Years have gone by since the Covid outbreak of 2020, many meetings have been held, studies have been done, mountains of data have been compiled. What problem would you guess the Washington State Board of Health (WSBOH) would focus on, would ask for help in the form of millions of taxpayer dollars and three full time employees, to improve their response to future pandemics?
An in-depth review of the effectiveness of Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Covid treatment protocols?
A search for the reasons behind the large increase in vaccine related, died suddenly incidents, and injuries compiled in the VAERS data?
A panel discussion on exit strategies from Big Pharma capture of federal, state, and local health agencies?
Nope.
Just over a year has passed since I reported on the April 2022 meeting of the WSBOH during which they voted, for the time being, against adding the Covid shot to the list of vaccines required for children to attend school in Washington State.
You may recall during this meeting that one of the board members stated that “loss of public trust” was her “primary concern in this process.”
So, a year later, after hours and hours of public comments, thousands of emails, and thousands of pages of public letters offered in opposition to the WSBOH Covid pandemic policies and procedures, we find a PDF file, nestled amongst the many requests that are part of WSBOH’s 2023-25 Budget Proposal, titled “Restore TRUST to Public Health.” The agency recommendation summary for this budget request is as follows:
The Department of Health requests funding to launch a 5 year multifaceted campaign focused on rebuilding trust in Washington public health, and its information to ensure people in Washington are less skeptical and more likely to follow through on the desired behaviors central to risk mitigation. Over the past two years, public health has become controversial. Without this campaign, the public’s perception and relationship with public health agencies may continue to decline, and the Department will have less resources to repair and rebuild its trusted brand.
The WSBOH is asking for thirty million dollars, $7.5 million a year through 2027, for a public relations campaign — not to acknowledge and address the public concerns with how the WSBOH responded to the pandemic, but to ensure that the citizens in Washington State are “more likely to follow through on the desired behaviors central to risk mitigation.”
Clearly the problem, from the WSBOH’s perspective, isn’t with what they were saying, it is just that they weren’t saying it loudly enough, in enough places, or often enough for the public to finally realize their “safe and effective mantra” is the absolute truth.
If you were one of the many who took the time to write, email, or speak directly to the WSBOH, in good faith, hoping to help them make the right choices in a time of great difficulty, the following is what they think of you. This paragraph is taken from the section of the “Restore TRUST to Public Health” PDF labeled as “Problem”:
Over the past 6 years misinformation/disinformation has spread rampant throughout the nation. Over the last two years in Washington, DOH saw firsthand the impact of these disinformation campaigns through audience research, ongoing polls, and community feedback. As a result, some people have become more likely to believe something false from a friend or family member than something true from the government, which in some cases, leads to decisions to not access lifesaving public health services.
If you find this statement by our state health officials condescending, you are not alone.
Further down in the document, in the section that is labeled “Proposal,” the actions to be taken are detailed. The line that seems to be attracting the most attention is the following:
The effectiveness of any public health intervention depends on the ability to influence the specific audience’s behavior.
Here in Jefferson County, we know what happens if a Board of Health intervention doesn’t influence a specific audience’s behavior. Those of us who would not comply were the first in the nation to face proof-of-covid-shot requirements for entry into restaurants and bars.
Take your concerns regarding the efficacy and legitimacy of county health practices to the local board of health and your statements will be dismissed in an avalanche of words from Public Health Officer Allison Berry, who has been shown, many times over in the Port Townsend Free Press, to have a problematic relationship with the facts.
Now we have County Commissioner Kate Dean appointed to a position on the WSBOH. She is an ideal candidate, a skilled politician who has demonstrated a willingness to follow the recommendations of Health Officer Berry… though her Board of Commissioners did draw the line at requiring the covid shot as a condition of employment for county employees (unlike Jefferson PUD).
Does that mean we will have a representative at the state level that can provide the citizens of Jefferson County with some transparency as to WSBOH actions? Or will this assure our position at the top of the list of test beds for future board of health actions in regards to pandemic policy?
