In case you haven't heard, Ron Judd over at the Seattle Times did what is clearly supposed to be a warm, huggable, puff piece on Port Angeles a few days ago - one of those, "Is Port Angeles on the cusp of greatness at long last?" type things. Only it didn't really turn out that way...You can read the piece for yourself here:
http://www.seattletimes.com/pacific-nw-magazine/is-port-angeles-ready-to-realize-its-potential/
It seems pretty clear that Mr. Judd has a soft spot in his heart for Port Angeles, but maybe he doesn't see all the soft spots in his story, the ones that let the unvarnished truth come through all too blightly. A sampling follows:
These treasures make PA a true Port
of Angels for outdoor lovers of all stripes. More than 3 million per year
venture onto national park lands; most of them drive through — alas, often
straight through — Port Angeles on the way.
Was it a sign…Might it be an omen
that Port Angeles was finally about to become something more than, as a local
pub server put it recently, “a somewhat nicer Forks”?
Maybe. A better question for a town
long struggling with low household incomes, high unemployment and a population
that stubbornly clings below 20,000: Does it even want to be?
(Downie’s) optimism is shared,
perhaps not quite so exuberantly, by local economic development officials who
acknowledge the accompanying challenges. The same unfinished, out-there persona
that makes Port Angeles attractive to residents can be a challenge to
businesses that must operate in something of an economic bubble.
To date: Numerous nibblers, few big
biters.
Low wages. Worrisome levels of drug
abuse. A lack of skilled workers.
There are other tells as well, in this attempt to promote Port Angeles as not being as old, out of date and out of touch as it is. No pictures of elderly Mayor Downie, for instance, and no mention at all of daffy Deputy Mayor Cherie Kidd. (She must be heartbroken!) No mention of the City's mountain of debt. They refer to the rundown and moldy Lincoln Theater as "stately," which is a lie Donald Trump would be proud of. You get the picture - but those from elsewhere might not.
That is, unless they read the comments piling up at the end of the article. Those, for the most part, tell a darker, more hopeless tale of Port Angeles...
PA seems to be bigger and uglier every time I visit. Maybe the population is stable but the sprawl of car lots and strip malls only gets worse...And seriously, that whole county needs an intervention for the drug problem.
PA sucks and always has. Such a beautiful setting wasted on a crappy town full of ugly, hateful people.
What PA is on the cusp of is destroying any beauty it has left...Now it's miles of strip malls and traffic.
Land of the redneck. Very unwelcoming to outsiders.
The biggest problem with PA is that it is literally infested with drug addicts and rampant crime. I'd wager 5% or more of the population is deep in the heroin/meth and theft scene. Until the community wakes up and makes a concerted effort to change things, PA will just be a good place to come and get robbed or have your kids get hooked on drugs if you're fool enough to bring a family here. (Please note the use of "here" here. Apparently a local wrote this comment.)
(Responding to the comment above.) You have hit the biggest problem with PA. I wonder if residents actually walk around downtown, or go to the parks, or walk the waterfront, to find the dirty needles and heroin foils lying around everywhere! Do they not see the empty buildings everywhere? Even though many communities across the nation are experiencing the heroin epidemic, this community is as rampant with the problem, more so than many others. City officials and others act as if there is no problem and don't want to recognize it.
I looked at PA as a possible place to relocate. Druggies and homeless on the streets downtown spooked me. I understand that Clallam County has one of the state's worst overdose rates per capita.
Mind you, these are but a few of the comments that follow the article...