Clallam County is reliably one of the top two counties in the state when it comes to suicide. It's always in the top three for rates of opiate overdoses and substance abuse. Unemployment rates are persistently higher than average. Graduation rates are consistently lower than average. These are but a few of the long-term and painfully obvious realities that map the contours of hopelessness and desperation in Clallam County.That being the case, what are we to make of the blasé attitude of the local elected officials? The City likes to spend itself into oblivion on stupid projects, while turning a blind eye to the wolf at the door. On the other hand, the County likes to try and brag about how little they spend, how tight their belts are. Meanwhile, the junkies shoot up, the jumpers fall down, and the bodies continue to pile up.
How can this cycle be broken? Can it be broken at this point? Is this an epidemic of despair that can be treated, or an endemic situation that, at best, can be managed? And what is the role of elected officials in all this? Should they focus on the budgets and leave the rest to sort itself out? Or do they have blood on their hands?
It's an honest assessment of the situation. The kind we need to get from our checked out, so called leaders. But they continue to dwell in a fantasy world, where prosperity is just around the corner.
ReplyDeleteNo, no it's not. It will takes years, possibly generations, for Clallam County to dig itself out of the hole it's in. Years of hard work, guided by intelligent planning.
See any of that on the horizon? Me either.
May I put this on the Port O Call website?
ReplyDeleteShare and share alike. Go for it, Dale, and thanks for your interest.
DeleteA HUGE part of the problem, as laid out here, is that the people making decisions in local government don't seem to have even a rudimentary understanding of how their short sighted economic decisions have long term personal and social effects. Money wasted on the Turd Tank is money NOT spent on things that could actually improve the community, make it more marketable to employers, more sustainable in the long run, etc. That depresses the economy further, putting even more stress on families, and opening the door for more drug use, suicides, acting out, that sort of thing.
ReplyDeleteIn that sense, yes, you could say there's blood on the hands of some of these people. Certainly the grand manipulators, people like Jim Jones, Karen Rogers, Glenn Cutler, have blood on their hands. But I suspect they don't care about that so long as there's money in their bank account.
And ironically, I think that in some cases, the worse it gets here, the easier it gets for these manipulators to pitch these idiotic, lipstick on a pig projects, because they can at least say they're doing it for the fabled "economic development." But jobs and robs are only separated by one letter, you know?
Did you see this comment on the PDN website, yesterday?
ReplyDelete" Steve Trubow · The Ohio State University
Our team of expert doctors, scientists, and technologists is providing no-cost depression screening and suicide intervention programs in Bremerton, Shelton, Tri-Cities, Seattle and Tacoma for the Washington Department of Veterans Affairs. Even with Clallam County’s second highest suicide rate in Washington, we could not get Peninsula Behavioral Health to participate in a no-cost program that has been proven to reduce suicide attempts by 40%."
You ask if the cycle can be broken. From what this person said, they aren't even interested in TRYING, here!
No money for fences, but we have $1.2 million for a massively over engineered "rain garden" to filter rainwater from a couple streets?!
It isn't even about GRANTs, for chris-sake! The program that was offered, PROVEN to reduce suicide attempts by 40%, was FREE!
Maybe that is the proof of what's going on in Port Angeles. The economy is so dominated by the grant culture, nothing else is even considered. Yes, that program was free, but it didn't come with any money for local "administration", therefore it wasn't pursued.
Sure, the civic leaders can rally around raising taxes to re-do the sports field for? millions. Live kids running around kicking a rubber ball is of critical importance. But, preventing kids from killing themselves? That would mean we would have to pull our collective heads out of the sand, pull our fingers out of our ears, stop saying "na na na I can't hear you", and start acknowledging our own kids are killing themselves, right here.
That our seniors and veterans are killing themselves at the States' highest rate.
No, let's focus on sending a letter to Kenmore to try to convince them that they really weren't losing money trying to operate here. " Na na na I can't hear you".
I do not know the answer to the deep denial or immature ,idiotic response just about every single one of our elected officials comes up with to address all of our fatal community problems. I can't imagine how such a apathetic public could even begin to cope with these jackasses and their multi million dollar water front parks and 100 million dollar high schools. I do know that the answer is not letting kids and young adults who are, or feel like they are, trapped in this hell hole with these idiot's, take a dive off of one of the eight street bridges.
