Welcome to The Jefferson County Beacon, which describes itself as “a worker-directed nonprofit news outlet managed by a board of your friends and neighbors.”
But who has actually financed this new “local” initiative? A little digging reveals that it is part of a national news network being built and funded by billionaire globalists.
Clicking the “Support Local News” link beneath the Beacon directs to where folks can donate “$5,000+” or other amounts to this 501(c)(3) nonprofit whose Donor Transparency Policy pledges to “make public all revenue sources and donors who give $5,000 or more per year.”
Clicking the Beacon‘s “About” menu “Fiscal Sponsor” link points to the Institute for Nonprofit News (INN), whose mission is “to build a nonprofit news network that ensures all people in every community have access to trusted news.”
INN’s mission is part of the Trusted News Initiative, described by Influence Watch as “a coalition of left-of-center media, social media, and technology companies created by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in 2019 with the ‘specific aims of flagging disinformation during elections,’ and to also censor what the initiative deems is misinformation… Organizations that are partners of the initiative include the Associated Press, BBC, European Broadcasting Union (EBU), Meta, Microsoft, Thomson Reuters, Google, Twitter, and The Washington Post.”
This alliance’s collusion currently faces antitrust challenges because while it “publicly purports to be a self-appointed ‘truth police’ extirpating online ‘misinformation,’ in fact it has suppressed wholly accurate and legitimate reporting in furtherance of the economic self-interest of its members.”
Clicking its “Network” link brings up the INN Network Directory where you are encouraged to Find Your News. It lists “more than 425 independent news organizations in a new kind of news network” that the Beacon has now joined, which “the Institute for Nonprofit News (INN) strengthens and supports.”
Examples of other INN Network community news sites using similar design templates, donation links, and policy language.
Browsing through several of these INN Network Directory news sites, they all appear to be cookie-cutter websites based on similar design templates, similar donation links, and similar boilerplate policy language as The Jefferson County Beacon, despite each purporting to be “local”, “independent”, and “community-supported.”
Follow The Money
Who actually bankrolls the INN and its network of news sites like the Beacon? According to its Supporters & Financials page, the Democracy Fund and Google News Initiative and several left-leaning foundations contribute more than $500,000 each, along with lesser donations from Microsoft and many others.
What is the Democracy Fund? According to its Financials page, it was “established and solely funded by philanthropist and eBay founder Pierre Omidyar” then spun off to the billionaire’s Omidyar Network, which describes itself as “a social change venture that reimagines critical systems, and the ideas that govern them, to build more inclusive and equitable societies … across the globe.”
“Unbiased” Reporting?
The Beaconsays it wants to hire local reporters with “a passion for independent news” to “tell the Local story with an unbiased approach.”
This “unbiased” start-up seeks local hires funded by international moneyed interests with a plan to change society in ways that arguably eliminate freedoms and diversity and tighten top-down controls. It comes at a time when a majority of networked media outlets purporting to be local and independent actually adhere to the same copycat globalist-directed scripts.
Remember the viral video exposing nearly 200 “local” CBS, ABC, NBC, and Fox affiliate anchors reciting an identical message about fake news?
Click to watch 1 minute-36 second viral video, exposing the script from the Sinclair Broadcast Group, which controls news stations nationwide.
Each of the affiliates first explained that their greatest responsibility was to serve their (fill-in-the-blank) communities, and then went on in scripted unison to decry other news sources as biased and irresponsible. The eerie compilation of voices, all stressing the same words, warned “This is extremelydangerous to our democracy.”
The expanding INN news initiative, already comprising more than 425 “independent” publications that the Beacon is now allied with, also coincides with a parallel effort by Soros Fund Management to embark on a “large audio-buying spree,” adding to the hundreds of US radio stations the George Soros group currently owns.
Consolidation of messaging to support a global agenda continues apace.
Given its origin as “a social change venture” funded by tech-giant billionaires, the Beacon should be mindful and honest about its own dependencies and biases… especially compared to the Port Townsend Leader, which (whatever its shortcomings) remains one of the last local independent papers in the country.
The Beaconsays it “was born when it became clear that Jefferson County needed a community-focused newspaper,” pretending the Leader does not focus on the county community. But what “community” does the Beacon feel the need to focus on?
Our politically-diverse county at large?
Or some like-minded coterie seeking an echo chamber free from viewpoints it blames the Leader — which for years has heavily censored local voices like those represented in the Port Townsend Free Press (see articles here, here, and here) — for not censoring enough?
May these qualms prove unfounded and the Beacon live up to its name, shining the light of truth as a vibrant part of our local media ecosystem.
The day they thought would never come arrived on Tuesday, March 19th, 2024, when the City of Port Townsend and the Olympic Peninsula YMCA received an unwelcome bit of news from a litigation team at the Center for American Liberty, representing longtime Port Townsend resident, Julie Jaman.
As reported by the national news website, the Daily Wire, the clock has run out on the YMCA’s and city’s dodging of responsibility for the debacle that ensued after Jaman was banned for life from the Mountain View Pool a year and a half ago.
Regular readers of the PT Free Press are familiar with the outrageous treatment Jaman (and eventually her supporters) faced in July and August of 2022. (Access our extensive reporting with the link following this article.)
According to the demand letter from the Center for American Liberty, “The City’s and the YMCA’s conduct violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution… and Washington law.” The letter was addressed to City Manager John Mauro, acting City Attorney Kendra Rosenberg, and Olympic Peninsula YMCA CEO, Wendy Bart.
“The Center for American Liberty sent a demand letter to the YMCA and the City of Port Townsend on Julie’s behalf threatening imminent litigation if Julie’s lifetime ban is not immediately lifted. The City of Port Townsend and the YMCA punished Julie because of the content of her speech—because she spoke out after seeing a man in the women’s locker room. Julie deserves justice for the violation of her First Amendment rights and the emotional distress she’s experienced because of this ordeal.”
Though a relatively young enterprise, in practice since 2018, the Center for American Liberty is blazing trails as it defends parental rights, constitutionally protected speech and religious liberties. They’ve emerged as a powerhouse in the woke arena of coercive “gender transitioning” of young children and teenagers, including the now nationally-recognized ‘detransitioner,’ Chloe Cole.
Page one of Center for American Liberty demand letter
Setting the stage
The 8-page letter accompanies over 200 pages of duplicative public records, many redacted — communications between city officials, the YMCA and the public relations firm contracted by the city to manage the mess they’d created by refusing to even consider Jaman’s version of the episode, devoted as they were to ideology rather than fairness and accuracy.
The demand letter references the unlawful ban of Jaman, provides a bit of factual background, and swiftly moves on to “The Locker-Room Incident.” (The following are excerpted quotes. For legal reasoning supporting them, please read the entire eight pages.)
On July 26, 2022, Jaman went for a swim at the Pool. After she finished, she entered the women’s locker room to shower and change. There were no signs warning patrons that the locker rooms were open to members of the opposite sex. In fact, the signage indicated that the locker rooms were sex segregated.
