The day they thought would never come arrived on Tuesday, March 19th, 2024, when the City of Port Townsend and the Olympic Peninsula YMCA received an unwelcome bit of news from a litigation team at the Center for American Liberty, representing longtime Port Townsend...

Administrators and elected officials in Port Townsend’s city hall are painfully familiar with charges of subverted public processes, and rightfully so. Sims Way poplars, the golf course, streateries, the pool — each of these controversial projects followed...

The Kah Tai Valley, between the Straits of Juan de Fuca and Port Townsend Bay, once consisted of open prairies and estuaries. Development quickly transformed this landscape; however, due to benign neglect of a small area within Port Townsend Golf Course, a colorful...

Public comment to Jefferson County Board of Health at their January 18, 2024 meeting (slightly expanded for publication): What do you know? When covid hit, Public Health said they knew it was caused by wet market bats, and censored anyone who disagreed. But now the...

Insufficient revenues.  Increasing expenditures.  Stagnant economy.  Port Townsend is heading over its financial cliff fast. Don a green eye shade and take a flinty-eyed look at the city budget just approved for 2024. There's red ink everywhere. The vapid verbiage of...

Gaping holes in the construction estimate for the proposed $37.1 million Port Townsend aquatic center translate into millions of dollars in future costs overruns, according to Mark Grant of Grant Steel Buildings and Concrete Systems, Inc. (see his bio below). Mr....

“There are two ways of being happy: We may either diminish our wants or augment our means — either will do — the result is the same; and it is for each man to decide for himself, and do that which happens to be the easiest. If you are idle or sick or poor, however...

What a mess. The $108 million Port Townsend Aquatic Center as proposed to City Council would default in its first year. To calm skeptical taxpayers, numbers are being juggled, massaged and manipulated. Millions of dollars magically disappear from cost entries in order...

Like many, I was surprised to learn on July 26 from a brief front-page Leader blurb that city council was stepping up to fix Port Townsend's crumbling roads by forming its own Transportation Benefit District (TBD) and meeting August 1 to fast-track funding by placing...

Eye popping numbers. Red ink from the start. The city's financial analysis shows that the proposed aquatic center would not be able to pay its debt service for its first four years. That analysis is built upon a fantasy of low interest rates and a Jefferson County...

Recently uncovered public records include a draft September 2022 City of Port Townsend Newsletter article, where Mayor David Faber wrote about his emotions while hearing elder people at the August 1 city council meeting “repeatedly call trans persons ‘pedophiles’ and...

In August 2022, incendiary events in Port Townsend brought social media posts by then 39-year-old Mayor David Faber to national attention. Internet writers began discussing tweets like this: And this one, publicizing his ultra-low Rice Purity Test score (17/100) to...

Lowballing costs. The feasibility study for the proposed Port Townsend aquatic center appears to grossly underestimate likely operating costs. Annual deficits may be far worse than being reported to the public. Even greater subsidies -- and higher taxes -- may be...

In the spirit of offering Letters to the Editor as a traditional platform for lively, wide-ranging conversations in the public square, we invite you to write about whatever is on your mind. Because we require comments under articles to be “on topic”, we found that...

Self-sufficient, profitable, a benefit to the community. That can be the future of the Port Townsend golf course, says the city's consultant in a May 24, 2023 report that has started receiving serious consideration only within the past week or so. The city's...

The closer you look, the more problematic a new Port Townsend aquatic center appears. Operating costs would greatly exceed initial projections, according to the feasibility study prepared to boost the city's promotion of a new aquatic/fitness center. The estimated...

Unsustainable.  Without massive city subsidies, the Mountain View pool would be closed. No one knows how much larger the subsidies must be to sustain a much larger new aquatic center. All we have are predictions based on projections which are based on assumptions. In...

How many people use the Mountain View pool and who are they? With numbers like $53 million being batted around — the projected cost of building a brand new aquatic center — more than anecdotal information is called for.  To answer those questions we now have 18 months...

This laid back Victorian seaport and artist colony has long been funkily charming, attracting visitors from around the world to enjoy architecture, birding, boating, weekend getaways and the impressive array of weekend-long festivals. Some are so enchanted they...

Unsustainable.  Higher taxes lie ahead for Port Townsend residents and businesses. But it won't be basic, critical city services that get the biggest chunk of increased revenues if the recommendations of the City's Financial Sustainability Task Force are followed. The...

