The Port Townsend City Council heard my policing concerns in this Public Comment at their September 6 meeting:
Staff and Council Response
City Manger John Mauro responded that some of my policing concerns would be addressed in his later city manager report, pointing out the city’s August 11 Mountain View Pool Q&A explaining how the city’s decision-making is based on state law (but not mentioning any policing issues as it preceded the August 15 assaults).
In his City Manager’s Report, Mauro spoke mostly about the September 3 event:
[Police Chief] Tom deserves a lot of kudos, but so do the agencies we work with, East Jefferson County, Sequim, Port Angeles, state agencies like the Washington State Patrol, Federal agencies, specifically working with a lot of jurisdictions and Public Works team … minimizing violence. …
This isn’t a decision to permit or not permit an event … When someone wants to hold a free-speech first-amendment-right rally in any location, they can do so, and there’s nothing the city can do to prevent that.
The event’s permit is a process by which we can glean information about what to expect, how we can resource up, how to prepare, and even ask: do you request police presence? In the instance of 15th, that answer was ‘No’ on that event permit, so we with two-and-a-half working days adjusted accordingly based on a request.
Now we could, of course, deny resourcing, traffic closures, as we see fit. That’s where we have yes/no decision making authority, but we can’t keep someone from assembling to exercise free speech …
That’s something we need to prepare for. There was no injury, property damage, and I would say part of the reflection talking with state and federal agencies was the appropriate but not over-the-top presence of multiple agencies is likely what prevented problems from happening in the first place.
And some of the rules literally according to the organizer killed the turnout, because we were saying here is what you can and cannot bring into a public space for this event.
In his Presiding Officer’s Report, Mayor David Faber drew big laughs with his ironic initial quip:
Not a whole lot has happened over the last couple weeks. No, actually, I had trouble coming up with my list because so much of my mental space has been occupied by other things than what I would normally want to talk about here. …
This last Saturday, the protests … I’m very glad the police coordination there resulted in, as far as I’ve been able to understand, no violence, and I’m glad that it ended up being a peaceful event. Thanks for staff and team for making sure it went off without a hitch.
Councilor Ben Thomas was the only one to touch on concerns about the August 15 assaults, closing off the meeting with these heartfelt words:
I don’t know if this is the time or place, but I don’t know when the time or place is, so I just wanted to acknowledge: We’ve got a lot of emails, in person as well, comments on the event on 8/15.
I wish we could talk more openly and frankly about this stuff and realize it’s not an easy thing to do; it’s complicated. But there are a lot of hurt feelings, possibly worse, for people on how it went down.
And I read every word, and I’m sure other people do too, of everything that gets sent in. It’s not being ignored, there’s just not much we can do about it, going back in the past.
I’m sorry that people went through that. I did see it first hand, and I was disturbed by it. I didn’t think they were treated very well.
Even though, do I agree with everything they were saying? That’s not the point. So that did bum me out.
But also we’re getting a lot of stuff, hearing a lot about chromosomes and stuff, and this is not the body to figure out state law or how chromosomes work and gender. People are leaning on us about this, but I just don’t see it as our role.
I just wanted to say that out loud. Thank you.
Councilor Wennstrom Opens Up After the Meeting
Speaking personally, after delivering my Public Comment, I felt itchy about having singled out Councilor Libby Wennstrom by name. After the meeting broke up, I noticed her walking away alone down the sidewalk, and felt moved to call her name to connect and try to understand where she was coming from.
I started by confessing that I felt bad about singling her out in my comment, I’d found myself respecting her perspicacity and attention to detail during council discussions, so wondered what was going on with her Facebook TERF posting.
Wennstrom expressed feeling that trans people were being threatened, had noticed the TERF image someone else had made (adapted from tsunami warnings), and reposted it on her private Facebook page that was only shared with a few friends.
Unfortunately one of those friends liked or shared her post in a way that made it public for all to see. Wennstrom never intended it to go public, but in retrospect as a public official doesn’t think she should have posted it.
Wennstrom graciously continued talking with me, and we covered a lot of ground:
- She related that various councilors and she personally have been flooded with a glut of emails, death threats, obscene images, etc., etc. Tonight was the first time she’d felt safe enough not to be accompanied by someone else for protection to a city meeting. (When she said that, realizing I stood alone about 6 feet away from her on the night-time city sidewalk, I took a step back, but she waved it away and said she didn’t feel threatened by me.)
- Internally the city has been overloaded by these messages and surrounding issues.
- Wennstrom said that a large number of dangerous armed Proud Boys were intending to come to the September 3 event, but were deterred when they heard there would be enforcement of a no-visible-weapons ban.
- The reason police were focused on protecting councilors and the council building on August 15 was because of the threats they were getting after all the media attention.
- Wennstrom said Amy Sousa hadn’t checked on the permit that organizers wanted police protection for her 8/15 event; I countered that the Peninsula Daily News quoted Sousa that Chief Olson had been repeatedly asked for separation from the counter-protesters.