While in the shower, Jaman heard a male voice inside the locker room. When she pulled back the shower curtain to see who was there, she saw a biological male wearing a female swimsuit. The individual—later identified to Jaman as “Clementine Adams”—was watching two young girls who appeared to be about four to six years old as they were preparing to use the toilet. Adams was not wearing any form of identification indicating an affiliation with the YMCA.
Jaman was startled by Adams’s presence in the women’s locker room and believed that she might be witnessing a crime in progress. Jaman asked Adams, “Do you have a penis?” Adams responded, “None of your business,” after which Jaman said, “Get out of here!”
Within seconds, YMCA staff member Rowen DeLuna entered the women’s shower area and began berating Jaman. DeLuna did not inform Jaman that Adams was transgender, that Adams was an employee of the YMCA, or that the Pool had a policy allowing individuals to use the locker rooms that aligned with their gender identity. Instead, DeLuna informed Jaman that her speech toward Adams was “discriminatory,” that she was “banned for life” from the YMCA because of her speech, and that she could no longer set foot inside the facility.
In addition, DeLuna told Jaman to leave or she would call the police. Jaman told DeLuna that she too wanted the police involved so they could investigate potential misconduct. YMCA staff called 911 and asked for the police to escort Jaman from the premises. A recording of this call reveals that the YMCA staff told the police that Jaman was harassing YMCA employees and belligerently refusing to leave. None of this was true.
None of this was true. It’s important to reiterate this statement from the law firm, and to highlight the effort by several operators within the city administration to carefully craft the narrative before it went public.
Example of redacted communications between the city and the public relations firm hired to provide damage control (page 31, Exhibit C).
More from the Center for American Liberty’s demand letter:
On August 11, 2022—in the wake of significant local and national media attention—the City released an official Q&A discussing the July 26 incident... In the Q&A, the City said — falsely — that Jaman had engaged in a “documented previous pattern of disrespectful behavior.” … The YMCA made similar false statements to the media.See Exhibit B (quoting YMCA’s statement asserting that Jaman had “repeatedly violated the [YMCA’s] code of conduct”). Despite multiple requests, neither the City nor the YMCA has explained this alleged prior misconduct.
Emails and other documents obtained through public-records requests reveal that in the weeks following the July 26 incident, City officials were intimately involved in responding to concerns within the community regarding operation of the Pool. This included what appears to be a coordinated effort involving Mayor David Faber, City Manager John Mauro, and City Councilwoman Libby Wennstrom, among others, working with the YMCA and Feary [sic] Public Relations — a crisis communications firm hired by the City — to develop a public response to the incident.
This public relations campaign included statements to the media, social media posts, the above-mentioned Q&A, and other statements by members of the City Council.See, e.g., Exhibits C–F. These statements labeled Jaman as hateful and bigoted and indicated that she had engaged in a pattern of conduct that violated the YMCA’s policies. None of this is true.
While the above brief synopsis mentions the YMCA’s denial of evidence for its mendacious claims of Jaman’s prior “disrespectful behavior,” it bears repeating here — none of the supposed documentation was ever produced. Julie Jaman asked for it again and again. It does not exist. It was all a fabrication.
Jefferson County resident Crystal Cox requested a copy of the contract with Fearey. The $3,000 charged by the crisis communications firm to run interference for city hall is now just the start of what it will cost taxpayers to deal with the city’s gross mismanagement of a sensitive situation.
The City and the YMCA Violated the First Amendment
The First Amendment prohibits the government from retaliating against individuals forexercising their First Amendment rights... Moreover, the government may not discriminate against speech exercised on public property based on its viewpoint.
First, Jaman’s ban was in retaliation for her protected speech. When Jaman saw Adams accompanying two young girls in the women’s locker room and watching them while they undressed, she was concerned she was witnessing unlawful conduct.
To be sure, the government may, in appropriate cases, take action to protect its employees from harassing conduct of third parties. But Jaman’s comments did not come remotely close to the line of losing protection under the First Amendment or otherwise justifying the YMCA’s response.
By banning Jaman from the Pool based on her speech, the City and the YMCA retaliated against her for engaging in protected activity.
Second, the YMCA engaged in viewpoint discrimination on public property and acted unreasonably in banning Jaman. The government engages in viewpoint discrimination when it allows speech favoring one side of a debate but not the other.
The City and the YMCA Violated the Fourteenth Amendment
The City and the YMCA also violated Jaman’s due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. The Due Process Clause prohibits the government from depriving an individual of fundamental rights absent due process of law… Exercising First Amendment rights on public property is a protected liberty interest.
The YMCA banned Jaman for life immediately upon hearing her object to Adams’s presence in the locker room. It provided her no notice of its locker-room policy or that such objection would be deemed a violation of the YMCA’s conduct policies.
The City and the YMCA Violated Washington Law
The City and the YMCA also violated Washington common law. The statements that the City and the YMCA published about Jaman were false and defamatory per se, and the City and the YMCA acted in reckless disregard of the truth, at least.
Further, the City’s and the YMCA’s coordinated public relations campaign against Jaman amounts to the intentional infliction of emotional distress… And both the City and the YMCA were negligent in various ways, including but not limited to failing to warn patrons that persons of the opposite biological sex may be in sex-segregated locker-rooms…
The City and YMCA Must Cease their Unlawful Conduct
The City’s and the YMCA’s actions against Jaman were not only unlawful but also shameful. When an 80-year-old woman reasonably believes she is witnessing a crime against minors in a women’s showering area, the government’s reaction should be to gather all of the facts and learn what happened, not take sides in an ideologically charged debate.
Moreover, the public records obtained since the incident show City officials and YMCA employees engaged in a sophisticated and coordinated public relations campaign to smear Jaman and make her appear to be bigoted and dangerous to transgender individuals. This couldn’t be further from the truth. It is true that Jaman supports keeping women’s spaces reserved for biological women. But she does not harbor hate towards anyone based on their gender identity, nor has she ever engaged in harassment at the Pool or elsewhere. Yet that is exactly what the City and the YMCA have led the public to believe through their false and misleading statements.
Lead attorney, Harmeet Dhillon, closes with this:
“To remedy the unlawful conduct against my client, I demand the following: (1) the City and the YMCA lift the ban against Jaman; (2) the City and the YMCA issue a formal apology to Jaman for their actions against her; and (3) the City and the YMCA pay Jaman the sum of $350,000 for her emotional distress arising out of the incident.”
City officials and the YMCA CEO have until 5pm on Wednesday, March 27, 2024 to respond, or they can expect to meet Jaman, her local counsel Rosemary Schurman, and the Center for American Liberty — in court.
Administrators and elected officials in Port Townsend’s city hall are painfully familiar with charges of subverted public processes, and rightfully so. Sims Way poplars, the golf course, streateries, the pool — each of these controversial projects followed trajectories reflecting desires and preferred outcomes of those in power at the expense of transparency and honest efforts at citizen engagement.
Yet another attempt by the city to avoid transparency and manipulate public process has come to light.
In the course of exploring options for Port Townsend’s aging Mountain View pool, City Manager John Mauro and the city’s Director of Parks and Recreation Strategy Carrie Hite have told us there were only two choices. We “do nothing” and wait for the pool’s inevitable closure. Or the City of Port Townsend plus all the county’s taxpayers take on the massive debt of a grandiose $37-50 million aquatic center that citizens are calling the Taj Mahal (see articles here, here, here, here, and here).