In defense of the members of the WSBOH, after sitting through a few meetings, I am convinced that these are well-intentioned people that do their best to follow the illogical and arbitrary mandates handed down to them by the Governor. Over the last three years it has become readily apparent that everyone involved in state regulated health care, including doctors and nurses, has very little latitude for independent opinion without risking their ability to be employed.
However, following these mandates without reflection on their effectiveness was the beginning of a bad relationship. The complete lack of dialogue between the WSBOH and the citizens of this state has only solidified the problem. The few public comment opportunities at WSBOH meetings are similar to school board, city council, or county commissioner meetings. Speakers have two minutes to make their case. WSBOH members have no obligation to respond. There are no follow-up questions.
Nothing in the 2023-2025 budget request addresses this aspect of the WSBOH/citizen relationship.
Will thirty million dollars of taxpayer money and three new state employees (who are required by the governor to be up-to-date on all Covid shots before they can be hired) make everything better? Will enough public relations voodoo be generated over the next five years to restore your confidence in the WSBOH, so the next time around you will not hesitate to “follow through on the desired behaviors central to risk mitigation?”
I was among the three hundred plus citizens who packed the meeting room at Fort Worden Commons for what the city described as Open House #1, City of Port Townsend Golf Course plus Mountain View Commons Planning Effort. This meeting marked the midpoint of a roughly ten-month time line that started about five months ago with a series of community meetings from which the city extracted that the public would like to explore alternative uses for the golf course property.
Mayor David Faber opened the meeting and passed the microphone to City Manager John Mauro who said a few polite remarks, and then passed the microphone to Carrie Hite, Director of Parks & Recreation Strategy. Hite announced this was the start of a community discussion, part of a process that will lead to a vision for the park, but no decisions had yet been made. Someone in the audience reminded all present that the golf course is not a park.
Eventually the microphone was given to Chris Jones, principal and founder of Groundswell Studio, the Seattle firm hired by Port Townsend to put the alternative uses proposal together. He did a fine job discussing the history of the golf course property, the details of landscape as it currently exists, and finished with a review of several similar projects done in other towns around the United States.
No one in the crowd of around three hundred was allowed to speak. If they did, they were ignored or told their questions would be answered in the Q&A session later. In lieu of public comment, we were given a piece of paper on which to write a question. The papers were gathered by the consulting team who then flipped through the several hundred questions and selected a few to hand to Mr. Jones. He then read them out loud and either provided an answer or passed it on to city staff.
Half an hour was allotted for the Q&A session. No follow up was allowed during the session, except when the Parks & Rec director neglected to say how much had been spent so far and more than a few people yelled “How Much?” — loudly enough that Hite said her time plus $125,000 to the consultant.
My question wasn’t answered, nor were the majority of the questions because there just wasn’t enough time, clever that. To be fair, we were told we could talk with the staff and consultants after the meeting, but gone was the power of the community speaking their minds to city officials in public. It seems the only polite choice on this evening was to follow the city’s lead.
What caught my attention during the presentation (and this is listed in the history of this project on the city website) was that the golf course is zoned municipal and thus, as it stands, can only be used for municipal purposes. municipal purposes are generally defined as all purposes within municipal powers as defined by the constitution or laws of the state or by the charter of the municipality. Whether all the options presented fall under the definition of municipal purposes remains to be seen. Mayor Faber, in answering a question about affordable housing, believed that it would be difficult to rezone the golf course for such a purpose.
With the presentation and Q&A session over, we were supplied with six green sticker dots and six orange sticker dots.
Mr. Jones instructed the crowd to number these stickers one through six. We were to step up to the poster boards prepared by the Groundswell Studio and place sticker number one on the image of our preferred choice and then on down the line to choice number six. We were not allowed to put all six stickers on one choice, only one per choice, or we could give our stickers back to the consultants. Green corresponded to the Golf Course options and orange to Mountain View options.