In the spirit of offering Letters to the Editor as a traditional platform for lively, wide-ranging conversations in the public square, we invite you to write about whatever is on your mind. Because we require comments under articles to be “on topic”, we found that...

Dave Timmons has had enough. The former Port Townsend City Manager (at left above, speaking to the city council at their June 12 meeting) came out of retirement in 2020 in response to requests he step in to save a collapsing Fort Worden Public Development Authority...

In the spirit of offering Letters to the Editor as a traditional platform for lively, wide-ranging conversations in the public square, we invite you to write about whatever is on your mind. Because we require comments under articles to be “on topic”, we found that...

Unsustainable. In less than five years, Port Townsend will burn through its reserves and be unable to maintain its current level of services. Its finances will “fall off a cliff.” Those exact words were used by city staff in its presentation to the joint session of...

“The transgender rights movement has gone well beyond seeking equal rights. It seeks to liberate women without their consent from the legal protections associated with birth sex and even from the recording of birth sex… I have changed my mind with regard to certain...

Years have gone by since the Covid outbreak of 2020, many meetings have been held, studies have been done, mountains of data have been compiled. What problem would you guess the Washington State Board of Health (WSBOH) would focus on, would ask for help in the form of...

In the spirit of offering Letters to the Editor as a traditional platform for lively, wide-ranging conversations in the public square, we invite you to write about whatever is on your mind. Because we require comments under articles to be “on topic”, we found that...

At their March 27 meeting, the Port Townsend City Council unanimously approved the PT Arts Commission's proposal for an expert selection panel appointing a Poet Laureate to serve throughout 2024 "as ambassador of Port Townsend’s active creative community, promoting...

In the spirit of offering Letters to the Editor as a traditional platform for lively, wide-ranging conversations in the public square, we invite you to write about whatever is on your mind. Because we require comments under articles to be “on topic”, we found that...

Ebb and flow happen everywhere - in natural tidal rhythms, in social structures, and in the cycles of individual lives. Staying at high tide all the time is unsustainable. These past 3 years, deadly lockdowns and incessant propaganda campaigns have propelled the world...

In the spirit of offering Letters to the Editor as a traditional platform for lively, wide-ranging conversations in the public square, we invite you to write about whatever is on your mind. Because we require comments under articles to be “on topic”, we found that...

Editors Note:  Long-time gardener and Discovery Bay resident Bonnie Broders contacted the Free Press in an effort to alert others in the county to a devastating worm infestation that she believes came from packaged organic potting soil purchased locally. She says that...

Editors Note: The following letter was sent by Dr. Rob Rennebohm to Public Health Officer Dr. Allison Berry and the Jefferson County Board of Health on February 4, 2023. ---------------------------------------- On November 16, 2022, I sent an email to Dr. Berry, Dr....

The shell game Over recent decades, municipalities have been shedding responsibility for various community services by creating what have been dubbed ‘junior' or ‘special' taxing districts. Rationales range from increased service demands to vague descriptions of...

In the spirit of offering Letters to the Editor as a traditional platform for lively, wide-ranging conversations in the public square, we invite you to write about whatever is on your mind. Because we require comments under articles to be “on topic”, we found that...

Out of 39 Washington counties, Jefferson County rang in the new year with the dubious distinction of being the only “red alert” spot for Covid cases in the state. We’ve reported extensively on the disinformation from Public Health Officer Dr. Allison Berry, our health...

I was among the three hundred plus citizens who packed the meeting room at Fort Worden Commons for what the city described as Open House #1, City of Port Townsend Golf Course plus Mountain View Commons Planning Effort. This meeting marked the midpoint of a roughly...

Because we require comments under articles to be “on topic”, we found that readers who want to speak to other important issues, events and concerns that our small crew can’t cover don’t have a place for that. We introduced this feature for readers who want to bring up...

December 31st is the deadline for removal of all streateries remaining in Port Townsend. As year-end approaches for the expiration of the streatery temporary use permits — which despite public outcry, the City Council extended yet again last May — five rarely-used...

Because we require comments under articles to be “on topic”, we found that readers who want to speak to other important issues, events and concerns that our small crew can’t cover don’t have a place for that. Last month we introduced this new feature to make a place...