Citizens asked repeatedly, What about renovating the existing pool? Mauro and Hite insisted that repairing and upgrading the pool would be prohibitively expensive — that the only option is a full-scale redevelopment of the entire Mountain View complex.
More than half a million dollars later, it turns out that reports provided by experts hired to evaluate the options show their assertion is untrue. And that those reports were kept not only from taxpayers, but also from the city council.
It took two citizens’ requests for documents that are supposed to be publicly available to uncover these suppressed reports.
They revealed estimates to completely refurbish and modernize the pool for $4-$5 million.
First Consultant’s Report
Last summer, the city commissioned Water Technology, Inc. (WTI) to evaluate the condition of the Mountain View pool and estimate the costs of remedying any problems found. WTI provides designs for new pools and the “refreshing” of old pools. In their field, which is primarily traditional construction methodology, they are considered a global leader.
WTI conducted an on-site investigation of the Mountain View pool and provided its report to the city six months ago on September 8, 2023. They found plenty of signs reflecting the age of the facility, the same problems we have heard about from city and YMCA staff, namely:
leakage in the pool vessel;
rippling in the pool liner;
ineffective pool gutter;
clogged drains;
deteriorated pool deck;
corrosion;
lack of underwater lighting;
insufficient HVAC ventilation;
inefficient and problematic pump;
deteriorated heat exchanger;
absence of secondary disinfectant system;
less significant issues such as ceiling bulbs needing replacement.
Example from WTI report of photos and written assessments (from Page 4 of PDF).
WTI estimated that all the deficiencies it found could be repaired and remedied for $2.875 million. For $3.5 million the Mountain View facility could be fully modernized, with complete reconstruction of the pool vessel, pool deck, piping, deck drainage and mechanical systems. They stated:
The newly constructed pool vessel will be designed and engineered to modern standards of quality and compliance and be supported by today’s advanced mechanical, filtration and water treatment systems.
The $3.5 million reconstruction would include:
New lap pool of 3,400 square feet;
Water depth zero to ten feet;
Quartz aggregate finish with tile border and markings;
Four lap lanes with starting platforms;
Shallow water program area.
WTI did not intend to paint only a rosy picture. Their conclusion was clear, and certainly no surprise. New is better, if one can afford new…
There is a significant investment required to provide aquatic amenities to the community which are maintainable long-term. However, lower levels of capital inputs for repairs or renovations in the short-term often result in higher total expenditures in the long-term. This report finds the Port Townsend community would be best served, both programmatically and financially, with a new aquatic facility. A modern aquatic center can provide the durability and efficiencies to enable a more effective and sustainable facility over a lifespan measured in decades than the existing facility after repairs and renovations.
But do we have the resources for a Taj Mahal? With city finances currently falling off a “fiscal cliff”, essential services like water and sewer are at risk right now in Port Townsend. Does “living within our means” apply to governments in the least? Bureaucrats spending other people’s money without consequence for catastrophic failure has led many cities in this country to bankruptcy.
Second Consultant “Found Minimal Damage to the Existing Structure”
WTI’s report did not look into the condition of the building. For that the city retained the services of CG Engineering of Edmonds, Washington “to assist the City with determining the scope and cost of rehabilitating the pool building,” according to the firm’s October 30, 2023 Structural Assessment Report.
CG Engineering inspected the pool on October 10. Water staining was observed on the ceiling. But rotting damage was not found; the stains were superficial. “Roof decking appeared in good condition,” the engineers concluded. Rust and rust stains were also observed at locations around the building.
Dozens of photographs document CG Engineering’s assessment of the Mountain View Pool building’s structure. Page 10 of the 10/30/23 Structural Assessment Report.
Structural elements are in good condition. The concrete walls are in good condition. A pool equipment pad was corroded and deteriorated. A crack in the men’s locker room floor was a shrinkage crack and did not compromise structural integrity. The same conclusion was reached regarding observed hairline fractures in locker room walls.
Director of Parks and Recreation Strategy Hite (who holds neither an engineering degree nor a contractor’s license) has asserted that the pool is doomed and beyond repair partly because of the tunnel under the building.
Not so, concluded the engineers. Yes, the metal decking in the tunnel was severely corroded and had fallen away in several places. But “the decking appears to be non-structural and was likely formwork used during the original construction.” Cracking in the sidewalk slab directly above the tunnel was due to temperature differentials and did not compromise structural integrity, they said.
CG Engineering concluded:
Generally, we found minimal damage to the existing structure. Water staining and rust on the roof framing and steel connectors appeared superficial. The recently added vinyl roof coating appears to have been successful in temporarily preventing further water intrusion to the structural framing. Minor cracks in the concrete/CMU walls and concrete slabs appeared to be temperature and shrinkage related and should not affect the integrity of the structure.
CG Engineering’s recommended remedies came to an estimated cost of $536,643. There is only a partial cost of $300,000 estimated for a new roof which has been quoted elsewhere at $1.07 million. If the higher roofing estimate is accurate, that could bring the structural total to $1.3 million. And there is a to-be-determined line item for seismic retrofit. Seismic retrofits are not necessarily required and that appears to be the case for Mountain View since the city never asked any firm to estimate that cost.
Thus, based on these two consultant’s reports, the combined cost of remedying the building’s deficiencies and completely modernizing and upgrading the aquatic components comes to less than $5 million ($3.5M + $1.3M). Not the tens of millions we have been told it would take to provide a place for children to learn to swim and elders to recreate.
Why did city employees keep this news from the city council and the taxpayers who paid for those reports?
Why was public digging necessary to reveal this information?
Enter the Third Consultant’s Report
The WTI and CG Engineering reports, only recently disclosed, were respectively received by the city six months and four months ago. Both firms have decades of experience in these kinds of analyses.
From minutes of the August 8, 2023 workshop of the Healthier Together Aquatic Center steering committee we learn that these two reports were anticipated by mid-September. The minutes noted:
From minutes of the August 8, 2023 Healthier Together Aquatic Center steering committee meeting with Carrie Hite and eight others in attendance. The meeting focused mostly on using the creation of a Public Facilities District (PFD) as a funding mechanism for the proposed new aquatic center, and strategies for winning approval of a new tax ballot measure brought to county voters.
But upon receipt of WTI’s September 8 Mountain View Pool Evaluation and CG Engineering’s October 30 Structural Assessment Report, neither report assessing the possibilities for upgrading the pool and building was disclosed by the city. When both of the above reports revealed less than a $5 million price tag likely for full repair and renovation, it appears Hite and Mauro took another approach.
A third consultant’s report was commissioned. The city contracted DCW Cost Management, a generalized cost-estimating firm in Seattle with no specific expertise in pools, to do a “Cost Study.”
Unlike the first two reports which present documenting photos and written analysis to remedy existing conditions, DCW’s Cost Study, obtained months later, shows no evidence that the firm assessed anything about the existing pool and structure. Other than saving and repairing some windows and exterior doors and repairing a roof drain, it appears that most if not all of the structure, and every system and all contents were to be replaced with new ones. We are told that “Cost [sic] are developed using existing as-built drawings.”
