Towne Road: Where did the money go?

County considers raising fees and fines to makeup shortfall

The County Budget Meeting about the 2024 fiscal year started with a grim announcement from Commissioner Mark Ozias on October 19th: “We are in a difficult, in fact, much more difficult budgeting situation than I have experienced in my time here. There’s a variety of reasons for that. As of this morning, as far as I know… we’re somewhere in the neighborhood of two-millionish dollars upside down.”

Immediate discussion did not address budget inefficiencies or expenditures that could be trimmed, County staff focused on raising fees and fines collected from taxpayers.

Financial insecurity is often mentioned by Commissioners when speaking about the fate of Towne Road. “It is anticipated that acquisition of adequate funds and construction of any of the road surface alternatives will likely take two to three years,” reads the Commissioners’ notice about delaying the levee completion. How did a decades-long, multiagency, $16 million dollar investment like the Towne Road Levee Setback Project run out of funding so close to the finish line? Here’s what I’ve been able to piece together from information provided through public records requests, Commissioner meetings, and personal emails:

Last year, two financial blows affected the project. One was the discovery of contaminated soil: a century of tar, diesel, and oil had leached into the old roadbed and remediation was required before it became a floodplain. County staff has repeatedly said that the cost of soil remediation is the reason for financial woes but that is misleading — The grant from the Department of Ecology (DOE) was amended to cover that entire cost and the County did not pay for contaminated soil removal.

Another stumbling block occurred when project partner Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe (JST) unexpectedly breached the old 1960s era dike ahead of schedule which opened downriver communities to the risk of flooding. This forced the County to declare an emergency which released funds to accelerate levee construction. Fortunately, the new levee was built in time to contain the flooding that occurred in late 2022. If not for this blunder caused by JST, the County would not have closed Towne Road for even one day.

Considering these financial obstacles, the Commissioners had concerns when their Work Session began on January 23rd of this year. County Engineer (Road Department) Joe Donisi offered this statement about financing the new levee:

“Full funding was secured for that scope of work for both the road relocation and the levee. That original funding is still adequate for completion of the road and levee project. The Road Design is complete and bids are expected in the Spring of 2023 for a summertime 2023 completion.”

Donisi also outlined funding sources for the completion of Towne Road: $800k would come from the 2023 Road Fund and $600k from REET2 (Real Estate Excise Tax specifically directed toward infrastructure). The remaining funds would come from outside the County — a combined $1M in grants from the Department of Ecology and the Recreation and Conservation Office would bring total funding to $2.4M. In January of this year, Towne Road was on track to be completed by September.

A month later, at the February 27th Work Session, the excitement in the Commissioners’ meeting room can be noticed by watching the video: some attendees had championed this project's progress for years and the finish line was finally in sight. According to Donisi, the County was going to be able to complete Towne Road with very little (if any) funds coming directly from the Roads’ Budget and zero funds coming from REET2 — incredibly, in one month’s time, the County had gone from being liable for $1.4M, to being liable for only the $800k Road Budget portion and quite possibly, it seemed that the County could be off the hook for paying even one cent.

This incredible windfall, made possible by utilizing grant funding, could have saved County taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars, but it came with one caveat: Donisi stressed that this path forward was dependent upon using the DOE grant before it expired on June 30th and he outlined a plan that would make that possible.

Then Commissioner Ozias spoke for the first time. Surprisingly, his focus centered on a property owner who resides in Pierce County but has an active business license and website for a 300-guest wedding venue on Towne Road: “Specifically I’m interested in, for example, the driveway access to the Eberles’ and what their expectations and needs are.” Donisi preferred that the property owner's driveway be accessed by the paved county road, as it had been for decades, even though the owner had gone on record as wanting the road closed to public traffic.

Ozias added that he had received hundreds of signatures, and multiple petitions, calling for the road to remain closed to through traffic. Public records show just two petitions were received, with only 98 signatures calling for the road’s closure — these were predominantly collected from a neighborhood that saw a drastic reduction in traffic once Towne Road was closed.

