French’s “Easy Answer” Leaves Out the Invoice

Clallam County Watchdog · Sep 17, 2026 · 32m

At last month’s Calico Cat Club forum, resident Karen Parker asked what non-tribal taxpayers gain when public money subsidizes jobs and business growth for sovereign nations that don’t carry the same tax load—and how that stacks against lost local revenue. Mike French called the benefit “easy and obvious”: Jamestown Healthcare filled the hole Virginia Mason left, then added a healing center and a 16-bed psychiatric facility. Gaps filled, trust built, a rising tide. That’s one way to tell things, but it isn’t the whole story.

The clinic campus started with the public hospital

The Fifth Avenue…