LETTER: Budget priorities

Published 1:30 am Saturday, August 8, 2026

Clallam County is operating a budget that spends more than it brings in.

We, the taxpayers, are funding programs that are not designed to deliver measurable, data-driven results.

Funding priorities should be community-driven versus the needs of the politically elite, instead of politically fashionable agendas that push the county deeper into debt.

The county is at a crossroads.

The way we prioritize spending will determine whether we build a vibrant community or slide into a city buckling under rising homelessness and vanishing economic opportunity. Or whether we become an experimental playground for elite intellectual theories, resulting in declining social norms.

Do young people even know what a social norm should be?

Consider the Harm Reduction program that provides drug paraphernalia to addicts. Non-government organizations even provide information on boofing, which gives information to the addicted on how to get a high, faster.

The city is also at a crossroads.

Although it has a balanced budget on paper, can it maintain already-strained services when it requests bids from vendors that create sanctioned encampments, safe parking sites without providing a budget, location or specifications? Does this reduce addiction?

These approaches don’t just strain resources, they conflict with core values like personal responsibility, fiscal discipline and restoring dignity to those who need help.

Can we afford programs that maintain a status quo?

Attend council meetings. Vote.

Kim Butler

Port Angeles