THURSDAY
AUG. 6, 2015 Opinion ��������������Page 4 Community News ���Page 5
Love, John
Meandering Minnows by Duane Miles
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Sports ���������������Page 7 Classifieds ���������� Page 14 SERVING THE WEST END SINCE 1931
Volume 83 No. 47
• WWW.FORKSFORUM.COM •
Clallam commissioners seek review of county’s timber management roots
Relay Raises Over $30,000!
By Rob Ollikainen Peninsula Daily News
mittee Aug. 10. Clallam County and its junior taxing districts are losing millions of dollars a year in unharvested timber that the state Department of Natural Resources planned to sell, former County Commissioner Phil Kitchel told the current board Tuesday. Kitchel, who served from 1995-1998 and has worked closely with the timber industry, used a Treasurer’s Office report to show precipitous declines in revenue from timber sales. “We’re not talking peanuts,” Kitchel said. “This is a significant revenue source, and if we can find ways
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to help the DNR get those revenues back to the more consistent level, that benefits everybody in this county.” Timber that DNR was authorized to sell but didn’t sell is known as arrearage. According to DNR numbers, the Olympic region had 247 million board feet of arrearage from 2004-2014. That’s enough wood to keep any one of the shuttered West End mills running for years, Forks City Attorney and Planner Rod Fleck has said. Commissioner Bill Peach, a retired Rayonier forest manager, said the recent closure of the Allen Logging Co. mill south of
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Forks, coupled with the closure of the Interfor mills in Beaver and Forks and the Green Creek Wood Products mill in Port Angeles, represents the loss of about 300 jobs. “We’ve got a tremendous asset base here in this county and others, as portrayed by Commissioner Kitchel, as a potential to provide a renewable, constant stream of revenue that offsets the need for property taxes, sales taxes, a plethora of other revenue sources,” McEntire said. “So let’s go get it.” This is an excerpt of a longer article that appeared in the Peninsula Daily News last Friday.
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PRSRT STD US Postage Paid Permit No. 6 Forks, WA
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Survivors and Caregivers begin their lap around the FHS track as Relay for Life officially got underway last Friday evening. Photo by Lonnie Archibald
ECRWSS - BOXHOLDER
PORT ANGELES — It’s time for Clallam County to take a good, hard look at how its forests are being managed, county commissioners say. The three-member board plans to grant a request from the Charter Review Commission to form a trust lands advisory committee to study the forces that influence timber harvests and the possibility of reconveyance from state management back to the county. “We’re going to be putting our foot on the accelerator in getting the committee established in the proper way and get them under way so that they can do their work,” said board Chairman Jim McEntire, who also serves on the state Board of Natural Resources. The Charter Review Commission voted 10-4 on July 6 to send a letter to county commissioners asking them to form a committee within three months to examine the “history, issues, benefits, challenges and advantages” of reconveyance of county trust lands. If a transfer is not recommended, the committee will help the state fulfill its obligation to the county and its taxing districts. Commissioners will discuss the formation of the advisory com-