Port Angeles, Sequim to pay for defense contacts in 2027

Published 1:30 am Tuesday, June 2, 2026

PORT ANGELES — As part of the new criminal justice contracts Clallam County is negotiating with the cities of Port Angeles and Sequim, the county will stop providing public defense services about halfway through 2027.

“We have (an agreement) for public defense services where we would continue contracting with (Clallam Public Defenders) through June 30, 2027, and then cities would contract directly for public defense services because the county’s been a middle man in that whole relationship,” county Administrator Todd Mielke told commissioners on Monday.

Clallam County is working toward a June 30 deadline to have new criminal justice contracts negotiated with Port Angeles and Sequim. The existing 10-year contract expired Dec. 31 and the entities have a six-month extension while they work on new terms.

One of those new terms was that, instead of lumping all criminal justice services into one giant contract, it’s now been split into four contracts, one each for prosecution, public defense, jail and court services.

“All four contracts have been forwarded to the city of Port Angeles,” Mielke said. “I know their attorney spent the better part of this weekend reviewing those.”

On the county’s side, the contracts have been reviewed by District Court I Judge David Neupert, the civil department and prosecuting attorney Mark Nichols.

The county has a meeting scheduled with Port Angeles representatives Wednesday afternoon.

“With regard to Sequim, I did receive an email and a phone call this morning,” Mielke said. “We have not been meeting as frequently with Sequim, but we’re at a point where we can take the language we have worked on with Port Angeles and just substitute the numbers for Sequim.”

Port Angeles City Manager Nathan West said the city is optimistic the June 30 deadline will be met.

During Monday’s meeting, commissioners also heard about two agreements related to the Peninsula Housing Authority’s Eklund at Gales affordable housing project.

The first agreement was that Clallam County, on behalf of Peninsula Housing Authority, submitted an application to the state Department of Commerce’s Connecting Housing Infrastructure Program (CHIP) for $50,000 to assist with infrastructure costs for the project.

It consists of the construction of 24 multifamily units at Seventh and Gales streets in Port Angeles. The housing units will be for people making 60 percent of the average median income or below, county Housing and Grant Resource Director Timothy Dalton said.

“It’s for people generating as much as $45,000 a year,” Dalton said.

The CHIP grant will cover the cost of hooking up the development site to the city’s water and sewer infrastructure.

The second deal is a subrecipient agreement between the county and the Clallam County PUD for water service to the development.

“The first agreement is with the Department of Commerce, that’s to receive $50,000, and the second agreement is a dispersal of part of that $50,000, with about $27,000 of it going to the PUD for water hookup,” Mielke said.

________

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