ReplyDeleteThat is why I am seriously proposing that after the city counsel has finished with their current denial and the city spends 20 or 30 thousand dollars outsourcing a study of the benefits of suicide prevention fences verses the costs, I believe we should toss a city official off the bridge of their choosing after every suicide, starting the first of the year. I was thinking we should start with the city counsel itself but it doesn't really matter, they could all just draw straws. I think it would be a bang up start to the new year and help shake off some of the apathy. This might be a way to wake up the local residents and really get some citizen participation and interest in local government going again.
I know what ISN'T a solution. Pushing a hundred million dollar school bond, in the face of declining enrollment and those awful graduation numbers seems crazy. At the end of the day, it's just one more bill for people to pay, and won't change the situation here much, if at all. I personally believe that the sad graduation rates here have a lot more to do with what goes on in these kids homes than it does with how much we spend on them at school. Dad unemployed? Mom doing meth? Fifteen year old sister pregnant? Who comes out of situations like that as a success? Those situations are all too common here in Clallam County.
ReplyDeleteI know it doesn't need to be said, but I will anyways.
ReplyDeleteWe all know giving people hope for their future is WAY more cost effective than trying to build obstacles to try to prevent distraught and dispairing people from killing themselves.
People often say things like, "Oh, Port Angeles is so terrible it drove Max Mania away!"
ReplyDeleteBut think about this: Port Angeles is so terrible it drove LARRY WILLIAMS away, long before Max left. Harold Norlund left, too, and moved to a town known as the Worst Town in Canada. I guess it was still better than Port Angeles, eh? Slimy Matthew Randazzo left. Crazy Anami left.
What does it say about a community when even the crooks and kooks leave?
Jake ran the Port Angeles Fine Arts Center for over twenty years, but once he retired...Has he even been back since then? Does ANYONE ever come back to Port Angeles after they've left?
Port Angeles: You'll Feel Better When You Leave.
DeleteAnd Larry Williams was one of the people who helped make PA such a dump!
DeleteAnd yet...Here we see the city, blithely planning to spend more money on "marketing" Port Angeles as some sort of destination, rather than spending the money wisely to create the sort of community that sells itself. How sad and foolish, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. The only thing visitors to Port Angeles find now is disappointment. "Is that all there is???" The city needs to work on building a real, functioning community, not just embrace another sure-to-fail marketing scheme.
ReplyDeleteHave no fear they will put Russ in charge of marketing again and all will be as it was...jeeze louise.
DeleteDig this, before the dust even settles over the resignation/firing of the PADA director the merchants are sniping at each other. Hailey at Moss put up catty comments about another merchant just down the street. And Hailey wants to be the leader of the new "Revitalize Port Angeles." This ain't revitalization darling this is just a juvenile cat fight. Merchants have to realize the fact that getting people downtown benefits everyone. They may shop at your competitor one day but if they get a good vibe about being downtown they may shop at your place the next day. Harping and carping on your neighbor merchants is classless and uncouth. Fess up Hailey and apologize. It makes you look more professional.
ReplyDeleteHawley is also running for a PADA board position this month. I have difficulty seeing her as a representative of all the businesses downtown after watching the Facebook cat fight that Hawley actively engaged in by attacking another business downtown. Finally after two days, someone observing this juvenile quarrel stated on Facebook that they will not be shopping at Moss and the other business involved(Alley Kat) this Christimas season because of the bad behavior. With PADA on the way out, there is a concern that the next group claiming to represent downtown's best interests, may be equally as self serving and insulated as the current group who basically look out for themselves and their friends and who do little or nothing for the greater good of downtown. Something to consider for anyone wanting to "represent" what is best for downtown.
DeleteAs has been said before, maybe these folks should not be in such a rush to fill the void left by PADA. It isn't like the "Revitalize Port Angeles" folks are doing anything really different, so why bother.
DeleteJust chill! Spend a few weeks thinking about it all, instead of looking for ways to weasel in to take the place of the last weasels.
wow. MEOW. Talk about being backbiting and girlish. Way to go, folks.