Hopefully accompanying photos will show you how the attendees prioritized their votes. In order to handle the crowd, there were three sets of each poster board.
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Golf Course Site Potential Uses
Even though we were assured many times over that no plans had been made for the golf course, it took two boards to showcase all the options. They are as follows: Golf Course as-is, event space, sports fields, educational center, exercise stations, boardwalk, picnic, art, multi-use lawn, affordable housing, habitat.
Three each of the two boards were set out for people to put green stickers on. The sixth board from this compilation below is the one featured at the top of the article.
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Mountain View Commons Potential Uses
Fewer options were presented for Mountain View Commons, so there was only one poster. The options were: pool, plaza, farmers market, educational center, festival street, pickle ball, splash pad, art, affordable housing, dog park, playground. Three identical boards were set out for orange stickers.
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Can you tell me what is missing?
I describe this experience as being led into a candy shop with no prices and told you can pick your six favorite items. Months later you get the bill and you think to yourself, “I might have made different choices if I had known the particulars.”
The poster boards presented only pretty pictures — no prices, estimates of cost, or sources of funding associated with any of these options. I understand this is the start of a process, but at least with the ongoing taxpayer funded multi-million dollar nightmare of the Carmel Apartments, we had a starting price of about $250,000 to barge that broken dream of affordable housing down from Victoria.
So here we go again. If you want a say, or in this case, a question written on a small piece of paper that may or may not be answered, on the options for the future of the Port Townsend Golf Course or Mountain View Commons, now is the time to make your opinion known.
The City Council will be briefed on the project January 17th. The consultants will analyze the boards and present the two or three community favored options for both facilities at Open House Number Two in mid-April, where I assume more stickers will be handed out and more choices will be made. Open House Number Three in June will reveal the one or two most favored options. More information can be found here on the city website.
Summer is over. The rains have begun. I am back at my desk.
While we were enjoying the fine weather, our federal and state governments have continued with their plans to protect us from Covid. Let’s play a little good news/bad news and find out what they have been up to.
Good News! On August 31st the FDA authorized the new, fast-tracked, Covid boosters by Pfizer, Moderna and BioNTech for adults and children. The fast tracking was determined to be necessary to get ahead of the constantly mutating virus because past efforts took too long to produce effective substances.
Bad News! It was only tested on mice. Eight mice.
Good News/Bad News? They only needed to test it on mice because much of the data used to develop these fast-tracked shots came from the previous mRNA vaccines that the pharmaceutical companies, and our government, have told us — come on everybody, let’s say it together and make Allison Berry happy — are “safe and effective”.
Spoiler alert: this is sarcasm, but it is factual. I have paraphrased this information in effort to speak the truth plainly. If you think I am making this up, feel free to fact check by reading through the FDA document yourself.
We continue.
Good News for Pharma/Bad News for Parents
In what looks a lot like an end run around the many massive state-level protests against adding the Covid shot to the vaccines required for children to attend school, parents found the following in their news feeds on Thursday, October 20th.
Today, CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) recommended updates to the 2023 childhood and adult immunization schedules, which includes incorporating additional information for approved or authorized COVID-19 vaccines. CDC only makes recommendations for use of vaccines, while school-entry vaccination requirements are determined by state or local jurisdictions.
How long before Washington State’s Board of Health reverses their decision from April 13th of this year, and makes the Covid shot mandatory to attend public school, stating that they “are just following CDC recommendations”?
If you don’t think this could happen, I point you to the continued medical tyranny of Jay Inslee as demonstrated in Directive of Governor 22-13.1 dated August 5, 2022. The Governor’s emergency powers were supposed to end on October 31; not true if you are a current or future state employee.
Here is the heart of the directive (bold emphasis mine):
To address this continuing threat and ensure the health of our workforce, I am directing a permanent COVID-19 vaccination condition of employment requirement for state executive and small cabinet agencies as follows:
New Employees. As a condition of employment, all new employees of state agencies must be fully vaccinated against COVID-19, as recommended by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Current Exempt Employees. All current exempt employees must be fully vaccinated.
