Port Angeles' Star Keeps On Rising
Go ahead, be cynical. But Port Angeles has still another claim to fame: We're Number Ten on the Top 100 Best Small Towns, according to Livability.com. Port Angeles was outranked by Lebanon, N.H.; Los Alamos, N.M.; Durango, CO;
St. Augustine, FL; Bar Harbor, ME; Louisville, CO; Hood River,
OR; Spearfish, SD; and Sebastopol, CA.
posted by Tom Harper at 1:29 AM
18 Comments:
Well, I'm damn sure not missing PA. But I do miss some of my good friends there.
Cynical? Really Tom? How about facing reality?
Do you really think people stacking the cards, stuffing the ballot box, and otherwise intentionally manipulating the tally counts for any REAL evaluation about how good a place or person is? You know, there IS a reason why stuffing the ballot box, voting more than once, etc is ILLEGAL in real contests.
Let's look at some of the MANY highlights that makes Port Angeles the "Best Town EVER".
Let us not forget that Candidate-for-re-election Cherie Kidd sat silent as that young woman recounted saving that young man who was overdosing on heroin in the streets of Port Angeles. Cherie, along with Leslie Roberts and most of the Revitalize crew sat silent as that young woman pleaded that the Port Angeles City Council give the youth of Port Angeles "hope".
But they were not alone. Jim Moron.. er, I mean, Jim Moran, President of the Port Angeles Chamber of Commerce sat silent, along with Josh Rancourt (General Manager at County Aire) acting as President of the Port Angeles Downtown Association.
The Port Angeles Police Chief Terry Gallagher didn't bother to say anything, either. Or the City Manager, Dan McKeen. (Of course, the police were quick to give their own officers commendations for saving citizens).
See, this is what makes Port Angeles "The Best Town EVER". Our children are overdosing from heroin in the intersections in broad daylight, and we can't be bothered to comment. Our youth can be brave enough to come to the City Council to ask for help, and not one of the members of the city, or civic leadership, ALL of whom were present, can be bothered to say one word. Couldn't even muster a "Thank you".
When asked to fund the building of a new high school, the residents of the BEST Town EVER said "No way".
Clearly, these actions define what other towns and cities across North America can only dream to strive for. To be "The Best", like Port Angeles.
But Port Angeles is blessed with so much more. Parents that brand their own children like cattle (Yes, red-hot iron and scarred flesh). And, kids that like to be branded. A City Council that threatened to turn off the water to it's own residents during the heat of the summer, in order to force them to VOTE in a way the city wanted!
Hundreds of millions to clean up toxics in the harbor. Toxics dumped in sites around town by the mills. When the Rayonier mill was operating, over-night emissions would burn the paint off metal fences in Gales Addition. Yumm! (That clean up was supposed to scrap off and remove the top soil from large areas of Port Angeles, but for some unexplained reason, it didn't happen. Wanna buy my home?)
The list is long. When (of course "when", because Port Angeles is the BEST) Port Angeles is crown "The Best" officially, the whole world can get to know how special and wonderful Port Angeles REALLY is.
Port Angeles "Star" looks pretty tarnished to me. Rising? Or Port Angeles engaged in yet another con job.
You saw in todays' PDN how they are planning on spending millions and millions tonight on all kinds of things.
But it was only a few months ago they were asking the public which programs to cut, because they didn't have enough money to pay for things they already had committed to.
Like the above account, the needy are ignored and programs cut to help them. Homeless shelters close for lack of funding, but the "Best Town Ever" has money for fake beaches.
And those who have invested in downtown must have taken note of the millions to be spent to continue the process of turning Race and Lauridsen into the by-pass around Port Angeles. Traffic really won't be even near downtown, or 8th street businesses when that is completed.
See? This is why Port Angeles is "Best". In so many ways. Millions in taxpayer money spent to divert the majority of the areas' traffic AWAY from local businesses. That's quality planning, coordination and foresight!
That's funny I thought the point of a "liveable" town was that people could live in it. This town has high unemployment, high cost of livings, the rents & houses around here can be atrocious, the wages are too low to live on, too many people here are homeless, there's a lot of drug and alcohol problems, a third of the population can't even afford their utility bills, the government hasn't met a project yet it doesn't want the taxpayers to pay for, it's arbitrary and not good for businesses... and our only solution is to turn this into a tourist destination which is usually MORE expensive to live in with even LOWER wage jobs. Still the park is pretty to look. Might have to buy a tent and live out there if things get much worse. Sure looking like I can't afford to LIVE in "liveable" Port Angeles for much longer.
