What's it like in Port Townsend? (Sequim, Blyn: rent, buying, school)

[CrazyDonkey]

The Kitsap Peninsula has better job prospects, but you're still close to ONP, especially the eastern slope along Hood Canal. Visiting Pt. Townsend is an easy drive, as long as you're not in the "rush". Much easier to get to Seattle and back, as well.

[Ruth4Truth]

Originally Posted by CrazyDonkey

The Kitsap Peninsula has better job prospects, but you're still close to ONP, especially the eastern slope along Hood Canal. Visiting Pt. Townsend is an easy drive, as long as you're not in the "rush". Much easier to get to Seattle and back, as well.

I'm open to Port Hadlock and Pt Ludlow as extensions of Pt Townsend, kind of, and as a potential happy medium between the Kitsap and Olympic Peninsulas. They're also closer to Poulsbo. I'm thinking of getting involved in the Norwegian association's activities, so being closer to Poulsbo could be convenient.

How are gas prices in the area, btw? Petrol prices?

[Beanbenge]

Two words: Aspenization and Gentrification. This is a town doing it's best to run the working class into non-existence, though they will vehemently deny that. Social services... ha! Good luck finding them! Jobs? As someone else in this thread said, Bring Your Own Job, or plan on working 4 jobs to equal one full time, and still not be able to afford to live here. Joblessness and homelessness are on the rise here at a rapid rate. We also have a highly unpublished population of working homeless. If you have money and don't need the local economy to sustain you and you can fit into the cliques here you will do fine. Lots of trustafarians here.

[pikabike]

PT will seem like a bargain for having so much sea access...IF you compare with places like Seattle, San Francisco, etc. By that, I mean you can buy single-family houses with water views in good neighborhoods starting at less than "only" a million dollars. Try that in San Diego or Boston.

But for people who come from cities that are not so ridiculously expensive, PT will not seem like a bargain. Even middle class retirees find the COL surprisingly high. The city loves to rob the rich to pay for the poor, and what they call rich includes anyone who isn't actually poor.

Property and sales taxes are high, yet revenues seem to go toward building pet projects of people with connections, instead of repairing roads and buildings whose long-deferred maintenance would benefit people who live or work in town, as well as tourists.

Someone who had lived in PT for more than 10 years before we met him said the city had gotten so used to White Knights riding in on their financial horses and sweeping up gaping funding problems with one flourish of a check that they lost their ability to manage finances like a responsible adult.

He was right. Even now, their answer to perceived or real shortfalls almost always includes "We hope donations will make up for..." as someone organizes yet another fundraising gala at $$$ per person.

The person who wrote of the closed society is partly right. It exists, alright. At the same time, there are a LOT of nonwealthy transplants who are friendly and open. It's a mix, not unexpected in an old, small town with poor employment prospects. There is resentment of those from out of the area, and I heard it more than a few times as "All you people from [insert names of other states] are [insert some unfounded assumption]."

Some of the biggest complainers have no clue how hard some people worked, living in or commuting long distances to big-city jobs to SAVE FOR their retirement rather than slacking off and blowing pay on weed and booze. People make different choices in what is important to them and how long they can delay gratification. If someone isn't willing to go out into the real world to make life nicer in their later years, that's their business but they should keep their slacker mouth shut when other people reap the benefits of their own work.

The city has too many who have learned to really milk Learned Helplessness. I have never heard so many excuses made for entire lifetimes of making bad decisions and expecting others to pick up the pieces for them.

When you visit, you should get out of your car, get out of downtown and uptown, and really look at what is around. Don't just hit the tourist high points. Walk ordinary streets throughout town--not just the designed historic or artist gallery or antiquing blocks. If you plan to live in PT, you need to view it without the rose colored glasses. If you see something odd, ask yourself WHY is that so? The answers reveal a lot about the way the town operates.

[Hemlock140]

I was on the peninsula yesterday and saw an interesting poll in the Peninsula Daily News, on the idea of making Port Townsend a Sanctuary City for undocumented immigrants. So far over 68% are opposed, which I found surprising. I wonder whether the older hippy and artsy people are being replaced, or are just becoming less liberal?


Home | Peninsula Daily News

[CrazyDonkey]

Originally Posted by Hemlock140

I was on the peninsula yesterday and saw an interesting poll in the Peninsula Daily News, on the idea of making Port Townsend a Sanctuary City for undocumented immigrants. So far over 68% are opposed, which I found surprising. I wonder whether the older hippy and artsy people are being replaced, or are just becoming less liberal?


Home | Peninsula Daily News

Well, the Peninsula Daily News covers much more than just P.T. Sequim (with lots of retirees) and running west (to Forks) gets more conservative fast.

You're really looking at at least three different layers of residents in the P.T. area, from longer-term to more recent: 1) families with ties to the resource-economy (logs, paper, fish, shellfish) dating back several generations, 2) arty/hippy craftspeople/musicians, etc., since the 1970s, and 3) "banana belt" retirees (post-John Wayne).