This cost study herein attempts to address the modernization of the existing facility to meet current code and for the pool to meet competition standards for Jefferson County students. The interior renovation includes new interior finishes, pool expansion and building extension, resurfacing of the pool deck, acoustic wall treatment to the natatorium, new plumbing where systems are broken, mechanical and electrical upgrades to current code.
No drawings or plans are shown, only costs. But reading through the 18 pages which include demolition, mass excavation, earthwork and other site preparation — even $153,000 in new landscaping — the impression is that they have taken a wrecking ball to the current building and used the existing as-built drawings to price out a complete rebuild.
Costs are delineated for components such as roofing ($1.07M), superstructure ($1.77M), plumbing systems ($2.67M), and heating, ventilation and cooling ($1.64M). Every pipe fitting, piece of tile and drain is itemized. There is a $1,530 line item for a 60 square foot “locker room graphic.”
We asked professional contractor Mark Grant of Grant Steel Buildings and Concrete Systems, Inc., who has scrutinized this study, for his impressions.
“Your interpretation is correct in that the DCW pool renovation cost study reflects nearly a complete tear down and rebuild of the entire facility. It is a stretch to refer to the scope of work shown in the DCW report as a renovation.”
He believes it’s prudent to add more for contingencies than is allowed for in the $4-$5 million total of the first two reports. But even another million or two will not come close to DCW’s $21 million rebuild price tag the city is claiming is an under-estimate.
Strategy: City Management Gaming the Public
In November 2023, as a member of the Healthier Together Aquatic Center steering committee, City Manager John Mauro acknowledged to the Jefferson County Commissioners that taxpayer funds in excess of half a million dollars had already been spent in pursuit of the “Taj Mahal” aquatic center project. Consultant fees and other trackable expenses have at this point amounted to over $721,000 — including more than $555,000 from the city, $105,000 from the county, and $50,000 from the Jefferson County Hospital District.
All has been spent in service of convincing the public that if we are to have a community pool in years to come, our only option is the fantastically expensive design presented in June of 2023.
In April of 2022 Mauro hired Carrie Hite to fill the city’s new Director of Parks and Recreation Strategy staff position. That role was created to direct the process and strategize the narrative to sell us on several large-scale city projects, including a lavish new aquatic center beyond our means.
Hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent on staff time and consultant fees, presenting the community with this grandiose vision that would require new taxation. Hite and Mauro repeatedly dismissed what should have been the first consideration — expert analysis of the cost to rehabilitate and upgrade the existing pool and building.
When the Healthier Together Aquatic Center plan was unveiled five months after the steering committee first met, there was tremendous community pushback. Homemade “NO PT POOL TAX” signs appeared around the county (see closing photos). Local professionals challenged the city’s assertion that there was no saving the existing pool.
Public pressure pushed the city to finally hire firms to assess the pool and structure and do long overdue cost analyses on a rehab. No doubt Mauro and Hite were looking to justify the supposed impossibility of bringing the Mountain View facility up to snuff. And one would expect that the outlay of yet more consultant money would drive the city to choose the best qualified firms in the field to do the job.
Both initial contractors WTI and CG Engineering appear to have those qualifications. Both have decades of experience. Both made thorough assessments that are well documented.
It appears that when the first two reports did not support the steering committee’s agenda for their flashy new aquatic center, those reports were kept under wraps. A third consultant was hired, a general “cost management” firm. The new kid on the block was given a vastly expanded “tear down and replace'” scope of work.
This interpretation of events is borne out by exchanges between Carrie Hite and Port Townsend resident Musa Jaman, who submitted a request for documents analyzing repairs needed to upgrade the existing pool. In response to a Facebook post from city council member Libby Wennstrom about the pool, Jaman asked where she could get accurate numbers. Wennstrom referred her to Carrie Hite.
Jaman’s email to Hite on November 22, 2023 titled “Public document request” asked “about getting access to the document analyzing the existing pool issues and associated costs to take care of repairs and upgrades along with operational and general maintenance costs.”
Hite responded on November 28, stalling:
“I have forwarded your public records request to our public records officer… The full cost analysis report that we commissioned will not be ready until next week sometime.”
While two reports that performed the analysis Jaman had asked for were already in the city’s possession, they were not disclosed.
On December 12, 2023, Carrie Hite again demonstrated her qualifications as Director of Strategy. She sent Jaman an email explaining the delay, again ignoring the first two reports, and emphasizing her contention that rehabilitation of the existing pool would be even more expensive than the new, expanded 21-million-dollar estimate from DCW that was now in hand.
Hite wrote, in part:
Hi Musa:
I held your PRR as a continued request so I could email you the cost study that was completed by DCW…
The $21M estimate is based on what is visible and given the age and unknowns around the current structure, as well as the rising costs for construction, this number is likely a conservative estimate.
Despite the existence of two credible reports received months earlier proving there were more affordable options, strategist Hite did not reveal the WTI and CG Engineering documents when they were requested. Instead, she waited until the city had obtained another report to support her “too expensive to fix” narrative.
When documents were finally sent to Jaman, the first report — commissioned from “global leaders” in aquatic planning, design and engineering, WTI — was omitted. Only CG Engineering and DCW files were in the attachments Jaman received.
The September 8, 2023 WTI pool evaluation was uncovered separately through a Public Records Request (PRR) by a member of a new group that had formed, the All County Citizens Alliance. He learned of the report’s existence from the minutes of the August 8 pool steering committee meeting, filed a PRR for it, and shared the document with the group.
We try to keep it at a high level:
Obfuscation, half-truths and outright falsehoods
Following receipt of WTI’s report through the PRR, Jim Scarantino, “on behalf of the All County Citizens Alliance,” attended the January 8, 2024 City Council workshop. He delivered “good news” in a public comment about the two studies that had been withheld from the council:
Unfortunately, somehow [the reports] didn’t make it into your packets on November 13th, and later on when you considered the pool.
What those two engineering firms found was that there was minimal damage to the Mountain View pool. And that the building can be repaired for $536,000… And that the pool can be completely replaced and modernized with the latest modern equipment, including a new pool with a shallow entry for parents and children, for $3.5 million, for a total of $4.1 million.…
I don’t know why city staff didn’t notify you of that, but we’re happy to do so.
The responses from Carrie Hite and John Mauro that followed are a master class in verbal ju jitsu, misrepresenting, and false statements.
Hite explained that the WTI assessment is just a “partial report”:
It doesn’t include seismic or ADA or building structures, roof or anything that has to do with the building at all. And so we, the city, contracted out with CGI [conflated with DCW], which is a construction management firm and cost estimator.
And they came back with a $21 million number for the full meal deal. And that was a very high risk number in which to rehab the pool…
There was an additional report that Jim referenced, the CG Engineering in October.
It was just up [sic] the roof…
“Just up the roof” is not only garbled — if, as it appears from context, she meant their report was “just about (or for) the roof” — that statement is flat-out false.
As we have shown, CG Engineering supplemented WTI’s report on the aquatic component of the equation with a full “assessment of the Mountain View Pool building’s structure.” Along with roof replacement, their Structural Assessment Report includes concrete walls, steel pipe columns, concrete slabs, pool room structural elements, and mechanical access tunnels.
