New Years Eve in Port Angeles

Don’t just sit at home getting wasted this New Year’s Eve. Go out and do it at one of our local nightclubs instead. There'll be a lot going on:

Deadwood Revival will be playing at the Crazy Fish (229 West First St.). Bob Daniels Music Machine will be playing at Dupuis Restaurant (256861 Highway 101).

Eagles (110 South Penn St.) will be featuring music by Haywire. The Elks Naval Lodge (131 East First St.) will have a silent auction (the proceeds will go to help children with HIV), dinner and dancing, and music by the Jimmy Hoffman Band. And Michael’s Divine Dining (117B East First St.) will be featuring the music of Lynn Peterson.

Ferry Service Between Port Townsend and Seattle

The ferry between Port Townsend and Seattle is scheduled to end on January 6th.

There's a petition being circulated to persuade Washington State Ferries officials to keep this ferry service running permanently. Here's a link to the petition.

Kyle Montgomery is a Port Ludlow resident who's been commuting to Seattle for ten years via Bainbridge Island. He's been leading the campaign in King, Jefferson and Clallam Counties to make the ferry service permanent. He said: “The message to Clallam County and to the West is here is an opportunity for Port Townsend to be the gateway instead of congested Bainbridge or Kitsap County.”

It’s questionable whether the State of Washington could or would come up with the money for this, even if there are enough petition signatures. But getting to Seattle via Port Townsend would be a lot easier than driving to Bainbridge Island.

The End of the Crazy Fish?

This could be the end of an era — a loss for Downtown Port Angeles and the Clallam/Jefferson County music scene.

The Crazy Fish — 229 West First Street, Port Angeles — is for sale. The owners, Cypress Vollmer and Molly Tucker, are burned out after the Crazy Fish’s four-year run. Hopefully they’ll find a buyer who will keep the business going.

Stephen Farr, who's in charge of Karaoke Night on Tuesdays, said: “"This is the most diverse, fun bar in Port Angeles. It's the only bar I'll work at. It has entertainment for the older crowd and the younger college crowd too. We should do whatever we can to keep it here.”

The Crazy Fish has a jazz/blues jam on Wednesday nights; open mic on Thursdays and live bands (including a lot of local groups) on Friday and Saturday.

Out of the three businesses in that same building that preceded the Crazy Fish, none of them lasted longer than a year. And here's some Port Angeles history: the Lady of the Lake was last seen alive in the upstairs hotel of the building that’s now the Crazy Fish. And the Lady of the Lake is the name of one of the Crazy Fish’s most popular drinks.

Shop ‘Til You Drop this Thursday in Port Angeles

This Thursday, more than 45 Port Angeles stores — most of them downtown — will be open until 8 p.m. It’ll be Port Angeles’ fourth annual Shop ‘Til You Drop Night — 5 to 8 p.m. There'll be door prizes and special discount prices.

In addition to the stores being open, there will be a Santa Claus in front of The Toggery. Next door, the First Street Haven will be serving hot cider. The downdown will also have live music from Double Exposure, husband and wife DJs.

Five stores outside of downtown will be open and there will be free shuttle buses between these stores and downtown P.A.: Something To Crow About, Franni’s Gift Expressions, the Ragged Edge, the Gifting Place and Past Tyme Present Tyme. The shuttle service is provided by All Points Charters and Tours.

The PDN article (it isn't in the online PDN) doesn’t mention anything about the Christmas Parade, which I thought was supposed to be this Thursday. Since last year’s parade was so puny, maybe they decided not to bother with it this year.

This event was organized by Betsy Reed Schultz, owner of the Tudor Inn Bed and Breakfast in Port Angeles.

Voice of Sanity in Sequim

Eric Erichsen — Sequim’s newest city council member — has only been on the job a few weeks and he's already upsetting the Good Old Boy network. Three other new city council members — Ken Hays, Laura Dubois and Susan Lorenzen — will be sworn in on January 14th. Erichsen was sworn in on November 28th since he was replacing a city council member who had been appointed.

Sequim’s voters have spoken, and the three remaining developers’ puppets only have a few weeks left to ram through their puppetmasters’ agendas. So far they’ve gone into a frenzy of rezonings so they can cram as many new buildings into as tiny a space as possible.

Erichsen said that such density is “not what the people voted for just a few weeks ago. The people don't want this.” He was outvoted.

When criticized about Sequim’s runaway growth, Mayor Walt Schubert gave a pious response that “we cannot turn down a development that meets all of the criteria and the zoning.”

But that response doesn’t answer the nagging question of why they keep RE-zoning property every time a developer requests it.

Vandalism at City Pier

The City really needs to crack down on vandalism. Vandalism and graffiti are always wrong, but defacing the Ennis Creek mural on City Pier was a new low. It always seemed to me that the City’s murals and other artwork were immune from vandalism, but apparently not. (I know the Kalakala mural on Laurel Street was also graffiti’d not too long ago.)

If the perps can't be found on the surveillance tapes at City Pier and the adjacent parking lot, the city needs more and better surveillance equipment.

The best solution would be to hire more police officers, but that’s pretty unlikely. That seems to be a much lower priority than paralyzing Port Angeles with umpteen simultaneous construction projects.

Any ideas on how to reduce crime in Port Angeles?

Does Port Angeles Have Too Many Utility Workers?

Yesterday’s Peninsula Daily News reported that Port Angeles’ new budget — passed unanimously by the City Council — will be paying for a new position: City Planner. And at the same time, one electric utility lineman position will be eliminated. They're also eliminating one administrative assistant position and two summer internships.

Are these the right priorities? When hundreds of local residents are sitting in their cold dark homes during a power outage, perhaps they're thinking “we have too damn many utility workers out there. What we really need is a city planner.”

Have you ever thought that?

MV Coho Crucial to Victoria’s Economy

According to last Sunday’s Peninsula Daily News, the MV Coho is even more crucial to Victoria than anyone realized. The car-passenger ferry contributed $123.7 million to Victoria’s economy in 2006.

The ferry transported 205,144 passengers, supported 3,541 full-time jobs and contributed $12.4 million in taxes to the British Columbia government in 2006.

These were the results of the first economic study of the MV Coho’s impact on Victoria. As important as the Coho is to the Port Angeles economy, Victoria would be even more devastated if this ferry system were jeopardized.

The study doesn’t have any economic predictions of what would happen to Victoria if the Coho were moved out of the Inner Harbour. But hopefully these results will be the final nail in the coffin for the absurd clueless idea of moving the Coho away from Victoria.