http://portocallpublishing.com/2017/03/peninsula-housing-authority-double-dipping/
Said article illustrates so much of what's wrong about Port Angeles. I mean, even those who are supposed to be helping the less fortunate are...Just scamming and skimming. And when caught, denying.
Needless to say, this story also illustrates how little the Peninsula Daily News cares about their own community - which is to say, they haven't covered this story at all. Neither has KONP. Mind you, it's been covered by a Seattle TV station, but the local "news" outlets..? Not. A. Word. Other than Port O Call, of course.
Sounds like the housing authority folks are 100% qualified to hold office here. Sleazy, heartless, and willing to lie.
ReplyDeleteJust amazing. Just another example of what goes on here. The Grant Culture. Where any project and proposal is just a way to justify a salary. How many times and ways have we seen this?
ReplyDeleteThis investigation was done by, and aired on King5 Seattle TV News. How many thousands of people saw this?
But, as you point out, none of the local media (other than the Port O Call) think people here need to know about what is going on. Boy, doesn't that make the PDN, KONP and others look great?
Along with the the "Port Angeles Father Brands his Own Children" story, and "Man in Port Angeles uses Bulldozer to Flatten Neighbors House", this is just one more reason people look at Port Angeles as a backwater Black Hole.
You have to feel sorry for the people that move here, thinking this is some kind of real town.
Oh it's real alright. As real as mental illness gets.
DeleteComments bashing Norma Turner are fine. Norma is wide open for all sorts of criticism. But...
ReplyDeleteComments bashing Norma Turner for something she hasn't done, however, will not make it through. Let's stick to the facts, shall we?
Unless you can offer some sort of evidence of her "taking from the poor," in which case, please do so.
And, when offering said hypothetical evidence, please do use proper grammar, punctuation, tenses, etc.
Thank you,
The Management
Yes. No.
ReplyDeleteYes, I do "get it". I do understand why the PDN and KONP don't carry stories that will inform people about what is really going on in this town. They are town boosters, and all that. Like Cherie Kidd. Reality be damned, we're going to pretend everything is happy and nice.
But haven't we all learned by now that reality cannot be ignored.. at least not for very long? Isn't this what alcoholics and drug users try to do? Don't we all know it doesn't really work?
How long are we willing to delude ourselves? When are we going to stand up, and recognize we are just playing along in a fantasy game that is avoiding reality?
The reality is that Port Angeles is a waste of time. It is dominated by people just finding ways to scam the system to make a few bucks from it. It isn't offering anything positive for anyone, other than for those that can scam somebody. The heroin users in this town are just an honest reflection of the hopelessness any feeling and thinking person understands.
What else can people do? Follow Ed Chadd down yet another cause of failure?
You miss the larger point here, CK. It's not that the people at the PDN can't write. It's not that they can't even watch TV. It's that they're so detached from reality that they think none of US will watch TV (or go online) and see the truth.
ReplyDeleteOh, The PDN just doesn't care what people who are critical of the status quo, think. They rub elbows with the other people for whom this set up works. They keep hoping that *someday* MicroSoft or Boeing will come to Port Angeles, and suddenly they all will be on easy street.
DeleteOn the other side are all the people who have carved out their niche in the grant world, where everything is really funded. We saw that with that crazy "CSO" project. It wasn't really about stopping sewage overflows, it was a vehicle for really big grants. It paid millions in salaries. If the City had done the less complicated option that cost so much less, they wouldn't have gotten the State to pay for all those salaries and ancillary un-related projects that got added on.
As we see with the housing authority scam, it isn't really about providing housing for the needy, it is about creating and sustaining a salaried position. Remember reading about Serenity House a year or so ago, which had millions in real estate, and not one shelter bed for the needy?
I'm not disagreeing with what you say at all, but just taking your comments as an opportunity to say that the day that Microsoft and/or Boeing ever start looking at Port Angeles as a desirable place to locate ANYTHING is off somewhere around the year 2525...
DeleteDidn't the City get that answer after spending a million or so trying to entice any/every kind of developer to come to Port Angles? Didn't matter if they were residential, retail, commercial or industrial, they all said they were not interested.
DeleteAnd as we see, they still are not. The only "growth" in the area are existing businesses opening new versions of what they already have going on.
Despite "Twilight" and "Outdoor Magazine" showing the world all the area has in far too generous ways, no one is buying it.
Seattle, Victoria and Vancouver have enjoyed massive real estate booms in the last year or so, but Port Angeles sits with nothing. Not surprisingly.
Port Angeles really will break your heart if you are not strong enough to take its punches and roll with them. We put our best leaders on a pedestal and slowly, surely they get pock-marked, sand blasted and shit upon. Then there's others, wretched bastards who scrabble to the top of the heap and then lord it over on those attempting to come up behind and make their own way. The greedy bastards that made a fortune last century are pulling up the economic ladder so no one behind can climb on the prosperity train. The greedy little merchants downtown think all their problems will be solved if only they got rid of the homeless and the panhandlers. They think if only they could solve the parking problem all will be will. They think if only they can get two-way traffic all will be fine. Bullshit. They have greedy little rat-like pin-point eyes and shit-for-brains--thinking the poor and downtrodden must be swept to the gutter. Only when we embrace our community, with all its scars and disappointments, only when we attempt to make others, everyone, feel necessary and appreciated, only then will this shit hole of a town move forward. Build all the fine arts centers you want and watch how quickly they fall victim to the joke that is Port Angeles. Spending all that money building on a lot that will be underwater by the time the next first grader graduates. Once upon a time there must have been a vision for this place that was not attached to greed. Can we find that again? Is anyone looking?