It's like deja vu all over again.  On Dec. 9, NYC's health commissar advised that everyone (including 2-year-olds!) "should wear a mask at all times when in an indoor public setting." Then our state's public health leaders followed in lockstep....

Dr. Michael Mörz, a pathologist in Germany, has recently published an article entitled, Multifocal Necrotizing Encephalitis and Myocarditis after BNT162b2 mRNA Vaccination against COVID-19. The article is a case report of autopsy findings in a 76-year-old man who had...

Meet Alexander Zachary French. Alex French, 25, was arraigned in Jefferson County District Court on Monday, November 21st, for assault in the 4th degree committed on the evening of August 15th. That summer evening, across from City Hall, a press conference organized...

The photo above shows the skeletal remains of a streatery tent in front of Alchemy Steak & Seafood (aka Alchemy Bistro and Wine Bar), where according to their website “A New Culinary Adventure Begins." The photograph accompanied an email to the Port Townsend City...

We invite you to participate in a new feature! We took on relaunching the Free Press in 2021 with a commitment to creating a space for uncensored conversation, discourse that other local media does not permit. Throughout that time, readers have asked, Do you have a...

Jefferson County PUD leadership, including the General Manager, legal counsel and two-thirds of the elected commissioners (the Fab Four) have not gone so far as The Atlantic's Prof. Emily Oster in asking for "pandemic amnesty," but they share her interest in ignoring...

The approach to Port Townsend's gateway runs past the city's Fentanyl Forest, where addicts survive night to night, fix to fix, saying they have no drug problems unless they don't have enough to stay high. This is where campers rousted from Kah Tai Park go. Those...

Part One of this series addressed our health officer's disinformation about the CDC's cover-up of alarming safety signals from their v-safe database. While v-safe was developed specifically for the Covid roll-out — a digital app designed for registered vax recipients...

BERRY: nothing but hope for vaccine efficacy "The biggest thing that we can do to protect ourselves and our community as we move into the fall is to get vaccinated, both with our Covid boosters and get our flu shot. That's how we protect ourselves, our neighbors and...

BERRY on pharma fraud during vaccine trials: "[I have been] asked if there have been any valid concerns raised about Pfizer clinical trials, about poor design or data falsification... And the answer is no, actually." (2-14-22 BOCC meeting) FACT CHECK: Last February,...

“Jefferson doesn’t have the level of population immunity that others do, because it did such a good job controlling the virus before.” — Dr. Allison Berry _______________________________ Public Health Officer Dr. Allison Berry has presided over a pandemic response...

Summer is over. The rains have begun. I am back at my desk. While we were enjoying the fine weather, our federal and state governments have continued with their plans to protect us from Covid. Let’s play a little good news/bad news and find out what they have been up...

Jefferson County will be alone in its own private State of Emergency if commissioners approve its 13th temporary Covid-19 response policy emergency declaration at their October 24 board meeting.  Meanwhile, Washington State and all its other counties (including...

Greg Brotherton as county commissioner has steered millions of dollars to an organization he heads as its chairman. That organization is OlyCap. Brotherton has violated state laws prohibiting such conflicts of interest because he has voted for and actively lobbied the...

"This is not over," Julie Jaman told the Port Townsend City Council on October 3, 2022. At that meeting Katie Daviscourt, a reporter with Rebel News, confronted Mayor David Faber with his own words about having sex with dead chickens and a dog, and declaring that, "As...

“I cannot sleep… and I am feeling so fatigued and muddle-brained that I can barely think straight and even have trouble standing up straight. I have literally done nothing since [the Smart meters] have been put in and feel achy all over and disoriented, slightly...

Unlawful arrest, malicious prosecution, making false statements, misleading the prosecutor. A California Federal District Court jury ruled that Art Frank and another Glendale, California police officer unlawfully arrested and caused the malicious prosecution of Edmond...

The Port Townsend City Council heard my policing concerns in this Public Comment at their September 6 meeting: In past public comments, I regularly asked about police staffing. My underlying concern was ensuring sufficient police if ever Antifa-like gangs threatened...

Jefferson County Commissioners raised a host of disturbing issues by paying $14,999 for 20 county employees to attend an “Anti-Racist Literacy Workshop”. The contract between USAWA Consulting LLC and Jefferson County specifies the training will be customized “to...

Covering its tracks, lawyering up. Olympic Pride got a lawyer to demand that Port Townsend Free Press remove photos showing its interactions with children. The lawyer said it was about copyright. But the same images have also been removed from Olympic Pride's own...

