3 crabs road. This last flood with the king tide and the very low pressure contributed to 4 to 5 inches in our lower level. Our damage was minimal due to our preparations for it. Our shore line erosion is a major problem at this point, possibly jeopardizing our home.

Tuesday, January 10, 2023 8:35 PM

We too are sorry for our impacted neighbors regarding the recent flooding. We are at the very west end of 3 crabs and are minimally affected. It is clear to me that the State, County, and Salmon Coalition are all liable for the current flooding events.

We have owned our property since 2014 and I have lived very near here since 1994. I am unaware of properties ever being flooded from the south side of the road before the road realignment. Yes, as everyone has stated, it was a combination of king tides, winds, low pressure, and a rain event. All are needed to get the flooding we experienced. Remove one element, and the flooding from the south would not happen. The difference is that the old road, small bridge, and the area by the old restaurant, acted as a dike effectively stopping the tidal influence of the flood plain to the south of Three Crabs Rd. The flood plain in the past could handle any rain events alone. After the road relocation and larger/wider bridge, it effectively eliminated the dike effect of the old road creating the current situation and damaging our neighbors' homes. Frankly, the engineers behind the project either missed this effect, underestimated it, or knew it, and took no action to protect the neighborhood. An argument could be made for each scenario. That being said, there are relatively simple solutions to the problem of flooding from the south side of the road that have already been mentioned in this email thread. It should be the responsibility of the Salmon Coalition, County, and State to make this right.

Thu, Jan 12, 2023 at 1:49 PM

After circling around with our new DCD Bruce Emery and our new County Engineer Joe Donisi I am happy to share next steps:

We have submitted a pre-application for a FEMA Hazard Mitigation grant for funding to raise a portion of the roadway where it is low.
County engineers are consulting regarding whether a full-blown engineering study will be required
I am expecting a more formal recommendation from this team by next week regarding next steps and maybe a potential timeline

Furthermore, Mr. Emory has assured me that DCD is ready to assist with whatever permitting requirements might be necessary.

I will do my best to keep you and your neighbors informed as our own plans begin to take shape.

Sincerely, Mark O

Sun, Feb 12, 2023 at 6:24 PM

HI Mark,

Any update on the action items listed in your email?

thanks!

February 27th, 2023: Citing an upswell of support from residents to keep Towne Road closed, combined with one landowner’s wishes, Commissioner Ozias paused the project and Commissioner Johnson agreed (Commissioner French was absent). Commissioner Ozias said: “I’m personally not convinced that we need a road of any kind at all, especially if the Eberles don’t want it.”

Tuesday, February 28, 2023 7:44 AM

Hi Mark,

The last update from January said:

We have submitted a pre-application for a FEMA Hazard Mitigation grant for funding to raise a portion of the roadway where it is low.
County engineers are consulting regarding whether a full-blown engineering study will be required
I am expecting a more formal recommendation from this team by next week regarding next steps and maybe a potential timeline

Any progress on any of these 3 items?

I've dealt with $15,000 in damages from this flood every year for the last two years, and the estimate to raise our house a few feet is $250,000, so that path is unfeasible... I'm highly motivated to do whatever I can to not be in this same situation in January of 2024. Please let us know if there's anything we can do on our side to accelerate this process.

Tue, Feb 28, 2023 at 8:59 AM

We have been checking back in with FEMA on the status of the pre-application about every-other week; so far they are a month past their own deadline so I don’t know what to tell you about when we will have news. Since the onset of COVID it has been extremely common for state and federal agencies to experience staffing problems that are severely hampering our collective work. I will keep you updated once we have news.

Mark O

Tuesday, February 28, 2023 9:12

Thanks for the update, Mark!

So this is for #1. What about #2 and #3?

· County engineers are consulting regarding whether a full-blown engineering study will be required

· I am expecting a more formal recommendation from this team by next week regarding next steps and maybe a potential timeline

Tue, Feb 28, 2023 at 9:44 AM

Numbers 2 and 3 depend on number 1. If we don’t receive funding from FEMA we will have to determine another path to fund the work.

Public works projects are typically planned out years in advance as the funding we have to accomplish projects is extremely limited. The revenue we take into the roads fund each year (derived from a combination of property and gas taxes) is approximately sufficient to fund basic maintenance across the county road system. Any actual improvement project requires state or federal funding to complete; for example, the roundabout we just built at Sequim-Dungeness and Woodcock was 100% federally-funded.