- I told Wennstrom about specific assaults and harms to attendees, mostly from a dozen violent bad actors; she had been under the impression that women were exaggerating, citing a case she had been shown of a woman pointing to bruises on her arm that were weeks old.
- Wennstrom strongly objected to the idea that council had “directed” police not to help women being assaulted under their watch, saying neither council nor mayor has that authority and the city manager provides the police chief general policy. I reiterated that witnesses and video heard a police officer refuse to go into the crowd to help women, saying he’d been directed not to, so the question is who directed him. (That made me wonder whether Olson and/or Mauro might have been so concerned over threats council was receiving that they felt no officer could be spared from protecting council and its property.)
- Wennstrom felt that legally there was nothing council could have done about the pool issues, since it is on property leased from the school district, controlled by the School Board, and managed by the YMCA.
- She wished that Julie Jaman had gone through channels instead of escalating with an outside demonstration, council, Tucker Carlson, etc. resulting in doxxing of council and Y staffers, lives messed up, city disruption, the pool still being closed, budgets being drained that provide protection at events, etc. (I neglected in the time available to go into how Jaman did try to talk to YMCA management first, did try to get the Leader to publish her letter, etc. but was completely stonewalled.)
- Wennstrom courteously heard out my opinion that mistakes might have been made on both sides, particularly that the YMCA messed up banning Jaman lifetime on the spot without due process, and city council messed up on August 1 by dismissing folks as bigots for expressing their honest narrow concerns about women and kids feeling safe in public bathrooms. Wennstrom said she heard someone say “trans people are pedophiles” at council and that set her off; I replied that I don’t think I heard anyone say that, but even if one person did, that’s not what other public commentators were saying, but they were all getting smeared with the same brush.
We’d been talking for a little while and it was getting cold, but as we were winding down three of her friends joined her, so we parted on pleasant terms. I appreciated her taking the time to talk with me and being open to respectful and factual feedback.
On my side, I hadn’t realized the extent to which city personnel were feeling terrorized and overburdened by all the negative feedback, doxxing, and publicity they’d been receiving. I also felt a little impressed how they continued trying to keep a stiff upper lip and take care of city business in a professional way, as seen by generally exemplary disposition of their straightforward council agenda on September 6.
Stephen Schumacher graduated with honors in Mathematics from Harvard College and programmed funds transfer systems between Wall Street banks and the Federal Reserve before moving to Port Townsend in 1983. He has served as an officer for various community organizations such as the Food Co-op, Jefferson Land Trust, and the Northwest Nutritional Foods Association. He co-created The Port Townsend Leader’s original online newspaper and programs ship stability software used by naval architects.
I was thinking we should vote in a rainbow badge on all the LE here because they show their allegiance to them, a nice little rainbow on a pocket or a little pin I’m sure they would be proud to have it and I bet it would be voted in seriously lol. Maybe we should change Port Townsends name to Sodom or Gomorrah?
Please just stop. We are trying to save our country together, here. That means getting along with people we don’t agree with and may not even like. It means getting along with people we might otherwise dismiss because of personal prejudice or belief. Keep your beliefs, thrive with your beliefs, celebrate your beliefs; but do it respectfully to your fellow human beings when you are here in mixed company, please, we beg of you. We are literally trying to save our city and our nation from total and complete destruction from within. That does not mean making fun of, moralizing against, attacking and demeaning our fellow Americans. Even the ones who hate us. Even the ones who use us spitefully. Is that sounding at all familiar? Bless you, David. Now let us move forward without the derision.
Responding to Libby’s comment that trans people were being called pedophiles, I don’t know if that’s true, because I wasn’t at the pool protest very long, but long enough for me to be called a pedophile, among other things. Here is my statement to the City Council that I made on August 1st, as a reminder to Libby:
Looking at the Council agenda for tonight, it mentions “Discrimination at the Mountain View Pool.” That is a loaded statement, presuming discrimination when there is a concern for safety and privacy for women and children in the locker room. The protest at the YMCA today (though I wasn’t there the entire time) was full of rancor and personal accusations and insults by the people who showed up on the other side of this issue. We were accused of hating trans people, of being Christians, and when we laughed, then we must be cultists. Or we must be pedophiles. But what about our needs as women? Do men transitioning to be women understand that discrimination and violence are part of being a woman, and that we do need protection from predators? Do women transitioning to being men understand that they are also vulnerable to male harassment and violence? I would think so.
There is absolutely NO privacy in the Y women’s locker room, which means we are vulnerable. Someone who claimed to be an employee at the Y said there were private rooms with showers there, but then someone else said no, the private rooms were for the employees, and had no showers. So which is it? I haven’t been there in years because of the lack of privacy. Someone suggested we “use towels” to protect our modesty. We shouldn’t have to be acrobats with towels, hoping that will protect us from prying eyes or worse, when men can decide they’re “identifying as a woman,” walk in, display their private parts and have the freedom to ogle or harass or assault anyone there. We have seen what can happen when pedophiles and rapists can, and do, populate careers and locations where they have easy access to women and children. And anxiety and PTSD is not uncommon when women feel vulnerable around men.
