Year's final plea to Commissioners

Community requests formal Towne Road resolution and timeline

Automatic gates would ban all but County Staff, first responders, and a handful of local residents from accessing a public road.

Please join us as we encourage the Clallam County Commissioners to adopt a resolution to construct Towne Road in 2024 and provide a measurable timeline for the project.

Tuesday, December 26th, 2023

9:00am (please arrive and be seated by 8:45)

Commissioners’ Boardroom

Clallam County Courthouse, Port Angeles

Commissioners’ joint Work Session & Meeting

Public comment (limited to 3 minutes) will be allowed at the end of the meeting.

Towne Road’s closure has entered its 17th month and, although a majority of Commissioners favored a 2024 reopening to through traffic at December 4th’s Work Session, no resolution was proposed, no vote was taken, and no decision has been finalized.

Our publicly elected Director of the Department of Community Development, Bruce Emery, fulfilled his obligation by recommending to the Board that the road be reopened to two-lane, through traffic in 2024.  The Director’s recommendation was initially embraced by a majority of the Board, however, the discussion was ultimately steered away from a formal acceptance of the recommendation.

Due to human error that breached the original dike ahead of schedule, the County drafted a resolution in May of 2022 to temporarily close Towne Road on July 5th of that same year.  Since the resolution, 170 Board of County Commissioners’ Work Sessions and Meetings have convened – a sufficient period to create a timeline for the project’s completion, perform the remaining studies, and estimate the costs. 

A timeline is necessary for the next steps that will reopen Towne Road to through traffic in 2024.  Without a timeline, there can be no measure of progress (and progress is something crucially needed to restore public confidence). There is growing community concern that one week of inaction will lead to one month, and eventually years. 

At least one Commissioner is advocating that $1.5M in grant funds, originally intended to surface the road, should be spent to install electric gates that will prevent those who have paid for the road from using it.  In a December 12th email Commissioner Ozias said, in part, “my hope is that we are able to take an interim step – like an improved gate.”  

These gates are an ill-considered investment in temporary infrastructure. They will close the road thus fulfilling the wish of one Commissioner’s top campaign donor who has requested a three year delay in any decision to reopen Towne Road to the public.  Additionally, the installation of electric gates will be seen as satisfying the promise that same Commissioner has made to one landowner (via private emails), not the taxpayers who have funded it.  

For over a year, one landowner has been lobbying the Commissioner to close Towne Road forever.

Special and private interests are attempting to influence the County Commissioners to keep Towne Road closed. Reallocating money that was intended to reopen the road would downplay the needs and safety of the greater community. The road’s closure has already directly exposed taxpayers to personal and financial risk as evidenced by the loss of one family’s home to fire.

We’ll be expecting a resolution and timeline from the Board of Commissioners this December 26th.

One of several emails exchanged between a Commissioner and landowner.