Seismic wasn’t requested, nor is it included in any line items in the $21 million “full meal deal” from DCW. It is true that ADA was not addressed, but according to DCWs cost study those add-ons would amount to just $9,990 for an ADA-compliant shower, ramp & detectors, and parking signs.
The “full meal” from DCW offered the easy out — $21 million! By changing the scope of work to a “tear down and replace,” the full meal became a smorgasbord. Far from the rehab option that the community had been requesting which the first two reports looked at, it was an all-you-can-eat buffet with $1,500 locker room graphics and $153,000 of new outdoor landscaping for our indoor swim.
“And that 21 million might be 26, might be 27,” Hite told council.
She then said that “the steering committee saw that [DCW] report,” but made “the recommendation not to put a dollar into the old pool, because we can’t get any state and federal money or grants or philanthropy for that old pool.”
She concluded:
So those reports are operational in nature. We try to keep it at a high level.
If you want the details, I’d be happy to send it to you. But we really tried to go through the steering committee first and keep it at a very high level and make some decisions based on the full report, not a partial report.
John Mauro jumped in:
Can I also add to that, that report has been available online for some time?…
And not to mince words too much, because I know this is a game.
But it’s easy to cherry pick numbers and manufacture a different truth.
A game it is. City Manager Mauro did not create the position of Director of Parks and Recreation Strategy to oversee a practical renovation of “that old pool.” Carrie Hite was hired to sell us a “very high level” new aquatic center.
And her “happy to send you the details” was for just one report, DCW’s full meal deal.
When the reports were requested, that $21 million “tear down and replace” cost study was the only one made available to council members. That is the one Mauro references that was online. To this day, it remains the only one of the three posted by the city.
The initial WTI and CG Engineering reports, totaling less than $5 million, are not disclosed on the city’s website. On the “Healthier Together” aquatic center web page under “Materials Available for Review,” there is no mention of the two firms’ analyses and findings that support sensible renovation and modernization of the existing pool.
The Kah Tai Valley, between the Straits of Juan de Fuca and Port Townsend Bay, once consisted of open prairies and estuaries. Development quickly transformed this landscape; however, due to benign neglect of a small area within Port Townsend Golf Course, a colorful relic of the last ice age still remains.
From the words of a native son of Port Townsend pioneers, James McCurdy, the valley once was a botanical delight: “Myriads of wild flowers transformed the valley floor into a many-hued carpet.”
— Washington Native Plant Society
————————————–
On a shortcut across the Port Townsend Golf Course, I suddenly found myself in the middle of a remarkable patch of wild flowers. They included some of the same diminutive species I had seen growing in the alpine meadows of the Olympic Mountains. I had seen none of these wildflowers anywhere else in town and wondered how they happened to be so abundant in this one place.
It felt like a secret garden that had fallen into neglect and ruin. The person who had once tended to the wildflowers was no longer with us. I took one last look, said my thanks and continued on my merry way.
Two weeks later I met Gerry Bergstrom, a local native plant enthusiast and member of the Washington Native Plant Society (WNPS). I asked Gerry about the wildflowers at the Golf Course. She had never seen them. Once she had, Gerry was equally curious about how they got there.
She contacted Nelsa Buckingham, one of the founding members of WNPS, who confirmed our suspicion that these were no ordinary wildflowers. They were a remnant of the northwest prairies that once dominated the regional landscape during the interglacial Ice Ages’ warm spells back when the mastodons and giant ground sloths roamed the prairies, and the skies were cloudy all day.
When the intermittent outbreaks of global warming became sufficient, shrubs and trees would start to squeeze out the prairies. The wildflowers and their grassy companions would hightail it back up to the mountains above the treeline.
With all their moving around, the northwest prairies adapted to a wide variety of conditions, but they never figured how to out-compete the trees and shrubs except in places that were especially rocky, wet or dry. When the Ice Ages ended, the northwest prairies were saved from extinction by the early northwesterners who kept the trees and shrubs at bay by their persistent burning of the grasslands.
These early North American pyromaniacs preferred the prairies over the magnificent old growth forest that swallowed up most of the land. In the grasslands a person could stretch out in the sun in the open park-like place. The grasslands provided better browse for game. They were where the locals grew their camas lilies, the staple vegetable crop of the region and the second most important trade item in the Northwest after smoked salmon. The bulbs were slow-baked in pits for a day and half until golden brown, then pounded into cakes.
From start to finish there was an art to making camas sweet cakes. A fire was started in the pit. At just the right time the fire was damped down with wet leaves and the bulbs were layered on top. Sometimes, herbs like lomatium root were added to the mix. The bulbs were covered with more wet leaves and wood. The pit was sealed with a layer of soil. The fire had to be carefully tended to damp out smoke spouts lest the bulbs become scorched. Other seasonings could be mixed in during the pounding of the cakes.
Our prairie remnant at Kah Tai Prairie Preserve is on a hilltop, not the best place to grow your favorite food crop. The lushest bulbs grew in rich, moist soils of the valley bottoms. Like everyone else the S’Klallam grew their staple crop in the wetland floodplain prairies. These wetland prairies were the first places settled by the agriculturalists who immigrated from Europe and Asia. They drained and filled the wet spots and soon erased all traces of the wetland prairie gardens. Tacoma, Seattle and Olympia were among the important sites of camas cultivation.
One Hundred Years of Neglect
Thanks to the efforts of our local chapter of the Native Plant Society, the prairie remnant at the golf course looks much better than it did when I first stumbled upon it. Back then, there was a ditch ripped through the middle of it; wild roses and the non-native grasses were crowding their way in. The wildflower patch appeared unkempt, unloved and run down. It’s not surprising that Nelsa Buckingham decided that the prairie remnant survived the management of the golf course by pure happenstance and benign neglect.
When the Kah Tai Prairie Preserve was inaugurated, it touched off a small brush fire war in the environmental battles of the time. Some of the older golfers claimed that it was Mark and Ann Welch’s grandfather George who planted the wildflowers at the golf course.
In the 1920’s there were no paved roads into the Olympic Mountains, and only the more adventurous souls made it into the remote areas of the future park. Among these adventurous souls were George and Lillian Welch.
Local environmentalists claimed that George and his buddies were the ones who brought the goats into what would later become the Olympic National Park. Try this for yourself sometime — bring up the folks who put the goats in the park with your environmentalist friends and wait for the spit to hit the fan.
We had better stuff to fight about back then, so the controversy was quickly forgotten with the opening of Prairie Preserve.
Anyone who has had experience with the various wildflower mixtures and herbal lawn recipes will realize how far fetched is the idea that George Welch or anyone else could have created a native prairie from scratch by bringing wildflowers down from the mountains.
On the other hand, I was skeptical that the prairie remnant could have survived for nearly a hundred years of neglect. Without burning, intense grazing or regular mowing it takes about twenty to thirty years for grasslands in the Kah Tai Valley to be replaced by wild roses, snowberries, oceanspray and oregon grape.