Women’s concerns about our safety and privacy are, and always have been legitimate, and we have long been accorded the natural right to these in any public facility. Unfortunately, the 2015 WAC appears to be an attempt to rob us of that right, as it does not make provision for it, except for vague language about “provision of options” being encouraged “whenever feasible,” which is a weak request rather than a law, and sounds optional to me. This is wrong. Locker room facilities should be upgraded to accommodate the safety and privacy needs of everyone, instead of declaring that we now have a “free for all to enter any bathroom or locker room” encoded attitude about existing facilities that do NOT accommodate the privacy, safety and security needs of more than half the population.
Stephen, I commend you for having the open mindedness to reflect on the conversation you had with Council Wennstrom and take into consideration what she conveyed in this conversation. It seems to be easier to paint a broad brush of intolerance than to be open minded and be able to change your opinion or your views on things. As a community, we definitely should try to be more open minded. Thank you for the breath of fresh air!
I want to echo Dawn’s appreciation of Stephen’s open-minded coverage. I would also like to commend Stephen’s bravery in often be the only one in the council chambers to speak up with contrary points on everything from efficacious road work to the increasingly thorny issue stemming from the events at the pool. After every meeting he has stayed behind to engage in discussion in a genuine search for truth, whatever that means these days. I think we all know that it’s so much easier to lob grenades from a computer keyboard than to engage people face-to-face.
I also want to acknowledge how much time goes into covering these meetings. I occasionally covered PT council meetings some 20 years ago in my own attempt at independent media. It was hard, and I didn’t do it as well as Mr. Schumacher is doing it.
Ben, I completely agree with you that we as a community should be engaging one another face to face instead of being a “keyboard warrior”, as I like to call the “lobbing of grenades.” Hiding behind a keyboard does nothing to solve the issues we encounter and is totally counterproductive to the issues at hand. I can only hope that more people will find that face to face communication is the productive way of communicating rather than sitting behind a keyboard.
Seems to me a lot of the confusion is because if differing beliefs in the meaning of “trans person.” So, what is a trans person? In actuality it is any person who has undergone all transition surgeries, hormone adjustment procedures and is FULLY transitioned. Until this has happened many people hiding under the trans mantle by asserting they are trans are doing so to achieve some personal goal of acceptance by the LGBTQ+ community. In the case of “Clementine,” this involved sharing women”s facilities and caused quite a ruckus. The fact that the mayor and chief of police supported the more woke side of the issue rather than the side of Julie Jaman’s civil rights as a woman speaks volumes about their personal integrity.
At a time when the civil rights of one minuscule minority trump the civil rights of female children and women, rights which have previously been denied to women, is insulting.
Stephen, thank you for this article. When we get sucked in by and addicted to the filter of ‘right’/ ‘left’ or ‘lib’/ ‘conservative’ or ‘based’ vs ‘woke’ type dichotomies we lose our humanity for a quick dopamine hit. The kingdom of heaven is within, and with this sort of love and understanding, we let the beautiful gift of love and compassion come forth to shine upon our world. With this light, we will ALL find our way.
Well said, Sylvia. I believe the recognition of our shared humanity is the best tool we have to thrive, not only collectively, but also as individuals.
“The banality of evil” – Hannah Arendt
Adolph Eichmann’s defense was he that he was just following orders. The Port Townsend police were just following orders. The Nuremberg Trials put full responsibility on Eichmann for his crime. Who then is responsible for the PT police’s refusal to aid older women who were being assaulted? Are responsibility and integrity virtues that are projected onto others or are they personal? Does following orders, no matter how egregious, fall in the personal province of each PT police officer, on the political bureaucrats that ordered them to stand down, or both?
This is an excellent article, Stephen. Thank you so much for taking all the time to cover it and to reach out to CM Wennstrom directly.
As one of those who has been deeply impacted by what I saw and felt on August 15th, I cannot express enough how important it is for people to be willing to see things from others’ perspectives. We cannot go back and undo the events, but we can learn from them and maybe undo some of the damage. Admitting that mistakes were made by all involved could go a long way toward healing. I continue to struggle with my feelings about people I saw there that day behaving abhorrently. I cannot engage in their businesses or organizations any more; I’ve walked away from previous volunteer work. I feel sad and betrayed because they are people I like and admired (past tense) and Ive lost the way forward.
Ben, thank you for speaking up. It means so much.
We will not nice nor engage nor compassion our way out of this sinister agenda. We need to recognize it as the dark and degenerate force that it is and confront it head on before it’s too late — if we haven’t reached that point already. Unless you agree that this is what “teen health” should look like:
“The national teachers union’s “LGBTQ+ Caucus” has created a website and badge for public school employees that promote non-binary identities, a how-to guide for “queer sex,” and the idea that “transgender men can get pregnant.”
According to local reports, the National Education Association and its local affiliate in Hilliard, Ohio, have been providing staff in the Hilliard City School District with the QR code-enabled badges, which point to the “NEA LGBTQ+ Caucus” website and resources from gender activist organizations including Scarleteen, Sex, Etc., Gender Spectrum, The Trevor Project, and Teen Health Source.
