Last November, a group of concerned parents of Port Townsend School District (PTSD) students garnered nearly 600 signatures on a petition demanding that there be no Covid-19 vax mandates for school attendance. In an introductory letter, the parents made clear that they’d done their homework, writing:
“We urge you to consider the fact that invoking such a requirement will be seen as a divisive, discriminatory and potentially dangerous dictate by parents who understand the health risks associated with contracting Covid-19 in school-age children have been proven to be negligible.
“When the unknown potential long-term risks associated with this vaccine in children and the CDC’s “Reported” injuries and deaths (over 700 vaccination-related child deaths) are weighed in combination, the evidence speaks for itself. There is no justifiable reason to place our childrens’ health at risk due to injury or death by vaccine as a requirement to attend public school.”
They went on to question whether or not “funding in the form of financial incentives to the school district” may have been an underlying force. As Free Press contributor Brett Nunn reported here in January, we now know that those financial incentives were real and significant.
As the narrative further unravels and “public health” justifications no longer bear weight, the vaccine and mask mandates are being rescinded throughout the country. One of the last holdouts, WA Governor Jay Inslee, has finally let go… sort of. His latest masking directive has given broad latitude to regional jurisdictions to make choices at local levels.
Schools look to be the next battleground, as evidenced by this urgent letter written Friday, March 11th, to the PTSD superintendent, principal and board:
“We would like clarification as to the changes for the mask policy beginning Monday, March 14th, 2022. Per governor Inslee, the WA state health department, and Dr Berry, indoor masking in public schools is no longer required. The PT school district has sent numerous emails to parents stating this change.
“That said, many of our students came home from school today and told a very different story regarding this subject. The main topic was segregation. Separating the masked students from the unmasked, and even forcing students to wear masks while in certain classes if the teacher insists they do. Many students said their teachers stated they ‘can make students wear masks if they choose to.’ Also stated was if there was a shortage of desks kids would be forced to sit on the floor.
“It is VERY concerning to us as parents as to why a school district would be encouraging any kind of segregation, especially one who prides themselves on non-discrimination. We as parents will NOT in any way support this. We would like clarification immediately so steps can be taken as parents to make sure our students who will be exercising their rights to unmask will not be excluded, segregated, or in any other way felt guilted into wearing something they are not legally required to. Our children should never feel bullied by their teachers or any school staff members.
“We request a meeting immediately if any of the above stated will be implemented. If our children could potentially face any kind of opposition from school staff while exercising their rights to not wear a mask, we as parents are to be contacted by phone BEFORE our children are confronted by staff. Also, we do NOT support our children sitting on floors or made to feel uncomfortable in any way by any school staff member while exercising their right to unmask.
In the realm of policymaking, global to local, predicted costs of measures taken today often bear little resemblance to the reality that unfolds. In the case of Jefferson County Public Utility District (PUD), poor policy choices have resulted in additional costs to ratepayers, not least of which is reliance on a crew coming from inland Washington (image above).
Early last fall, we reported here on the PUD’s controversial decision to mandate covid jabs for all employees. No other PUD in Washington State felt the need to be so exclusive at the time, and the policy met with pushback from employees and PUD contractors, customer/owners and one commissioner.
Our follow-up article was published on Dec. 23rd, three days after the deadline for being considered “fully vaccinated” had passed.
The inability of the jabs to prevent infection or transmission was already well established, even within the PUD. Subsequent to his firing for non-compliance (despite his accepted religious exemption), 7-year veteran lineman Kurt Anderson recounted in a letter to the commissioners and his co-workers how unjust this policy was, given facts on the ground:
“One only has to look to the PUD roster to see this truth, after being fully vaccinated a PUD employee contracted covid. The fully vaccinated coworkers of this individual were allowed to continue working regular and overtime hours, the unvaccinated coworkers were sent home on unpaid time off for 10 days quarantine with the requirement to complete a covid test…”
Also in his letter, Anderson highlighted the dubious claim by both General Manager Kevin Streett and Commissioner Ken Collins that the mandate was necessary to “be in compliance” with state edicts filtered through the Department of Transportation (WSDOT), despite the fact that this agency had already agreed with the Washington Public Utility Association (WAPUDA) that PUDs were exempt. There was not an iota of curiosity that no other PUD was concerned that they were “out of compliance.”
As the penny drops — tails, we lose?
It’s as though talking point memos have been distributed to PUD leadership. In unison now they’re using the straw man defense that imposition of the unpopular mandate was “to comply with the governor’s order.” That order mysteriously did not affect other PUDs in Washington state.
The fallout is measured in employees and contractors who’ve lost their jobs — or taken the jab (against their better judgment) to keep them. Recent records requests reveal that our PUD has granted four employees exemptions from the mandates and, sadly, three have been fired.
Fallout is also measured in higher costs to the customer/owners because the only electrical contractor our PUD management could procure who purportedly had “fully-vaccinated crews” is charging us a shocking premium to cross the Cascades to lend a hand.
At the first meeting of the year on Jan. 4 it was announced that Palouse Power, an electrical contractor from Quincy WA, would be replacing Titan, the outfit that was fired in December.
Confusion among PUD leadership around bidding was apparent that evening. When presented with the request that the board “accept the qualified line contractor applicant, Palouse Power,” Commissioner Collins asked, “So what action is required of the board?” GM Streett replied, “A motion by the board to approve them…”
At this point, Counsel Joel Paisner interrupted with “I think it’s to accept them as low bidder.” GM Street said, “No, no, per RCW all line contractors are approved by the board. Yearly, we bring a list to you, this is the first one… it’s just the formality that we do yearly.”