The golf course faced even greater challenges than the S’Klallam people in maintaining the prairie remnant. The plants that came over with the European settlers and the Asian sojourners tend to outcompete the Northwest native prairie plants. As the prairie remnant got smaller and more isolated it became more susceptible to competition from the non-native grasses and weeds, especially around the edges.
According to one Oregon State University Extension Service lawn and turf specialist, no matter what seed you plant, what kind of turf you roll out, no matter how well you take care of your lawn… in seven years it will revert to the same pasture and vacant lot grasses threatening to invade the prairie remnant at the golf course.
It would have taken some seriously potent benign neglect for the prairie remnant at the golf course to have survived for all that time.
Mr. Whiskers and the Golden Paintbrush
There was one plant growing in the prairie remnant that seemed a possible candidate to have made that trip down from the Olympics in George Welch’s rucksack. Geum triflorum or Old Man’s Whiskers is supposedly rare in lowland prairies. It behaved differently from its neighbors in the Prairie Preserve. While most of the other plants were dispersed throughout the prairie site, Mr. Whiskers was growing in clumps in a few places and appeared to propagate mostly vegetatively rather than by seed. If George helped put the goats in the Olympic Mountains, it didn’t seem so far fetched that he might have planted a few of his mountain favorites in the prairie remnant at the golf course.
Messing with mother nature is a very human trait. When the Makah tribe discovered the South American potato, they planted it in their prairies. The result of the tribe’s years of potato cultivation is the Ozette potato, an heirloom variety that is still grown in the Pacific Northwest.
Likewise in 2004 the Native Plant Society planted the seeds of the Golden Paintbrush, a rare and endangered species, in the Prairie Preserve.
Meanwhile: What about the Goats?
The internet is riddled with stories of the goats ravaging the Olympic alpine meadows and dramatic videos of helicopters airlifting them out of the park.
But it doesn’t have much about how they got there in the first place, other than an obscure 2009 interview in the Peninsula Daily News with Mary Ann DeLong and Ann Welch, “both fourth-generation descendants of pioneer Olympic Peninsula families”:
“My granddad [Jack Pike] was the Clallam County game warden who supervised the release of mountain goats in the Olympics in 1925,” DeLong said. [Ann Welch’s great-uncle Van Welch] “was game warden in 1929 when the second group of goats was released.” …
Ann’s grandfather, George Welch, was also present at one of the goat releases…
Both women said that while their ancestors often are blamed for introducing the goats into the Olympics, they were only carrying out instructions — others, including the Clallam County Game Commission and the U.S. Forest Service, made the decision to import them from the Canadian Selkirks and Alaska, they said.
“It was a time before they understood the devastation that a non-native species could cause,” Ann Welch said. “They thought the goats would look cool.”
Jack Pike, pictured in the photograph as a dark-haired man with a black mustache, was an avid hunter and fisherman who campaigned against the damming of the Elwha River because it would ruin the fish runs, DeLong said.
Her grandfather was also known as the game warden with a heart, she said, because he would look the other way if he came across a deer taken illegally by a man who had a family to feed.
George Welch’s early photographs of the mountains were one of the ways proponents of an Olympic National Park brought the Olympics to the attention of the average person.
The goats were another effort to draw attention. Not only would they “look cool,” they would attract the interest of hunters. In fact it was the Great White Hunter, Teddy “Bull Moose” Roosevelt who established our first national parks.
In 1937 Teddy visited the Olympic Mountains, and in 1938 Franklin Roosevelt established the Olympic National Park. Hopefully Teddy snagged an Olympic mountain goat along with a rack of Olympic bull elk antlers for his collection.
When the Olympic National Park was established, hunting was outlawed. Without predators to keep the population in check, the goats went on to become a real problem in the park.
Besides chewing the alpine meadows and rockeries down to the nubbins, they treated hikers like walking salt shakers and sometimes became aggressive in their pursuit of a scarce resource. In any case the experiment failed and the goats are now in the final phases of culling and relocation.
It seems a harsh judgment when two generations later, granddaughters feel they must apologize for an experiment done by forebears with good intentions and the understanding of the time.
Lillian and George’s Wildflower Garden
Ann says that the family believes that it was her grandmother Lillian who took care of the wildflowers at the golf course. In the seventies when Ann worked there, they still burned the prairie remnant every year, just like their S’Klallam predecessors.
It’s time to set aside the foolish notion of benign neglect, an idea that reflects an environmental ethos that nature is better off left to itself, free from human intervention. Our Northwest prairies represent an ecosystem that depends on the human touch for their continued existence.
We should honor Lillian and George Welch for their efforts in preserving the prairie remnant at the Port Townsend Golf Course.
Public Health said they knew the world needed to be locked down. But now Francis Collins, NIH Director at the time, regrets “we weren’t really thinking about what that would mean … we weren’t considering the consequences … the public health people have a very narrow view of what the right decision is … You attach zero value to whether this actually totally disrupts people’s lives, ruins the economy, and has many kids kept out of school in a way that they never quite recover from. So, yeah, collateral damage.”
Public Health said they knew everybody had to stay 6 feet apart to be safe, but last week Dr. Fauci admitted before Congress that was just made up, “not based on scientific data“.
When the warp speed mRNA jabs were rushed through testing and the controls were injected just weeks later so no longterm safety data was possible, Public Health nevertheless proclaimed they knew that jabs were “safe and effective”, even though they could not possibly know that at the time.
After all, the trials never even tested for protection against transmission; as covid coordinator Deborah Birx later admitted, such promises were just based on “hope that the vaccine would work in that way“, not knowledge.
Another thing Public Health didn’t know was recent revelations that the trials were a bait-and-switch, because vaccine manufacturers couldn’t produce to scale so used different methodology to make the jabs everybody took than what was tested in the trials.
Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed…
Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
Everybody knows the captain lied
Everybody got this broken feeling
Like their father or their dog just died …
Everybody knows it’s now or never …
Everybody knows the plague is coming
Everybody knows that it’s moving fast…
Everybody knows, everybody knows.
Everybody knows — except Public Health and those they’ve bamboozled.
——————————————————
Following my public comment, Dr. Allison Berry responded with the kind of disinformation that has consistently characterized her tenure as county health officer. Among her most egregious statements at the January 18 meeting were continuing to urge mRNA and other respiratory virus shots on infants and pregnant women, and suggesting permanent masking to prevent flu despite proven ineffectiveness.
Berry’s dangerous narrative was roundly discredited years ago, as reported in past Free Press articles. The evidence of deaths and injuries from the shots, as well as their negative efficacy, has only increased since those reports.
Previous articles detailing local Public Health disinformation include:
Insufficient revenues. Increasing expenditures. Stagnant economy. Port Townsend is heading over its financial cliff fast.
Don a green eye shade and take a flinty-eyed look at the city budget just approved for 2024. There’s red ink everywhere. The vapid verbiage of John Mauro’s City Manager’s Report can’t cancel it. It is only erased by burning reserves unlikely to be replenished in the foreseeable future. At a time when significant growth is needed, city projections for next year see a contraction in business activity and tax revenue.
What is celebrated as growth over the years since the city emerged from pandemic restrictions owes much to recent high inflation. It is not real growth.