[rantiquity]

Originally Posted by Hemlock140

I was on the peninsula yesterday and saw an interesting poll in the Peninsula Daily News, on the idea of making Port Townsend a Sanctuary City for undocumented immigrants. So far over 68% are opposed, which I found surprising. I wonder whether the older hippy and artsy people are being replaced, or are just becoming less liberal?
Home | Peninsula Daily News

I don't find it surprising at all.

You have realize that PDN has in two editions and the poll reflects the views of both counties....Clallam county edition which is a red county and Jefferson county edition which is a blue county...well Jefferson county isn't so much blue as the majority of Jefferson county population lives in PT. The western part of the county I suspect is actually red.
So the poll you sited probably reflects the larger populated area of Clallam county.

[rantiquity]

PT is basically a town of people from Seattle or California who have fled the rushed life and wanted to slow down and smell the flowers...but it is also for a lot of bored people who have a lot of money and after living there for a while been bored they start a hobby business. Open when they feel like it and pay the lowest wages possible for the fewest hours possible. Basically PT is a tourist trap. Selling pottery, antiques and folksy art are about all the businesses that are allowed in town. Or get evolved in the community trying their darnest to change it to actually what they escaped from in the first place.
Shopping! If you are into high price organics its your spot on earth. But have something bust or want some realistic prices on food in your home, I will guarantee you a trip either to Silverdale or Sequim.

[Ruth4Truth]

Originally Posted by pikabike

PT will seem like a bargain for having so much sea access...IF you compare with places like Seattle, San Francisco, etc. By that, I mean you can buy single-family houses with water views in good neighborhoods starting at less than "only" a million dollars. Try that in San Diego or Boston.

But for people who come from cities that are not so ridiculously expensive, PT will not seem like a bargain. Even middle class retirees find the COL surprisingly high. The city loves to rob the rich to pay for the poor, and what they call rich includes anyone who isn't actually poor.

Property and sales taxes are high, yet revenues seem to go toward building pet projects of people with connections, instead of repairing roads and buildings whose long-deferred maintenance would benefit people who live or work in town, as well as tourists.

Someone who had lived in PT for more than 10 years before we met him said the city had gotten so used to White Knights riding in on their financial horses and sweeping up gaping funding problems with one flourish of a check that they lost their ability to manage finances like a responsible adult.

He was right. Even now, their answer to perceived or real shortfalls almost always includes "We hope donations will make up for..." as someone organizes yet another fundraising gala at $$$ per person.

The person who wrote of the closed society is partly right. It exists, alright. At the same time, there are a LOT of nonwealthy transplants who are friendly and open. It's a mix, not unexpected in an old, small town with poor employment prospects. There is resentment of those from out of the area, and I heard it more than a few times as "All you people from [insert names of other states] are [insert some unfounded assumption]."

Some of the biggest complainers have no clue how hard some people worked, living in or commuting long distances to big-city jobs to SAVE FOR their retirement rather than slacking off and blowing pay on weed and booze. People make different choices in what is important to them and how long they can delay gratification. If someone isn't willing to go out into the real world to make life nicer in their later years, that's their business but they should keep their slacker mouth shut when other people reap the benefits of their own work.

The city has too many who have learned to really milk Learned Helplessness. I have never heard so many excuses made for entire lifetimes of making bad decisions and expecting others to pick up the pieces for them.

When you visit, you should get out of your car, get out of downtown and uptown, and really look at what is around. Don't just hit the tourist high points. Walk ordinary streets throughout town--not just the designed historic or artist gallery or antiquing blocks. If you plan to live in PT, you need to view it without the rose colored glasses. If you see something odd, ask yourself WHY is that so? The answers reveal a lot about the way the town operates.

The quintessential example of this is an oddity I came across in Pt T. A couple bought a huge yacht (I'm not sure: 50-60 feet), but can't afford to maintain it, so they set up a foundation so that strangers would donate to help them maintain their boat. Seriously. Ever heard of "The Schooner Martha Foundation"? They say it's a historical wooden boat from the Sacramento area, so maybe it's historicity is the justification? Or maybe the popularity of old wooden boats in Pt T? Does anyone have an explanation for this? I've never before heard of people buying a pricey recreational item, and expecting the public to pay them to maintain it.

[MarciaMarshaMarcia]

Originally Posted by rantiquity

PT is basically a town of people from Seattle or California who have fled the rushed life and wanted to slow down and smell the flowers...but it is also for a lot of bored people who have a lot of money and after living there for a while been bored they start a hobby business. Open when they feel like it and pay the lowest wages possible for the fewest hours possible. Basically PT is a tourist trap. Selling pottery, antiques and folksy art are about all the businesses that are allowed in town. Or get evolved in the community trying their darnest to change it to actually what they escaped from in the first place.
Shopping! If you are into high price organics its your spot on earth. But have something bust or want some realistic prices on food in your home, I will guarantee you a trip either to Silverdale or Sequim.

This is an accurate suumary of what PT is like today...and also pikabike's.