One of these linked resources, Teen Health Source’s “Queering Sexual Education,” promises to “empower youth” and includes a how-to guide for performing “anal sex,” “bondage,” “rimming,” “domination,” “sadomasochism,” “muffing,” and “fisting.” The materials are extremely graphic, explaining how to, for example, “[put] a fist or whole hand into a person’s vagina or bum.”
This isn’t a fringe organization. The NEA is the largest teachers union in the country, representing more than 3 million public school teachers in all 14,000 local school districts—and it has been captured by radical gender theory and its perverse sexual ideology.”
https://christopherrufo.com/sexual-disturbance/
I agree Annette, there has to be change and accountability and the LGBTQ Caucus and guides you speak of, have NOTHING to do with the Actual Gay and Lesbian Community, they use us for their evil agenda.
Lee, I’d love to hear more from your perspective. If you feel like it, please email me at bthomas@cityofpt.us. But I recognize you feel betrayed by local government, so I don’t blame you for not reaching out. I’m still trying to understand this better.
Thank you, Annette and Il Corvo for recognizing that we cannot excuse or “make nice” our way out of these behaviors.
I do not buy that because she says it was intended to be “only shared with a few friends,” that there is anything innocent about Libby Wennstrom posting a hate graphic to drive women out of town. Particularly on the heels of a slew of pointed Facebook postings encouraging people to show up and counter the “trans-haters” at the pool. See my “City Officials Lead Hate Campaign Against Women.”
And Wennstrom saying that she “never intended it to go public… in retrospect as a public official [she] doesn’t think she should have posted it”… So fomenting this kind of hate IS okay for a private citizen?
This is not a “whoopsie”. It’s part of a pattern of mean-spirited antagonism and bullying. “Making nice” does not magically transform nasty players. Compassion is a beautiful quality, but is no way to counter bullies, it only perpetuates their conduct. None of these city officials who led this hateful charge have publicly apologized, let alone taken any actions to make reparations for their despicable behavior. Sorry, but no.
You are not wrong about trying to “make nice” out of this situation. I wasn’t trying to commend Stephen for turning the other cheek. I didn’t see his article from that light. I appreciated that he took the time to attempt to get Council Wennstrom’s side of the story. Her responses didn’t make her appear to be remorseful in regards to her actions, especially when it came to the “Terf” post on her personal FB page. It only clarified that she was sorry that it ended up in the public domain. This in no way in my opinion, excuses her actions/behavior or any other government official’s actions/behavior and for that matter all of their inactions with the facts that involve Ms Jaman’s expulsion from the public pool that she had enjoyed for some 35 years. It definitely came off to me as more of a pity party than any kind of true remorsefulness. I was appreciating Stephen’s thoughtfulness with his reporting on the personal conversation he had with Council Wennstrom in an open minded way to let her speak with an openness that she only confirmed her inexcusable actions/behavior as well as her inactions when it comes to the protection of women and children.
The City of Port Townsend made a Proclamation to Protect ONE Class of Citizen, one small Group over any other person or group.
The City, by Proclamation, voted to protect Trans Women, Men who claim to be women, over straight people, elders, gays, lesbians, and children.
Wennstrom being triggered by one person suggesting trans are pedophiles is her own trauma and if she can’t keep it in check, she should not be in a position of power.
We were not saying that Trans people are pedophiles, however, Pedophiles will use the proclamation to harm others, that is what predators do.
Libby Wennstrom posted that our trauma should not allow for us to not want a penis in our naked space. That is rape culture. She has no heart, no conscience. Libby abused Julie Jaman, they all said horrible things of an Elder in our community. These type of people should not be in leadership roles.
The City leaves no room for intuition, for trauma, for consent or rights of anyone to say no to who is in their space, not just by personal opinion but by Proclamation of the City of Port Townsend and under the NONSENSE that this is supporting the LGBTQ community. It is not supporting us to take away our rights and give to only one class, MEN who claim to be women, even before they have transitioned. It is unconscionable, unconstitutional and completely discriminating, period. The REAL LGBTQ community does not promote abusing women, abusing elders, nor violent mobs. What the City did by Proclamation has nothing to do with the foundations of PRIDE and they do not speak for me or any Gay and Lesbian here I have personally spoken with.
The City Council members go on and on about their “fear”, seemingly from alleged email threats. They got the police to protect “them”, while we were mobbed in the street. Their fear was of words they allegedly got in “email”. We were actually being physically abused and assaulted (in real life), we were kept out of City hall and had no Free Speech, no Civil Right, no Human Rights.
The City Council, as seen here with Wennstrom, seems to think their “fear” matters so much that all those police should protect them, even to the point of a mob attacking us, yet the Irony is Julie’s fear had no merit, no one protected her fear of what felt like a real physical in person threat. Instead her “words” were taken as violence and she was abused and banned.