Ozias was supported at times by County Biologist Cathy Lear who creatively suggested the road could be considered “finished” in its current state, and that paving it would be a mere “improvement.” Department of Community Development (DCD) County Employee Cheryl Baumann, who also serves as Manager for Lead Entity for Salmon, pushed for reallocating road funds to create a trail system through the floodplain. Resistance to completing the project was limited to Lear, Baumann, and especially Ozias.

Despite Donisi’s emphasis that this unique funding opportunity would soon expire, and although a consulting attorney warned that the County may fail to meet legal obligations if the project was postponed, Ozias said he couldn’t move forward with completion of Towne Road.

Donisi ended with this plea:

“Timing is everything,” he urged. “We’ve been on a dead run for this project for some time… I think we run the risk, because of our grant timing, that if we don’t follow through as we originally planned, that we will find out too late that maybe more folks want the road than we know. But by then, we will have at least lost this Ecology grant part of it which would throw that additional back onto Roads [budget] and REET funds."

Ozias was unwilling to compromise and February’s meeting concluded with a massive publics work project halted.

Hopes temporarily rose in late July when the County published a call for bids for the “Lower Dungeness River Levee Surfacing.” This prompted one interested resident to contact Ozias asking if Towne Road would be paved and reopened to vehicle traffic soon. Ozias replied, "We are looking for responsive bids by August 15 (today!) for work to be completed before mid-October.” The Commissioner's statement was untrue — the call for bids was to address drainage and settling concerns, not to surface the road.

After hearing yet again (this time from Commissioner French) that soil contamination had been the source of financial concern, I asked Commissioner Ozias, "Did the DOE cover the entire cost of removing the contaminated soil? If not, how much was the County financially liable for?” Ozias replied, "Yes, we were successful in obtaining additional funding to cover the remediation expense. This leaves us with about $1.5 million in available grant funding to support the final surfacing option.” Since that email exchange last week, I’ve asked the Commissioners and DCD Director Emery why, if there is $1.5 million sitting in the bank for paving, will it take 2-3 years to complete the resurfacing of a half-mile section of Towne Road? I have yet to receive a response.

I don’t know what happened to the County’s opportunity to complete the project without dipping into its taxpayer funded coffers.

• Did the County lose the grant funding that expired on June 30th?

• At one point the County was poised to complete the project without dipping into any County funds — today, how much of the Road Budget and REET2 funds are needed to complete resurfacing?

• If, according to Ozias, the County still has $1.5M available in grant funding to support resurfacing, why is completion estimated to take 2-3 years?

• Did the pausing of resurfacing Towne Road contribute to the $2M deficit the County is facing in next year’s budget?

I've asked these questions of all three elected Commissioners (Ozias, French, and Johnson), and I’ve also asked elected DCD Director Bruce Emery. I’ve either been ignored, fed information I haven't requested, or provided conflicting data.

Alarm bells should have sounded at this month’s budget meeting once Ozias revealed that next year’s budget is “upside down by two-millionish dollars” and County leaders intend to make up revenue by burdening taxpayers. Asking our elected officials if half that deficit could have been avoided by utilizing grants before they were deliberately allowed to expire is an appropriate concern that warrants an explanation. All three elected County Commissioners may be contacted by emailing Clerk fo the Board

loni.gores@clallamcountywa.gov

and the elected DCD Director can be reached at

Bruce.Emery@clallamcountywa.gov

. Commissioners can be reached individually at

mark.ozias@clallamcountywa.gov who represents the Sequim area, Randy.Johnson@ClallamCountyWA.gov, and Mike.French@ClallamCountyWA.gov.

Please let me know if you are able get answers. Any progress on the Towne Road discussion likely won’t proceed until early next year while County leaders answer questions about funding, emergency services, tsunami evacuation designation, and other factors. Discussion about Towne Road during October 19th’s meeting begins at 1:01:30 in the video linked below and lasts 16 minutes.

https://clallam.granicus.com/player/clip/1933?view_id=2&redirect=true&h=79e28cd34148ea87899fadcff22a4e87