Streett said Titan left because of the mandates and “vaccinated crews were tough to come by.” He claimed that there were some locally, but they were busy. He admitted that Palouse “is a bit more expensive.” Commissioners Dan Toepper and Jeff Randall inquired further about bidding, with the latter asking if there will be a bid process. Streett replied, “For the next while Palouse will be our contractor… We’ve gone through our [RCW] obligations, it was difficult” referring to the challenge of finding vaxxed crews.
Included in the agenda packet was a resolution “declaring the [storm] period of December 24, 2021 through January 8, 2022, a state of emergency,” an exemption process provided to municipal entities through RCW 39.04.280. Recovering from his earlier delusive reference to “the lowest bidder,” Counsel Paisner confirmed that this declaration allowed the PUD to “waive the competitive bidding requirements” that normally applied based on RCW 54.04.070. It is unclear how the future end of the emergency, January 8th, was arrived at a week before, when the agenda was prepared.
At the Jan. 4th meeting, I requested an estimate from GM Streett for additional costs to ratepayers for Palouse over Titan. In a responsive letter, Operations Director Scott Bancroft explained that making a direct cost comparison was difficult because of varying crew qualifications and how each contractor charged for equipment. It appears that Palouse is adding a markup to employee wages. The contract also guarantees overtime.
Inside sources tell me it was the perks our PUD offered that incentivized Palouse top-tier journeyman linemen to commit. Scheduled overtime is a real sweet deal compared to what our utility’s line crew gets — regular interruption of family life — dinner, kids’ ballgames, sleep, holidays…
My sources disagree with other details in that letter from Bancroft, including crew structure needs and how Titan fulfilled them in the past. There are also serious concerns about misuse of emergencies to bypass bidding requirements and the legality of these projects vis-à-vis the Small Works Roster.
Line crews are arguably the most critical position in an electrical utility. Current and former employees say that in order to develop and maintain a healthy, cohesive line workforce, the PUD needs to train them from pre-apprentice through to the journeyman lineman stage. They know what the job entails and work best without micromanagement. Our PUD is struggling to achieve these ends.
Was the mandate ever enforced without prejudice?
Now, as jab mandates around the globe fall faster than the scales from many Americans’ eyes, our sources reveal continuing unequal — even dishonest — application of the vax policy from the very beginning. Why Kurt Anderson was fired despite the acceptance of his religious exemption remains a mystery.
Senior administration reportedly told contractors at the outset “just sign the [attestation] form,” indicating that one only needed to say that they were complying.
After firing main contractor Titan which supplied back-up crews, as well as some of our own linemen who refused to take the shots, then discovering that “it was difficult” to find all-vaxxed replacements because no contractors imposed that requirement, Jefferson PUD was in a tough spot. Like Titan, Palouse had a mix of jabbed and unjabbed linemen.
There is suspicion that Palouse Power was brought in from the other side of the mountains because none of the PUD employees who work in the field would know for certain the jab status of their crews, which was not the case with the familiar Titan employees. Palouse could send unvaxxed linemen and no one would be the wiser.
From internal communications, it looks like there was no other choice — Palouse was the end of the line. In a letter to the commissioners and GM Streett, Scott Bancroft explained that Titan “would not provide documentation for vaccination or an accommodation.” Nor would four other contractors on the PUD’s small works roster that Bancroft reached out to. But in a phone call with Palouse — who was not on the roster and had not even bid on the contract — Bancroft was told yes, they’d sign the requested forms:
“Palouse Power was called and they were able to provide a vaccinated dock crew [to] the Jefferson County PUD.”
As with local contractors who simply were asked to sign unverified “attestation” forms, it appears the PUD required only the appearance of vaxx status to seal the deal for Palouse crews, too.
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At the February 15 meeting, GM Streett assured fired contractor, Marty Kithcart, that “contractors, when they come in our yard, have to be vaccinated. That’s a true statement.” But PUD employees claim that they’ve seen people they understand to be unvaxxed in the yard.
Click above for archived recording of Feb. 15 meeting. Exchange below between Kithcart and staff takes place from 2:01:00-2:05:00.
Streett appeared to struggle to answer more questions from Kithcart:
Marty Kithcart: So if you’ve got one vaccinated person versus an unvaccinated person, can they ride around in the truck together?
[extended pause] Kevin Streett: So… we’re vaccinated, so I’m going to say there would be vaccinated people together.
Marty Kithcart: But if one is unvaccinated?
Counsel Joel Paisner: You know, I’m going to step in and answer that and say that that’s really a hypothetical and it’s hard, because the policy itself has to be applied to individuals. So, so it’s hard to know.
Despite that eye-watering feat of doublespeak, the dodged answer to the question is obvious.
What’s going on here? We were promised transparency.
Policy-driven emergencies or emergency-driven policies?
Whose idea was the mandate? In its own right, it created an emergency — fewer line crew, an unhappy workforce, highly questionable ‘fair labor’ practices — all the while staring at the likely prospect that this policy would ultimately be rescinded, based on numerous observable situations at the time of its enactment.
It looks to be an expensive choice, as well. As it stands, Palouse is charging the PUD $41,287 per week. Any personnel needs above that are charged per diem. We paid $5,980 to lodge the crew at the Harborside Inn during the holiday storm power restoration and cleanup.