“By anyone’s assessment, traditional electromechanical [analog] meters are an amazing piece of engineering work. Refined over a hundred years, the design of a standard residential electricity meter became an impressive combination of economy, accuracy, durability and...

Clementine "Clem" Adams finally spoke. And when he did, he revealed shortcomings in local YMCA child safety rules, the policies designed to prevent the sort of conduct that has led to lawsuits against the Y for child sexual abuse and numerous cases of sexual assaults...

"The modern trans movement does not appear to be a natural outgrowth of the feminist or even gay, lesbian, and bisexual acceptance movement. It is my strong belief that something else altogether is going on here.” — Toby Rogers ———————————— “Pride" messaging began as...

A Port Angeles man claims he and his wife were banned from the Port Angeles YMCA because he objected to the sharing of child porn in the weight room and young men sexually harassing women and girls. He offered to pay to upgrade the Y's security system so they could...

Until a few short weeks ago, I’d never heard the slur “TERF”. Until the story of Julie Jaman’s ban from the YMCA pool broke, I had no idea that so much trans-activist venom and vitriol had infected our community. Or that people we have invested with positions of power...

Monday, August 15. I hadn't initially planned to go to City Hall at all that evening — I had obligations at home and mixed feelings about both sides in this conflict — but the issue was looming large in the community, and I wanted to witness the further unfolding of...

How to share an evening from hell. This is my dilemma, as I attempt to regain balance after witnessing what I’d previously considered fellow human beings descend into hate-filled and menacing nihilists who felt such righteousness of cause, any questioning of method or...

An angry white crowd screaming at a Black woman pleading for civil rights. Threatening her. Intimidating her. Senior women linking arms to protect a rape survivor trying to speak. A lesbian being shouted down by a mostly male mob decked out in Pride colors. A man with...

"Wow!  Why are trans rights and trans feelings more important than any woman's?  Why are women and children not worthy of protection?" – Comment from Port Townsend Free Press Facebook post ------------------------ Dozens of citizens filled Port Townsend City Council...

A heterosexual male is authorized by the YMCA to enter the women's showers and dressing area at the Mountain View pool while women and girls are naked.  Clementine Adams, who also goes by "Clem," though he wears a woman's bathing suit on the job at the pool, is...

Mayor David Faber opened the Port Townsend City Council's August 1 meeting by moving public comments to the top of the agenda in consideration of the many members of the public present intending to comment. Nearly an hour of comments concerned YMCA management of...

Editors Note: In the Free Press's ongoing efforts to expose censorship by local media, we are publishing a letter to the editor written to The Leader by long-time Port Townsend resident Julie Jaman. The letter, printed in full below, was submitted on July 28th...

An 80-year old woman who expressed extreme discomfort and fear about a male in the women's shower area of the Mountain View Pool was permanently banned from using the facility. For 35 years the Mountain View pool—a City of Port Townsend facility now operated in...

Readers Roundtable with Candidates: For this year's primary races, our readers are invited to ask candidates questions and add comments in an interactive exchange below. Here's your chance to probe local office-seekers in a relaxed public forum where you'll even get...

Jefferson County's Sheriff deputies, its captain and all its sergeants, all of the correctional staff and the firefighters have endorsed the re-election of Sheriff Joe Nole. "I've never seen this much support over an election before," says JCSO Sergeant Brandon...

Readers Roundtable with Candidates: For this year's primary races, our readers are invited to ask candidates questions and add comments in an interactive exchange below. Here's your chance to probe local office-seekers in a relaxed public forum where you'll even get...

Readers Roundtable with Candidates: For this year's primary races, our readers are invited to ask candidates questions and add comments in an interactive exchange below. Here's your chance to probe local office-seekers in a relaxed public forum where you'll even get...

Readers Roundtable with Candidates: For this year's primary races, our readers are invited to ask candidates questions and add comments in an interactive exchange below. Here's your chance to probe local office-seekers in a relaxed public forum where you'll even get...

This article is the first in a series that will shine light on the inner workings at our local hospital system. Administrators at Jefferson Healthcare would have us believe that all is well within their institution, particularly as they return to the taxpayers, hat in...

The Port Townsend City Council's July 5 meeting centered around a potentially wide-reaching project to calm speeds by replacing double-lane streets with single-lane two-way "edge lane roads", following a revealing Public Works experiment performed on Blaine Street....

