Robust community disengagement
Commissioner Ozias outlines process for asking questions
Attempts to decipher the commissioners’ campaign promises of “increased transparency in local government” and “robust public engagement” have left meeting attendees bewildered.
Commissioners Ozias and Johnson ignored a letter from residents requesting an opportunity to ask questions and receive answers. Commissioner French replied, “Our regular work sessions or board meetings are not the appropriate place for this” and added that commissioner meetings “are not meetings of the public; they are meetings of the board conducted in public.”
Regarding the possibility of holding a meeting or question and answer session in the evening so working people may attend, French said he could be supportive of that, but “it creates considerable work for our staff – noticing the meetings, coordinating schedules, running and recording and then posting the meetings, and if it’s a meeting of the entire Board of Commissioners, usually senior staff is required to attend depending on what the agenda is, so they can be available if the Commissioners have questions or wish to provide direction.”
The commissioners may be understandably shy about engaging with taxpayers and voters after last fall’s disastrous community outreach event regarding Towne Road. Confusingly, the meeting was advertised as an opportunity to “solicit discussion,” but the county prohibited oral comments.
At the informational meeting, Commissioner Ozias was vague and evasive, sidestepping many direct questions. The Department of Community Development propagandized the benefits of the Towne Road Levee becoming a park while omitting key safety information about emergency response times and the road’s tsunami evacuation route designation. The county’s presentation generated more questions than answers, leaving attendees feeling puzzled, frustrated, and suspicious.
Seven months later, the People’s Forum generously hosted a town hall event. Commissioners French and Johnson attended, as did DCD Director Emery. The community was permitted to ask questions and receive answers. The event was well-attended and did not use county resources. However, Commissioner Ozias, whose district the forum was held in and who was the target of many questions, refused to attend.
This spring, Commissioners Ozias, French, and Director Emery traveled to Blyn to meet with members of the Jamestown Tribe, who demanded that the county install and monitor a costly stormwater mitigation system for 0.6 miles of Towne Road. These meetings about a public infrastructure project involving taxpayer funds were conducted behind closed doors. If our elected officials are willing to meet and answer questions of a sovereign nation on land where US and State laws about transparency don’t apply, perhaps they could be persuaded to meet with the people they represent and who pay their salaries.
Without a mechanism for constituents to ask their representatives questions and receive answers, the same issues keep reappearing at commissioner meetings. The first question asked at the People’s Forum in April was about the safety of the Old Olympic/Cays Road intersection — it had had 18 accidents in the last seven years (one being fatal) and a petition was submitted asking that the county review it. Since the event in April, two additional serious accidents have happened, the 20th occurring on Sunday.
When asked last month if Commissioner Ozias had done anything about the letter that had landed on his desk over five months ago, he refused to answer questions about the intersection. Later, Commissioner Ozias told the gallery, “The mechanism that exists for people to get questions answered is to pick up the telephone, call, make an appointment, come visit, and that’s how most residents get their questions answered on a regular basis. We don’t need to create anything special.”
That protocol didn’t apply last year for one landowner on Towne Road who traveled from Tacoma to meet with Commissioner Ozias at a coffee shop to discuss the County installing three electronic, automatic, taxpayer-funded gates for the landowner’s personal use. However, if you have a question for Commissioner Ozias, you can make an appointment to ask it by calling 360-417-2233.
Another topic that boomerangs back to the commissioners is, “Why did the Jamestown Tribe remove the old dike before the county built the new levee?”
Commissioner French addressed this question last week: “You’re asking an elected official to comment on what the motivation might be of a sovereign nation that has its own elected officials that they elect in their manner. I have no idea what their motivations are. I know the county had some form of meeting with them, I believe it’s on the public record, you can go watch it. I can’t answer that question, I’m not a member of the Jamestown Tribe.”
The explanation of why the Tribe breached the dike early is not in the public record. We know Commissioner Ozias volunteered to “wordsmith” a resolution that absolved his top campaign donor of blame, but that was done after the cameras were turned off and the public left the boardroom. The rest of the coverup happened after midnight during a phone call between the Tribe and the County’s risk manager on August 2, 2022.
Following Commissioner French’s advice, Clallam County Watchdog contacted the Tribe’s Natural Resources Director and Council Vice-Chair, seeking an explanation:
Tuesday, July 30, 2024 7:40 PM
Dear Loni and Hansi,
Ron suggested I contact either of you with questions about Towne Road, as did Commissioner Mike French.
I'm trying to understand why the Jamestown Tribe deliberately removed the original Army Corps of Engineers' dike before project partner Clallam County constructed the new Towne Road Levee.
Could you please explain how this happened while the Tribe, Clallam County, and Army Corps were partnering on the project? I know the Tribe will be partnering with the County in upcoming projects, and I'd like to understand this issue so the two partners can better collaborate in the future.
