CLALLAM COUNTY TAXPAYERS are victims of Olympia politics once again.
A front-page story in the May 8, 1936, edition of the Port Angeles Evening News reported “Clallam County’s board of commissioners this morning signed a deed turning over to the state division of forestry 26,531 acres of county-owned land.”
In that story, Assistant State Forester L. T. Webster said, “The forest land will be held in trust by the state and developed under the direction of the State Forest Board with the ultimate goal of bringing it back to productivity on a sustained yield basis.”
County Commission Chairman Arnold Levy said, “Although we may not live to see it, I look forward to the day 50 or 60 years hence when the county will be practically tax-free as a result of this program.”
Over the next 25 years, Clallam County deeded in trust an additional 66,000 acres to the state with the understanding the land would be managed for sustainable harvest and “logged” to provide tax revenue for the county in perpetuity.
Clallam County currently has more than 93,000 acres of land in trust worth an estimated $2.3 billion. The multi-billion-dollar asset seldom pays the county more than $10 million per year.
The Legislature is trustee of the trust. State law and common law trust doctrine require the trustee “to act with undivided loyalty to the trust beneficiaries, to the exclusion of all other interests. It may not sacrifice this goal to pursue other objectives, no matter how laudable those objectives may be.”
The goal is routinely sacrificed.
Sadly, the state failed, and continues to fail, to live up to the common law trust obligations it promised the county in 1935. It has forgotten its role as trustee so flagrantly that it changed the name from county trust land to county transfer land.
It is limited by law to charge the county a 25 percent management fee on timber sales, but it uses budget provisos to circumvent the law by charging 27 percent.
Commissioner of Public Lands Dave Upthegrove is selling us out to his political friends by pausing timber sales and not doing his fiduciary duty for the people of Clallam County. That violates the state’s duty to manage our multi-billion-dollar asset prudently with an undivided loyalty.
What does this mean to Clallam County taxpayers? When DNR pauses Clallam County timber sales to advance Olympia political agendas, the higher tax impacts are:
• Port Angeles School District needs to raise $898,000.
• Sequim School District needs to raise $703,000.
• The 3,500 taxpayers in Joyce need to raise $909,319 to support their fire district and Crescent School.
• Clallam County will have to raise $2.76 million from county taxpayers to maintain current general fund and road services.
• Olympic Medical Center needs to raise $425,000 on district taxpayers to maintain current services.
• North Olympic Library, Port of Port Angeles, Shore Pool and Forks Community Hospital need to raise an additional $700,000.
The state demanded our land and promised to manage it as a working forest trust. Money for county services comes from only two places, our county trust lands and your pocketbook.
We need the same quality fire, ambulance, schools, hospitals, safe roads and county services enjoyed by people in the Interstate 5 corridor. County taxpayers will face never-ending levy ballot measures for higher taxes if our county trust lands aren’t working for us.
If we want stable taxes, we must demand the state act with undivided loyalty to the trust, to the exclusion of all other interests.
Our trust is betrayed. Tell your elected officials to make the state do its job.
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Jim Buck is a former state legislator who lives in Joyce.
