Port Angeles City Council

**City Manager Nathan West, on workload balance:** "We are asking that if you choose to add, that you also take away so that we do not overwhelm the amount of workload that already exists." **Council Member Drew Schwab, on neighborhood associations:** "I would suggest perhaps de-emphasizing though the neighborhood association related stuff since we haven't really discussed it in two years. We just kind of did it and then walked away from it." **Council Member Brendan, on surveillance technology:** "I think it's valuable to understand and be able to talk about some of these programs like we don't really use a camera system, which personally I'm very proud of that we don't really surveill our citizens in that way." **Council Member Amy, on removing items:** "It is difficult on all seriousness to go through and be critical about things that can be removed because I feel like there's been progress made on everything." **Council Member Latricia, on infrastructure progress:** "When I was

## Meeting Overview On February 24, 2026, the Port Angeles City Council held a special work session to review and update the city's 2025-2026 Strategic Plan. The meeting, which ran from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. in Council chambers, brought together City Manager Nathan West and department heads from across the city to present updates on their progress implementing the strategic plan. This was the first opportunity for the two newest council members, John and Mark, to weigh in on a strategic plan they had not helped create. As Nathan West explained at the outset, "This however is not the time to be rewriting the plan. There will be an opportunity coming up this October when we're going to do a city council retreat to create a new two year strategic plan." The session was designed to allow council members to make minor modifications — adding or removing items while maintaining balance between departments. The strategic plan, adopted in October 2024, focuses on four main areas: Community Resilience, Citywide Resource Optimization, Housing, and Infrastructure Development, Maintenance, and Connectivity. What made this update particularly significant was that six major projects had emerged since the plan's adoption that were consuming substantial staff time but weren't formally part of the strategic framework. ## Strategic Plan Updates — Department by Department The heart of the meeting was a rapid-fire series of departmental presentations, each highlighting how their work aligned with the strategic plan's goals. City Manager West had warned at the start that they were behind schedule and needed to "pick up the pace" to leave adequate time for council discussion. City Clerk Martinez Bailey opened with updates on permit integration efforts, noting that over 500 local businesses had secured Port Angeles business licenses since the new requirement took effect. She also reported that staff had sent 61 test messages through the new Everbridge emergency notification system, with five real alerts dispatched during actual events like the "petrocard incident." Finance Director presented updates on the massive Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system implementation — a multi-year, multi-phase project that had already consumed over 18,000 hours of staff time. "This project encompasses several programs and ERP is really our system that we use for everything, everything flows through the system," she explained. The financial phase was currently live, with all remaining phases scheduled for completion by year's end. Fire Chief delivered an update on Operation Shielding Hope, the city's innovative response to the opioid crisis. The results were striking: "Twelve months after implementation from March 2024 to April 2025, Collin county's overdose fatality rate dropped to 28.3 deaths per 100,000. The county moved from second highest in the state to 13th representing a decline of more than 60%." The program had secured additional funding through 2027. ## Six Major Unplanned Projects City Manager West highlighted six substantial projects that had emerged since the strategic plan's adoption, consuming significant staff resources despite not being formally incorporated into the plan: **Camping and Encampment Response:** West noted this had become a priority requiring numerous meetings and substantial staff time. **Enhanced Tribal Consultation:** The city had received direction to create new approaches for working with local tribal governments. **Council Rules of Procedure:** This item had "come up numerous times with this council" and needed attention since the rules hadn't been reviewed in years. **Joint Public Safety Facility:** A major undertaking not contemplated in the original plan. **Criminal Justice Contract Negotiations:** West described these as "a very big lift" that were far more complex than when the city's first criminal justice services contract was developed in 2015. **Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe Sewer Project:** Another significant infrastructure project. City Attorney Bloor emphasized the legal complexity of several items, noting that today's criminal justice contract negotiations were "much more complex when it comes to all of the issues involved, then they were in 2015... It's also a matter of meeting all the legal standards and requirements that exist today, that didn't exist then." ## Council Discussion and Modifications When the floor opened for council discussion, Mayor offered to start with the two newest members who hadn't participated in the original strategic planning process. Both Mark and John deferred to hear from their colleagues first. Council member Drew Schwab asked about lean six sigma training and inquired about the timeline for the police grant application. He suggested de-emphasizing neighborhood association work since "we haven't really discussed it in two years... the public didn't seem to have any sort of strong feelings regarding anything related to neighborhood associations." Council member Brendan echoed Drew's sentiment about neighborhood associations but raised concerns about camera surveillance programs. "I think that our council needs to be very clear about what kind of measures are we going to take to actually make our streets safer," she said. "We currently don't really use a camera system, which personally I'm very proud of that we don't really surveill our citizens in that way." Council member Amy supported adding the criminal justice services, joint public safety facility, homelessness response, enhanced tribal consultation, and the sewer project to the strategic plan. However, she questioned whether council rules of procedure needed updating, joking about Drew's knowledge of Robert's Rules: "We've got Drew, he's real good at Robert's rules." Council member Latricia praised staff's progress, particularly highlighting the A Street basin project where she had previously advocated for full construction rather than just design work. She suggested expanding the city's facade program to include ADA accessibility improvements. ## Emerging Consensus By the meeting's end, council had reached consensus on several modifications: **Additions:** All six projects identified by staff would be formally added to the strategic plan, recognizing work already underway. **Deprioritization:** Neighborhood association work would be deprioritized, with multiple council members noting the lack of traction and community engagement. **Community Solar:** Council agreed to deprioritize but not eliminate the community solar project. Public Works Director Scott had explained the challenges: "It has been a struggle for me identifying what a viable project would look like... to actually get construction funding to implement it would be a bit of a challenge right now." Council member Mark appreciated the staff feedback, saying "That was the kind of feedback I was looking for" when department heads could identify what to remove based on their finite resources. ## Looking Ahead As the meeting concluded, City Manager West outlined next steps: staff would draft a resolution to amend the strategic plan based on the evening's discussion and present it for action at a March or April council meeting. The work plan would then be updated accordingly. The October 2026 retreat loomed as the next major strategic planning milestone, when council would develop an entirely new two-year plan. Council member John, looking ahead to that process, said he was "looking forward to a robust conversation in October about the new two year plan whereas I will have lots of comments and suggestions and thoughts on." Mayor closed the meeting by encouraging everyone to sign up for Everbridge emergency notifications, noting the QR code available for easy registration. The work session demonstrated both the complexity of municipal operations and the collaborative relationship between council and staff in setting the city's strategic direction.