Peninsula Daily News 50 cents
December 10-11, 2010
Port Angeles-Sequim-West End
YOUR FRIDAY/SATURDAY WEEKEND PLANNER OUTLOOK:
OUTDOORS:
COLORS:
VARIETY:
Cloudy; showers turning to rain
Hurricane Ridge to open officially
Arts and crafts, cider or farm fun
Art festival in Quilcene
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Page B1
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Peninsula Spotlight
Legislature in session Saturday Lawmakers called to Olympia to shave $1.1 billion deficit By Curt Woodward The Associated Press
OLYMPIA — State lawmakers will convene a weekend special session to substantially cut the state’s $1.1 billion budget deficit, Gov. Chris Gregoire announced Thursday. The bipartisan agreement will reduce the state’s revenue shortfall through June by about $790 million, Gregoire and legislative leaders said. The special session — one last time for retiring state Rep. Lynn Kessler Kessler, the House majority leader from Hoquiam who represents the 24th District covering the North Olympic Peninsula and part of Grays Harbor County — will start Saturday morning with the goal of wrapping up work in one day. “If all goes well and the creek don’t rise, we’ll go home Saturday night. Who knows what hour, but Saturday night,” Gregoire said. About $200 million of the total savings will come from capturing some of Gregoire’s previously ordered across-the-board spending cuts. Roughly $210 million more will come from federal money intended to boost education jobs. The balance of savings measures includes reductions to social services, prisons and education. Turn
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Back to drawing board PA might have welcome sign sites, but doesn’t have a design it likes By Tom Callis
West, city community and economic development director, so the staff want to see other sketches before asking the City Council to select one. But now the city is putting a hold on new sketches until safety concerns raised by the planned placement of one of the large monument signs at the bottom of the Morse Creek S-curve on Highway 101 can be addressed.
Peninsula Daily News
PORT ANGELES — Worries about the safety of a highway location approved for one of two new “Welcome to Port Angeles” monument signs has put the design choices on hold. City Hall is asking a consultant to develop new designs for the signs that it wants to install at the east and west entrances into town on U.S. Highway 101. The consultant, AECOM of Orlando, Fla., has developed two concepts thus far. Both are preliminary, and the final choice of the design will depend on the locations. Each of the two concepts was displayed at a public meeting on the city’s Waterfront and Transportation Improvement Plan last month. Neither received overwhelming approval from the public, said Nathan
Safety concerns The location is one of two that the City Council selected Tuesday. The other is at the Tumwater Truck Route-Highway 101 interchange on the west side. Deputy Mayor Don Perry said placing a monument sign next to Morse Creek would distract drivers and might cause wrecks on the notorious S-curve east of town. Turn
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Signs/A6
AECOM (3)
Two preliminary monument sign designs for the U.S. Highway 101 entries into Port Angeles, developed for City Hall by consultant AECOM of Florida, show the Port Angeles name, upper right, and wooden poles that would rise out of a stone-based monument, above. Each pole, detailed at right, would be designed by local artist, if that concept is adopted. The city has asked for other designs to be developed.
Deficit/A6
‘Gross waste of public money’ Fort Flagler State Park project cost soars from $140,000 to $7 million
Area likely not to see river floods By Rob Ollikainen Peninsula Daily News
By Julie McCormick
For Peninsula Daily News
NORDLAND — The State Auditor’s Office this week issued a scorching critique of Washington State Parks’ management of water and sewer work at Fort Flagler State Park on Marrowstone Island. An ongoing series of projects and failures of projects between 2000 and 2009 resulted in a “gross waste of public money,” the report from the office of state Auditor Brian Sonntag said. As water and sewer problems were discovered at the 784-acre shoreline camping park, what started as a simple $140,000 replacement of an RV dump station resulted — $7 million later — in an entire new stateof-the-art water and sewer system. The final work closed the park to all patrons during the winter 2008-2009 season, and it remained closed to campers until late spring, said Sandy Mealing, spokeswoman for Washington State Parks. Neither the Auditor’s Office nor Washington State Parks was able to pinpoint exactly how much money was spent because records for the early period were either incomplete or could not be located. “We’re not even clear that there was a waste of money,” Mealing said. “We know there was mismanagement and lack of accountability and documenta-
Julie McCormick/for Peninsula Daily News
Neither the State Auditor’s Office nor Washington State Parks can pinpoint exactly how much money was spent because some records are incomplete or cannot be found. dures and oversight, and it took corrective tion problems,” she said. Mealing said the lack of records also action before a January 2009 whistle-blower makes it impossible to know whether any complaint, which prompted the investigation and report. fraud occurred. “It was during the time frame of about Internal controls faulty 2004-05 when we learned that a staff member let the contractor deviate, but again, we The agency response to the auditor’s don’t really have the documentation,” Mealreport indicates it recognized part way into ing said. the project that there were problems with internal controls over contracting proceTurn to Flagler/A6
Break out the umbrella. A wet, warm Pacific storm is taking aim at Western Washington, with the bulk of precipitation coming Saturday and Sunday. The National Also . . . Weather Service has ■ West End issued a flood watch lightning for the North Olymstirs power pic Peninsula lowoutage, fire in house/A5 lands and the entire Puget Sound basin. Forecasters say it could be the wettest storm Western Washington has seen in two years. But Johnny Burg, meteorologist with the Weather Service in Seattle, said the rainmaker is expected to hit the south side of the Olympic Mountains and spare the North Olympic Peninsula from the worst of the rain. “Most of the flow is southerly,” Burg said. Some area lowlands, including the Pacific coast, will see up to 2 inches of rain Saturday night into Sunday morning, Burg said. “Rain will be heavy at times after midnight,” he said. Turn
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Inside Today’s Peninsula Daily News 94th year, 289th issue — 5 sections, 52 pages
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