PORT ANGELES — City, Clallam County and Port of Port Angeles officials have received briefings on negotiations over the future of Tse-whit-zen and the former Hood Canal Bridge graving yard.
“I talked to the city and the Port and the county and gave them an update on where we’re at,” Tom Fitzsimmons, Gov. Christine Gregoire’s chief of staff, said Saturday.
Gregoire has committed the state to formal negotiations with the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe, and Fitzsimmons will be both architect and carpenter on building a framework for the talks.
His calls to local governments came Friday, one day after he met with the Lower Elwha Tribal Council during a trip to Port Angeles.
Fitzsimmons said he will follow the calls up with visits to local leaders.
Memorandum comes first
The first plank in the plan will be a memorandum of understanding between the state — including the Department of Transportation, Attorney General’s Office and Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation — and the Lower Elwha.
The initial agreement will outline each party’s commitment to negotiating and set rules for the formal talks.
Gregoire has the authority to bind the state to the agreement, Fitzsimmons said.
After striking that bargain, he said, other interested groups, including labor unions, may join the negotiations.
“We’re parties to a lawsuit,” he said of the state and the tribe, “and the other local governments are not, so we have to walk an importantly careful line here.”
The state and tribe have sued each other over the tribe’s demand that 20,000 cubic yards of earth be returned to Tse-whit-zen from the Shotwell Recycling Facility west of Port Angeles and that ancestral remains be reburied at the site of the ancient village.
The parties agreed Friday to a new standstill order for 90 days, meaning that neither side will pursue its case while negotiations continue.
“The case is on hold,” Fitzsimmons said, “which is a good thing. It’s a positive sign that all the parties have hope and trust in mediation.”
Once the memorandum of understanding is adopted, “our agreement clearly involves the city and the county and other local governments in the mediation process,” he said.