If we are afraid of a grown man not yet transitioned in our naked space, we must shut up, we are called TERFS, Bigots, transphobes and homophobes, yet when the city council has “fear” from their “emotional response”, they get armed tax payer funded protection.
All this Hate, Discrimination, Bullying, Violence toward us, to Support the LGBTQ Community? Well half of us in Amy’s group were in that Community, so your Words have no Worth, No Merit, and your actions are not supportive of Our Community but instead of (straight) Men who Claim they are Women. The City Council supports the Violent Bullying actions of Antifa, Trans Rights Activists and Olympic Pride Activists violently attacking our Free Speech and our REAL Physical Bodies, not some scary “email”.
We don’t want to hear anything from the City Council, there is no “make nice”. We see who they all really are.
They have done the unthinkable and they knew in advance of our danger, ALL OF THEM KNEW.
I gave Amy Sousa the information about Antifa coming and the Olympic Pride call to action, she gave it to Chief Olson. Keeping the groups apart would have been simple, they chose to let us be attacked, there is no return from that.
They all must have criminal charges and resign and pay civil punitive damages to all participants. It is not a let’s make nice now issue, nor an issue for Ben Thomas to try and “understand”. He knew, he was there, he could have had the police separate the groups. I told Ben personally, hugged him, teared up and said the women are being hurt, they are being hit by bikes and flag poles, they are being smothered with flags around their head, he did nothing so don’t buy into the whole Ben wants to understand nonsense. He knew what was happening, he made a personal choice, he and the rest MUST Quit now.
They ALL need to Resign Immediately, along with the City Manager and the Chief of Police. They will also face criminal and civil cases going forward. Their overblown emotional irrational “fear” of the wrong people caused violence and harm to us, and then after we were attacked, like a rapist and his buddies, they gaslight us and discount our trauma, terror and experience. They are NOT Leaders, they are Lawless Bullies who discriminate, engage in hate speech, gossip about citizens, and make proclamations that segregate and divide our community, and incite violence. They are overly emotional around “words” and put “words” over actions, safety, human rights and equality.
Thank you for the continuing focus on the response to the August 15 protest by the Port Townsend Police and local government officials. No amount of narrative engineering or gaslighting can cover-up the failure to deal with the huge force differential between the opposing groups. This was a very basic public safety issue – the two groups were mismatched to the point where the weaker group was in danger.
This situation was obvious a half hour or more before Julie’s press conference started. In that time, I managed to speak with the police and warn many people about the coming assaults. The area was configured to maximize confrontation and there weren’t enough police to control the large mob. Why didn’t the police warn the elders that they could not protect them?
Stephen, thank you for being a consistent and persistent presence at city council meetings, for striving to maintain a rational perspective, and for offering us your clearheaded and compassionate analyses here. You, and all who contribute to PTFP, are a treasure.
That being said, and sincerely so, I stand with Annette’s and Ana’s “Not so fast” when it comes to letting Libby Wennstrom and David Faber, or any member of the city council and administration who, by their silence, are complicit in the garbage behavior of this councilor and this mayor. Meeting after meeting since August 1 we have listened to John Mauro and David Faber hide behind WAC 162‑32‑060(1) and the administrative relationship with the YMCA, refusing to address how the city and Y, because of the terrible way each handled the incident at Mountain View Pool, have been responsible for so much of the enmity that has occurred in Port Townsend since then, the disgraceful conduct of members of the city council, and the obfuscation of truth regarding contact with and conduct of law enforcement during the 8/15 event, which turned violent because law enforcement turned their backs until they were begged, repeatedly, to intervene.
The kicker was this week, after Amy Sousa’s brilliant, heartfelt and well-reasoned comments at Monday’s city council meeting. She invited the city council to respond to their fellow councilors’ conduct. They all just sat there. And once again, John Mauro hid behind the WAC. When in fact Amy and Julie both spoke directly to David Faber’s and Libby Wennstrom’s using and abusing their positions of public office to incite violence, defame community members and attempt to shame and silence anyone who doesn’t walk in lockstep with them. For Libby Wennstrom to claim she didn’t mean for her violent “TERF” graphic and libelous comments about Amy and Julie to go public is risible. The fact that not a single member of the city council has called for David Faber’s appointment as mayor to be voided is inexcusable. We’ve all seen the vile tweets he has made under the banner of PT mayor. City council members are all so worried about being othered by their progressive peers, they cower and hope this all goes away.
I was there on the 15th, and not just hanging around the periphery “observing”; I came away with a bruise on my torso from being shoved by an asshat in black bloc who was there to silence women, a man who apparently thinks he knows more about what a woman is than any of the real women present and used his bigger, stronger physical body to prove it.
One-on-one, I will default to kindness, compassion, and the willingness to accept anyone at face value. I can absolutely relate to Stephen’s sidewalk chat with Wennstrom; I can see myself doing the same. I love and want to be loved, like most anyone.
