FORKS — There have been some rough spots, but 2015 was the best year the city of Forks has had in awhile, Mayor Bryon Monohon said during his State of the City presentation Wednesday.
Monohon spoke to about 60 members and guests about the city’s street light project, concerns about drug and crime, and the job market at the Forks Chamber of Commerce meeting Wednesday afternoon.
City beautification and cleanup projects have improved the general appeal of the city, Monohon said.
Every day there are little things, like removing moss from the cracks in sidewalks, he said.
The city recently replaced the city’s old sodium and other street lights with brighter LED-type lights.
“We are one of the first cities to go through a complete conversion,” Monohon said.
Some areas look great, while others still need some work, he said.
Rainforest Arts Center
Also, the city finished the $2.1 million Rainforest Arts Center at 35 N. Forks Ave. and sighed a breath of relief when the final insurance payment was in hand.
The Rainforest Arts Center was built using insurance funds from the fire in 2012 that destroyed the former International Odd Fellows Hall, which housed the former arts center activities.
However, not everything in the Forks area is good, including unemployment issues that go beyond the loss of timber jobs, Monohon said.
“We’ve got jobs. We aren’t filling them,” he said.
The jobs, he said, are in teaching and other employment areas that require college or vocational training.
Monohon said that in addition to the unfilled jobs, there are a number of city employees who will be retiring in the next few years, which will create openings for young professionals and skilled workers ready to fill those jobs.
The key is training, he said.
Monohon listed the 10 fields with the highest demands for workers in the state: life science and agriculture; midlevel science technicians; midlevel health professionals; health care providers with bachelor’s degrees; accounting and bookkeeping; engineers; police and firefighters; manufacturing and production; computer sciences; and installation, maintenance and repair technicians.
“Are these jobs we can work with in Forks? Yes,” Monohon said.
Each is a position that Forks has trouble filling, despite having a resource and education system set up to feed a pipeline to fill these jobs and create more, he said.
Drugs, crime
Monohon acknowledged that crime and drug abuse in Forks have become serious problems.
“All of us are good at recognizing patterns,” he noted.
The difficulty comes in solving the problem once we see it, he said.
Those problems, Monohon said, include crime.
“Too many people are stealing too many things,” he said.
He said the use and abuse of opioids are problems both in Forks and nationwide; the discussion has even reached the presidential debates.
With drug abuse comes the crime, he added, both of which can only be solved with help from the public.
“If you see something, call 9-1-1 right away,” Monohon said.
He noted that residents posting complaints on Facebook the next day or taking pictures to the police of problems that have been going on for a year isn’t going to help.
Police need to know what is happening immediately with locations and names, he said, and the reporting party needs to answer the phone when police return a call to follow up on the report.
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Reporter Arwyn Rice can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 56250, or at arice@peninsuladailynews.com.