Since those restrictions ended, the city has lost 10% of its commercial utility accounts. Businesses are closing up and leaving town. I recently counted 18 shuttered businesses from upper Sims Way, down Water Street and along lower Washington Street.
The Public Works Director has stated that strong, steady growth and a “radical change” are needed. Instead we are seeing denial, business as usual and City Hall chasing grandiose projects it cannot afford, like an expensive new aquatic center.
The words “save money” and “austerity” are foreign to City Hall’s vocabulary. Instead, the city seeks to expand outlays and staffing. That means a more rapid depletion of reserves and an accelerated march over that financial cliff the city acknowledges is its future.
The Fiscal Cliff
The City’s Financial Sustainability Task Force predicts that city finances will launch over a “fiscal cliff” in a few short years. We reported on the city’s grim financial future here and here. The graphic from the Task Force’s final report shows the city eating reserves at a quickening rate beginning in 2025 and descending into municipal failure in 2028.
The city’s 2024 budget — just approved on December 4, 2023 — shows that the cliff is closer than the Financial Sustainability Task Force predicted. After less than two years of employment, the city’s finance director bid farewell with the last budget she would submit to city council.
The city has seen a number of resignations of other key personnel — including the city clerk, HR director, and other financial staff — a subject worthy of another report. In terms of fiscal impact, departures of critical employees translates into losses as money and time must be expended in recruiting and hiring replacements. Inefficiencies abound until replacement hires get up to speed and fit in.
The work of the outgoing finance director shows that the city currently lacks income sufficient to pay all its bills. To make the budget balance, it must take money out of reserves. A lot of money. The Financial Sustainability graphic projected very little change from 2023 to 2024. But the reality reflected in the approved 2024 budget shows the city has already begun its dive off that fiscal cliff.
Look at all the red ink in the following table from the city’s budget for the coming year.
The city had to reduce its General Fund reserve by 35% to produce a budget on paper that appears balanced. Its General Fund reserve is now just barely $4 million. That is down from $6.9 million at the start of 2023. That huge drop of more than a third of its reserves is due to the fact that the city overshot its projected 2023 expenses by almost $2.4 million. And more of its General Fund reserve will need to be withdrawn in the coming year.
Nearly $2.4 million, more than one third of the city’s reserves, were drained to meet expenses in 2023.
Where did all the money go?
Consultants got a huge chunk. And expenses related to the golf course “envisioning” and indulging expensive fantasies for a new aquatic center contributed heavily to a $4.7 million supplemental budget passed earlier in 2023.
The city has also been spending down its $2.755 million in federal Covid gift money (American Rescue Plan Act – “ARPA”). According to federal law, these funds were to be spent on water, sewer and other infrastructure, revenue replacement for the hit municipal finances took from Covid lock-down, assistance to small businesses, households and industries negatively impacted by Covid-related losses, or premium pay for essential workers. All of that money will be spent by the end of 2024; none will be left for 2025.
Judge for yourself whether these federal funds were spent properly. The largest single use of federal Covid funds — $741,500 — will, by the end of 2024, be spent on enhancing City Hall and council chambers, paying for such items as a new door, chairs and tables, carpet, and remodeling staff offices. (See page 12 of the 2024 budget report.) In his year-end message for 2023, City Manager Mauro elevated remodeling Council chambers to the level of a “core” municipal service.
The next largest use of Covid funds — $505,958 — went not to fixing sewers, water lines and other infrastructure, but to re-imagining the golf course and the pool. On top of that, another $255,000 went to parks.
Not a dime of these Federal funds was spent on fixing sewers and water lines or other infrastructure, with the possible exception of $59,000 for a mini-excavator.
The city expanded its payroll by adding a “Long Range Planner” for $240,000. Another $50,000 was spent on something called an “Engagement Survey.”
Rapid Growth and Expansion As More Red Ink Flows
Critical infrastructure — streets, water and sewers — show deficits in their capital and operating accounts. At the same time City Hall expenditures have been growing dramatically in other areas.
Comparing the city payroll in 2021 to the 2024 budget shows huge growth. Government, of course, is expanding after pulling back during the pandemic. But this robust ballooning comes in the face of that impending dive off the precipice just up ahead. City staffing is, thus, returning to and exceeding previously unsustainable levels.
Expenditures for the mayor and council have more than doubled.
The city attorney has seen a 32% increase.
Communications, a new PR department, has been created.
Human resources has grown by 260%.
Planning and Development Services has grown 250%.
Police administration — not to be confused with patrol officers — has more than doubled.
Police operations has also grown — by 45%.
The City Clerk has enjoyed a budgetary increase of 53%.
The city hopes to add six more employees in 2024.
The city manager budget has remained relatively constant, but Mauro has been hiring and expanding other departments that serve him, putting those numbers onto other budget lines. Positions like the new Communications & Marketing Manager make his office look good.
Let’s not forget that in November 2022 Mauro got a $12,500 retention bonus, a 10% raise and a car allowance large enough to cover driving 10,000 miles annually. His severance pay was doubled from 6 months to one year’s salary, and then he went on a 5 week vacation. This came at a time when he was boasting of implementing “lean thinking” at City Hall.
Feeble Economy, Diminished Revenues
The city’s utility account suggests a significant loss of businesses and commercial activity since 2021, with commercial accounts shrinking from 454 to 408.
To make matters worse, the city is forecasting a downturn in revenues for 2024 — even though it continues to increase its expenditures.
Business & Occupation tax receipts, a reflection of economic activity, have on average since 2021, been flat at $927,000, and are predicted to decrease in 2024. The Real Estate Excise Tax, which is generated by real estate sales, has declined steadily from 2022 and continues its downward trajectory in 2024.
The Lodging Tax, a proxy measurement for tourist activity, shows revenues pulling back to 2021 levels.
Sales tax receipts account for 40% of the city’s general fund tax revenues. They bounced back following the lifting of Covid restrictions but have stalled out.
Adjusted (decreased) for inflation, the picture grows more somber. The annual rate of All Items Consumer Price Index inflation in 2021 was 7%, in 2022 reached 9.1%, and in 2023 is estimated to be 3.1%. The columns in the graph immediately below would be, cumulatively, that much lower when inflated revenues are adjusted to show real dollar values.
Note that sales tax receipts are projected to decline for 2024, not a good omen when there’s already red ink in the budget.
Next Up: 2025
Where are desperately needed, steadily increasing revenues going to come from?
The lodging and sales tax graphs show that the tourist economy is effectively maxed out. THING, the music and arts festival which has been a big boost to the city’s tourist economy, will not be returning. Fort Worden, once a dynamic job creator, continues to struggle. An inadequate stock of hotel rooms — both in numbers and quality — is a serious bottleneck preventing expansion of the tourist economy and disqualifying PT as a convention or business meeting destination.
New businesses are not sprouting up in PT, nor are established businesses relocating here. As mentioned earlier, I recently counted 18 shuttered or darkened storefronts and offices from upper Sims Way through downtown on Water and Washington Streets.
There are always tax and utility rate increases to feed city coffers. But making Port Townsend an even more expensive place to live and do business is the opposite of what is needed.