As of February, they moved to three RV spots at Point Hudson, which cost us roughly $2,355/month (the estimate we were given publicly was $1,800/month). We were told at a meeting in January that we’ll be using those spots for temporary housing for incoming employees after our need for Palouse is behind us.
As a comparator, we were charged $21,959 per week for Titan’s last dock crew. No RV spots. No per diem.
This ill-advised course of action was initiated by general manager Streett and supported by legal counsel Paisner and two commissioners, Collins and Randall. The position these four men have taken has proven to be untenable. At the moment it appears that they’ve painted themselves into a corner from which they cannot emerge gracefully.
“Kevin, at the end of the day, I believe that this mandate was the wrong choice for the PUD and our community and wholly unnecessary. Ultimately it was your decision that put your work force in a compromising position, boxed in a corner and forced to make a choice they never should have been forced to make.”
Kurt Anderson,
former PUD Lineman
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T’was the night before Christmas, and all through the district…
Jefferson County Public Utility District employees and contractors got unwelcome surprises in their stockings this year—ultimatums, coercion, pink slips. The holiday mood around our little utility is far from merry and bright. Management’s extreme position on vaccine mandates has cost our PUD precious staff, loyal contractors and a great deal of good will, both inside the facility and out. As the winter storm season threatens, remaining linemen are concerned about power restoration and public safety.
Speaking under condition of anonymity, former and current line crew expressed deep frustration with management, this policy and its execution, particularly the dismissal of three* of their team at the worst possible time of year. “We have terminated quality hands for speaking their minds and/or not complying with the mandate.”
Fewer men will have to cover more work, which will impose unnecessary hazards on remaining linemen. They fear it will impact response time for outages.
In-house staff runs lean and the PUD relies on full-time contracted high-voltage crews to help handle all of our needs. Titan, the largest of these, was not interested in complying with the mandates. Now they will have to be replaced. Sources describe “a scramble to get line contractors” because the mandate is so unpopular “and not desired by the absolute majority.” The list of contractors who aren’t submitting their “attestation letters” is long indeed. Documents obtained by the Free Press show that half of the PUD’s subs have refused to comply with the new mandate.
When the prospect of mandating Covid vaccines for all PUD employees was first publicly raised at the Oct. 4th commissioners meeting, numerous customer/owners wrote and Zoomed in to express their concerns, both for the employees and what it could mean for our service needs. As reported by the Free Press days later, not one of those concerns was addressed.
That article detailed how our PUD was exceeding what was required by Inslee’s mandate and recommended by WAPUDA (Washington Public Utility District Association). It also asked why two out of three elected PUD commissioners abrogated responsibility for such a significant policy decision. Commissioners Jeff Randall (District 1) and Ken Collins (District 2) avoided concerns raised by ratepayers, Citizen Advisory Board members and staff by cutting the discussion short. They sidestepped their policy role by directing General Manager Kevin Streett to make the call instead.
At the Dec. 14 meeting I asked how many PUDs in this state are following the hard line that ours has taken with the mandates, and how many are not mandating jabs at all? No one cared to respond to those questions. A week later, excavation contractor Marty Kithcart reached out to the Free Press, happy to answer those queries: Not one other Washington PUD is mandating jabs for jobs. Not one.
Portion of JeffPUD “attestation” letter sent to contractors – Vaccination Requirement
Kithcart and a buddy canvassed all state PUDs plus many others around the country, and they couldn’t find a single PUD enforcing these mandates. Why should any of the contractors mold their company policies to satisfy the demands of one small utility? GM Streett has claimed we implemented the mandate to be “compliant” with state orders. Why are no other PUDs afraid to be out of compliance? Don’t expect an answer.
The backlash from this mandate zealotry has potential to do real damage. It appears there were inconsistencies in the offering of weekly testing as an option. Some employees and contractors were given religious exemptions, others were told they could “not be granted accommodation.” Unfair labor practices would further expose the utility to litigation. Just about every day we hear of another huge employer walking back the mandates for whatever reasons—GM, 3M, Verizon, Amtrak, Cleveland Clinic, Advent Health and (last week) Boeing. Will those who were coerced to accept the jab to keep their job come after their employers? Who could blame them if they did?
The screen shot below shows the PUD’s roster of electrical staff before the mandate was announced by GM Streett in October. Even at that time the utility was short-staffed, advertising for additional Journeymen Linemen to fill out needed crews. “We’ve had a job posting for a lineman for almost 2 years unfilled,” one employee said. “We had three local linemen let go at a time when it is a struggle to find them.”
October 8, 2021 screen shot from PUD website showing electrical employees before mandates were announced. Employees in red have either walked or been terminated for refusing experimental injections.
A veteran lineman responds to his termination
Someone high up the food chain decided that “terminations” were going to be re-labeled “separations” for Build Back Better times. Sounds softer, gentler. Separation is way better than divorce, right? Long-time lineman Kurt Anderson’s lengthy response to his termination is as raw as it is well-considered.
“Kevin Streett’s premise to go forward with a vaccine policy was quote ‘to be in compliance’ with Washington State Department of Transportation’s own policy. I believe this to be a false premise.”
“In my just shy of 7 years at the PUD when I have worked on state right of ways or projects I have not encountered any state workers in close proximity to the job site. If I was still employed by the PUD and should a situation arise where I encountered a state employee/s on the job site I do believe I could follow the CDC guidelines to achieve safe distancing…. If I could not maintain social distancing while working aloft, I would stay on the ground in a support role…. we have survived almost two whole years with the initial covid safety policy in place and I feel safe with it as it is.”