Suicide and substance abuse touch all our lives. These horrors and tragedies surround us. In my eight years in this town, I have personally known one young man who hanged himself, and I'm friends with people whose relatives have taken their lives in what should have...

Twenty-five percent of Jefferson County high schoolers made a plan to kill themselves in the last year. About 30 tenth and twelfth graders tried to kill themselves. These and other alarming reports of severe mental health problems among the county's high schoolers...

Tomorrow, June 27, 2022, Clallam naturopathic physician and author Rick Marschall is due to report for 8 months in jail at the Federal Detention Center in Sheridan, Oregon, after being entrapped in an FDA sting operation. His crime: selling garlic extracts to help...

----------------------------------------- UPDATE and CORRECTION: After talking this afternoon with Amy Yaley (JHC Director of Marketing and Communications), it appears likely that your medical data is NOT being sent to Facebook through Jefferson Healthcare's MyChart...

Last June Jefferson County Emergency Management popped up vax clinics at the Saturday Farmers Market, in those pre-booster days excitedly advertising "Johnson & Johnson vaccine available today! One and Done!" Not seeing any takers, I tried talking with one of the...

The Port Townsend City Council opened its June 6 meeting by hearing new police hire Officer Chase Stanton take his Oath of Office. In public comments, Julie Jaman spoke to the Gateway and Boatyard Expansion Project being hornswoggled by the project mantra "the poplars...

In early December 2021, I submitted a Public Records Request to Jefferson County seeking concrete data on how many COVID-19 cases were in the fully vaccinated, partially vaccinated and unvaccinated categories. In April, I received a redacted spreadsheet containing...

Above is a glowing view of San Francisco's gorgeous Golden Gate Bridge, constructed in under 5 years from 1/5/1933 to 5/28/1937. What other architectural wonders took less than 5 years to build? A Free Press reader sent us the following list. (Note: The Cherry Street...

In a letter to the Port Townsend City Council on May 2, 2022, I wrote: “There is apparently a vision to eliminate or at least reduce use of the 'personal automobile' in our commercial districts... Those of you and others you know who are sold on this vision of a...

The following is an update from the Poplars Alliance, sent May 7th to the City's Engage PT, Port and PUD electeds, The Leader, and the Port Townsend Free Press —————————————— Dear Engage PT and Elected officials, Thank you for the opportunity to comment. It appears...

Port Townsend's most ambitious, costliest "affordable" housing project. Barged from Victoria, B.C. the Carmel House, the building at the center of the Cherry Street Project, sits empty and blighted above PT's golf course. The 2022 work plan for the City of Port...

PT Free Press is expediting publication of this council report in hopes of minimizing community confusion arising from inaccurate Leader reporting that PT City Council OK's long-term streateries program. The opposite actually took place, as can be seen by viewing the...

“I don’t really see the need for streateries in our code. Many of the restaurants already have courtyards or some kind of space outside. We’ve spent a bunch of energy putting together public spaces where people can take take-out food and sit next to the water. I...

I was never locked down. I designated myself an "essential worker" and continued my office IT job as always, as did all my coworkers.  I continued shopping at the Food Co-op, where no one wore masks during those early months and few if any got sick (borne out by food...

Two weeks ago I gathered with a few friends in what will remain an undisclosed location in Port Townsend to watch, via Zoom, the Washington State Board of Health (SBOH) vote on whether the COVID-19 vaccine should be added to the list of shots required for public...

"I wouldn't change a thing about what we did."  Mayor David Faber said that about the Cherry Street Project at a December city council meeting. The topic of that meeting was whether Port Townsend should purchase 14.4 acres on the edge of town, the Evans Vista project,...

The streatery pictured above is in the lot off Tyler Street, behind the Mount Baker Block building.  The city gave a no-cost temporary lease to the Cellar Door in February 2021.  City officials told the owner they would likely allow the streatery to remain after Covid...

A community divided by class and social status. In the 19th century there were two distinct Port Townsends. In Uptown and Morgan Hill, the prim and proper wives of captains, bankers and customs officers never had to rub elbows with the roughnecks and Chinese along the...

Political players at the City of Port Townsend have made no secret of their desire to eliminate vehicular traffic in the city’s primary business districts in favor of a more walkable, bike-able, maybe even pedestrian-only commercial hub. When John Mauro was hired as...