The Tri-Area, by comparison, seems to be doing better economically. The office parks and retail centers appear to be fully occupied. A new Dollar Store is going into Port Hadlock and Henery’s has acquired and invested heavily in the old Hadlock Hardware. Carl’s Building Supply is expanding and adding a showroom. These are signs of confidence in what is emerging as a competitive, lower-cost economic hub slated to enjoy significant population growth in future decades. It was recently disclosed at a County Commission meeting that Jefferson County outside Port Townsend city limits already generates over 70% of the county’s total sales taxes.
Port Townsend depends heavily on retail sales. But it continues to lose out to Kitsap and Clallam Counties where many residents travel regularly to do much of their shopping. PT currently has a 9.4% sales tax. City leaders are pushing to raise it to 9.6% to fund a new aquatic center. Clallam County, in contrast, has an 8.6% rate in its unincorporated areas, and Sequim, where the big box stores patronized by PT households are located, has an 8.9% rate.
The Aquatic Center Fantasy
Cash-strapped Port Townsend already allocates $386,000 to subsidize the Mountain View pool. In an effort to persuade the rest of the county to accept higher sales taxes to pay for construction of a new $37-$48 million aquatic center, PT is promising to up its contribution to $430,000 annually for the next 30 years, and threatening to withhold its largesse unless the new pool is built at Mountain View Commons.
Baloney.
Port Townsend does not have the money to back up its words. When it falls off that fiscal cliff in a few years, will the city terminate police officers, engineers, sewage plant workers or city hall administrative staff in order to throw $430,000 at pool operations? And how can the current city council bind the hands of future city councils struggling to provide core municipal services? This city council cannot make the pool subsidy an untouchable sacred cow for the next three decades.
Spending on amenities, particularly recreation, is the first thing axed by struggling municipalities. Pools are money drains. When municipal budgets are pinched, recreation expenditures get cut. Every community that has a public pool faces this dilemma, and many have closed their aquatic facilities because they had no other choice.
Without the luxury of fat reserves and a booming economy, Port Townsend also will have no choice but to jettison its discretionary commitment to a recreational amenity. State law requires that municipalities fund core services; it does not mandate funding pools.
Water, Sewers and Streets
The city needs to spend $56 million keep its sewer system functioning by lining all asbestos, concrete and vitrified clay pipes. That is a conservative estimate. Plus, the sewage treatment plant is at capacity and showing its age. To accommodate future growth, it must be modernized and expanded. That cost has not been nailed down.
The city needs to spend, according to a 2019 analysis, $119 million to repair and sustain its sole water line from the Quilcene River. So far, the city has banked about $8 million towards this goal.
The Lords Lake dam above Quilcene that retains city drinking water requires seismic upgrades that could cost $4-5 million.
The city needs at least $30 million to get a grip on its rapidly failing city streets. Voters approved a .3% sales tax for streets, but that may not be enough. Completely and properly fixing the city’s streets is estimated to require the next thirty years and more money.
Leadership Deficit
Not only on financial ledgers does Port Townsend show a deficit. It suffers from a paucity of competent, responsible leadership. Those who exhibit and strive for financial sensibility are in a small minority on City Council. The city is mostly governed by seriously unserious people.
In their own words:
From City Manager John Mauro’s 2024 Budget Message:
Drawing together a responsible, disciplined, and strategic budget is somewhat like assembling a three-dimensional puzzle. There are many pieces, and each piece doesn’t really make sense on its own. It takes time to understand the shape and scale of the pieces and how they relate to each other. Once the pieces start clicking together, it takes the form of something more cohesive, stable, and sensible. It becomes something that keeps our community running and guides us.
We’ve put our heads together to puzzle over the 2024 budget, working out a series of inter-related puzzles at the same time – all while the pieces themselves actually morph and change. For instance, we’ve been working toward a more comprehensive vision for our streets and transportation that serves all of us. We’ve been working to increase the availability of attainable workforce housing. We’ve been envisioning the future of the golf course, and a regional aquatic center. And much more. While each of these things is, itself, substantive and complex, focusing only on one of them at a time misses a more honest discussion of tradeoffs and balance, as well as the strategic power of the whole.
All those words and not one mention of the fact the city is being forced to burn reserves again.
And then there’s this, when explaining “sensible streamlining”:
[W]e are sensibly streamlining policies to best optimize necessary checks and balances with desired efficiency and productivity.
What, if anything, did he just say?
There was hardly any discussion by city council when adopting the 2024 budget at their December 4, 2023 meeting. For clearer insights into the irresponsibility and lack of common sense of those in charge of the city’s troubled affairs, we can go to their more in-depth, more detailed and more thorough discussion of building a new pool.
The price tag, as we’ve reported here repeatedly, is huge, $37-$48 million. That $11 million spread represents the foreseeable cost overruns. We have reported on the worrisome problems with the aquatic center’s feasibility study that bode ill for the project’s long-term financial success. An expensive municipal pool can empty public coffers in a hurry and saddle taxpayers with a hungry beast that must be fed for decades to come.
How seriously have members of the ruling clique on City Council addressed this huge challenge?
Here’s City Councilor Aislinn Palmer, in her comments at the November 21, 2024 meeting where Council voted to express support for the aquatic center proposal:
The operating costs just don’t add up for me. But I think we just have to build it. We’re at the point where we have to build something, and some of that will just have to get figured out as that’s just how you get things done anywhere. (@2:19:43 of the video recording)
Councilor Libby Wennstrom got City Council chuckling. Here’s her response to concerns that problems with the aquatic center’s finances could spell trouble:
If we’re over our head in ten years, at least we’ll have a pool to dip in. (@2:31:55 of video recording)
Recently City Council devoted an entire meeting to working with a group therapist. They were told to write down things they felt they did correctly, then share how reflecting on a memory of a past success made them feel. Taxpayers were billed $1,300 for the ninety-minute session.
WTI’s report did not look into the condition of the building. For that the city retained the services of 
The WTI and CG Engineering reports, only recently disclosed, were respectively received by the city six months and four months ago. Both firms have decades of experience in these kinds of analyses.
The grasslands provided better browse for game. They were where the locals grew their camas lilies, the staple vegetable crop of the region and the second most important trade item in the Northwest after smoked salmon. The bulbs were slow-baked in pits for a day and half until golden brown, then pounded into cakes.
In the 1920’s there were no paved roads into the Olympic Mountains, and only the more adventurous souls made it into the remote areas of the future park. Among these adventurous souls were George and Lillian Welch.
It behaved differently from its neighbors in the Prairie Preserve. While most of the other plants were dispersed throughout the prairie site, Mr. Whiskers was growing in clumps in a few places and appeared to propagate mostly vegetatively rather than by seed. If George helped put the goats in the Olympic Mountains, it didn’t seem so far fetched that he might have planted a few of his mountain favorites in the prairie remnant at the golf course.
Likewise in 2004 the Native Plant Society planted the seeds of the Golden Paintbrush, a rare and endangered species, in the Prairie Preserve.
New businesses are not sprouting up in PT, nor are established businesses relocating here. As mentioned earlier, I recently counted 18 shuttered or darkened storefronts and offices from upper Sims Way through downtown on Water and Washington Streets.