Terminating a long-time unvaxxed employee in a hard-to-fill critical position under the premise that he could be a safety hazard to a vaxxed state worker is beyond foolhardy for an already-understaffed small county utility. The premise doesn’t even hold water. Anderson has done his own research; his statements about the jab are factual:
“I would like to point out that as history plays out on covid-19 vaccines there is very little difference between a fully vaccinated person and a non vaccinated person, BOTH can get covid, BOTH can spread covid, BOTH can survive covid and BOTH can die from covid. The shot was not meant to stop the spread of covid, only to lessen the severity of symptoms and raise an individual’s chance of survival should they contract covid, secondarily to relieve pressure on hospitals.”
He goes on to highlight the indefensible posture assumed by authorities in the face of the spectacular failure of the jab policies, seen within his own workplace:
“One only has to look to the PUD roster to see this truth, after being fully vaccinated a PUD employee contracted covid. The fully vaccinated coworkers of this individual were allowed to continue working regular and overtime hours, the unvaccinated coworkers were sent home on unpaid time off for 10 days quarantine with the requirement to complete a covid test as directed by the county health department, option to use PTO [paid time off] allowed. Some online training classes were set up to help offset the unpaid time off.”
So vaxxed workers who are just as likely to contract and transmit Covid as the unvaxxed are given a free pass, while the “non-compliant” must quarantine and lose pay. The official response is to double down, forcing a punitive, duplicitous “solution” onto those who had nothing to do with the outbreak from the beginning.
“When speaking with many of my fellow PUD employees, regardless of their vaccine status, most felt the mandate was unprecedented and wrong… I believe many voices fell on deaf ears and the ones most affected were never heard at all.”
Anderson’s full letter to the PUD in response to his termination is here.
Losing half of the PUD’s contractors, too
Landmark Excavation crew at PUD’s Landes Street project
Marty Kithcart has operated Landmark Excavation for over 30 years. For almost 5 years, he’s provided trenching and other infrastructure services and support for the PUD and its larger contracted outfits like Titan. And like Titan and other contractors who refused to go along with the mandates, Kithcart was just “separated” by our PUD—while he had two open contracts, and had purchased water main materials for the project that was awarded to him. He has three employees. They and their families depend on local work near where they live. He declined other work to honor those contracts.
Streett broke the PUD’s contracts even though Landmark had bid them in good faith prior to the mandate. The PUD told him they will reimburse him for those materials, but that’s small comfort for the four men who just lost these jobs. Will GM Streett replace them with a more “compliant” crew, one which perhaps uses religious exemptions? Or medical exemptions? How are those workers safe to be around, but Kithcart’s are not?
How many other contracts did the PUD breach midstream? It’s unlikely Landmark is the only one.
When Kithcart asked Streett about exemptions, he got a firm “no.” Then he bumped into another contractor who told him they got a religious exemption. Kithcart was told that his crew was not allowed into the PUD yard where contractor supplies are kept if everybody wasn’t jabbed. He contacted his District 2 Commissioner Collins to look for his reasoning for moving forward with this policy.
Collins eventually called to tell him if he had one “vaccinated” worker, that one man could access the yard and his company could continue to be a contractor. Then Kithcart was told by Operations Director Scott Bancroft that if everybody wasn’t jabbed, they can’t work on PUD projects. GM Streett told Kithcart the PUD would sever ties come December 20th. Mirroring the constantly shifting directives coming from the feds, even local authorities seem to be making it up as they go along, depending on the rolling ratio of compliance-to-pushback.
Kithcart told the Free Press that he’s shocked and angered that the PUD would take this singular and unpopular step at this most important time of year.
“This is the season of giving. How could they treat loyal employees and contractors this way? All of these workers get called out in the middle of the night in the worst kind of weather. Without complaint, we put our heads down and get the job done. We all help out where help is needed. For twenty months we’ve worked side by side with other crews without a problem, now all of a sudden we’re a threat?”
“These are all good people at heart,” Kithcart says of the GM and commissioners, “so why didn’t they think this through? I look for people in need and do what I can to make their life a little better. This is going the wrong way. How it is that the commissioners didn’t give serious consideration to what other PUDs are doing? How could they throw away all these long relationships with really good people?”
Kithcart was heartbroken by the firing of lineman Kurt Anderson. “You’ll never meet a nicer guy. He was so competent at his job.”
Landmark Excavation crew at PUD’s Landes Street project
With the winter storm season approaching, and crushed Christmas and New Year’s plans for families devastated by unemployed breadwinners, he’s most concerned for those who have lost their jobs, and the many customer/owners for whom an extended power outage could prove fatal.
Kithcart’s wife, Sarah, was also just fired from her job of nearly 8 years as a Medical Assistant with Dr. Dimitri Kuznetsov, for declining the jab. Kuznetsov’s clinic was subsumed by Jefferson Healthcare a while back. Another Medical Assistant in the office, a 9-year veteran, then quit because Sarah was fired. Both their days were spent providing maintenance urological care. Many of their patients will now have to turn to Jefferson Healthcare for these services. Think about that the next time you hear news reports about overwhelmed hospitals. The healthcare system is undergoing a controlled demolition.
The Kithcarts will be having a more solemn Christmas than usual, but they’re far more worried about what all this is doing to our community.
Another question I raised at the Dec. 14 meeting was how many employees did not want to receive the Covid jabs, but relented in order to keep their jobs?