Should what we believe to be the most relevant funding program (the FEMA program on which we’re awaiting word regarding our pre-app) not pan out we will look to other potential sources to fund this effort.

Sincerely, Mark O

Sun, May 28, 2023 at 13:48

Howdie! It's been 3 months since the last update so I figured I'd circled with you. Any progress on any of these?

I still have not finished dealing with all the damage from the last 2 floods, so I'm pretty motivated to do anything necessary to avoid another flood January 2024. Please let me know what we can do to help accelerate any of these.

Sun, Jun 4, 2023 at 3:01 PM

Hi Mark, following up on this thread. We have had water up to 2 feet in the driveway and garage in our property. The water took days to recede during the last 2 floods. We have had property damage, and been stuck as cars could not be taken through the standing water. Esp. Having young kids, not being able to get out due to stagnant water is a huge risk.

We are also concerned about health issues with flooding and flood water stagnant over septic systems of multiple houses.

I would like to get an update asap on what the city can do to help the residents who are consistently being impacted and affected by floods.

I have not seen any action being taken. What else can we do apart from playing the current waiting game? What are our options for getting help from the city before the winter season when there is high flooding risks?

June 5th, 2023: The County learned the price of purchasing and installing the automatic, electronic, taxpayer-funded gates that Commissioner Ozias had promised to one landowner and campaign supporter on Towne Road. The county proceeded with this plan, which cost approximately $125,000 (the gates were backordered, and the plan was later scrapped).

Tuesday, June 6, 2023 12:47 PM

Hi Mark, bumping [redacted] emails due to lack of response, as I too share those concerns deeply.

Wed, Jun 7, 2023, 2:49 PM

I will check in with Public Works on the status of the FEMA pre-application and get back to this group with an update.

Thanks for checking in,

Mark O

June 14th, 2023: A landowner who had requested three automatic gates for his driveway on Towne Road emailed Commissioner Ozias: “Are you available to meet in person again?” Commissioner Ozias emailed: “Hi Derrick! Of course, I would love to get together… Please let me know the next time you plan to be in town and I will make sure to carve out some time to catch up.”

Thursday, June 22, 2023 7:53 PM

Any luck, last thing we heard from you was June 7th, today is the 22nd.

On Fri, Jun 23, 2023 at 12:54 PM

Yes, thank you for checking in. I met with Joe Donisi on Wednesday and inquired about the status of this FEMA pre-app. We are still awaiting a response; I asked Joe to please be a squeakier wheel and to keep his eyes open for alternative funding options.

I will also be prepared to discuss this situation with the other Commissioners and the Public Works team during our budgeting process for next year.

Unfortunately all jurisdictions are having a hard time interacting with many state and federal agencies, due in large part to workforce shortages and frequent movement of staff at those agencies. We have been awaiting word from FEMA on an actual grant award (not just the pre-application) related to the Dungeness Reservoir project since last fall; if I recall we originally anticipated hearing back by last November.

Very frustrating indeed.

Sincerely, Mark O

Saturday, June 24, 2023 10:22 AM

Thank you for continuing to push on this, Mark.

> I will also be prepared to discuss this situation with the other Commissioners and the Public Works team during our budgeting process for next year.

Do you know when this will happen?

To be candid: my experience has been that this is a bit of a black box, and we never hear of any progress unless I specifically ask multiple times. I'd love to change that and have more transparency, accountability and visibility. I'd like to have a date-based approach here, at least to have a sense of when I should be bugging you again. It would be nice to set some dates on when things might happen or when things could use a squeakier wheel. I know for a fact that several of us in the To: line are also more than happy to unite as a neighborhood and be that squeakier wheel to wherever in the government we need to be. I'm still dealing with $15,000 worth of damage from January 2023, and even with $12,000 worth of damage from January 2022, so the last thing I want to do is to be in this exact same situation or worse a third time in January of 2024.

July 13th, 2023: Commissioner Ozias emailed the Towne Road landowner: “I checked in on the automatic gate and it sounds like that is on-track. We are researching options and I think this fall is probably a realistic expectation on timing. I am working on addressing some of the other things we discussed but wanted you to have this update in the meantime. Lastly, would you mind sharing your mobile? I’d like to connect with you NOT on county time or my county device to follow up.”

