PORT ANGELES — The Port Angeles City Council will consider backing a one-tenth of 1 percent sales tax to help in funding the Clallam County Juvenile and Family Services facility next month.
The council voted 6-0 Tuesday to direct staff to prepare a resolution in support of the measure for its Oct. 3 meeting.
Council members discussed the proposed countywide sales tax and took public comment for and against the measure Tuesday.
The tax would raise between $900,000 and $1.1 million per year for the county facility at 1912 W. 18th St. in Port Angeles, officials said.
Sheriff Bill Benedict said the sales tax increase would cost the average citizen between $10 to $12 per year, which he compared to the cost of two or three mochas, a six-pack of expensive beer or a “case of really cheap beer.”
“I don’t drink beer, but I’ll pay the tax on something else because I buy lipstick, hairspray and pantyhose,” Deputy Mayor Cherie Kidd said.
“I’ll pay the tax in my own way.”
No council member objected to the proposed juvenile detention facilities sales and use tax, which will appear on the Nov. 7 general election ballot.
“The tax is a juvenile detention tax because that’s what the legislators have labeled it,” Clallam County Juvenile and Family Services Director Pete Peterson told the City Council.
“It is for the operations of the whole facility, not just detention, because the whole facility is part of detention.”
In addition to its 32-bed detention center, the Clallam County Juvenile and Family Services Facility offers an array of programs for juveniles.
These include standard court services, teen court, Court Appointed Special Advocates, Child in Need of Services, probation and caseload supervision, True Star Behavioral Health chemical dependency treatment, mental health treatment, co-occurring treatment and family and individual treatment.
The Clallam County facility is one of two in the state to offer a secure crisis residential center for runaway youths and is the only county facility in the state to offer in-house drug, alcohol and mental health treatment.
“Juvenile services is not just about detention,” retired probation officer Danetta Rutten told the council. “That’s just half of the service out there.”
“Most people have no concept,” Rutten added.
“There’s numerous programs that go on in juvenile services that the public has no idea are even going on, nor the City Council, in most cases, have any idea what’s going on.”
Clallam County funds the 23-year-old juvenile facility, with no direct payments from the cities of Port Angeles, Sequim and Forks.
Of the 713 juveniles who were booked into the detention facility in 2016, some 267 were from the city of Port Angeles, 102 were from Sequim, 101 were from the unincorporated county and 56 were from Forks.
The remaining 187 were from neighboring jurisdictions, Benedict said.
Benedict said the results of the programs offered at that facility have been “nothing less than stellar.”
Several council members agreed.
“I’m grateful that these services are available to our families in this county,” Councilman Lee Whetham said.
Said Mayor Patrick Downie: “It sort of falls to me in the category of pay now or pay more later.”
Shortly after it opened in 1994, the county juvenile facility housed an average of 40 children per day.
“Now we’re averaging about 10 or 12 kids in our detention facility, but we’re averaging hundreds, literally hundreds, of kids in other programs,” Peterson said.
Three members of the public spoke in favor of the proposed sales tax for juvenile services. One said he was opposed to locking up juveniles.
“I don’t like locking up kids either,” Peterson said later in the meeting.
“That is not the role of juvenile services. It is a necessary evil.”
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 56450, or at rollikainen@peninsula dailynews.com.