“i get to have a face. you do not.” —————————————— Spring of 2020. Mere months before the Leader began censoring all perspectives that did not align with health department messaging, I wrote a concerned, fact-based letter to the editor challenging the mask campaign we...

Author’s note: This article uses the term public discourse to describe a specific type of communication used to gain understanding about matters of shared public concern. Public discourse is a process that involves dialog among trusted parties to discover the best...

Anti-Police Politicians Now Desperate for More Law Enforcement. Realizing that a shrunken Port Townsend Police Department can't protect the city, City Council approved an agreement with the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office to rent deputies and their equipment. The...

Dear Port Townsend Free Press readers: As you know, the censorship window has been closing on all forms of free speech and alternative views for some time now.  You may not know that the Free Press website mysteriously crashed on Thursday, March 17th. Anyone who...

Lipstick on a pig. The side of the Carmel House the public sees from Cherry Street shows new plywood sheeting where windows were broken out during the extensive vandalism on January 3, 2022. It looks like maybe the city is somewhat taking care of its largest, most...

Last November, a group of concerned parents of Port Townsend School District (PTSD) students garnered nearly 600 signatures on a petition demanding that there be no Covid-19 vax mandates for school attendance.  In an introductory letter, the parents made clear that...

Senior Leader columnist Bill Mann is at it again, unleashing his second wave of trash-talk against so-called "anti-vaxxers", calling them "stupid", "idiots", "foolish", "deniers", "clueless", etc., etc., etc. In a bizarre reversal of reality, Mann blames lockdown...

Public radio compromised by government money. Wanting more news coverage from what they perceive as a non-threatening, if not friendly media outlet, Jefferson County Commissioners gave $10,000 to KPTZ to hire a producer/reporter to cover county business. You read that...

In the realm of policymaking, global to local, predicted costs of measures taken today often bear little resemblance to the reality that unfolds. In the case of Jefferson County Public Utility District (PUD), poor policy choices have resulted in additional costs to...

Arrested for refusing to wear a mask. The charge was trespassing, but it was really about a woman's refusal to wear a mask while shopping in the Port Townsend Food Co-op. With the end of the statewide masking mandate approaching, we've been asked, "What happened to...

Homeschooling is being chosen by more and more parents both nationwide and locally since the beginning of the Covid lockdowns in 2020. Faced with shuttered schools and small businesses, many parents found both time and incentive to explore schooling their children at...

Let me relate a poignant personal awakening I experienced after delivering the following public comment to the Jefferson County Board of Health at its February 17 meeting: My comment is about recent statements made by Health Officer Berry. I appreciated her telling...

"I'm going to continue to mask, I'm going to continue to distance. It's just not safe out there.” Public Comment, 2-14-22 BOCC meeting ------------------------------------ What will it take to break the mass delusional psychosis perpetrated on the public? For...

While the Empire’s police were busy confiscating fuel from Freedom Convoy truckers in Ottawa (photo above), last Saturday's mini-convoy from Port Angeles to Port Townsend indeed came to pass. About 50 folks in 25 vehicles (plus more on overpasses and streets), joined...

The Clallam County lawsuit against Health Officer Allison Berry's restaurant/bar vaccine mandate orders was settled February 2, but these unfounded and discriminatory mandates will "continue for at least several weeks."...

Three months have passed in my efforts to make a change locally. As I mentioned in a previous article, I was concerned with Washington State mandating Covid-19 shots for any child attending public school. California had mandated this policy so Washington couldn’t be...

"By the time weekly boosters are mandated, symptoms will be reduced to a mildly ticklish nose & a vague feeling of being conned.” comment below a YouTube video —————————— I’ve just recovered from the Omicron variant of Covid. Because common Covid tests do not...

Get Out of Clallam and Jefferson Counties if you're worried about OMG! Omicron! Counties with the least restrictions seem to be doing the best during the Omicron "surge." Clallam County, struggling under Dr. Allison Berry's exclusion of the unvaccinated from dining...

Did They Learn Anything? With the trashed-out Cherry Street Project nowhere near housing its first human occupant, Port Townsend City Council has gone big, very big. Last month they approved the purchase of 14.4 acres next to the first traffic circle at the entrance...

