Sunday
Sounders give chase
Don’t put away the rain gear quite yet C10
Team has younger roster but question marks B1
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Port Angeles-Sequim-West End
Bills, bed shortage hit agency
Up, up and away
Mental health provider in access, finance jam BY ROB OLLIKAINEN PENINSULA DAILY NEWS
KEITH THORPE/PENINSULA DAILY NEWS
Retiring Port Angeles Police Chief Terry Gallagher spends his last day at work on Friday in an office filled with balloons, courtesy of his department colleagues. Gallagher, who has headed the department since 2008, has served in the Port Angeles Police Department more than 30 years. Deputy Chief Brian Smith will serve as interim chief until a replacement is named (see story on page A4).
Candidates put best foot forward for open port job of marine trade jobs were among the goals described by six of the seven candidates for the vacant commission seat. Candidates for the Port Angeles-area District 2 seat vacated by Jim Hallett, who resigned effective Feb. 1, were interviewed Friday. BY ARWYN RICE A seventh candidate is expected PENINSULA DAILY NEWS to be interviewed Tuesday. PORT ANGELES — The Port The two sitting port commisof Port Angeles’ strategic plan, sioners plan to appoint a comairport issues and development missioner May 11.
Commissioners talk with six of seven prospects
Commissioners Connie Beauvais and Colleen McAleer took turns asking each of the six candidates 12 pre-published questions and three surprise questions — each of which was identical for each applicant. Interviewed Friday were: ■ Steven Burke, part-time executive director of William Shore Memorial Pool. TURN
TO
PORT/A6
PORT ANGELES — A combination of Medicaid cuts, expanded health care access and a statewide shortage of psychiatric beds is causing financial anxiety for the largest mental health services provider on the North Olympic Peninsula. Peninsula Behavioral Health (PBH), which serves about 3,000 Clallam County residents in the Port Angeles and Sequim areas, has received more than $1 million in unanticipated hospital bills since July 1, agency officials said. The private, not-for-profit mental health and chemical dependency treatment organization has an annual operating budget of about $7 million. “Statewide, there’s a huge upswing in the number of hospitalizations, and that’s been true here as well,” said Wendy Sisk, PBH clinical director. “We haven’t hit the level that some communities have in terms of the upswing, but it’s a problem statewide that we’re seeing increases in psychiatric hospitalizations.” PBH Development Coordinator Rebekah Miller said other agencies in the region are facing the same challenges as PBH. “It’s statewide,” Miller said. “The state has shifted all of the risk to the community mental health centers.”
Jefferson Healthcare is working on a plan to create a mental health service facility at the hospital in Port Townsend. The hospital received a Sisk $1.5 million grant from the state Department of Commerce for such a facility. Jefferson Mental Health Services will play a significant role in the development of the new service at the Port Townsend hospital, Adam Marquis, executive director of Jefferson Mental Health Services, and Jefferson Healthcare CEO Mike Glenn have said. Directors of Port Townsend’s Jefferson Mental Health Services and Forks’ West End Outreach Services were not immediately available for comment Friday.
Increased access Previously undiagnosed mental health conditions are now being identified as more people have access to health coverage through the Affordable Care Act, Sisk said. PBH has added 800 new clients since health care expansion, yet Medicaid slashed its funding by 16 percent last July. TURN
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Neighbors to appeal Sequim tower permit Plans call for disguise as a fir tree BY CHRIS MCDANIEL PENINSULA DAILY NEWS
PORT ANGELES — Neighbors of a proposed 150-foot-tall cellphone and radio tower site north of Sequim say they will appeal the decision by Clallam County to issue a conditional use permit and zone variance for the project. The tower, which would be disguised as a fir tree, is proposed for property owned by Shirley Tjemsland in the Dungeness Heights subdivision at 686 Brigadoon Blvd.
William Payne, Clallam County hearing examiner, approved the permit and zone variance Thursday. “We are actually very wellfunded, and there is an appeal that is going to happen, and that appeal will lead to another appeal,” Dr. William Aurich, a spokesman for the neighbors in opposition to the project, said Saturday. Appeals of hearing examiner decisions are made to Superior Court. Although the use permit and zone variance have been granted,
a building permit issued by the Clallam County Department of Community Development’s Building Division is required before the tower can be erected, according to the decision issued by Payne. “The two approvals we just got [don’t] actually have anything to do with a building permit, so we have to finish documenting the design and prepare drawings and submit them,” Ken Hays, a Sequim-based architect whose firm designed the radio/cell tower and accompanying infrastructure involved in the project, said Friday. Hays’ firm designed the tower and accompanying infrastructure for Radio Pacific — owned by Brown Maloney — and the Tjems-
feet, unless you get a variance, and they have their own specific variance criteria for that,” Hays said. He said he does not expect any construction to begin until the summer or autumn months pending the successful application of a building permit and navigation of the appeals process. “I would guess maybe third quarter 2016,” he said. Mike Erwin, who is building a land family. new home at 683 Brigadoon, said Radio Pacific owns and oper- during a Jan. 27 public hearing ates radio stations KONP AM-FM attended by about 75 people at and KSTI-FM, both of Port Ange- the Clallam County Courthouse that the tower would be a “blight” les. and an “eyesore.” North of U.S. Highway 101, TURN TO TOWER/A7 “towers are only allowed up to 100
he tower, which would be disguised as a fir tree, is proposed for property owned by Shirley Tjemsland in the Dungeness Heights subdivision at 686 Brigadoon Blvd.
T
INSIDE TODAY’S PENINSULA DAILY NEWS 100th year, 55th issue — 5 sections, 58 pages
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