As defined by Directive 22-13.1, an employee is “up to date” with their COVID-19 vaccination when they have received all doses in the primary series and all boosters recommended for them by the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.
Just in case loyalty to Jay Inslee isn’t enough to assure compliance, the directive also authorizes the state Office of Financial Management to incentivize state employees to remain fully vaccinated.
On September 21 the Seattle Times revealed that a tentative deal between the governor and the Washington Federation of State Employees Union includes a $1000 bonus for each state employee receiving a Covid-19 booster shot. The cost of this bonus to state taxpayers has been estimated at close to $41 million.
Back at the federal level, why was this CDC approval necessary?
Was it because the federal government was concerned for our children’s health?
Or could it be that once the Covid shots are recommended for the list of official childhood vaccines by the CDC, there is no longer any legal liability for these corporations?
Direct from the Health Resources and Services Administration’s covered vaccines webpage:
The National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) covers most vaccines routinely given in the U.S.
For a vaccine to be covered, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) must recommend the category of vaccine for routine administration to children or pregnant women.
The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 created the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP), a federal government managed, no-fault alternative to the traditional tort system providing compensation to people found to be injured by certain vaccines.
The funding for this program comes from an excise tax on all vaccines administered across the country.
The latest information I could find that attempted to evaluate the effectiveness of this program was from a 2014 General Accountability Office report that calculated an average time to adjudicate claims at 3.5 years. Imagine how well the program is working now with the VAERS report listing 1,442,261 adverse effects just for Covid shots?
Could there also be a profit motive involved in being approved to the childhood vaccine list, a guaranteed income stream created for these pharmaceutical companies from now until well into the future?
In what has to be pure coincidence, only hours after the CDC recommendation, Pfizer management, on a call with holders of Pfizer stock, announced a 400% increase in the price of their Covid booster. They had been charging our government $30 a dose. Now that private insurance will be paying, Pfizer will be requiring $110 to $130.
Let’s end with some good news.
On Friday, October 21, the day after the CDC recommendation, the Informed Consent Action Network, ICAN, announced they will fund a legal challenge to any state that mandates the Covid-19 vaccine to attend school. That same day the governors of several states — and just in case you are planning a move, let me list them here: Florida, Virginia, Wyoming, Utah, Oklahoma, Iowa, Alabama, Tennessee, Missouri, South Dakota, Montana, South Carolina, Ohio, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho — announced that regardless of recent CDC recommendations, they will not be mandating Covid-19 vaccines for school attendance.
Now is not time to sit back. Chris Reykdal, Washington State’s Superintendent of Public Instruction has been clear in his statements that he wants to mandate the Covid-19 vaccine for school attendance. He has been clear that this will be a statewide decision and no district can opt out.
Keep talking to your political representatives, find them here. Keep making phone calls (360-236-4110) and sending emails to the State Board of Health. Make it clear that the October 20th CDC recommendation changes nothing. If there is even the slightest doubt in their mind that this shot might not be safe and effective for our kids, then they have a moral obligation to keep the Covid-19 vaccine off the list of Washington State’s requirements for attending school.
— UPDATE —
This promotion was sent to PTSD parents after 10pm on Thursday, Oct. 27th. This is how desperate they are. Back in the day, our parents taught us to never take candy from strangers…
Two weeks ago I gathered with a few friends in what will remain an undisclosed location in Port Townsend to watch, via Zoom, the Washington State Board of Health (SBOH) vote on whether the COVID-19 vaccine should be added to the list of shots required for public school attendance. It certainly wasn’t the Super Bowl, but for those of us invested in the health of our children it was the culmination of several months of grass roots lobbying of our state public health officials.
I played a very small part in the effort. As a group it appears we overwhelmed the systems of a state agency that was used to operating under the radar, debating issues that rarely caused any controversy. I mentioned in a previous article one early Zoom meeting of the Technical Advisory Group (TAG), set up to assess the criteria for adding the shot to the required list, had 7,500 people sign up to make a public comment.
