Looking into the future, say, to the year 2030, which do you think will be the more influential and affluent town - Port Angeles or Sequim?
Looking at the here and now, in terms of image, infrastructure and semi-responsible elected officials, which do you think is better positioned to thrive in the future - Port Angeles or Sequim?
In other words, if you had to bet, and put your money down on Port Angeles vs. Sequim for the most prosperous and populated community of the future, which would you choose?
As for me, I'd sure like to have the contract when they decide to move the County Courthouse from Port Angeles to, well, you know...
It's something to think about, Port Angeles.
Been thinking about that for a while now and here's what I foresee. In the future there will be no dividing line between the local towns. They will all be "Clallam County." The towns will all turn in their charters and the county will govern throughout. Right now in Sequim, Port Angeles and Forks we have three mayors, three police chiefs, three assistant chiefs, three school boards with high priced superintendents, three fire chiefs, three assistant fire chiefs, three planning boards, etc, etc. If we roll out all those salaries and benefits it must come into millions in duplication. Why not have the sheriff's department take on the law enforcement for the entire county. Bang, millions saved right there. Fold all the city officers from Sergeant on down into the sheriff's department. Fold all the schools into one county-wide school district. Then you will not have the constant school bonds but the county taxpayers will build a school when needed and not lay it off on the various communities to build their own schools. We have how many fire departments in the county? We need only one fire department and it can be run by one chief and a few assistant chiefs in the different population centers. We can outsource the ambulance service to Olympic Ambulance and have them operate county-wide. Consolidate all our utilities under PUD and do away with the multiple layers of service delivery. Individual water departments go away and we have one water company responsible for providing water to the entire county for those who don't have wells. Have one county-wide health department, one county hospital with helicopter ambulances to retrieve patients from the more remote areas. Right now the city of Port Angeles spends six million a year for law enforcement. The city of Sequim is right up there, Forks maybe not so much. These type of efficiency would cut our tax burden substantially and would probably serve the public as well or better. In any case workers would have more money to spend and this alone would stimulate the economy better than most of the scheme's that come down the pike. The port would fold back into county government and do away with all those levels of duplication. The EDC would go away and there would be one economic development office where activities could be coordinated instead of everyone going out on their own and mucking it up. It would take a while to work out all the different angles but the right consultant could lead us through the process and then pass a law where there would be no more consultants until it was shown that no one in the county has the necessary expertise for a particular project. It is because of the hodge podge of jurisdictions that even the most savvy taxpayers cannot follow their money into the multiplicity of rat holes. Change the county commission to seven members and each represent a district and are answerable to the voters in their own neighborhood. Don't laugh, it could happen.
ReplyDeleteThese discussions have been taking place for the last dozen years or so, at the local government level. It should be apparent to everyone that revenues are not able to keep up with inflation and that governments HAVE TO consolidate to eliminate duplicative costs. The problem is losing local control, autonomy and staff jobs...It will have to happen, eventually, unless we have an explosion in addition living wage jobs around here.
DeleteLOL, the LAST consultant. Yeah, right. But this voter would NOT have a problem with your big plan. Some of these county-wide plans are unfolding (police comm, etc.) They key, though, is accountability. As you submit, that's why they WANT the hodge-podge & too many ratholes.
DeleteLame!
ReplyDeletePopulation and infrastructure will not move so this post was a lame attempt to get people to gripe.
"Population and infrastructure will not move..."
DeleteUh, actually, yes, yes it will, and does, especially population. You see, such things - people moving - is why Sequim's population has exploded in the last quarter century. Because...people...moved...there. In much greater numbers than they moved to Port Angeles.
As for infrastructure, stranger things have been done than moving courthouses, though that was said with tongue in cheek. But literally underlying that comment was the acknowledgment that Sequim has, in looking toward the future, put in infrastructure that will accommodate further growth. They are primed and ready for it.
Port Angeles, meanwhile, keeps having to delay or downsize even maintaining their existing infrastructure, due to the crazy debt load driven by all the crazy (and unnecessary) projects.
