PORT ANGELES — Clallam Bay and Sekiu are looking a whole lot better, thanks in part to the Clallam Bay-Sekiu Community Action Team.
Sasha Medlen, program manager for the community action team, briefed the three Clallam County commissioners on ongoing efforts to revitalize the West End hamlets in their Tuesday board meeting.
The community action team is working to achieve a sustainable community by completing projects to preserve the cultural and natural heritage of the area.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture awarded a $50,000 grant to the Clallam County Economic Development Council in December 2007.
The Clallam Bay/Sekiu Chamber of Commerce and Community Advisory Council applied for the Rural Business Opportunity Grant in 2007. It is set to expire at the end of the month.
The grant funded Medlen’s position for more than a year-and-a-half. She was hired in February 2008.
Looking back on her 20 months working in Clallam Bay and Sekiu, Medlen said the area has good potential for revitalization.
‘Looking good again’
“Everyone’s put in a lot of effort to get the town looking good again and to start attracting businesses and tourists in,” Medlen said.
Medlen is moving to Huntington Beach, Calif., because her husband took a job in Southern California.
A town meeting was held in March 2008 to prioritize economic development projects for the community action team.
Work groups were formed for revitalization, Slip Point tourism, a community garden and co-op and town infrastructure.
These four groups merged last December and later teamed up with the Department of Community, Trade and Economic Development’s Mainstreet Program.
The community action team received a $10,000 American Planning Association grant that was used to bring two University of Washington graduate architecture students for detailed architectural designs, which they presented to the team on Sept. 12.
Three sites
“Basically, they came to look at three sites that we prioritized,” Medlen said.
“They came up with solution of how to make them better.”
The community action team’s design committee chose the Clallam Bay-Sekiu welcome sign, Clallam Bay’s old grocery store — otherwise known as the Downtown Gateway — and the Sekiu Pocket Park as its main projects.
“We were trying to enhance the visual qualities of the community,” Medlen told the commissioners in a 15-minute presentation.
Pursuing grant funding
Armed with the new designs, the community action team will pursue grant funding to implement them and continue with other projects, like an electronic reader board for Clallam Bay School.
A design committee mapped the two downtowns and improved their aesthetics by cleaning out trash, weeding and painting several buildings and Clallam Bay’s wooden bridge.
“The more little projects that get accomplished, the more likely the bigger ones will get accomplished,” Medlen said.
The design committee created proposals for street trees and wildlife viewing platforms in both communities.
“She [Medlen] and the community action team also laid the groundwork for a couple a longer range projects like improving the eastern entry area to the community and adding a bus stop and improving a couple of park facilities,” said Clallam County Commissioner Mike Doherty, whose district includes the West End.
Volunteer efforts
Medlen said the work could not have been accomplished without the volunteers. She said the volunteers effort has involved “basically the whole community.”
In 2008, 38 people picked up 2.8 tons of garbage in Clallam Bay and Sekiu.
This year, 48 people removed 4.97 tons of trash and about 3,000 old tires in a community clean-up day.
In her presentation to the board, Medlen showed before-and-after slides of city-scapes and landmarks in Clallam Bay and Sekiu. Vast improvements were apparent.
“Everything they wanted to do, they got accomplished,” Medlen said of the action team.
Promotion and economic restructuring committees were formed to attract visitors and businesses to the area and to strengthen its existing economic assets.
The community action team is working with the county to transfer Slip Point to the Clallam County Parks Department.
Co-op, garden
Meanwhile, the economic restructuring committee facilitated a $45,000 grant for the Sunset West Co-Op.
“Having a grocery store in that area is one of the major things for the economic well-being,” Medlen said.
It also planted a garden.
“We put in a local community garden that produced food in 2008 and 2009,” Medlen said. “That was pretty cool.”
The committee has proposed a 60-foot-wide right of way at the foot of Commercial Street that goes to the water’s edge on county-owned land.
Clallam Bay and Sekiu are unincorporated towns with no city government. Doherty expressed support for the community action team.
“The county will follow though on your process,” Doherty told Medlen.
________
Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-417-3537 or at rob.ollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