For this final meeting, where the SBOH would vote on whether to adopt the recommendations of the TAG, over 1,500 pages of emailed comments were received and entered into the record. The SBOH didn’t state how many people signed in to speak at this final meeting, but the comment period was expanded to an hour and a half, with two minutes per comment. Even with the extra time, fewer than fifty people were actually heard. No one supported the COVID-19 shot for kids.
Like many, I was hopeful, yet ready to be steamrolled by the bureaucracy. As you have probably heard by now the SBOH voted unanimously to not add the COVID-19 shot to the list of required vaccines for kids — for now. The option to reconsider in the future was left open. I will consider the decision a victory against the forces of medical tyranny. In a conversation I had recently with Gerald Braude, a writer for Informed Choice Washington, he describes the decision as a strategic withdrawal. I fear he may be right. You can read his in-depth article about the April 13th SBOH meeting here.
Screenshot of April 13 State Board of Health Meeting
At least for the moment we still have the choice, if only at the public school level, on whether we want the COVID shot for our children. Regrettably, this does nothing for families like mine with older children heading off to our state colleges, also public schools, but at this point offering no choice regarding the COVID shot other than applying for a religious exemption. We may have begun to turn the tide. We must not stop here.
When government does something bad, we have a right to redress of grievances. When government does something good, which has been admittedly rare over the last few years, we should let also let them know, as well as address any concerns they may have expressed during the decision-making process. Here is my letter sent to the Washington State Board of Health after their unanimous vote on April 13th:
To the Washington State Board of Health. Thank you for your hard work over the last two years, and for your latest decision to not add the COVID-19 shot to the list of requirements for children to attend public school. You have made the right choice. It seems a few fragments our democratic system may yet be working.
One of your members mentioned the loss of public trust as being her primary concern in this process. I heartily agree. As a citizen of Washington State, I have lost all trust in my public officials.
This loss of trust began with the Governor seizing power through an emergency declaration and then forcing illogical and arbitrary mandates on me. More than two years have passed and Governor Inslee refuses to give up these powers. His latest reasoning in a long list of ever-changing excuses, the need to keep federal dollars flowing into our state, does nothing to rebuild my trust.
I also lost trust with my state representatives who have looked the other way this entire time, aiding and abetting our tyrannical governor.
The loss of trust continued with the Superintendent of Public Instruction, who clearly stated he was pro-COVID shot, while threatening any disloyalty to his COVID orders with defunding of non-compliant school districts. When asked, State Superintendent Chris Reykdal stated the COVID shot requirement would be made on a statewide basis, undermining the authority of school boards, and therefore eliminating both school administrations and most importantly concerned parents, from the decision-making process.
Finally, public trust was lost by you, the State Board of Health specifically, through continuing to promote only the vaccines for treatment despite the VAERS data showing tens of thousands of deaths, and well over a million injuries to Americans from the COVID-19 injections.
Will the SBOH ever examine whether the vaccines you would be forcing on our children, formulated for the original strain of COVID-19 way back in March of 2021, even be effective against the current mutations? (We can see they aren’t. Why can’t you see that?). Will the board ever discuss the data that clearly shows that children have a much higher likelihood of injury from the vaccine than from the disease? Please look over the latest study from Children’s Hospital in Seattle published March 25th, 2022 in the Journal of Pediatrics. Has the board reviewed the benefits of natural immunity, or other options including the clear success of the Dr. Peter McCullough protocols advocating early treatment with safe, inexpensive, and readily available antiviral medications?
If you were to ask me, I would tell you the restoration of public trust will begin when you give up the mantra of “These vaccines are safe and effective”, and start having a transparent and truthful conversation with the people, not the politicians, of this state. The thousands of comments from thousands of well-informed parents should be evidence that you are not in possession of all the information.
