Dear Governor Gregoire:
Attached please find our Principles for Resolution of the Port Angeles Graving Yard Situation, signed by several government and organizational representatives of the City of Port Angeles, City of Sequim and City of Forks.
After several months of work at the Port Angeles graving yard site, the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe decided they no longer wanted to participate in the archaeological excavation and requested the State shut down the project, which they did on December 21, 2004.
Since then you have advised the Department of Transportation to look for a new location.
As a retired Judge, I am particularly bothered by the fact that even though the State has a legal binding agreement with the Tribe, they have chosen to walk away from an investment of nearly $60 million of Federal and State money in an effort to avoid any bad publicity.
I have been advised that Frances Charles, as Chair for the Tribe, does not believe she is bound by the agreement because it was not signed by her.
Al Charles said to me that they (the Tribe) do not believe in contracts. They just do what they want and if there is a problem, they work it out.
One of their spiritual healers, Darlene Hale, also said in my presence that “We never had rules in our community. We just have someone solve the problem and share.”‘
We respectfully request that you reconsider your direction to the DOT.
Sincerely,
Richard A. Headrick, Mayor
City of Port Angeles
Principles for Resolution of the Port Angeles Graving Yard Situation
We the undersigned believe that these principles are paramount for any satisfactory resolution to the Port Angeles Graving Yard situation currently before our collective communities.
Mayor Richard Headrick and members of the Port Angeles City Council invited our governments and organizations to come to the table in an effort to assist and support the City of Port Angeles and its citizens in addressing this situation.
We join with Port Angeles at this time in articulating the essential elements required of any solution to the current situation.
* We support the need for the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, the Strong People, to have the time, space and community’s respectful understanding needed to inter their ancestors at a place of spiritual importance and power to the Tribe, while also finding an appropriate place to conserve and preserve the thousands of artifacts discovered at the Tse-whit-zen site in Port Angeles.
* We support the need for the Washington State Department of Transportation to repair and rehabilitate the Hood Canal Bridge in a realistic time-line, taking into account the structural problems to this vital lifeline for the entire Olympic Peninsula.
* We support the vital economic role that the harbor and waterfront play in Port Angeles and the integral part that the harbor plays in making Port Angeles what it is.
* We do not support or approve of the Department of Transportation’s exclusion of the community and its leaders and agencies in the issues that developed at the graving yard site early on in the project’s development and that now impact the entire harbor, the State, and quite possibly other projects around the nation.
* We cannot, based upon the limited information made available to us to date, accept the manner in which the Department of Transportation interacted with the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe at various points over the last year and a half.
* We cannot accept the positions of both the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe and the Department of Transportation to walk away from the current written and binding agreement associated with the development of the site, rather than working to craft modifications to the agreement.
* We cannot accept the Department of Transportation abandoning nearly $60 million in expenditures to date, with quite possibly tens of millions of dollars in pending claims and costs invested into the current project site.
* We believe that collectively the community can work to develop a solution that ameliorates the “absolutes” articulated by the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe and the Department of Transportation.
* We believe that any respectful solution must involve the greater community in order to ensure its support and acceptance, and cannot be negotiated simply between the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe and the Department of Transportation.
* We believe that there is a need for additional expertise to help craft such a solution with regard to the use of the existing twenty-two acre site.
* We believe that there is also a need to develop a solution that ensures the future development, enhancement, vitality and usability of the Port Angeles harbor and waterfront for the benefit of the entire community for generations to come.
* We welcome and respect the diversity of participants’ beliefs and ideas in crafting the solutions needed, knowing that by utilizing the participants’ unique viewpoints and experiences we can collectively develop a beneficial community solution that does not isolate, divide or diminish the voice of any aspect of the community.
* We will support and nourish meaningful, respectful and candid discourse and oppose efforts to reduce, silence or intimidate participants from speaking both candidly and compassionately about their perceptions, hopes, concerns, ideas and expectations for the solution needed for this situation.
* We will work to ensure that the benefit of the solution is such that it imbues our entire community, and
* We will not accept failure, half-steps, nor ephemeral promises of future unsecured opportunities — our fellow citizens expect no more and deserve no less from all of the participants in the development of a solution.
Richard Headrick, Mayor
City of Port Angeles
Nedra Reed, Mayor
City of Forks
Walt Schubert, Mayor
City of Sequim
Glenn Wiggins, Past Mayor
City of Port Angeles
Larry Doyle, Past Mayor
City of Port Angeles
Gary Braun, Past Mayor
City of Port Angeles
Joan Sargent, Past Mayor
City of Port Angeles
Frank McPhee, Past Mayor
City of Port Angeles
Chuck Whidden, Past Mayor
City of Port Angeles
Jim Haguewood, Executive Director
Clallam County Economic Development Council
Phil Kitchel, President
Clallam County Economic Development Council
Carol Johnson, Executive Director
North Olympic Timber Action Council
Don Hanson, President
North Olympic Timber Action Council