But to play nice when society tells me to stand aside and shut up so a man can inhabit my space, pretend he has one iota of an idea what it is to be woman, compromise my sense of safety and wellbeing or that of my children because he “feels” like a woman, and that to complain would be to deny his identity and hurt his feelings, to be a bigot and worthy of libel, slander, cancellation, threats of violence, and being run out of town on the tsunami wave? Yeah. No. No No No. This is insanity.
The glue that holds much of this corrupted group together are compromised people. The Free Press explained with the Who is John Mauro article.
https://www.porttownsendfreepress.com/2020/10/07/who-is-john-mauro-port-townsends-city-manager/
After this information was made public Council gives him rave reviews after delaying the review for unspecified reasons. A cool down period was the result.
Mauro hires a police chief ordered to ignore parking laws and his oath, continues with no plan, and on the sly gives a permit to an eatery taking more parking. Sorry, we have to cover the beginnings to know where we are now.
It’s the old Orwell turn the cheek and receive harder and harder slaps. It is evolution. Devolution. With smiley faces. Be nice.
There is an inexplicable force keeping council in line all these years. And now. Newbie innocence can only be claimed for so long.
At one meeting I attended regarding taking public parking spaces for special interest mess tents Wennstrom remarked that we are not at war here after spewing misinformation. I replied against Roberts Rules of Order that the perspective depended on who was being shelled by who. Police were at the next meeting when I spoke.
Order must be maintained.
Mauro and Faber engineered minimum public notice on the proposed permanent mess tents and neglected to mention it in the City Newsletter. Council sat silent on that.
Council sits silent on Faber, (chicken boy) and Wenstrom (bender of truth and fact).
History is boring to most so I will stop there. There is much more. Years’ worth.
So, here we are now. Seems reasonable to see the need to end the toxicity. What comes next in this small tide pool that reflects bigger and bigger ones?
Thanks to the people commenting here who have had enough of weaponized politics.
Cheeks not turned at last.
Next move?
Ben, as always, I’m glad you engage here. I’d like to address this statement: “I think we all know that it’s so much easier to lob grenades from a computer keyboard than to engage people face-to-face.”
Face-to-face? It has not been possible to engage our electeds face-to-face for years. The masks have always been about destroying human connection, creating separation; their failure at keeping out viruses is indisputable. But even if you WERE brainwashed by the narrative and believed they helped reduce the spread of Covid for two years, you’ve all known for many months the danger is past. Yet the kabuki theater continued, making you expressionless and remote — masked — from your fenced-off (literally), elevated stage.
Explain why Faber wore a mask when Julie Jaman and dozens of others spoke on August 1st, what — fifteen feet from the podium? Then two weeks later, when he presented your trans proclamation to Beau Ohlgren, no mask in place for that audience. Council chambers had been restricted to a room full of trans ideologues. Julie’s supporters (getting attacked across the street at the mayor and city manager’s behest) were strategically maneuvered out of participating in their city government during that pompous, pandering spectacle. Faber made a great show of descending bare-faced from his dais, breaching the fenced divide, standing within three feet of Ohlgren and reading the proclamation face-to-face, self-congratulatory smiles and handshakes all around.
Is this the clean versus the unclean? This theater is as telling as any actions or inactions by the council legislatively.
But the mask messaging pales in comparison with council’s utter disregard for its public. Masks aside, why would any citizen want to waste their time talking to a council who doesn’t listen, who gives lip service to hearing out the three minutes allotted and then ignores what is said unless it conforms to their agenda? I watched it during the streateries debacle and then again during the August 1st meeting when many thoughtful and concerned citizens pleaded for women’s rights to private spaces. That was far worse than simply not listening. Faber, behind his face covering, inverted what had been said, grandstanding about hate while delivering just that to a significant portion of this community.
With a council bent on its agendas, and unresponsive — even antagonistic — to the public, why would anyone want to subject themselves to your meetings? It borders on masochism.
I couldn’t agree more that Stephen Schumacher’s attendance at your meetings, persistence in making public comments, and efforts to engage face-to-face is heroic. The rest of these commenters? Suggesting it’s the PUBLIC who are at fault because they prefer to keyboard and don’t come to you is transference of City Hall’s abject failure to be responsive to its citizenry. Given the attacks perpetrated by Faber and Wennstrom, it’s beyond transference, it’s victim blaming. When city government acknowledges its role in this travesty, publicly apologizes, makes reparations, stops lying, gaslighting and making excuses, sincerely demonstrates a capacity to listen, and unseats this embarrassment of a mayor — maybe then people will be motivated to talk to their supposed representatives face-to-face.
Ana, first I should be more clear that when I said “lobbing grenades” I was not meaning to include your well-written articles or other people thoughtfully weighing in digitally. I was thinking of those that like to stir up a fight for the sake of a fight rather than seek truth. There are many out there wallowing in the schadenfreude of the situation. But I can see that my comment, in a way, might have served as a grenade itself, written, in fact, on a keyboard. The irony.