PUD counsel, Joel Paisner, spoke up:
“Before staff weighs in, I just wanted to say that some of that information is really confidential to the employee and I don’t think it would be appropriate to comment on the individual status of each employee… I’ll just say that… it’s a matter of opinion whether it was coercion or not, it’s not a factual matter.”
I asked for the total number of employees who took an unwanted jab to keep their job, not for personal details. Paisner’s red-herring response sounded awfully similar to health officer Allison Berry’s well-practiced sidesteps from providing evidence when asked for it.
Coercion is a matter of opinion, not a factual matter? In Kurt Anderson’s opinion, coercion is very much a factual matter. His letter continues to address GM Streett:
“In the October 4 meeting you stated you had spoken with a lot of your staff…”
“I was never asked how I felt about any of this ahead of your decision and I believe there are other PUD employees who were also left out… The injustice of what happened to them is shameful. When they were faced with the many challenges listed above, this group of employees choose [sic], against their will and got vaccinated to retain their job. This is defined as COERCION…”
Jefferson County residents voted to purchase this electric utility from Puget Sound Energy to gain local control of our power, and to provide living-wage jobs which also fortify the tax base. That control is in the hands of our elected PUD commissioners (BOC) who determine policy that the General Manager is charged to carry out. In the case of this Covid policy, two out of three commissioners not only shirked their responsibility to determine sensitive policy, they’ve made the situation worse because of a hiring policy they passed two years ago.
Despite arguments that we need as broad a pool of applicants as possible for difficult-to-fill positions like linemen, the BOC enacted policy restricting employment to Jefferson County residents only. Streett has now terminated specialized experienced local workers. Our county pool for these highly-skilled jobs is exhausted and even if there were lineman available elsewhere, policy prohibits hiring staff outside Jefferson County unless they relocate. New hires who may have been willing to commute, from Port Angeles or Kitsap for example, must move here for employment.
We’ve already seen how difficult it is to procure trained linemen. Do you think a lineman with a good job and no mandate is likely to jump ship for a PUD with the most onerous policy in the state, where housing is in short supply?
Or will we be hiring out-of-county contractors to replace the local workers we just fired? Will both of these ill-advised policies now have to be rescinded (further exposing the PUD to legal action) in order to keep the lights and heat on?
District 1 Commissioner Jeff Randall’s seat is up for election next autumn. Talk is that he will have an opponent. The fallout from his support for the disastrous mandate policy will be verdant pasture for a challenger.
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About as far away as you can get from JeffCo on this continent, Gainesville, Florida attorney Jeff Childers successfully challenged and won an injunction to shut down a “vaccinate or terminate” policy that the city was attempting to enforce. The director of their utility begged them not to do it, arguing that he “couldn’t guarantee safe and efficient operation of the utility if I lose that many people.” Like our PUD, the city charged ahead. The presiding judge sided with the utility and 250 other plaintiffs in the case, and stopped the mandate in its tracks.
JeffCo PUD customer/owners may not be so blessed. Successful lawsuits against our little public utility may haunt ratepayers for a very long time, even as extended outages amid staffing shortages bedevil us this winter.
Errata: GM Streett stated at the Jan. 4 meeting that only two line crew were lost due to the mandate.
A common feature at the weekly Monday morning Board of County Commissioner (BOCC) meetings in these Covid times is a number of public comments aimed at the disconnect between public health policies dictated by local authorities and the data coming from independently-funded, non-mainstream scientific and medical sources. Lately, mandated or coerced medical treatments have frequently been the target.
At the last meeting in November, I used my full three minutes to share part of the tragic story of near-fatal adverse events that befell a local resident who, against her instinct, took the jabs to get a job. This previously “healthy as can be” 27-year-old Port Townsend woman we called Laura suffered two heart attacks four days after her second Pfizer jab. She was diagnosed with acute myopericarditis, leaving her young heart functioning at 30% capacity. Six physicians, including one at Jefferson Healthcare, acknowledged the jabs were responsible.
None of the commissioners directly addressed that heartbreaking story, but District 1 Commissioner Kate Dean proffered this oblique reference to it, suggesting most of us should be willing to take one for the team:
“I’m resisting the desire to get defensive. I don’t think that’s helpful. I think we live with a lot of privilege in this community. Many of us come from a lot of privilege and being asked to make small sacrifices for the benefit of public health feels like a minor thing to do.”
Would Dean have been so blithe if the vax had nearly killed one of her own children, destroying their young, healthy heart in the process? Would that have been a “small sacrifice for the benefit of public health?”
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At the December 6th meeting Commissioner Dean zoomed in from her honeymoon destination in Portugal, seated before a picture window overlooking a hillside brimming with iconic red terracotta roofs vividly contrasted against the light sand-colored structures below them. As charming, inviting and elsewhere-looking as could be. I longed to be there, too.
Board of County Commissioners 12/6 Zoom meeting screen capture
During the comment period, long-time resident Beth O’Neal read excerpts from RFK Jr’s national best-seller, The Real Anthony Fauci. Stephen Schumacher gave some specifics on the new legal complaint leveled against county health officer Allison Berry on behalf of six Clallam restaurateurs, seeking injunctive relief from her no-jab/no-entry edict sprung without warning on bars and restaurants on Sept. 2nd.
Schumacher followed with highlights of numerous recent successful legal challenges (here and here) that may bode badly for county officials over policies they’ve already endorsed, and if they choose to fire non-compliant employees in coming months.
