“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 through glass. I found shards of glass twenty yards from the building. There is broken glass everywhere. Rainspouts were ripped off and thrown over the fence. Drawers launched through the windows have been claimed by a cat as litter boxes.
Note refrigerator against fence behind cat claiming a new litter box.
A neighbor ran to her own window when her son yelled about a refrigerator going airborne. She saw two teenagers in the act. She has seen teenagers in the derelict building on two to three previous occasions and had called the city. A crew eventually boarded up an open ground floor window and pushed the rear fence closer to the building. That window had been wide open for two years. I had seen evidence that it was being used to access the building. The chain link fencing was never locked tight. There has always been an opening at the rear of the building, conveniently in a blind spot—a spot near the place in the trees with the piles of empty beer cans. Teenagers pulled the fence open and pushed in two large plywood sheets and went to work.
The neighbor (who asked that her name not be used) called the police as the kids rampaged through three floors of the building. The police arrived 40 minutes later and entered the building the same way the kids did. “Come out with your hands up,” the neighbor heard the police shouting. The kids were long gone. The neighbor and I found their fresh footprints in the muddy path leading out the back of the building, through the party site and further up hill.
The front doors have been open to the elements for five years, as if the city and Homeward Bound, the nonprofit that had the project for four of those years, did not care what happened to the building. Now the windows are open and a second level door on the back.
I have been in the process of writing a story on the Cherry Street Project and its lessons for the even larger 14.4 acre “affordable” neighborhood development City Council has bitten off. That article should be out this week. Cherry Street was supposed to be, as then Mayor Michelle Sandoval said in 2017, “a demonstration project.” She and the rest of City Council at the time loaded taxpayers with about $1.4 million in debt, and gave away tens of thousands of dollars in cash and services to a nonprofit that couldn’t even pick up construction trash. The latest cost estimate, as we’ve reported, calls for another $1.8 million just to rehab the old building. Looking at photos taken today, ask yourself, exactly what has the Cherry Street Project demonstrated?
Newly elected Mayor David Faber at a December 6, 2021 meeting said that if he had it all to do over again, he would not have done anything differently. Ponder that attitude, taxpayers, and keep your eyes posted for the upcoming story on “Casa Sandoval.”
Jim Scarantino was the editor and founder of Port Townsend Free Press. He is happy in his new role as just a contributor writing on topics of concern to him. He spent the first 25 years of his professional life as a trial attorney, then launched an online investigative news website that broke several national stories. He is also the author of three crime novels. He resides in Jefferson County. See our "About" page for more information.
Here is what I want to know,,,, where is the money that was allocated for this project that never happened???? Has it been returned??
Whoa… terrific and telling story! In fairness, I’m sure the blokes who mismanaged this property to death have “learned a lot” from their failures, so they should be totally trusted to take on much, much larger construction and property management responsibilities at public expense. Just one question: if they have in fact learned anything, why aren’t they DOING anything to fix the ongoing Cherry Street disaster they have created? Fix Cherry Street first, then let’s talk.
I am worried the most about that cat. Does anyone know if it is feral or lives nearby? 🙂 As for this project, seems pretty straight forward to me if one knows what they are doing, like how to create a fairly accurate scope of work, corresponding budget with contingencies, manage contractors and money, deal with risk and uncertainty, and otherwise be a diligent project manager. Sounds like that didn’t happen.
What a sad, embarrassing debacle.
With building codes being what they are, they make this a total, fiscally unfeasible, fantasy.
Given our little city’s and the county’s support/identity for sustainable agriculture, a solution that might turn a lemon into lemonade (at further expense to us all off course…but no matter what, there is guaranteed further expense!) is to find one of our farms interested in a multilevel barn or large scale chicken/ small animal facility and load the shell back onto a barge to gift it to them!
Certainly not the original vision, but not a total waste maybe!
Just a thought.
Hope springs….
If compassion for others is the basis of morality, the vandals have demonstrated neither. Even though the project is derelict, there simply is no excuse for inflicting more damage upon it. Would that the vandals were to be apprehended, charged, put on trial, convicted, and punished. Yet one wonders if that will ever happen.
