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Residents urge Clallam County to seek federal grants and publish budgets before Dungeness debris‑removal work; concerns raised about tribal partnerships
Summary
Public commenters at the April 1 Clallam County commissioners meeting asked the board to pause plans for Dungeness Reservoir debris removal until the county applies for federal grants and provides clearer accounting of previous large project costs and promised tribal engagement.
Residents asked the Clallam County Board of Commissioners on April 1 to delay county‑funded work on the Dungeness Reservoir site and to pursue federal grant funding and clearer budget accounting before spending local tax dollars.
John Worthington of Sequim urged the board to “hold off until you’ve applied for the dump cleaning programs” because, he said, the county has access to multiple federal grant programs when tribes are named partners. “Without the tribes, you have access to three grants that clean up dumps,” Worthington said during the public comment period, listing agencies that offer cleanup grants and asking the county to seek denial letters if grant applications are rejected before asking taxpayers to cover costs.
Jeff Tozer of Sequim also urged greater transparency for large infrastructure projects. He said the last major project — the Lower Dungeness floodplain restoration and Town Road relocation — was completed “without a budget” on the public record and that the county has not produced clear accounting for that work. “We’ve been asking for a year and a half to see the budget for that project,” Tozer said. He told commissioners the new Dungeness project is “approximately double the cost” of the prior project and said public confidence would be improved if the county published the prior project’s final accounting.
The Dungeness Reservoir debris‑removal project appears on the consent agenda as a call for bids; staff summarized the consent agenda and noted Item 1H is a call for bids for the Dungeness project. The publicly posted consent materials contain the formal bid notice; the meeting transcript records a reference to an April bid deadline in the consent summary but the date text in the spoken record was not unambiguous.
Several commenters also raised concerns about promised public meetings with the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe to discuss tribal tax contributions. Jeff Tozer and another commenter, later identified as a resident who said Commissioner Ozias had promised a meeting in the first quarter, said that meeting had not yet occurred and asked the board to schedule the public conversation the county had promised.
No formal board action to delay or alter the bid notice was recorded in the meeting transcript. The call for bids remained on the consent agenda and was approved as part of the consent motions; commissioners did not adopt any new budget authority or change the published bid timeline on the record.
Resident comments quoted here are taken from the public comment period and reflect speakers’ statements at the meeting; the county has not recorded a change of schedule or funding on the public record.
Ending: County staff and the board will proceed with published bid and hearing notices unless the board later amends or removes those items; residents seeking clarification should consult the county’s published consent materials and the clerk’s office for official bid deadlines and project budgets.