I took the opportunity to remind the commission of the gut wrenching story of vaccine-induced heart failure I’d related to them at the Nov. 22nd meeting. I reminded Dean of her response, which intimated that this young woman’s sacrifice was “small” and for the public good. I voiced umbrage at her use of the woke trope “privileged,” pointing out that it doesn’t take privilege to think critically, to do one’s own research, to listen to the many thousands of experts who challenge the dominant paradigm, to conclude that the government, the pharmaceutical companies and regulatory agencies who oversee them are so thoroughly corrupt, they cannot be trusted. Certainly not with our health.
My appeal to the board to recognize the life-altering impact the jabs had on this young woman was lost on all but Heidi Eisenhour, who seemed sincerely sad about “these cases” of injury that she hears about. She followed with “It’s a choice to get vaccinated or not, despite the mandates. It’s a choice.” She has previously stated that mandates are a good thing. Greg Brotherton’s comments, in general, don’t bear repeating. You can listen to them if you’re willing.
Far from being stirred to compassion for this woman, Dean launched into full-blown totalitarian goose-step mode, gleeful to find herself in the land of the obedient.
“It is kind of shocking to be in a country that is over 90% vaccinated, and very compliant. Life is very normal here and the economy appears to be thriving as well. It’s just great to see. Everybody just masks up when they go inside a store, there’s no grumbling about it. They have extremely low rates of infection here. Of course they’re worried about Omicron, but you don’t really see that because it’s generally very safe. If you want to go to a bar you have to get tested within 24 hours and have a negative test result to show, and those are available—free—in every plaza in town.
They’ve decided to close down for a week right after New Year’s, just to avoid any potential spread that might come from the holidays, and folks are willing to do that, they’re planning for it, they’re saying, ‘Yeah, well, we’ll take our vacation then.’ It’s sacrifices that allow them to have normalcy the rest of the time. And it is such a relief [laughing] to be here!!! And Omicron is knocking at the door much more here than it is in America, and yet, the anxiety isn’t here because they have such a high rate of compliance and vaccination. And it’s just living proof. And people aren’t being irresponsible, they’re masking up when they go indoors. Don’t get me wrong, you definitely see that COVID is still a concern here, but it doesn’t change the way that people have to behave. It’s just really wonderful to be in a place that has got it under control, and it’s considered the first western country that will be able to respond to it as an endemic instead of a pandemic.”
It’s such a relief to be surrounded by so many other compliant people! Everybody masking up without grumbling. Testing 24 hours in advance to get into a bar (that’s a long time if you’re thirsty), jabbed or not, but no worries—the tests are free! (According to their consulate, US citizens have to pay for their tests. Elected officials may have diplomatic dispensation on that one.) “Omicron is knocking at the door” but they’re not anxious because they’re compliant and jabbed up.
If all this conformity warms your cockles, do put China on your bucket-list.
Perhaps Dean’s assumptions of the coronavirus scene in her host city came from a 2020 summer tourism brochure, or maybe it was the language barrier. According to this Agence France-Pressenews alert from November 18th, here was that nation’s reality a few short weeks ago:
“Portugal on Wednesday said it was considering imposing new coronavirus restrictions after an increase in cases and hospitalizations, despite having one of the world’s best vaccination rates. Portuguese health authorities on Wednesday recorded 2,527 new cases and more than 500 hospitalizations, the highest figures since early September. More than 86 percent of Portugal’s population have been fully vaccinated and authorities are urging the over-65’s to take a third COVID vaccine dose.”
Then came the big news from the U.S. State Department on Monday afternoon—mere hours after Dean delivered her fanciful assessment ofviral threat levels in Lisbon—announcing that the CDC had instituted a new Travel Advisory —
Case counts had breached the 500/100,000 bar. Far from being “living proof” of getting COVID under control, Portugal’s “high rate of compliance and vaccination” has led to higher case rates than ever.
Not far over the border, the “vaccinated” don’t appear to be having much more luck:
“On Dec. 1, 170 staff from a regional hospital in Malaga, Spain, attended a Christmas party held at a local eatery. Just six days later, 68 of the staff, which included intensive care nurses and physicians, all triple jabbed or recently tested for antigens, tested positive for SARS-CoV-2… This incident caught national attention, including prime minister Pedro Sanchez warning Spaniards to be careful. Now Andalucia health officials caution that other staff from hospitals avoid Christmas parties.” [source]
So despite being triple-jabbed, the shots didn’t protect 68 of 170 people. For those who have been tracking the relationship of “vaccination” to case rates, all this comes as no surprise. Research that’s not funded by conflicted sources like pharma or captured government agencies has not shown a causal relationship between increasing vax rates and decreasing case rates.
As we attempt to wrap our minds around the depth of “mass formation” pervading society today, I frequently remind myself to be compassionate.
Months ago, Commissioner Dean admitted that one of her teenage children had an adverse reaction to their jab. Her lack of empathy for Laura is puzzling, if not troubling. Dare she turn to face the possibilities of potential long-term consequences that we’ve been waving our arms about for nearly a year? It may be too much to bear.
At the October 4th meeting of the Jefferson County Board of County Commissioners, Department of Emergency Management Director Willie Bence provided the following update:
“We’re unlikely to do any more large clinics for the Pfizer booster dose population. Our next priority beginning the end of this month is going to be five to eleven-year-olds. So we’re eagerly awaiting that approval, so we’ll be ready for that at the end of this month through November…”
How did EM Director Bence know that this poorly-tested product was going to be approved, when less than a week before, the headline from this CNN report read “Pfizer submits data on Covid-19 vaccine for kids ages 5 to 11 to FDA, not seeking EUA yet.” In fact, it wasn’t until October 7th that Pfizer announced its formal request to the FDA for EUA—three days after Bence made his prescient announcement.