Look at the bright side of this. You could say that the kids have starteed to clean this mess up for the city. Everyhone has been howeling about it and they took civic action to get rid of this eyesore that it’s been a deep well for tax payers money. Now, mlaybe the city will do something about it. Think take it completly down.. If they decide to save it, I think a good name for it would be”Sandoval’s Folly”..
Why is no one being held accountable, kinda like all this lawsuits against Jefferson county sheriff that they settle right away so you can’t see what they are doing and nobody fired. You don’t have to dig very deep to see how corrupt this county is,
I think the solution to this fiasco is the same as always — MORE MONEY! Rather than suffer the humiliation of admitting defeat by tearing the thing down, I expect the next move will be a huge influx of capitol to rebuild the whole mess and then use even more taxpayer funds to subsidize the occupants forever because it could never pay for itself.
responsibility
[rəˌspänsəˈbilədē]
NOUN
the state or fact of having a duty to deal with something or of having control over someone.
“a true leader takes responsibility for their team and helps them achieve goals”
(responsibilities)
a thing that one is required to do as part of a job, role, or legal obligation.
(responsibility to/toward)
a moral obligation to behave correctly toward or in respect of.
corruption
[kəˈrəpSH(ə)n]
NOUN
dishonest or fraudulent conduct by those in power, typically involving bribery.
“the journalist who wants to expose corruption in high places”
synonyms:
dishonesty · dishonest dealings · unscrupulousness · deceit · [more]
the action of making someone or something morally depraved or the state of being so.
decay; putrefaction.
“the potato (City of Port Townsend) turned black and rotten with corruption”
This is a Timmons/Sandoval/Faber no term limit Council quagmire. The disease had and has spread to Fort Worden with Timmons in charge of damage control of a crime scene caused by Robeson. Timmons is now Executive Director under a “new” board of past Elected Mayors and other closed system players.
Everything in nature, and PT, is connected.
I am having discussions regarding moving to Port Hadlock. I do not wish to contribute my hard work, taxes, and legitimacy to this failed group who took over what was a nice little town. Notice I didn’t mention parking.
Smiley faced sociopaths.
“Be Kind” say Sandoval and Mauro
Happy New Year.
“Newly elected Mayor David Faber at a December 6, 2021 meeting said that if he had it all to do over again, he would not have done anything differently”. A need for clarification. The PT mayor is appointed by Council not elected by the people.
Are the incoming Council members seated and have voted Faber to show they won’t rock the sinking boat?
Faber of course will be Mayor. He has commented in the past regarding the importance of “administrative continuity”. Expect the downward spiral to continue under him and Mauro. Continuity.
Who is Mauro?
This paper explains…. https://www.porttownsendfreepress.com/2020/10/07/who-is-john-mauro-port-townsends-city-manager/
By the way, the real and very costly vandalism to all was by this City Government and Sandoval, Faber, Timmons, with Paul Rice, who orchestrated this. What happened to the reported expense account questions? Paul Rice is a Sandoval employee and on planning commission. Catch his radio show that won’t be talking about Cherry Street on KPTZ. Thanks to Windermere/Sandoval for sponsoring KPTZ
Teenagers just picked over the Carmel carcass. Sandoval likely will show up on some board or committee, perhaps at Fort Worden per the revolving door. She is now advertising for vacation property management in Quilcene, where she has set up a second Windermere office. That should help affordable housing there. As here.
The political class and their partners in crime, the Homeless Industrial Complex (HIC), have been trashing our communities in Washington State for the past 25+ years. Their rampages of industrial scale vandalism have destroyed our parks, libraries, downtowns and residential areas. Affluent, smug creatures with permanent glued on smiley-faces invade crime-free, AFFORDABLE, working-class neighborhoods and build their drug camps and tiny-home shanty towns. They have nothing but contempt for the people they harm. Labeling their victims as NIMBYs justifies sticking them with the bill for the latest failed project.
I wasted many years of my life on housing and homeless issues. Community conversations. Government meetings. Getting involved in politics. Volunteering at shelters. I eventually learned that governments and the HIC are dedicated to creating dystopian hell-holes. Their virtue-signaling useful idiot allies are blissfully unaware of the depth of anger and potential for violence that exists because they enabled the obscene corruption of the virtue of charity.