Does that help clear things up for you a bit? I hope so. But, even if not, and if my only goal was "to get people to gripe," well then, you helped me reach that goal. Thanks!
I know several people who have moved from PA to Sequim, and I believe that a business or two has also done so. The OP is full of shit.
Delete@ Anon 6:05.
DeleteHow telling. That is what you see? Opportunity, or "a lame attempt to get people to gripe"? As if those of us who post here are about "griping"? Is that all you get out of what is posted here?
I thought Anon 5:48 made a very interesting point. Given the entire county only has a population of 70,000, it makes a lot of sense to consolidate services. There are a LOT of towns and cities with populations a LOT larger than 70,000, that operate very well with one police department, fire department, etc.
The down side is such a proposal would lay off a lot of people. As we know, the primary employer in the county is "government".
But, you aren't interested in identifying the problems, or finding solutions. You like things, just the way they are.
Sequim is poised for retail, residential, medical, hospitality. Lots of open farmland.
DeleteBut we can't move the port, college, airport, Nippon, Coast Guard, Hospital, BlackBall, entrance to Olympic National Park, etc....
Each city will survive and thrive.
Employment numbers are out and really good. 617 more employed this year than last year. 115 fewer unemployed this year than last year.
Compare the average cost of a house in PA and Sequim. Oops! there is no comparison.
DeleteIf I could sell my house here AND afford one in Sequim, I'd certainly make the switch. I love the peninsula, but PA is a pit.
Key word: crazy. As in, "insane". As in, lock them up NOW!
DeleteThe motto at the Port Angeles city limits should be:
ReplyDelete"Hey, at least we aren't Aberdeen!"
"Hey, at least we aren't Aberdeen - yet!"
DeleteSequim.
ReplyDeleteHomes are on the market for a very short time in Sequim and the prices of homes are increasing all the time. Take a drive from the River Road exit through Sequim and you'll see full parking lots, heavy traffic on Washington Street and, downtown, people walking up and down the sidewalks. Even the lesser developed east side of Sequim does a respectable trade. There's a feeling of energy in Sequim.
Compare a typical day in Sequim with a typical day in PA. Coming into town, traffic begins to fall off after Race Street. The few cars that are left turn away onto Lincoln and the rest pass through downtown on the way west. Downtown is a ghost town, utterly empty, no pedestrians, no shoppers, empty store fronts. PA is a depressing experience.
Having been involved with "Sequim First!" about 15 years ago, I've watched the "change".
ReplyDelete15 years ago, Walmart proposed the first of the Big Box stores in Sequim, at Priest Rd. There were a number of us who saw the future, and organized to stop the project. We did thorough demographic studies that revealed the amount of available income, versus the number of stores, county wide. It was clear the introduction of the Big Box stores in Sequim would wipe out the small family owned businesses.
Port Angeles could have weighed in, but didn't. It couldn't see that far ahead. The Port Angeles Chamber of Commerce and the local business associations, concerned about the viability of their membership, should have been very vocal. But, they weren't. Nobody wants to "get political", don'tcha know.
So, Walmart got it's approvals, and shortly there after, the rest of the Big Box stores started being built, creating the much more convenient shopping opportunities than the previous option of driving to Silverdale.
And, as our demographic studies predicted, those stores have sucked up the incomes of area residents, leaving little interest in supporting local stores, especially here in Port Angeles. And, there ain't no going back. The decisions, and lack of action by Port Angeles leadership, have lead to it's stagnation.
So, as a consumerist society, the area with the shopping becomes the center of activities.
I think Sequim planned for its big box stores intelligently, making sure the areas were maintained to be attractive and the result has benefitted in that it draws shoppers to Sequim, as opposed to Silverdale, even shoppers from PT since they do not have the big box stores. That being said, I don't shop at Walmart, and I make it a point to shop locally like Sandy's Kitchen, and the shops at the core of downtown Sequim. Sure the big boxes will put *some* out of business, but those are likely stores that were struggling to begin with for one reason or another. I'm seeing new locally owned shops and restaurants opening all the time and now some places are staying open later so the sidewalks just don't roll up at 5:00. I'm hoping the city leaders do try to maintain some balance so we can continue to preserve certain open green spaces and farmland. Somehow PA just didn't get it, and is dying off while just 12 miles away, Sequim prospers.