Willlie Bence, Jefferson County Emergency Management Director
What sort of crystal ball are they gazing into there in the Emergency Management office? I’ve filed a Public Records Request to find out, and I’ll share with PTFP readers what I learn.
The Nov. 4th edition of The Leader carried the water for the Jefferson/Clallam County Public Health officer, braying, “In other good news, Berry noted the potential approval of a COVID-19 vaccine for children ages 5 to 11. ‘We’re very excited about that,’ she said.”
In the article “Pfizer COVID Vaccine Fails Risk-Benefit Analysis in Children 5 to 11,” Toby Rogers, PhD, explains the critical metric NNTV—it’s the “number needed to vaccinate” in order to prevent a single case, hospitalization, ICU admission or death. The best study to date determined that:
“…the NNTV to prevent one death is between 9,000 and 100,000 (95% confidence interval)… injecting all 28,384,878 children ages 5 to 11 with two doses of Pfizer, which is what the Biden administration wants to do, would save, at most, 45 lives… So then the NNTV to prevent a single fatality in this age group is 28,384,878 / 45 = 630,775. But it’s a two-dose regimen, so if one wants to calculate the NNTV per injection the number doubles to 1,261,550. It’s literally the worst NNTV in the history of vaccination.”
”Kirsch, Rose, and Crawford (2021) estimate the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System undercounts fatal reactions by a factor of 41, which would put the total fatal side effects in this age-range at 5,248. Kirsch et al. represent a conservative estimate because others have put the underreporting factor at 100… Simply put, the Biden administration plan would kill 5,248 children via Pfizer mRNA shots in order to save 45 children from dying of coronavirus.“
Why is Willie Bence so “eager” and Allison Berry so “very excited” to inject this dangerous experimental gene therapy into our kids?
It would be comical were it not so diabolical. The first “pop-up” clinic for these young kids is at Blue Heron Middle School this Saturday, Nov. 13th from 9am to noon. The following weekend, Nov. 20th, the injection wagon rolls up to Chimacum Junior/Senior High School.
Pfizer’s Superhero theme is parroted by state and local health authorities on their social media pages, illustrating pharma’s complete capture of the agencies meant to oversee them.
Why are we vaccinating children?
It was predicted by many that the highly profitable injections would eventually be aimed at the children, regardless of this age group’s negligibly low risk of severe or fatal outcomes, and despite the low transmission rates in schools and from the young to the old in household settings. With an eye on profit alone, career criminal outfit Pfizer sought EUA approval from the FDA for use of its mRNA jabs for this young cohort.
On October 26th, the FDA Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) supported Pfizer’s pitch, voting 17-0 (1 abstention). Most of the committee have histories of deep commercial bonds with industry; eleven of them were “temporary” members. Committee member and apparent psychopath Dr. Eric Rubin, an infectious disease physician and editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine,said without a trace of irony,
“We’re never going to learn about how safe this vaccine is unless we start giving it. That’s just the way it goes. That’s how we found out about rare complications of other vaccines.”
Risks of myocarditis and pericarditis were acknowledged, but ultimately discounted. By the drug company’s own admission, the trial population size “was too small to detect any potential risks of myocarditis associated with vaccination.” The safety data provided by Pfizer showed that the two study cohort groups were followed for irresponsibly short periods of time—one for just two months, the other just two-and-a-half weeks. Throwing caution to the winds, they are experimenting on our children.
Aaron Siri, lead attorney at Siri & Glimstad, has won multiple lawsuits against Health and Human Services and its subordinate agencies. On behalf of the Informed Choice Action Network (ICAN), his firm is enlisting the aid of Congress members who care about civil liberties. He writes:
“The legal authority for the Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) to issue an EUA for children for this product is lacking, including because there is no medical emergency for children and the vaccinated still become infected with and transmit the virus. (Infra § I.) It is also improper to issue an EUA for children when the data does not demonstrate that the known benefits outweigh the known risks, the trial was underpowered, and there are serious concerns regarding how they were conducted. (Infra § II.) The foregoing issues are compounded by the fact that federal health authorities have given financial immunity to Pfizer for injuries caused by this product, including if it engages in willful misconduct, despite a history of such conduct by Pfizer. (Infra § III.)”
There’s one more important fact that mainstream media isn’t reporting. On page 14 of the FDA fact sheet, it says “To provide a vaccine with an improved stability profile, the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 for use in children 5-11 years of age uses tromethamine (Tris) buffer instead of the phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) as used in the previous formulation and excludes sodium chloride and potassium chloride.” Tromethamine is a blood acid reducer often used to stabilize people with heart attacks. Curiously, less than 5 months ago, the FDA approved Pradaxa, “the first oral blood thinning medication for children.”
Think they’re anticipating problems? Pradaxa is for patient populations “3 months to less than 12 years old with venous thromboembolism (a condition where blood clots form in the veins).” The press release casually adds, “The most common side effects of Pradaxa include digestive system symptoms and bleeding. Pradaxa can cause serious and fatal bleeding.”