Further, I can see that my comment and the comments of a couple others are being read to suggest that “making nice,” as it’s being patronizingly put, is the solution to all our problems. No, that’s not what I believe, nor what I think the others are meaning to say. There’s a time to be respectful and there’s a time to fight. I don’t personally agree it’s time to fight, but I recognize that we’re looking at this through a somewhat different spectrum.
I think the mask issue illustrates that. You’re seeing a different intent behind it than I am, though I’m not completely blind to the problem. I do agree that there has been a kabuki theater element to the mask wearing. As a group on Council, we did it while the case numbers were on the rise in the County. The numbers have gone down, and so have the masks. I only did it as a nod to solidarity, but I do see the facelessness as a potential symbolism of totalitarianism that you’re suggesting. I hate that notion and have no plans to go back to it. In a time where trust in government — local and beyond — is at an all-time low, the last thing we need is facelessness. (For the record, I should point out that the Council is on level ground with the public, though we do have a little fence that communicates more of a separation than might be healthy for open discourse.)
As for the optics of the Mayor removing his mask for the proclamation, I see your point. I had thought he was doing that for all proclamations and swearing in, but I guess I can’t remember for sure how consistent that’s been. The numbers were coming down at that point, which might at least partly explain it.
(Continued in next comment…)
(…continued from previous comment; sorry it’s so long.)
I have been bothered by the rather offensive notion that the public are at fault for all misunderstandings with local government. Combating that is one of the reasons that I ran for a seat in government myself. There is a real gulf of understanding between much of the public and the electeds at the moment, as you and I have spoken about by phone. And you know the role I’m in first hand from your own experience on Council. I feel pulled between getting caught up in the populist righteousness that I feel and the fact that I know all my councilors as individual people with their own virtues and strengths who have a lot to offer Port Townsend. On another level, I also consider them friends.
But I do think that collectively we’ve failed the community in the response to this situation. Personally, I can honestly say I wasn’t ready for this, from a leadership perspective and in a general understanding of the intricacy of this issue and repercussions. I’ve been talking to a lot of folks from all angles on this and gaining a better understanding of how we can move forward. It gets more complicated the more I learn.
One of my goals is to help keep the car of democracy on the road. In so doing (or attempting), opportunities to be decisive in the moment can be missed. I wish I would have responded quicker to what I saw on August 15, but I was honestly in shock and a little confused about what was taking place. As a free speech absolutist, I was flabbergasted at the energy put towards shouting down and intimidating (I didn’t see the violence from where I was standing) the people who came to speak. I have to say the scales were slowly falling from my eyes in real time as I watched.
I came into this from the perspective of having a trans aunt and so many friends, coworkers and employees over the years that were trans and have experienced some horrible treatment in their lives. I wanted to protect those in that difficult situation, but it’s been really disheartening to see the demonizing of Julie and others treated as scapegoats for the sins of the rest of us. Clearly we can find a better way of dealing with this. I’m trying to work on that in my own way.
https://dailycaller.com/2022/09/20/report-gay-rights-activist-fred-sargeant-vermont-pride-parade-trans-agenda-assaulted/
This is the most violent so-called “civil rights” movement I’ve ever seen in my life. Just unbelievable.
And have you seen the photos of the shop teacher in Canada? These people are so ill.
And people just keep supporting them in their illness, to the destruction of children and the total debasement of women’s rights.
I got banned from Twitter this week for talking about these issues. But I discovered Gettr which is pretty cool. I recommend it.
Thanks for those clarifications, Ana. Full agreement. It should be pointed out that back in the old days one might see a council person or mayor visit in person to get a handle on public input. The Sandoval-Timmons era ended that possibility. I witnessed it.
As the Moody Blues put it “Some try to tell me thoughts they cannot defend. Just what you want to be, you will be in the end.”
A PT influencer or tool cannot get into real conversations. Follow up questions to shallow thinking would reveal that power does not mean ability. Many examples exist in real time right now. They seem to grow in intensity.
So, the firewall of 3-minute input without response and or emailed (keyboard warrior) concerns mostly for the record at this point is all you get. And a ride on the downward spiral. The record can be edited and deleted. The Leader shows that. Past public meetings I attended in a similar tide pool with similar creatures showed me that. Correcting minutes from previous meetings became a full-time job with time allotted. Round and round it spun.
So, I left for here. Ha ha ha ha ha. Joke on me. And you.
So, Libby and Faber could use this venue to explain a few things. But they can’t because it would lead to more questions. They could have been visiting along with other council those in the community voicing well-articulated problems created by City Government. Instead, we have corrupted power that ignores its laws and codes treats neighbors with disrespect.
Mauro has “Enrage Port Townsend”. Ok, engage, but he never has been able to look me in the eye and talk. Follow up points would soon leave him without anywhere to hide. Insert smiley face here. 🙂
So, the problem eventually is distorted to how you ask the question. With respect at first, then reflecting the disrespect for the public and what once was the City of Port Townsend. Its laws and codes and treating each other as neighbors.
Dead as the people who built the monuments to self others now covet and inhabit.
Respect has been absent for quite some time. As the train wreck from Cherry Street to Fort Worden to mess tents to parking to letting elders be assaulted gains momentum.