DeleteLets all tear it down, burn it, and get rid of downtown? We might as all live back in the mud flatland swamps, like the founders did. Geez, fellas, try and say a kind word now and then. Tis' the season.
Shall we list all the projects and proposals that have been undertaken in Port Angeles over the last 5 or 10 years, all offfering glowing promises to revitalize Port Angeles?
DeleteOur local governments spent over a million dollars on Harbor Works. Everybody got excited. Nothing. The Oak Street Conference Center (in it's various incarnations)? Nothing. Graving Dock? Nothing. The Skills Center? The Movie Theatre? Microsoft Campus?
The list is long.
Again. If people do want to try and get things going in Port Angeles, they may want to take a moment and look and see why all those other efforts failed.
All those other efforts had their well intentioned cheer leadrs, too. That wasn't what stopped them.
ON A RELATED NOTE:
ReplyDeleteHave we all seen the articles detailing Mike Chapman's supposedly principled stand against the money the county is going to give back to their workers? He's made quite a big stink about how it's illegal, he wants no part of it, he's not going to accept it, and on and on.
So, okay, Mike. For the time being, let's take you at your word. Here's what needs to happen.
ALL county employees get their pay through direct deposit. The commissioners will get theirs on the 10th, a week from today. In other words, this payback money will be in Chapman's check, no matter what. So, in order for him to actually "refuse" it, he will have to cut a check back to the county.
I suggest that he do this publically. If he does not, well, I have a very hard time believing he's really going to do anything other than pocket that extra money, just like everyone else. Remember how Chapman's friend, mentor and guardian Steve Tharinger publically vowed to pay back a bunch of money to the county a few years ago? Well, he did, but only a small fraction of what he promised to.
Why should we expect any less, or should I say any more, from his junior partner in pilfering? At the end of the day, we all know Mike Chapman loves to grandstand, but he also clearly likes the money. So let's all watch to see if truly does what he says he will.
Let's see the check, Mike. Otherwise, I agree that you're simply posturing.
DeleteI missed what day it was but somebody told me on eof the Commissioners made some disparaging remarks on the Todd Ortloff show last week or the week before about how the employees shouldn't expect any increases and it was the way he said it that made it sound like he felt they were unappreciative or should be happy with what they have. The County doesn't realize they aren't an employer of choice - the only reason their employees aren't dropping like flies is because there's no other work here. But many talk about leaving if another opportunity comes up. They feel completely used and unappreciated and disrespected. Their own union steward, at least the one calling himself "Cowboy" is paid around $70,000 and is completely useless. He says he doesn't have a good relationship with the media, and that is why he doesn't bring to light to the media how poorly the employees are treated comparatively to other public agencies here. I'm sorry - then what is he getting paid for? His job is to develop those relationships and put forth the effort to at least get the employees a fair deal. They aren't getting increases and have actually received pay CUTS over the last three years through the furlough days and now 37.5 hour work weeks. The work force has been shrinking as well so fewer employees are trying to cover the same workload and it's almost impossible. This is bad for the residents of the County in general as you now have a staff of disgruntled employees doing twice the work at reduced pay and you bet there will be disruption of service - things will take longer and services will be reduced as these folks just can't keep up. Then you have County residents wondering why things aren't being handled, or aren't being handled in a timely or effective manner - this is it, yet you aren't hearing about it in the media....
ReplyDeleteCase in point: recent snow in Sequim on the Friday after Thanksgiving. Many county roads in the area went unplowed. Why? The county did not want to spend the money on overtime to plow the roads but waited until Monday to work on them, leaving residents 3 days of snowy/icy conditions on their road. Endangering lives to save money.
DeleteI refuse to dignify what we have in Port Angeles by calling it "the media"...
DeleteFor a guy whose "career" was as a glorified security guard, Mike Chapman sure does seem to think highly of himself. Apparently HE is worth the tens of thousands of dollars the county pays him each year, but all those other workers - the ones who, you know, do actual WORK - he treats them like peons and leeches. He's got a real royal attitude, which makes him a real royal pain in the ass.
DeleteAll that, and he carries a gun to "work" at the courthouse. What a great guy.
http://www.peninsuladailynews.com/article/20141204/NEWS/141209992/updated-8212-port-angeles-downtown-association-lays-off-its
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