When “Critical Areas” Swallow a Working City

Clallam County Watchdog · Sep 8, 2026 · 51m

Port Angeles Deputy Mayor Navarra Carr just spent a work session asking how much of the city isn’t a “critical area” — downtown fill, the mill, the port, the harbor, the bluffs. She wants codes that prohibit development there, and she wants last year’s fight over net ecological gain put back into city law. She also runs Mike French’s campaign, and this is what that partnership sounds like when the microphones are on.

Port Angeles Deputy Mayor Navarra Carr spent the August 25 city council work session mapping a city so full of “critical areas” that she was no longer sure what was left.

She…