"Mom! They're throwing a refrigerator out a window!" Teenagers easily gained entrance to the derelict Carmel House and trashed it. Almost every window has been broken. Furniture, light fixtures, random kitchen utensils, a door and, yes, a refrigerator were hurled...

In early October 2021 the Leader reported that the Lombardy poplars along Sims Way were to be cut down. Subsequently we have learned that a three-pronged project is underway moving at precipitous speed. It was initiated in August 2021, receiving approval from the Port...

“Kevin, at the end of the day, I believe that this mandate was the wrong choice for the PUD and our community and wholly unnecessary. Ultimately it was your decision that put your work force in a compromising position, boxed in a corner and forced to make a choice...

Two surviving spouses have come forward to describe their beloved mates’ deaths following Pfizer injections. Our last reporting on heart damage from the shots focused on the increasing incidence in young people. Those mounting injuries and deaths are underscored by...

This Clallam County legal challenge received skewed coverage in local media, clearly intended to diminish its credibility. Based on unsubstantiated assertions about the lawsuit’s basis, and guesses from an uninvolved third party, the Peninsula Daily News discounted...

A common feature at the weekly Monday morning Board of County Commissioner (BOCC) meetings in these Covid times is a number of public comments aimed at the disconnect between public health policies dictated by local authorities and the data coming from...

"In the very rare occasions where myocarditis occurs as a result of the vaccine, it is most commonly mild and generally resolves without treatment.” – Jefferson County Public Health "The blood test for heart injury with the vaccine myocarditis elevations is ten to a...

451 children. 213 families. 75 volunteers. 35 businesses. Originating with the efforts of a Chimacum schools bus driver broken-hearted for kids who received no Christmas gifts, Jefferson County's Christmas for Children now brings joy to more kids and families than...

One day after Laura—a healthy, athletic 27-year-old Port Townsend woman—received her second Covid mRNA injection, she began having significant adverse reactions. Pressured to take the experimental injection for employment, within days of the shot her body aches and...

As the Covid crisis has unfolded in Jefferson County over the last two years, a slick, relentless, well-orchestrated fear narrative has created the greatest divide many of us have ever seen in our diverse, once-tolerant community. And with the arrival of experimental...

What housing crisis? County Commissioners plan to make it even harder to afford housing in Jefferson County. They intend to increase the property tax levy at the same time that gas, food and all other costs are spiking. Homeowners already struggling to make ends meet...

At the October 4th meeting of the Jefferson County Board of County Commissioners, Department of Emergency Management Director Willie Bence provided the following update: “We’re unlikely to do any more large clinics for the Pfizer booster dose population. Our next...

Worldwide Walkouts swept America on November 3 from Berkeley to Miami, from New York City to Honolulu, from Las Vegas to Chicago, and even the sidewalks by the Ferry Dock of benighted Port Townsend. What's this all about? People have been battered during the epidemic...

Do you know of local people who have been injured by (or died from) the Covid injections? You’re surely not hearing about vaccine injuries or deaths from any other local media. Obituaries about previously healthy residents who died following their jabs never mention...

After declaring a housing emergency in Jefferson County, public officials have now taken action to make the situation worse. On October 4 the Board of County Commissioners declared a new emergency establishing a moratorium on processing housing...

Prompted by concerns about Jefferson PUD moving last week toward firing uninjected workers, I made the following public comment to the Jefferson Board of County Commissioners at their October 11 meeting: News roundup: The Seattle Times reports "a chronic crew shortage...

“To be told the DOT requires us to be vaccinated was a huge, confusing shock. By what authority does DOT dictate our medical policy?” – Randy Calkins, PUD Water Distribution Manager, Sewer Manager   A letter to Jefferson Public Utility District employees from...

The Jefferson County Board of Health on September 16 unanimously adopted a resolution "declaring health misinformation a public health crisis." They urge all "to use reliable sources of data that follows the preponderance of evidence" because "there are some people in...

[This piece was submitted to the Leader and rejected by them. Writer Brett Nunn explains, "I first offered it to the Leader hoping to reach a certain audience and start a civil conversation. The editor wrote back "it's not experimental and it's FDA approved.”]...

County residents picket the Leader building holding signs with messages like “Censorship means being over the target” and “The Leader Lies" ———————— HAVE YOU BEEN CENSORED? Click to see this special message! ———————— For nearly a year, the Leader, the Peninsula Daily...