Brought to you by…
With the yoke of liability off their neck, Pfizer is set to win the house with this gamble. News site Axios reported on Nov. 2nd that Pfizer’s jab “has quickly become the highest-selling drug in the world” adding that the pharma behemoth “forecasts revenue from the COVID-19 vaccine it developed with BioNTech will now reach$36 billion this year, up 7.5% from its previous estimate of $33.5 billion.” The billions that would surely be paid out in civil courts for injuries and death from these therapies is being funneled directly into undue influence of the media, academia and clinical research. Market analyst site statista says “Pfizer spent around 11.6 billion U.S. dollars on selling, informational and administrative expenses in 2020.” Advertising is included in that budget.
Ana Wolpin reported on the life-altering injuries sustained by Pfizer clinical trial participant, 12-year-old Maddie de Garay, in her Oct. 30th in-depth article on this site. The Vaccine Safety Research Association created a 30-second ad highlighting Maddie’s adverse events—severe damage Pfizer denied for months, eventually reporting to the FDA that she had a “stomach ache”—in advance of the VRBPAC meeting. Comcast initially agreed to broadcast the advert during episodes of “Saturday Night Live” and “Meet the Press.” The day before it was scheduled to air, Comcast officials pulled it.
Maddie De Garay, now 13, was severely injured after receiving the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine as a trial participant. Comcast agreed to run this 30-second ad, then pulled it. Click to watch what Comcast censored.
Normalizing the abnormal
In the “new normal” characterized by inversion, life as we understood it no longer applies. “Vaccines” that are not really vaccines are “safe and effective” even though they cause injury and death and do not prevent transmission, infection, hospitalization or death. Influenza, the seasonal respiratory illness that typically kills over half a million people a year, magically disappears for 18 months, but now we’re told by these Svengalis that it will definitely return this winter. Anaphylaxis, arrhythmia and fainting are commonplace. Top athletes regularly drop dead on the field, school mates die in zoom classes and strokes are to be expected in kids.
KIDS HAVE STROKES TOO – pharma’s New Normal
A nurse friend who left the employ of Jefferson Healthcare hospital this past spring related to me her shock and dismay at the constant refrain sung to co-workers who were out of commission for days post-injection with debilitating headaches and flu-like symptoms — “That means it’s working!”
Where are the adults in the room?
Port Ludlow residents Madison and Michael Clevenger, parents of three children aged 8 to 14, became concerned about state overreach while following SB-5889, which passed in March 2019. They were alarmed to learn of the concept of “protected individuals” which includes “A minor who may obtain health care without the consent of a parent or legal guardian, pursuant to state or federal law.” When Madison took their 14-year-old daughter to her sports physical this year, she was stunned when:
“…the doctor’s office would not email me a copy to turn in to the school because our daughter had not signed the waiver giving me access. The doctor’s office was able, however, to fax a copy to the school district without needing her signature.
“We could see that this experimental gene therapy would be pushed on our children in an environment where other adults can influence or pressure kids into major medical decisions without the consent of a parent. It was a very difficult decision to homeschool our children, but now that we are doing it, our kids are thriving and we all wish that we had started doing it years ago. It feels like a weight has been lifted. Every day that they would come home from school over the last couple years, they were stressed and there was hardly any joy left in what should be a happy childhood.”
They recounted another chilling experience of abrogation of parental rights:
“They [Chimacum School District] tested our daughter [the Covid swab test] without our consent, and that raises a lot of concern about other things the school district could ask a child to do without the consent of a parent or guardian.”
Pfizer is doing their very best to stealth a workaround of mindful parents like Madison and Michael, delivering the message directly to the kids with the best propaganda campaigns dirty money can buy.
Truthful information about vaccine risks like those Maddie experienced is censored, while pharma’s control of the global narrative is absolute. As seen earlier in the promo for vaccine clinics in Port Townsend and Chimacum schools, our health department repeats Pfizer’s insidious “Superhero” messaging to manipulate and brainwash our kids, with local schools marching in lockstep.
Just prior to publication, a reader of the Free Press shared a Port Townsend School District alert received on his phone as “Parent News.” The rather lengthy update was titled “Information on Covid-19 Vaccinations for Students,” with a sub-head reading “Positive Impacts of Vaccination Status.”
This parent highlighted the upshot, which he considered to be the height of audacity and overreach:
*The school district will be participating in a program called Test to Stay, where unvaccinated students may still attend classes, but cannot participate in extracurricular or after-school or social activities, are expected to quarantine when not at school, must submit to COVID testing three days per week at school, must stay six feet away from others when traveling to and from school, and must eat outdoors (or stay six or more feet away from others when eating indoors). Individuals who don’t want to comply with this option will be placed in the seven day at-home quarantine. NOTE: Students who are siblings in the same household with a COVID infected individual do not qualify for Test to Stay, due to the high rate of transmission within the immediate family.
*As the weather becomes cooler and we have to opt for more indoor activities, the different requirements for vaccinated vs. non-vaccinated may become more obvious. Indoor athletics and activities may be restricted for some students – as an example a positive COVID case on an indoor athletic team would require an unvaccinated basketball player to quarantine, whereas a vaccinated player (as long as he or she is asymptomatic) will continue to participate in the basketball program.
*Please know that the school district is not the decision maker for student vaccination mandates. Decisions on vaccination requirements are made at the federal and state levels. We don’t know when such decisions will be made by our governmental health entities, but do know that we, like other public schools, are required to comply with all state mandates.
If the last two years have taught us anything, we must expect that these draconian measures will soon be applied to the five to eleven-year-olds. Homeschooling is sounding better by the day. This Yale epidemiologist agrees—I’d Pull a Healthy Kid From School Before Giving Them the COVID Vaccine.
