Wednesday, April 5, 2017

The Properties of a Community

Ah, lovely, charming and desirable Port...Townsend. Yes, just down the road an hour is picturesque and cultured Port Townsend. That town's City Council is currently having discussions about their ordinances regarding what they're referring to as "tourist" homes. I'd call them vacation homes. Whatever. The point is, Port Townsend is such a nice, pleasant place to be, people want to have second homes there, or rent out entire homes to vacation there.

And they have a great many beautiful, well-preserved houses there to chose from. As well as more than a few excellent restaurants, two movie theaters (and a drive-in in the summer), an active and walkable waterfront, a thriving downtown, and all sorts of cultural and artistic amenities.

A crowd at the Port Townsend Film Festival...

Ah...

In other words, the situation their City Council finds themselves dealing with is one of abundance. As in, and abundance of people who want, in one way or another to spend time in Port Townsend, and an abundance of people who stand to make money off of that.

So, hey, Port Angeles City Council...I'm just wondering what issues you're dealing with? Anything similar? Really? Oh, I see. You've got an abundance of your own struggling citizens who are pissed off at you? An abundance of empty parking lots and storefronts? An abundance of drop outs and drug abusers? What's that? Oh, you've also got a double abundance of debt?

Uhm, well, you see, those things, though absolutely abundant, to be sure, aren't really the same. Not at all. Not really. No.

What a difference an hour makes. So the question could be framed as...Will Port Angeles ever acknowledge and adjust itself to that time difference?

19 comments:

  1. It doesn't seem to bother the leadership of Port Angeles. They find some grain of "positive", no matter how contrived, to point to to assure themselves "It is another great day in Port Angeles". And, it all grinds along, year after year, decade after decade.

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    1. Might it be safe to say they are "Making Port Angeles Great Again"?

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    2. LOL! If only!!! But it never happens.

      I don't read the piece of crap Peninsula Daily News. I have lived in the area for many years, and know from first hand experience how much that paper distorts what is really going on in town. No, not even some conspiratorial who-knows-what. Just anything that might be seen as making the town and what goes on here look bad. I've personally been at so many meetings and events, and seen how that paper either doesn't cover it, or so wildly distorts what did happen. Over the years, I've been interviewed, and what gets printed in no way reflects what I said.

      And I know my experience is the way the Peninsula Daily News does business. Any body in the area who is involved in any issues knows this to be true. Experienced it for themselves.

      So, how can Port Angeles or the county ever change, when everything the non-involved people (who make up the vast majority of the county's population) are just fed a load of BS by the "news" source, specifically to keep things just as they are?

      Making Port Angeles Great Again? Just like Trump is making America great again.

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    3. It's so sad how people cannot see through the hard damage that media like PDN do to a community. It's so easy to tell yourself a story that "it's the newspaper, they know they're here to serve us, so they wouldn't lie!" Unfortunately folks, that little story you tell yourselves in your heads is a whopper. In reality the PDN is dangerous. The PDN has an agenda. The PDN craftily arranges words and phrases so that you don't think, don't analyze, don't criticize when appropriate. It is propaganda at its very worst.

      But the peons will continue to make up stories in their heads about the authority of the daily paper, and do themselves and their families a great disservice.

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  2. Alan Barnard is a slimy, slimy turd, trying to pass as human.

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    1. Well, alright then. Off topic, but, I can't really disagree with you. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

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    2. Yes, but new County Commissioner Randy Johnson put his friend Alan (Real Estate Mogul) on the Opportunity Fund Board, and now he gets to work on tax payer funded housing projects. No potential conflicts there, right?

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  3. Doesn't that photo of Port Townsend look just like what we see in Port Angeles? The streets closed down, with thousands of people out enjoying an evening downtown?

    Last time I saw anything close to that was when they were going to topple the K-Ply stack a few years back. And, as we remember, that event was a failure.

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  4. What DOES Port Angeles have in abundance?

    I'm in Victoria, and was down on the beaches looking across the Strait earlier today. It was a partially sunny day, but I could not see Port Angeles. It was shrouded in clouds, and if I didn't know better, I wouldn't have known there was a town across the waters, at all.

    I don't know what the streets of Port Angeles look like. All I hear from my few neighbours that have gone over for a visit is how they will never go back. Their impressions are that Port Angeles is an economically depressed town that has nothing to offer.

    Here, today, the streets I walked down are in full bloom, with tree branches arching over our roads creating a tunnel of flowers. Our city was rated last year as one of the 10 best destinations in the world, by Conde Naste.

    So, again, I ask: what does Port Angeles offer in abundance?

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    1. Corruption.
      Theft of public funds.
      Ongoing conspiracies to steal public funds.
      False non-profit fronts.
      Grant-whoring and overcharging to maintain the appearance of staying financially afloat.
      Complete lack of vision for a better city.
      Disdain for the clear will of the citizens.
      Hate for the helpless.
      No encouragement for new entreprenuers.
      Stifling of competition & wages.
      Backwater assholes.
      Vigilanteism.
      Cover-ups.
      And prosecutors that systematically support it all.

      All in abundance.

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    2. It IS interesting, because both Victoria and Port Angeles had such similar beginnings. Fur trade, harbor towns, timber, etc. But, boy, did they ever take different paths from there!

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    3. Speaking of idiots, whatever happened to Josh Rancourt?

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    4. couldn't handle the heat, I guess. Must be difficult to marry into that family.

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  5. Hey, at least it's not Aberdeen!

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    1. Set the bar low, why don't you? And even Aberdeen has some residual Kurt Cobain tourism.

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    2. Aberdeen has the Star Wars shop too!

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    3. I guess the only other thing I've got is that it doesn't smell like rotten bologna like PT does pretty often. Other than that I'm done.

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    4. Well, if the Port Angeles mill really does convert over to making cardboard, it will be a pretty stinky place. Ever smelled wet cardboard?

      And, which way does the wind blow?

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