ReplyDeleteLet's think back. The area was taken from the natives by greedy Europeans so that they could exploit the areas' natural resources. The moved the natives from the areas they had inhabited for literally thousands of years, so they could build the worlds' biggest saw mill on top of the natives' graveyard. Remember Chiwheetsen? (Yes, I know it is spelled different ways).
DeleteThe Europeans were so greedy, they ran that sawmill out of operation within 15 years. Cut and shipped all that lumber, in that short of a period of time.
They used water cannons to wash down the hillsides, to fill in the beaches to raise the level up so their stores wouldn't get flooded.
Then they built pulp and paper mills that polluted the air and land so badly, school children were routinely kept indoors to limit their exposure. The area around the former Rayonier site was so badly contaminated, it was designated an EPA Superfund Clean up site.
But, the locals didn't want their area to be known as an EPA Superfund site, because that might cast a negative perception of Port Angeles, and impact growth of the town. So, the local leadership worked to have the State take over the clean up. Quietly.
About a dozen years ago, the local leadership pushed to have the State build it's "Graving Dock" in Port Angeles. Despite 330 intact, and over 10,000 partial human remains being dug up for the foundations of the project, Port Angeles leadership lobbied the Governor to push the project forward over the objections of the surviving members of the Lower Elwha S'Klallam Tribe.
And these examples just scratch the surface of the areas' history. Remember, Port Angeles was founded by the anti-Asian Puget Sound Co-operative Colony, a bunch of white racists trying to isolate themselves from what was going on in Seattle at the time.
Greed? A better vision for the area?
Moving this up, given how important it is to Port Angeles, and the recent announcement from the Port of Port Angeles that they don't believe air service to and from Port Angeles is possible without subsidies:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.spokesman.com/stories/2017/mar/16/trump-would-end-subsidies-for-rural-airline-servic/
Will we see THIS in the PDN? Hear about it on KONP?
See my previous comments on this topic. And no, we won't hear about it in the PDN or on KONP. Just like there hasn't been anything about this (double dipping) story put forth by either of those fine "news organizations" either.
DeleteAnd, we see yet another example of why Port Angeles doesn't move forward. Not facing unpleasant realities doesn't make them go away. Not acknowledging problems doesn't fix them.
DeleteCherie Kidd smiles away in her screechy voice "Positively Port Angeles", as the landmark properties sit vacant for years and years. Just focus on anything you can possibly construe as "positive", while the "Economic Development Council" spouts forth fantasy projections of hundreds of new jobs in the area, to materialize within 5 years. Headlines proclaim "Seaport Air to Bring air Service to Port Angeles", but the public doesn't need to hear that Trump opposes the subsidies the Port of Port Angeles has concluded are needed for any air service to be viable here.
How can this town do anything but fail, time after time, when the truth is the enemy?
"How can this town do anything but fail, time after time, when the truth is the enemy?"
DeleteAn excellent summation. Excellent.
Did anyone notice in the PDN today the Chamber Director taking on PADA? Apparently, he hasn't learned yet that taking on PADA requires going up the food chain and challenging the organization that enables PADA namely, the Port Angeles City Council. Nothing will change downtown until something changes uptown - end of story. ITs enough for caring citizens to simply give up and allow self serving businesses and individuals to take advantage of the situation(Like Arts and Draughts has broad community support - when in reality it greatly benefits a certain business and wouldn't happen unless a few key individuals were involved. Oh by the way, check out who's on the PADA board. Another example of what's wrong in Port Angeles).
ReplyDeleteI remember seeing that drone footage trying to make Arts and Draughts look like a real event, As soon as it pulled away a block or two, all you saw were empty streets in all directions.
DeleteConsidering it was the first year and you had to be inside that cordon to drink beer I would call it a success. God forbid people here try to have a different kind of event that might attract younger people to the area.
DeleteBtw rumor is that a certain cranky old gift shop owner is obstructing Arts and Draughts this year and it might not even happen.
Cranky old gift shop owner? You mean a certain well-known COGSO? One with a history of being less than welcoming to downtown events? Hmmm...Now let me think before I take a guess...After all, thinking before you speak is a real necessity...
Delete@ Anon 10:42. No, really? After all that advertising?
DeleteThis town has been here for over 100 years. The region once had the hot spot for Seattle area elites with the resort at Sol Duc. It has the ONP, and Victoria. It has had decades to develop a following.
It is an absolute INDICTMENT of the leadership of this area, that the place struggles while all surrounding cities experience real estate booms.
You can only do "bad" for so long, before the place gets known as "bad".
What are the chances of a decent batch declaring for council in two months?
ReplyDeleteAnything is possible. The place is a dive totally because of the decisions people have made. It could be different.
DeleteAlla yall think you can do better, I believe it. Sign up and run for city council. If you can stay awake that late, and preferably sober, until ten o'clock twice a month--yer qualified. Staff will do all the heavy lifting and give you a script to read. Ad libs at your own risk.
ReplyDelete