LETTER: Vote for change

Published 1:30 am Saturday, May 30, 2026

Clallam County is home to taxpayers who have spent their lives working hard, some still on the job, others retired.

Some people working extra hours, skipping vacations and choosing to live in the great Pacific Northwest for its beauty and small-town community.

But times are tough. The cost of living has increased. The homeless population or, as some say, our “unsheltered neighbors,” have expanded.

Tent alcoves inhabit parks, downtown streets, streambeds and neighborhood streets. Drug use is prolific; parks and beaches are teeming with used needles. Buildings serve as anchors for plastic tent cities. Panhandlers are a norm.

This is the Clallam County Utopia.

To compensate, government officials have graciously funded solutions to mitigate these problems. Current solutions require more taxes without meaningful solutions. Our good politicians say, “stay the course.”

Will things change? Yes.

People will suffer more; taxpayers will fund programs that pad resumes, boost governmental administrative salaries, create a need for NGOs and more layers of government and taxpayer money.

Clallam County didn’t become a wasteland overnight. Residents got busy with life and stopped voting. Political piranhas moved in and experimented with ineffective social programs.

The political elite is counting on apathetic no-shows on voting day. They are banking on silence.

Vote for budget accountability, common-sense solutions to rein in government spending.

Vote the political cartels out and radical change.

Kim Butler

Port Angeles