PORT ANGELES — Clallam County commissioners heard another hour of public comment on the Towne Road project last week in advance of the March 18 project review with the county engineer.
The comments — about 20 — last Tuesday broke along familiar lines, with some advocating keeping Towne Road and some arguing for a trail, while others proposed delaying the project or accepting the hybrid proposal being pursued.
Kathy Sloper of Sequim said the commissioners should get on with the long-running project.
“One commissioner mentioned yesterday that he wasn’t comfortable with the 6-inch curb, I think alluding that he wanted it delayed one more time, just explore options,” she said.
“I think it’s a pretty thinly veiled delaying tactic once again,” Sloper continued. “Stop. Just stop. Stop the nonsense of taxpayer money being wasted on this. Send it out for bid and let’s open up Towne Road again for use as a road.”
Deborah Keeting Hanson of Sequim focused on the potential environmental impact of a road through the restored wetland.
“All this money was spent to restore the wetland, remove the dike, move the pavement, which was a serious pollutant. Now we are going to replace what was removed with an even greater pollutant, chip seal, which is worse than blacktop in itself,” she said.
“If we let it go back into place, we’ll have a road and we’ll have a wetland and there’ll be no life in it.”
Rebecca Horst of Sequim said she supports a pause for not paving the trail, which has been proposed by, among others, the Jamestown S’Klallam tribe.
“The natural healing of the environment would cost millions to replicate,” Horst said. “Commissioners need to focus on the surrounding biodiversity and the ability for nature to heal itself at the smallest microbial levels. Paving will stop this process the minute fresh asphalt touches that area.”
Enid Phreaner of Sequim said she supported the compromise of a road/trail hybrid and that the sooner this project gets done, the sooner the county can begin healing from the divisions it has created.
Devon Gray of Sequim said, “I donated $20,000 to the land trust for this project. This project was planned for a long time and there was always to be a road there. So this is a bait-and-switch situation that has arisen recently. If you want to return my $20,000, I’ll shut up.”
Commission Chairman Randy Johnson thanked everyone for their comments.
“I appreciate everyone being here. I know all the commissioners appreciate the input from everyone. We do read our emails, believe it or not. We do try to get information back to you, as I’ve stated before,” he said.
The commissioners decided after a 40-minute work session on March 4 to move up their pre-bid review from March 25 to March 18. The original call for bids date has been pushed to sometime in early to mid-April.
Project updates can be viewed at https://www.clallam countywa.gov/1764/Dungeness Towne-Rd-Levee-Updates.
According to the online project update, the “narrow” portion will consist of about 350 feet (about 9 percent) of the 3,700-foot project, including a 14-foot-wide northbound lane, a 10-foot-wide southbound lane and a six- to eight-foot-wide trail surface.
County engineer Joe Donisi said at the March 4 meeting that no design elements had been changed since their previous meeting. It was unclear whether any design elements would be changed prior to the March 18 meeting.
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Reporter Brian Gawley can be reached at brian.gawley@peninsuladailynews.com.
