By Pepper Fisher
PORT ANGELES – People with business at the court clerk’s window for Clallam County District Court 1 will want to know that because of recent budget cutbacks, the hours at the public-access windows have been reduced.
Effective Wednesday, December 13, District Court public-access windows will be open from 9:00am to Noon, and then from 12:30 to 3:00pm on all court days.
District Court 1 Presiding Judge David Neupert told KONP the defunding of his office is causing undue strain on his staff because it eliminates one fulltime position. That position had not yet been filled, so no one is actually losing their job, but he says it is certainly being felt among the staff.
“It has a huge effect on our court operations because we’re looking at the loss of one of our five front office positions. And that’s 20% of our folks. The effect is that we’re going to have to somehow be required to go forward with four people doing the work of what five people are accustomed to doing.”
Judge Neupert says the reduced hours will limit public access to the Court to request protection orders, to pay infractions and fines, inquire about jury service, file papers, or ask for help.
“Most of the cases that folks get involved with in our communities are at the District Court, and we want to be able to be available for folks when they come to our window. A lot of folks come to the District Court window because they want to get a protection order, and that can take a lot of undertaking for somebody to even get the strength up to come in and ask for something like that. And to not be available at our window to have that access, it’s really, really disappointing, and something we shouldn’t see happening.”
We reached out to County Administrator Todd Mielke to find out why this position at the District Court was cut when the decisions were being made about where to make up for a budget shortfall.
He told us the County was forced to cut back the equivalent of 7 vacant, fulltime positions.
“Really, the way that we approached this was, we looked at currently vacant position because, like I said, that was far preferable than laying anyone off that currently he is employed by the county. But the other thing that we looked at for each of those departments, we looked at the trend information that they had submitted to us. District Courts own numbers since 2019, their total case load count has gone down 32% through the end of 2022. So, that was one of the things that went into consideration.”
So again, the net result is that, effective Wednesday, December 13, District Court public-access windows will be open from 9:00am to Noon, and then from 12:30 to 3:00pm on all court days.
For further information regarding the impact of defunding District Court, please contact Presiding Judge David Neupert or Court Administrator Marrissa Williams at 360-417-2453.