Like you, we want Port Townsend Free Press to continue! The Port Townsend Free Press has been a precious window into the unreported corners of our fair (and sometimes not so fair) City of Dreams, as well as an outlet for voices not well served by local media and...

This letter from neighbors around the Fairgrounds to the Board of County Commissioners speaks for itself. Recall that OlyCap's effort to regulate and control the camp was frustrated by the City of Port Townsend, which insisted on imposing prohibitively costly and...

Why are we constantly being hammered with climate alarmism, Covid alarmism and racial alarmism? The journalist and social commentator H. L. Mencken explained it decades ago: “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to...

First Amendment violations have been corrected. Policies have been changed so that Jefferson County's on-line public forum complies with Constitutional protections of freedom of expression. Last year I sued Jefferson County for violating my First Amendment rights by...

As a pediatrician and pediatric rheumatologist who has published peer-reviewed articles on COVID-19, I would like to comment on the importance of knowing the Ct value at which a SARS-CoV-2 PCR test becomes positive. [The Jefferson County Health Department is not...

Port Townsend Free Press is going quiet for several months. The editor, Jim Scarantino, as in 2019, has to get to work on business responsibilities here and on the East Coast. Due to the COVID lockdowns, there's a significant backlog needing attention. Plus, he's...

When the Port Townsend School District reopened the doors in September 2020 my family opted out of in-classroom learning. We opted back in at the beginning of November. My youngest was happy to return to Blue Heron Middle School even if it was for only two days a...

R&R hall-of-famers Van Morrison and Eric Clapton team up for another rollicking blast against senseless lockdown mania with "Stand and Deliver"!!! You can can stream on major services or buy your own copy at:...

Drugs, violence, crime, overdoses, chronic alcoholism, medical emergencies...and madness. Port Townsend police generated over 250 pages of reports on calls to the Jefferson County Fairgrounds from March through October 2020. The incidents range from calls to help one...

"There wasn’t a county in the U.S. where a minimum wage worker clocking in 40 hours a week could afford to rent a two-bedroom apartment in 2019.” That’s according to a report by the National Low Income Housing Coalition. This seems to be a sad reality. Right here in...

[Update: In the 24 hours since this story was published, the death rate in Washington for COVID infections has dropped another 5.6%.] The number of people currently hospitalized for COVID in Washington is higher than its has ever been, and so is the number of people...

We have a housing crisis. Our Board of County Commissioners declared an Affordable Housing Emergency three years ago. But we have seen no movement on addressing one of the primary causes of our affordable housing shortage: minimum lot size regulations. Jefferson...

WHAM! GRIND! SCRAPE!! Grrrrrr. I had scooted across 19th Street, going north on Landes after leaving the Safeway. When I got to the other side my front tires dropped, the road came up, and I was scraping the bottom of my car across the blacktop. I disembarked to...

It is easy to lay down on a street for a few minutes, to rage and swear at police, to accuse them of all sorts of despicable actions and evil attitudes and toss off demands for sweeping systemic reform. It is especially easy with the police protecting you from getting...

Jefferson County has gone all in on community masking. On June 5 Dr. Thomas Locke, Jefferson County Public Health Officer, issued a directive requiring that masks be worn in all indoor spaces. Just wander around town and look in the windows and on the doors of local...

No deaths, no new cases, ICU's not overrun, hospital beds open. Where's the emergency for the Olympic Peninsula? Neither the Port Townsend City Council nor the Jefferson County Board of County Commissioners have discussed at their meetings any plan for getting...

I mentioned in my last opinion piece that the city made a good start by banning the feeding of deer within city limits. In speaking with the city, and state fish and game representatives, it seems that there is more to come. Expect a long process involving public...

Thank you to all the readers who helped us exceed 60,000 page views since our first investigative report was published a short seven months ago.  Our most widely read reporting was on the Cherry Street Project--the extravagant waste of scarce affordable housing...

(We rejoin Ravyn, who asked to share her journey with us.  In the first installment (click here), she and her nineteen-year old boyfriend decided to marry and do what it took to bring their child into the world.  Pregnancy radically changed Ravyn, a "horrible person"...

On October 22, 2018, I wrote an editorial, "Sheriff Stanko, Please Stand Down," about why I believe Dave Stanko should not get another term as Jefferson County Sheriff.  In it, I asked "What's with Republicans?" Though not endorsed by the party, many prominent...