FORKS — The people of Forks need to get a grip on their own behavior, according to Mayor Bryon Monohon.
Monohon delivered his annual State of Forks speech at Wednesday’s Forks Chamber of Commerce meeting, with 30 of the city’s business and civic leaders in attendance.
Money is tight, but that is not the city’s greatest issue, Monohon said.
“The budget is lean and somewhat optimistic,” he said, quickly moving past the topic.
More worrisome, he said, is that the city’s residents have lost control of their town’s culture.
Monohon let rip with a laundry list of issues citizens have brought to him in his role as mayor.
Among them:
“Don’t let your kids roam at 3 a.m.,” Monohon said.
“If you have been in jail twice in a year, you need help,” he said.
“If you park on a sidewalk, you’re going to meet a police officer. If you drive downtown with no headlights, you are going to meet a police officer.”
And to pedestrians: “Stop crossing in front of the green light.”
Monohon opened the meeting with the announcement of the capture of Moises Ramirez Matias, 25, to the relieved applause of the attendees.
Ramirez Matias has been charged with first-degree murder in the stabbing death of Laranda Konopaski, 18, the mother of his 4-year-old daughter, at Rainforest Mobile Home Park in Forks.
He was caught just a few miles north of the scene of the crime less than an hour before Monohon’s speech.
“Four murders in three years is a wake-up call,” Monohon said.
Victor Aguilar Godinez was stabbed to death in May 2009 in the same trailer park where Konopaski died. A suspect, Marcelino Godinez Perez, was never charged and was deported to Guatemala.
Etienne L. Choquette was sentenced to 25 years in prison Thursday for shooting Antonio Rodriguez Maldonado to death on a Forks street in September 2009.
In July 2010, Brenda M. Grant was fatally shot by her husband, James R. Grant, before he turned the gun on himself, authorities said.
When people consider visiting or moving to Forks, they look at the crime rate, the mayor said.
Those murders, plus a months-long pattern of burglary and vandalism, are damaging.
Police have been doing a very good job under the circumstances, he said.
Police Chief Doug Price resigned unexpectedly in September after eight months as the top cop in the city’s 14-member department.
Since then, the department has been run jointly by several officers as the city seeks a new chief.
“The department is doing very well. Chief Price did some pretty darn good things,” Monohon said.
“The response to the murder was the most coordinated, well-run response I have ever seen,” he said.
An issue with red tape has delayed the selection of a new chief.
The early front-runner for the job, who has not been identified, is still the city’s first choice, Monohon said.
However, a new set of state legal requirements for police chiefs to meet changed while the city was making its selection, and the top choice is no longer considered qualified, Monohon explained.
Monohon said the council still has hopes that the primary candidate will be able to serve but are continuing the search.
There is no date set for an official selection.
Monohon blamed bureaucratic red tape and the way state and federal agencies apply legislation for creating major stumbling blocks for the city.
“This community has always done things the Forks way,” Monohon said.
He said he felt there often was little consideration for what Forks residents would want when government or outside groups step in, citing the Wild Olympics campaign, which proposes increasing wilderness areas, as one example.
Monohon praised the economic and cultural values of the West End, saying the quality of life has less to do with money than with a sense of community and rural living.
“We’re rich because we don’t live in Seattle,” Monohon said.
“Guess what? The Twilighters have figured it out,” he said.
Fans of the best-selling novels — which are set in Forks, Port Angeles and LaPush — and of the movies based on the books have flocked to the city and left with an appreciation of the small-town culture, he said.
From 2009 through 2011, 187,000 visitors signed in at the visitor center, he said.
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Reporter Arwyn Rice can be reached at 360-417-3535 or at arwyn.rice@peninsuladailynews.com.