What about water? The Elwha is dropping like a rock. It dropped 13 cfs in the last 24 hours. Now at 621 cfs. Normal/average for this date is 2250 cfs. Minimum recorded for this date was 1020, almost 100 years ago in 1920. And summer has not even begun yet.
Eveyone realizes that when the river runs dry, there is no water in Port Angeles, right? No showers, no laundry, no flushing toilets, no nothing.
And, everyone knows there are NO plans for any reservoirs for Port Angeles, right?
Yeah, Port Angeles will be getting national recognition soon. People asking, "Why didn't they plan ahead?"
Just to underscore how serious the water situation is, I checked again a bit ago. The Elwha dropped to 608 cfs by this afternoon.
It was at just over 700 cfs last week. It was at 641 yesterday morning.
If it continues at this rate, Port Angeles will be in water supply crisis by the first week of July.
At around a 100 cfs drop per week, 4 weeks from now will put the Elwha at 200 cfs. Fish viability is threatened at 300 cfs, according to the PA Director of Public Works.
Water flows cannot be predicted on mathematical assumptions with absolute certainty, of course. But the current drop in the river flows are astonishing, to put it mildly.
And we still have to get to the start of summer. Through June, July, August, September, October, and then maybe rains will return.
Plan accordingly.
"And, everyone knows there are NO plans for any reservoirs for Port Angeles, right?"
It'd be too late for this year anyway. We're screwed.
Interesting to see that the daily paper thinks encouraging people to vote in this silly "contest" is worth extensive coverage, but no word of the dramatic decline in water supply for the city.
This is an example of the priorities of a "Best City"?
There are four fifteen million gallon tanks alongside the river at the Elwha Water Treatment Plant. They were built by the federal government as part of the Elwha Restoration project.
The entire Port Angeles Municipal water system (homes, businesses, water sold to the PUD) uses less than 3 Million gallons a day - without any water conservation measures in place.
I presume somebody in the Public Works Department is planning to fill those four tanks (totaling 60 million gallons of storage) and sparingly use and refill them throughout the summer to assure water availability for people, while leaving the last trickles in the river for fish. Right?
2 million gallons a day, multiplied by 30 days gets us 60 million gallons. A month.
3 million gallons a day, multiplied by 20 days gets us 60 million gallons. About 3 weeks.
Right?
Sure, if all true and viable, better than nothing.
At 100 cfs drop per week, at the current rate of decline, the river will be dry by mid July. Personally, I doubt that will happen, that fast. But by mid August?
Here is the Port Angeles City water utility page:
https://wa-portangeles.civicplus.com/265/Water-Utility
"The City also has 18 million gallons of water storage capacity."
"Municipal water consumption averages between 2.5-3.5 million gallons/day, depending on the time of year."
No mention of those four fifteen million gallon tanks.
Maybe they should display the Shroud of Turin?
Dear Anon 8:53
I hope you contact the City and tell them what you know, because it doesn't look like they are aware they have those four fifteen million gallon tanks.
I've attended a lot of meetings over the last couple of months on this water/drought issue, and the Port Angeles Director of Public Works has spoken at quite a few of these. He has addressed the people in the rooms, describing the situation with charts and graphs, and never mentioned having 60 million gallons in storage capacity.
So, I'm sure the city will be very interested in finding out about this!
It is really pathetic to see Catherine's name hijacked in the contest comments, along with Alan's, Matthew's, and most despicably, the late Diane's. It would take just a really unHINGED individual to do that. Or maybe even two of them. But I guess haters gonna hate, and fakers gonna fake ... moved out, but never moved on.
Ooops, looks like reality is raising it's ugly head again.
Water levels on the Elwha sank again today to new all time lows of 575 cfs.
And, the Dungeness is now officially below 200 cfs at 197 cfs, also an all time low.
Right. We're more than two weeks before the start of summer?!
People better get real serious about storage barrels or something.
Will be real hard to do laundry, flush the toilet, or run a business without water.
Flushing is going to be a big issue. When there is nothing to flush with the whole town really will be #2.
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