DeleteOne thing about Sequim - you don't see the shuffling meth heads and sign holding panhandlers anywhere - unlike PA where they're on practically every street corner.
DeleteSequim will of course be much more influential and effluent. We here in PA have in the last 3 generations struggled with progress,jobs and a local government that is either ineffectual or trying to sell us down the river. Two many cooks with no common community goal other then lining their own pockets have soured the soup and left us all starving.
ReplyDeleteSequim is three generations away from being cow pastures. They have always had a common goal.Their goal of being able to wear sandals and walk some place, any place without stepping on cow patties has led them to being open and welcome to any business that would lay down some pavement. They have allowed their businesses to thrive and funded anything and everything that promoted their town. They didn't just start the irrigation festival and that horrible lavender thing that keeps me from breathing ( really it may as well be the scotch broom festival) they have continued to fund and promote it through good years and bad. If the damn thing drew a couple hundred people they went all out. Never did they say "well you people are on your own." Sequim will do anything they can to help fund and promote ANYTHING That draws community involvement. They have made room in their community for the farmer,the intellectual,the hippy ,the yuppy, the quirky,the crazy and the stick up our assy. Sequim is a pretty good town as far as small towns go and other then a youth employment, petty crime and drug problem that is a prevailing unaddressed problem everywhere, Sequim has got it going on!
Bif, I think you mean "affluent" about Sequim. Effluent describes PA better. It's definition: liquid waste or sewage discharged into a river or the sea.
DeleteThe courthouse wasn't always in Port Angeles...
ReplyDeleteThe future is now, at least in terms of success and life and all that.
ReplyDeleteLet's put it this way. Downtown Sequim has and needs sidewalks, because people actually go there and walk around. But downtown Port Angeles just has sidewalks. And a fake beach. And no one to walk on them.
They're not perfect, but Sequim's city council is MUCH less embarrassing than ours. Many of their council members seem to reside in the real world, as opposed to our fantasy land losers.
ReplyDeleteYes, dumb ignorant pathetic losers. "Hey, let's poison the cleanest water source around! Because who the hell wants clean water?" and "Hey, let's not tell anyone how much debt there really is, let's just push it all off on a future council, and YOUR KIDS." The dumb runs deep, very deep.
Delete"if you have expectations, you will be disappointed."
ReplyDeleteThe problem in Port Angeles is the moneyed crowd settled here, took control of the levers of power, and won't let go no matter the cost of their town withering away and dying in its prime. This really should be prime time for Port Angeles and the only thing holding it back is a lame lame lame lame city council.
ReplyDeleteWhat Sequim has that PA doesn't, is tons of open land along 101. I don't know how it's zoned or restricted, but the right connections will fix that. It's just waiting ...
ReplyDeleteSequim has natural food stores that sell organic produce which has not been tainted by chemical laden, fluoridated water.
DeletePort Angeles has a "natural food" store that sells produce that is routinely saturated with chemical laden, fluoridated water. This "natural food" store claims this tainted produce is "organic".
Which natural food store is thriving and which "natural food" store is not?
Let us remember what Cherie Kidd showed us all: She is willing to lie straight-faced in public, under oath, and sees absolutely no problem doing so.
ReplyDeleteWhat kind of person does this?
And refusing to step down. Blame that on her handlers.
DeleteAt least she didn't run for county commissioner as was allegedly her intentions for a while...
DeleteI blame a community that sits back, and does nothing.
DeleteThe civic leaders in this town have an obligation, AS civic leaders, to at least pretend that they care about morality, ethics, honor, and the examples set for our children. The Chamber, PABA, PADA, local churches, and the rest should be demanding she step down. But, they aren't.