The time for pleading newbie innocence indeed is past. Does one work to ingratiate oneself to city council and the unseen above them, or stand alone and at the beginning of every meeting say, “I am not a part of this. I am here to serve the public as I promised to so I could sit in this fenced off common sense proof seat. Let’s right past wrongs”.
And make at least a gesture of making a small difference.
Or not. Keyboard warriors indeed.
Excuse me, but does anyone who posts on social media think that it’s going to be private. If they do they are stupider than I am because I don’t use it.
That said, I’ll also tell you how I feel about this whole situation of the assault on the ladies who had the blessings of City Hall and it’s conniving leaders. If you’ve ever been in the military there is a promise you must make before you are inducted into any branch of the military. That promise you swear to is that you will defend the Constitution against all foes foreign and domestic, The attack on the women was an attack on their rights under the Constitution. I take this pledge very seriously. I was n’t there when this attack took place. If I had been I would have taken one or two of the aggressors out before they got me. This attack on the women present violated their Constitutional Rights witch I will defend as there isn’t any discharge from that pledge.
Ms. Huenke,
The NEA hasn’t been “captured by radical gender theory and perverse sexual ideology.” That is complete homophobic, trans-phobic hysteria. It is also an inexcusably ill-informed statement. The NEA consists of thousands of highly educated, committed, dedicated and idealistic people who work with almost all of this nation’s young people every day, striving against innumerable obstacles like underfunding, poor facilities, understaffing, disinformation by the enemies of public education, scapegoating, the threat of horrific violence and comments like yours to offer the skills and opportunities necessary to thrive, to the incredible diversity of kids we have the pleasure to teach. The NEA is a union that fights for livable wages, working conditions and work loads for educators, for academic freedom, for civic responsibility, educational justice, equity and a whole lot more. Educators see all kinds of kids in our classrooms, including some who are at some stage of questioning of their own sexuality or thinking critically about the traditional gender norms of society. It’s our duty as educators to make sure our schools provide a safe, just, equitable place for everybody, including marginalized sexual minorities, simply as a basis for learning. Attitudes and comments like yours not only make that very worthwhile job more difficult; they also do profound harm to the vulnerable young people we as educators are sworn to protect.
One way to deal with it…
“Citizens for Sanity’s mission is to return common sense to America, to highlight the importance of logic and reason, and to defeat “wokeism” and anti-critical thinking ideologies that have permeated every sector of our country and threaten the very freedoms that are foundational to the American Dream.”
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/international-news/politics/citizens-for-sanity/
Blogger el gato malo explains why someone like Libby U-W would deny that she did what she just did…
“if having your own words and images shared seems like an attack upon you, precisely what are we to conclude about the nature of your activity?
the desperation of a tribe to prevent its own core messages and practices from becoming known and attacking and seeking to cancel those who simply bring them to prominence smacks of manipulation and mendacity because so much of what they are selling is rancid.”
https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/blurring-the-lines-of-the-woke-joke
Quoting from the link Annette provided from boriquagato, this sums up our little tide pool or petri dish and microcosm that mirrors the macrocosm “it’s just never their fault, is it? always the victim, the crybully class is singularly vicious as they oppress while claiming oppression”.
Reminds me of council person and influencer Wennstrom’s remark that “we are not at war here” as she made moves to stand on the throats of myself and the majority of those locals and visitors she is sworn to serve to benefit a small minority of special interests removing scarce unregulated parking with mess tents and street tables against overwhelming public input against doing so.
Or her call to action on facebook labeling all who see things differently than her “The trans-haters are planning to show up at the Mountain View pool…” Ask Libby, many if not most need to leave her town if they have deeper concerns than she. TERFS.
Hate? Since when is seeking dialogue and clarification hate? Crybully.
Or, 3-time appointed mayor Sandoval and her protégé, questionably qualified city manager Mauro who liked to say “be kind” as they absolutely were not with damaging actions.
With smarmy smiley faces. 🙂
More boriquagato, “these arch bullies demand to play “punch, no punchbacks” while throwing no holds barred attacks of utmost savagery at the enemies they other and vilify and then exploding into sputtering indignation should anyone so much as ask “what the heck was that all about?”
As in shutting down free speech. Hate and violence came from the self proclaimed “victims”.
So Faber was next on the conveyor belt of appointed mayors. Earned because he is an egocentric dull tool that never challenges the downward spiral. He now has no need to even try to hide his assessment that he has to be a “Pervert and Deviant” to be Mayor of Port Townsend.
He alone said that and much more. We still are not sure if he likes having sex with live or dead chickens.
And the full City Council approves of him by doing nothing. My recent letter to City Council regarding ongoing real problems and Faber’s conduct got this reply from Faber…
“Thank you for your very sweet email, Harvey. I really appreciate the support”.
A culture was formed in this petri dish. It took years to grow. A microcosm of the macrocosm. No short supply of dull tools at all levels.
I would much more like to have critical thinkers than “highly educated” people in key places.
Just sayin’.