Clallam County revising coroner position
Published 4:35 pm Monday, February 23, 2026
PORT ANGELES — The Clallam County staff is working to get the voter-approved coroner position ready for hiring.
Prosecuting attorney Mark Nichols served as the county’s coroner until state law changes and an attorney general’s opinion indicated in 2024 that prosecutors would no longer be able to serve as coroners due to potential conflicts of interest.
District Court Judge David Neupert served in the role last year while the Charter Review Commission reviewed the county charger and then put the matter on the November ballot for voters to decide. The measure to remove the coroner duties from the elected prosecuting attorney passed with 81.6 percent of the vote.
Since then, county administrator Todd Mielke has been working on an ordinance to bring to the commissioners.
“It was overwhelmingly approved to move forward under which Clallam County would move forward, create a separate department of coroner outside of the prosecutor’s office and that we would move forward with that,” Mielke said Monday. “I think our challenge has been everybody is spread thin for a lot of different reasons and essentially what we recognize is we needed the formal instrument to stand up the department, and we needed the instrument to go ahead and make the appointment.”
Mielke has sought help from both Nichols and Neupert. The consensus among those working on this issue is to create the coroner’s department through an ordinance, Mielke said.
He sent a draft version to commissioners Monday morning but is still working to finalize the ordinance before officially presenting it during a future work session. After that work session, the commissioners will hold a public hearing and then adopt the ordinance.
“So we have a little bit of process, but I think that we are very close to having that language done,” he said.
For the coroner appointment, Mielke said the process involves creating a resolution the commissioners would need to approve. That resolution also is being worked on.
The plan is to have the ordinance ready for the work session on March 9.
Highway interchange
During Monday’s meeting, commissioners also discussed signing a letter of support for the city of Sequim, which is applying for a federal Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development grant to design the full U.S. Highway 101-Simdars Road interchange.
“When the bypass was originally conceived about 30 years ago around when the 5-mile bypass, it was conceived to put in the full interchange,” said Steve Gray, deputy director of the county’s public works department. “What lacked was funding, and it’s still lacking, and so the city is pushing forward. That’s a project that the county has supported.”
The deadline for the grant application is today.
Commissioners also received new amendments to 11 contracts between the county Health & Human Services department and various county organizations.
The contracts address the supplement document requirement the county has received from the state Department of Commerce.
After the contracts were executed, Commerce told the county that the record retention language didn’t meet the required six-year retention standard. The contract amendments will just incorporate that six-year record retention provision.
The contracts will provide funding to Sarge’s Veteran Support for a case manager and for a kitchen remodel, Healthy Families of Clallam County for its Emergency Shelter program and for its Safely Home program, Serenity House of Clallam County for the Shelter Aids program, The Answer for Youth for its Bridging the Gap 12 program and for its Starfleet Operations program, the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Olympic Peninsula for the Teen Homelessness Prevention and Resources program, Peninsula Housing Authority for the Eklund at Gales project, Trinity United Methodist Church for the Safe Parking program and Forks Abuse DBA Mariposa House for the West End Hope program.
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Reporter Emily Hanson can be reached by email at emily.hanson@peninsuladailynews.com.
