Port Angeles police, fire to increase staff

Published 1:30 am Thursday, May 7, 2026

PORT ANGELES — The Port Angeles police and fire departments will increase staff capacity thanks to approvals from the city council.

The Port Angeles City Council on Tuesday approved a nearly $800,000 grant for the police department and a request from the fire department to add a second peak-period ambulance.

The police department has been awarded a $785,680 grant from the state Criminal Justice Training Commission’s Public Safety Funding Program, which was approved through House Bill 2015. It will provide 75 percent of the salary and benefits for four entry-level officers and requires a city match of 25 percent ($261,893).

“I feel like this is a long time coming and I am glad to support it and really appreciate the police department taking the initiative on getting us ready to be able to accept this grant,” council member Amy Miller said while speaking to her motion to approve the grant.

Council member Drew Schwab, while stating his support of the grant, took a moment to address concerns regarding over policing.

“Over-policing is a thing,” Schwab said. “You do reach a point of diminishing returns, whether you define that from a financial standpoint of every dollar going to specifically police officers produces less public safety than a dollar going to some other program or from an actual human cost standpoint of diminishing returns when, in some communities, you see police who are bored and are making problems for others. But the point of diminishing returns is at the point where you have too many police. We don’t.”

There are times when the city has just three or fours patrolling and officers respond two cars per call for safety, so if two 9-1-1 calls are happening at the same time, all of the city’s officers are busy, Schwab said.

“These extra four officers … will make it so it’s easier for our officers to be able to go out and actually go to more 9-1-1 calls,” he said. “This does not get us to the point where we have so many officers we’re gonna start having speed entrapment places in town. We’re nowhere close to that number of officers.”

Having more officers also will allow for fewer overtime situations which pull officers away from plans, leading to better quality of life for officers, council member LaTrisha Suggs said.

During questions from council member Mark Hodgson — who has filed to run for the 24th Legislative District’s state representative seat, Position 2 — police Chief Brian Smith confirmed that it is less safe for everyone involved when fewer officers are available to respond to calls.

“There’s quite a bit of academic research on this subject,” Smith said. “Three to four officer responses on an unknown difficult situation are much better because you can sort of eliminate the whole psychological component of resisting us.”

In addition to approving the grant, the city council voted to have city staff bring forward all necessary resolutions and documents, and to set a public hearing for a one-tenth of 1 percent sales tax to continue funding the officers when the grant runs out, as allowed by HB 2015.

“I recognize that no one likes the sales tax going up, but there’s at least two elements at play here,” Schwab said. “The first one is the fact that we hear this frequently, ‘Hey, we just got a grant to pay for new insert staff, insert facility, insert something that has a reoccuring cost after the grant goes away. So how do you pay for that?’ Well, this time the legislation actually made it so there is a mechanism for us to pay for this after we accept the grant.”

The second thing at play is that, while a property tax increase to pay for the program would charge all city residents, a sales tax to pay for the program would charge everyone who spends money in the city, including tourists. A one-tenth of 1 percent sales tax would result in about a $21 increase in sales tax per year, according to city staff.

For the addition of a second peak-period ambulance unit, Port Angeles Fire Chief Derrell Sharp told the city council about the increase in calls the department has seen and about how the first peak-period ambulance unit has affected the department.

“In 2025, there were 192 hours when no Port Angeles Fire Department ambulance was available to respond immediately to a 9-1-1 call,” Sharp said. “These hours represent 669 separate incidents where Port Angeles Fire Department did not have an available ambulance for the next 9-1-1 call for service. Those periods where demand exceeded the number of available resources.”

In July, the fire department placed a peak-hour ambulance unit into service from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays.

“When we compare system performance between days where two ambulances are staffed and days where three ambulances are staffed, the difference is significant,” Sharp said. “Level zero events, (which are) the periods when all staffed resources are assigned to a call for service and no other ambulance is immediately available to respond to the next 9-1-1 call for service, dropped from 669 to 124. Equally important, the total hours without available coverage dropped from 192 to 28. That represents an 81.5 percent reduction in times when no ambulance was available.”

In order to provide full-week coverage, the department has determined the second peak-period ambulance is necessary. However, the additional ambulance will not cost the department anything; it will be fully user-funded, Sharp said.

“It doesn’t have any impact or addition on property taxes or on sales taxes,” he said. “Those individuals that call 9-1-1 and require transport to definitive care, their insurance is billed for that transport, and the impact is not absorbed by the entire community.”

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Reporter Emily Hanson can be reached by email at emily.hanson@peninsuladailynews.com.