PORT ANGELES — Clallam County will back an effort to designate Port Angeles as a Coast Guard community.
The three commissioners Monday agreed to support a city of Port Angeles and Port Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce endeavor to become one of 13 Coast Guard communities in the nation.
“Obviously I am biased in favor of this, given this is my old service,” said Commissioner Jim McEntire, a retired Coast Guard captain.
“But I wanted to kind of explore what kind of work this would entail. It’s more than just filling out a paper application.”
Extensive research
County Administrator Jim Jones said the application requires extensive research to demonstrate community support for a Coast Guard installation and its personnel.
The Coast Guard City program recognizes communities that support the Guard across the U.S.
A city earns the distinction of being named a Coast Guard City by making special efforts to acknowledge the professional work of the Coast Guard men and women assigned to its area.
Coast Guard Air Station/Sector Field Office Port Angeles on Ediz Hook became the first permanent Coast Guard Air Station on the Pacific Coast when it was commissioned in June 1935.
Clallam County is also home to two smaller Coast Guard stations in Neah Bay and LaPush. Those stations are on Makah and Quileute tribal land.
Rather than preparing a separate application for Clallam County to become a Coast Guard community, Jones recommended that commissioners support the city’s effort.
“They’re deep into it,” Jones said.
“They’ve got people researching the history and this kind of stuff.”
“It is a very extensive application, and it does require an awful lot of history,” Jones added.
Doing the research
“It requires somebody to go in and look at newspaper articles showing where the community has done things specifically for the Coast Guard.”
Said McEntire: “I definitely think the county ought to be a part of this, but since the actual installations are on tribal properties or inside the city, it might be a little unseemly if we were to kind of step in front of other people, too.”
He added: “I would encourage us to be a part of the effort.”
Alan Barnard, chairman of the Port Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce Veterans Committee, pitched the Coast Guard community designation in the commissioners’ work session Sept. 21.
“There’s only 13 that have been approved in the entire country,” Barnard said.
Bring prestige
Designation as a Coast Guard community would bring prestige and send an important message to servicemen and servicewomen about community support in their “home away from home,” Barnard said.
“This isn’t something that we apply for and ask to be granted,” Barnard added.
“This is something we have to demonstrate we’ve already earned. We have to go back in the archives 80 years and pull out historically how have we interacted with the Coast Guard within those 80 years.”
Each of the 12 approved Coast Guard communities and one pending application are cities.
Port Angeles Mayor Dan Di Guilio issued a Sept. 15 letter of support to the chamber Veterans Committee for its effort to pursue Coast Guard community status.
Working with historical society
City officials are working with the Clallam County Historical Society, which has a Coast Guard exhibit celebrating the 80th anniversary of the Port Angeles station, to prepare the application, Jones said.
“If it was up to me, I would prefer that we assign [staff] and offer our help with their application in any way we could rather than do our own,” Jones said.
No commissioner objected to Jones’ recommendation Monday.
The 12 designated Coast Guard communities are Grand Haven, Mich., Eureka, Calif., Mobile, Ala., Wilmington, N.C., Newport, Ore., Alameda, Calif., Kodiak, Alaska, Rockland, Maine, Portsmouth, Va., Traverse City, Mich., Sitka, Alaska and Astoria, Ore.
Clearwater, Fla., has an application pending with Coast Guard officials in Washington, D.C.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5072, or at rollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
