Clallam County, Port Angeles City Council to discuss criminal justice contracts

Published 4:45 pm Monday, June 22, 2026

PORT ANGELES — A joint special meeting between the Port Angeles City Council and the Clallam County commissioners is designed to help the two entities come to agreements on criminal justice contracts.

The contracts between the city and the county — as well as those between the county and the city of Sequim — were presented in their draft forms to the three county commissioners during their meeting Monday.

Clallam County contracts with the two cities for criminal justice services such as prosecution, public defense, district court and jail. The existing 10-year contract expired Dec. 31 and the entities have been working through a six-month extension to come to agreement on new terms for the contracts.

One change being made is that, rather than one umbrella contract with each city for all services, the separate categories of criminal justice services have been split into their own contracts.

“What I want to emphasize today is these were kind of the first run, first drafts, and so they’re really meant as placeholders,” county Administrator Todd Mielke said.

The contract extension with the city of Port Angeles allows for the city to request a 120-day extension to continue negotiating the contracts while the contract with the city of Sequim does not include that language, Mielke said.

The draft contracts were presented as a way for the county to have the ability to act if needed, he said.

The commissioners and the Port Angeles City Council are set to meet at 5 p.m. Tuesday for a joint special meeting in council chambers at city hall, 321 E. Fifth St.

“We believe we are extremely close with a couple of the contracts,” Mielke said.

During Monday’s meeting, commissioners also heard a presentation from Troy Cowan, the interim Olympic Region Administrator for the state Department of Transportation, on updates to current WSDOT projects as well as information about upcoming projects.

“We’ve got another busy construction season in front of us with significant work that’s occurring in Clallam County,” Cowan said.

Those projects include fish passage, paving and slope stabilization efforts on state Highway 112.

“Probably the biggest preservation project is the 50-plus miles of paving out on the coast on U.S. (Highway) 101,” Cowan said. “It is Grays Harbor and Jefferson counties, but that is a significant investment. Just to put it in perspective, you’re gonna have lakeside paving, delivering materials both from Port Angeles as well as from the city of Aberdeen. So they’re going to be coming and delivering materials from two directions.”

Cowan provided the commissioners with an update on the work occurring on state Highway 104 at the Hood Canal Bridge.

“There’s been a fair amount of coordination that’s occurred with our ongoing efforts to replace the center locks,” he said. “We truly believe that this is the summer that we complete this work. Our inspectors have traveled out to see the hydraulic cylinder construction to ensure that they meet our specifications and they will, later this summer, replace those cylinders.”

Projects to remove fish barriers at Ennis and Lee creeks are expected to be completed this fall, Cowan said.

Another Clallam County project is work on Highway 112 to preserve and maintain the road.

“The work is continuing to replace culverts,” Cowan said. “I think we have eight culverts that are being replaced as part of this work, which is really a positive news story for our maintenance teams out there.”

The state Department of Ecology was awarded $73.5 million through the NOAA Climate Resilience Regional Challenge and about a third of that is going to WSDOT for the North Olympic Peninsula SR 112 Highway Resilience project, Cowan said. This is a five-year grant and work is expected to be completed by Sept. 30, 2029.

Looking out to summer 2027, WSDOT is planning a high-friction surface treatment for Morse Creek, which Cowan said will be a pretty big project.

Monday’s meeting also included a quarterly update for the Recompete program.

The governance team for Clallam County’s Recompete program was awarded $3,167,439. As of March 31, the U.S. Economic Development Administration, which is funding the program, has reviewed and approved reimbursements of $428,510.75, according to the update.

For the job creation portion of the program, the Composite Recycling Technology Center expects to have its second thermal modification unit in July, and that will lead to 45 new skilled manufacturing jobs by 2030, according to the presentation.

The Port of Port Angeles has purchased a spud barge, the first of three barges funded by Recompete, and small loans are now available to start or expand a business from the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe. Those loans are available to anyone in Clallam or Jefferson counties.

The Recompete program offers employment support and employer support.

For more information about the program, go to recompetewa.org.

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