Thursday, July 13, 2023 at 22:24

OK – here’s the latest. Despite assigning a staff person to check in regularly with FEMA on this pre-application we are getting nowhere. It sounds like FEMA isn’t even being responsive to work related to actual disaster declarations so perhaps this isn’t too surprising.

Regardless, I reached out to Rep. Derek Kilmer’s office today to enlist their assistance in hopes of getting a reply from this federal agency. I will be sure to let you know if their efforts prove to be helpful.

Sincerely, Mark O

Thursday, July 13, 2023 3:28 PM

Thanks Mark, for this update!

Curious on what are the various options of funding for protecting the properties around 3 Crabs Road from the recent flooding due to the low points on the road?

FEMA (not getting responses)
other options?

Fri, Jul 14, 2023 at 7:44 AM

Thank you Mark for the update. The year is half over and we are not looking at any quick solutions yet. Enclosed is a link to a company that produces flood barriers for many applications including roadside containment. How about looking into this? Thank you

July 19th, 2023: The Towne Road landowner emailed Commissioner Ozias about the automatic gates: “We're inconvenienced daily, and that is a lot more days to keep dealing with things.” Commissioner Ozias replied, “I promise I will stay on top of it and make sure we get the gate done.”

Saturday, December 14, 2024 2:36 PM

Hi Mark,

Following up on this as it continues to be a problem. Looking forward to your leadership in helping our neighborhood. Has anything been done? Will anything be done?

Follow pictures of what it looks like right now. Looks like I'm looking at a third loss with our property.

December 17, 2024 at 12:21:01 PM

I raised the issue of the episodic flooding your neighborhood experiences with the whole Board at our public meeting this morning, and asked our County Administrator to assist with pulling together a conversation at a public work session in January to include all relevant county departments (public works, emergency management, community development) to discuss:

What, if anything, is the county’s formal responsibility or obligation as it relates to this flooding?
Beyond whatever formal obligation we might have, are there any funding or other opportunities the county might be positioned to pursue that could bring resource to bear?
What state and/or federal resources might be available to the homeowners who experience episodic flooding?

Sincerely, Mark Ozias

Dec 18, 2024, at 10:58 AM

Thank you Mark.

I was deeply concerned by "“Can the danger be remediated?” asked Administrator Todd Mielke. “If it cannot be realistically remediated, then is there a program to remove the risk? Which is typically a relocation strategy.”"

Mielke is also quoted as having said: “I know the cold response is: Typically, you always encourage people to do their due diligence when they buy,” said Mielke. “I also know that typically when you pick a fight with Mother Nature, you’ve got an extreme foe to deal with.”

For the record, we did do our due diligence when we purchased our home. It had NOT flooded in 40 years. I know for a fact because the first time it flooded under my ownership, I had to fully replace the ORIGINAL insulation.

It is clear to see and well-documented that the flooding on the west end of 3 Crabs Road worsened after the County and its partners completed the restoration of Meadowbrook Creek.

If the end result is a "forced relocation" for pennies-on-the-dollar for the properties, given the effects of the restoration of Meadowbrook Creek, I think the city/county is looking at years of legal battles with the residents. I really do hope it does not have to come to that.

Wed, Dec 18, 2024, 11:27 AM

We did our due diligence as well and flooding certainly wasn’t an issue when we purchased the land that we built on. The county seizing property on 3 Crabs to deal with flooding seems a ridiculous notion as they would in my opinion have to seize all properties east to west including Golden Sands since it seems that the public safety issues impact everyone down here when we do experience flooding - emergency vehicles may not be able to get beyond the bridge to the neighborhood. One thing that we also have to take into consideration is that these events are perhaps one day a year - I know that doesn’t help your situation - but in the grand scheme of things would the county really seize property because we had a flood scenario one day this year. It seems that the county is exploring the easiest ways possible to resolve problems that they created and get us off of their backs. I too hope that it doesn’t come to litigation and that the county can actually look at the problem and determine what was done wrong. I can’t imagine the loss of tax revenue for them if these properties are no longer part of that revenue stream. Knowing our neighbors, if it comes to litigation, I believe that the county has no idea what they will encounter in terms of resistance.

December 18, 2024 at 11:54:44 AM

The strategies I expect to be discussing would include things like staging sandbags, or raising the level of the road, or adding culverts, or similar. While the remark you reference was an off-the-cuff and general comment made by our county administrator it is not indicative of any strategy that has been contemplated, discussed or even mentioned in any forum related to this issue.

Mark Ozias

Clallam County Watchdog

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