“Twilight” puts Forks and Port Angeles on the Map

This article from MSN isn’t the first national publicity that Twilight has gotten. But you’ve probably never seen Bella Italia, Lincoln Theater or the Port Angeles Downtown Association linked in a nationwide article before.

Twilight opens tomorrow night at the Lincoln. We’ve been discovered.

Port Angeles on Reality TV

Forks is already having its fifteen minutes of fame. Now it’s Port Angeles’ turn to be in the spotlight.

Rygaard Logging, Inc. of Port Angeles will be featured on two reality TV shows: “America’s Toughest Jobs” on NBC, and “Ax Men” on The History Channel.

The episode of “America’s Toughest Jobs” featuring Rygaard will air in about five weeks. Rygaard will be featured on “Ax Men” this coming spring.

Congrats to Gabe Rygaard, president of Rygaard Logging.

William Shore Memorial Pool

The City of Forks is without a swimming pool, for all practical purposes. They do have one, but voters have turned down two levies for maintenance and operation of the pool. So it’s closed, with nobody knowing what to do with it.

This same thing could also happen to the William Shore Memorial Pool in Port Angeles. A few days ago the PDN mentioned that voters might have to approve a bond issue this coming November in order to finance repairs to the pool.

With all of the construction projects going on (and other budget-busting expenses), and property taxes going up and up and up, it’s hard to picture the voters saying yes to anything right now.

Do you think Port Angeles will still have a pool after November?

Shortage of Ammunition for Peninsula Police Departments

I’ve been pretty much avoiding national politics at this site. That’s partly because local issues often cut across the traditional battle lines of Left, Right, Liberal, Conservative; and partly because there are already millions of websites and blogs that deal with politics.

But global/national issues can trickle down to local communities. A perfect example is this story from yesterday’s PDN.

Some Peninsula police departments are reporting a shortage of ammunition. Our military adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan are using over a billion bullets a year, and this has led to a severe shortage of bullets (and the price has doubled) here at home.

So far the police departments in Port Angeles and Sequim haven’t had this shortage. But in Forks, Police Chief Mike Powell said, “We have been waiting for months for handgun ammunition. We were told it was due to the war and that the military service personnel get a higher priority than the law enforcement here in the states.”

Crime has been increasing in most of the country lately, including the Olympic Peninsula. It’s time for us to decide — which is more important: Protecting Iraqis who don’t want our “protection” (whatever happened to all that candy and ice cream that grateful Iraqis would be showering onto our soldiers?) or protecting Americans here at home?