Coroner process under review
Published 1:30 am Tuesday, March 10, 2026
PORT ANGELES — Clallam County staff members are still working to finalize the language of an ordinance to create the office of the coroner.
County Administrator Todd Mielke told commissioners during their work session Monday that District Court Judge David Neupert — who has been working as the county coroner since last January — and prosecuting attorney Mark Nichols — who was the ex-officio coroner until a change in state law in 2024 — have been working on the language for the ordinance.
Nichols has recommended that when the county hires a coroner, the official process be the same as when a vacant elected position is fulfilled by appointment, Mielke said, calling the process “time-tested.”
“Department heads were never at the status of an elected position,” Mielke said. “I think department heads falls almost exclusively to the administrator, but I think the appointment process for coroner should be through the commissioners.”
Another recommendation is for the coroner to be a bonded position just like the commissioners and prosecutor are since the coroner will be making decisions — such as leading death investigations and overseeing cause of death — which can be challenged by members of the public.
Mielke said he plans to bring ordinance revisions to the commissioners next Monday and then have them call for a public hearing March 17.
During the work session, commissioners also heard an update on the Dungeness Off-Channel Reservoir Project.
“We’ve done water budget modeling and a number of other things and also cleaned up the old dump site,” Public Works Deputy Director Steve Gray said. “We’re at a point with the reservoir design where more input, more analysis is done.”
The team is working on a 30 percent preliminary design reset, and the consultant should have that finalized by either the end of March or early April, Gray said.
When Public Works requested a no-cost time extension of the 2019 Ecology Streamflow Restoration Grant, project stakeholders indicated they wanted to see a point of diversion on the design as well as a fish screen at the diversion point, project coordinator Rhiana Barkie said.
That amendment to the grant is being worked on with the goal of completing it by the end of March.
“With this change is scope that could potentially include moving the fish screen, the very preliminary estimates indicate that the construction including that additional scope would far exceed the funding that we have in the WaterSMART Grant,” Barkie said.
The WaterSMART Grant is set to run out by the end of the month, though, so staff submitted a no-cost time extension request last year but has yet to hear back officially from the Bureau of Reclamation.
“They did unofficially through email tell us, ‘Sure, you’re good to go,’ but we still have not received an official cooperative agreement,” Barkie said. “It’s very difficult getting in touch with them.”
Barkie also spoke about the NRCS Congressionally Directed Spending the county has received from U.S. Sen. Patty Murray’s office. The funding will be funneled through the Natural Resource Conservation Service.
“The county legal review team flagged language in the Watershed Agreement that places the county at a friction point between federal and state law,” county documents state. “The county and NRCS staff began to collaborate on editing the agreement language, but currently the review from NRCS is on indefinite hold while the USDA (the parent agency) is rewriting language for all their financial and mutual interest agreements.”
Another funding issue for the project comes from the FEMA Hazard Mitigation Grant program for which the county applied.
When the preliminary 30 percent design for the project was presented to the community in October 2024, FEMA partners were there, Gray said. Not too long after that presentation, FEMA sent a request for more information and has done so a second time, causing a lot of back and forth between the county and the state Emergency Management Division (EMD) because one of FEMA’s requirements was that the county redo the benefit-cost analysis for the project.
“Our best assessment is that we have run out of reasonable options,” EMD Hazard Mitigation Officer Tim Cook said. “We could decide to pursue further data that we could pass to a professional contractor on benefit-cost analysis regarding aquifer-specific values and have them keep running tests and see where we’re at. My office has decided that’s not the best use of resources right now.”
FEMA’s posture has changed in the past year and the agency is now applying much stricter scrutiny for funding, Cook said while suggesting the county submit an entirely new application for funding.
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Reporter Emily Hanson can be reached by email at emily.hanson@peninsuladailynews.com.
