Clallam County public agencies talk mutual interests

Published 1:30 am Thursday, July 30, 2026

CARLSBORG —Leaders from three Clallam County public agencies met jointly Monday to discuss economic development and infrastructure across the North Olympic Peninsula, and agreed to invite the city of Port Angeles to their next session in October.

County Commissioners Mike French, Randy Johnson and Mark Ozias; PUD Commissioners Phyllis Bernard, Ken Hayes and John Purvis; port Commissioners Connie Beauvais and Colleen McAleer; and PUD General Manager Sean Worthington and port Chief Executive Officer Paul Jarkiewicz met at the PUD’s offices in Carlsborg.

Officials repeatedly returned to housing as the West End’s central obstacle to economic growth. Many homes sit empty as short-term rentals or vacation properties, forcing many U.S. Coast Guard members and prison staff to commute up to 90 minutes each way from Port Angeles.

Falling enrollment has also raised the prospect of closing the Cape Flattery School District’s school, now down to roughly 70 to 90 students.

PUD staff outlined plans to upsize or rehabilitate three aging reservoirs serving the Clallam Bay and Sekiu water system over the next 20 years, with early designs due this fall. It is also renegotiating a water contract with the Clallam Bay Corrections Center, replacing a 2006 deal that set no annual cap with one limiting the prison to about a third of the district’s water rights.

On transportation, county officials said the state has invested about $10 million over the past two summers on Highway 112 upgrades near the Makah Reservation, and that the Makah Tribe and the state are studying an alternate route to Neah Bay because of the yearly landslides and flooding that close the highway.

On the east side of the county, officials called for a coordinated plan for U.S. Highway 101 that would route Sequim-area traffic through the Simdars Interchange rather than constructing a string of roundabouts that the state Department of Transportation is promoting. In Carlsborg, the PUD said rapid development has strained a lone groundwater source, prompting a push for new water rights.

Their next joint meeting is set for Oct. 26 at the Clallam County Commissioners board room at the courthouse, 223 E. 4th St., Port Angeles.

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Reporter Paula Hunt can be reached by email at paula.hunt@peninsuladailynews.com