Appreciatively,
Jeff Tozzer
Hansi Hals replied:
Jeff,
Please rest assured that Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe coordinated with Clallam County for planning and construction of the lower Dungeness River floodplain restoration project. The Tribe and County met regularly and communicated often with the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). The USACE has regulatory control of the levee, including standards for community flood protection. USACE required the Tribe and County to submit designs and schedules to the USACE for office review, field review, and approval. The coordinated and mutually agreed construction schedule, that USACE approved, included both Jamestown and Clallam Co work elements. The start date for Jamestown’s removal of the River’s Edge dike levee was scheduled for 5/2/22, and our work was initiated on 5/4/22. You are correct that this removal date is before 9/30/22, which was the date scheduled for all levee work elements to be completed . The USACE, Tribe and County relied on hydraulic river models to define and understand this time period. It is usual and acceptable to modify a dike during time periods that are unlikely to have flood events. Additionally, all parties were poised to implement contingent measures if river flow forecasts indicated possible flooding. While escalating project costs delayed the County construction contracting and completion of final levee elements by several weeks, it is admirable that they were able to move forward. By late-August 2022 the County had achieved flood-safety milestones such that the flood provisional measures were focused solely on reinforcing the newly erected dike (completed in Nov 2022). The Towne Rd paving and roundabout was scheduled for 111 days from May-September 2023. As you know, funding and community interest resulted in a revised schedule and design for Towne Rd. Construction is underway now, with the revised design, approximately one year later than scheduled.
The Tribe appreciates your interest in collaboration. Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe and Clallam County partnered in this large-scale, award-winning restoration project.
Hansi Hals
Natural Resources Director
Fri, Aug 2, 3:33 PM
Dear Hansi,
Thank you for your reply. I have two follow-up questions.
1) Why wasn't the Towne Road Levee completed before removing the original dike?
2) According to your email, the Tribe removed the levee as planned. What triggered the County's costly emergency work order?
Appreciatively,
Jeff Tozzer
The Tribe’s response is below:
[ ]
It seems the Jamestown Tribe has the same policy of robust community engagement that the commissioners do.
If you stump them they clam up.
I thought it was funny the Tribe told Jeff they did not plan to have any water go past the levee when they took it down prematurely during a low flood risk season, but just decided to make half a dozen piles of logs just in case it did. They are on tape planning that "salmon hotel" theory. Hansi and Tribal Randy Johnson basically just hope you don't watch the Two County Squares and if you did and catch them in a lie they clam up or lie again.
Some people hear me talk and tell me I am too rough with them. Well I tried being nice about stuff 4 years ago in like 2020 and they never respond. The more I read and report the less they say.
They have forced us into frustration mode more or less.
I copied this from PDN. Think it is timely.
The legend of the paper salmon
AS GOODWILL AMBASSADORS of the tourist industry, it is our civic duty to share our precious local knowledge of the Olympic Peninsula with our foreign visitors in a manner that celebrates the diversity of our heritage and the promise of our vibrant future.
Answering tourist questions gives the locals an opportunity to enrich the visitor experience in a manner that fosters a greater understanding of the ecosystem as a whole and the management of our natural resources for the benefit of us all.
If you can fake that, you may have a future in the tourist industry. Until they ask a question like “why do loggers wear suspenders?” — triggering a regrettable relapse in my anger management program.
Often tourists will ask, “Where is the rainforest?” when they are standing in the middle of it.
Or they will ask, “How deep is the river?” When it’s common knowledge by now that all of our rivers are constructed to a specific depth that is maintained by government agencies throughout the length of the stream the whole year round. Or should be.
Often, by answering tourist questions in a sincere and compassionate manner, it is possible to lay to rest deep-seated anxieties that haunt our visitors.
That was the case of a recent tourist who confided their belief that the Olympic Peninsula was a dangerous place because there are too many vampires and sasquatch. They had done their research. Proving a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
The vampires and sasquatch are only the tip of the preternatural iceberg that awaits tourists in the rugged hinterland of the Olympics, where an unholy alliance of vampires, sasquatch and werewolves lie in wait for the visitor.
Know before you go. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of revenge.
As with any wilderness journey, the proper gear can make the difference between survival and a lost weekend in a rain-soaked hellscape.
You wouldn’t walk to the North Pole without snowshoes. So don’t go hiking in the Olympics without a good supply of garlic to wrap around your neck for the vampires, silver bullets to shoot into the werewolf hearts and sasquatch repellent to keep the creatures from raiding your grub box. ’Nuff said.
Lately we have been subjected to an even more confusing tourist question that
even has some of the locals confused. “Why are they tearing up the roads?”
This refers to the road destruction projects throughout western Washington that has us spending a million dollars a day replacing culverts that are believed to be barriers to salmon migration.
Washington is home to five species of salmon: the king or chinook, coho aka silver, the chum or dog salmon, the humpie or pink salmon and the sockeye salmon. While the runs of these fish were once referred to as “inexhaustible,” the effective management by state and federal agencies has transformed many of these salmon into threatened and/or endangered species.
This opened the floodgates of federal funding, allowing us to introduce a legendary new species of salmon to our fair state, the paper salmon. While these imaginary fish may only exist in the minds of biologists, politicians and bureaucrats, they are worth millions of dollars to the salmon restoration industry.
Though these barren streams may run off a cliff and have never seen a real salmon run up them, the legend of the paper salmon allows the state to rip up the road to restore passage for these imaginary salmon anyway.
We hope this answers that question.
As to why loggers wear suspenders, it’s to keep their pants up, of course.
_________
Pat Neal is a Hoh River fishing and rafting guide and “wilderness gossip columnist” whose column appears here every Wednesday. He can be reached at 360-683-9867 or by email via patnealproductions@gmail.com.
The vampires and sasquatch are only the tip of the preternatural iceberg that awaits tourists in the rugged hinterland of the Olympics, where an unholy alliance of vampires, sasquatch and werewolves lie in wait for the visitor.
Pat
Neal