I understand the extreme pressures you are under to support the official government narrative. Yet someday, in the not-too-distant future, we will look back and see this pandemic vaccination program for what many of us believe it to be, a crime against humanity. In the end, I would want to be remembered for supporting the freedom of choice for the individual citizens of this state, and not in support of a governor who puts billions from the Federal Government before the rights of his constituents.
Respectfully,
Brett M. Nunn
I expect my suggestions will fall on deaf ears like just like all of my attempts to pull back on the “safe and effective” curtain here in Port Townsend and to start conversations with our public officials. In watching the SBOH debate this issue, a few of the members seem to be asking the right questions. We need to keep speaking to them until the message finally gets through. I will be presenting this information to the Port Townsend School Board in the following weeks just to make sure they have heard the good news as well.
Three months have passed in my efforts to make a change locally. As I mentioned in a previous article, I was concerned with Washington State mandating Covid-19 shots for any child attending public school. California had mandated this policy so Washington couldn’t be far behind. I brought these concerns to the Port Townsend School Board through public comment at their meetings and through email.
Have I made any progress? It’s hard to tell. The school board members are not required to answer questions during public comment periods.
At the first meeting I attended in October, I listed all the government actions taken against us during Covid that we had not said no to. I told the school board we needed to start saying no, and we needed to start with any Covid-19 shot being required for children to attend public schools.
At a second meeting in November, I mentioned an October 25th NBC News poll revealing that, of all parents with children under the age of twelve, only 27% will have their children get the shot as soon as it is available. I then asked the school board what they planned to do if 70% of Port Townsend families remove their children from the school system in the fall of 2022?
I was unable to attend in person in December, but sent an email to the school board listing the twenty-five states that have made masks optional in their schools without sacrificing the health of the students. Why isn’t Washington State on that list? I also let them know that in the Washington State Prison System, the Covid shot is not required for incarcerated individuals. I finally asked them to read the following short statement from Dr. Robert Malone MD., MS., Before You Inject Your Child:
Before you inject your child – a decision that is irreversible – I wanted to let you know the scientific facts about this genetic vaccine, which is based on the mRNA vaccine technology I created.
There are three main issues parents need to understand before they take this irrevocable decision:
The first is that a viral gene will be injected into your children’s cells. This gene forces your child’s body to make toxic spike proteins. These proteins often cause permanent damage in children’s critical organs, including
Their brain and nervous system
Their heart and blood vessels, including blood clots
Their reproductive system, and
This vaccine can trigger fundamental changes to their immune system
The most alarming point about this is that once these damages have occurred, they are irreparable.
You can’t fix the lesions within their brain
You can’t repair heart tissue scarring
You can’t repair a genetically reset immune system, and
This vaccine can cause reproductive damage that could affect future generations of your family
The second thing you need to know about is the fact that this novel technology has not been adequately tested.
We need at least 5 years of testing/research before we can really understand the risks
Harms and risks from new medicines often become revealed many years later
Ask yourself if you want your own child to be part of the most radical medical experiment in human history.
One final point: the reason they’re giving you to vaccinate your child is a lie.
Your children represent no danger to their parents or grandparents
It’s actually the opposite. Their immunity, after getting COVID, is critical to save your family if not the world from this disease
In summary: there is no benefit for your children or your family to be vaccinating your children against the small risks of the virus, given the known health risks of the vaccine that as a parent, you and your children may have to live with for the rest of their lives.
Dr. Robert Malone is not the lone voice on this issue. The Global Covid Summit, convened by the International Alliance of Physicians and Medical Scientists has issued a declaration signed by 16,000 physicians and scientists stating in no uncertain terms that “Healthy Children Shall Not Be Subject To Forced Vaccinations.”
At the January 6th meeting I told the school board if there was a Covid shot requirement next year, I would be forced to pull my child out of the school system and I would be encouraging everyone one else I know to do the same. Parents should not be forced to choose between their child’s health or public school.
I told them that I came to these meetings knowing that what I ask is impossible because there is too much money involved, but I am still here asking because we are talking about our future, our children.
Since then I have learned that under just two programs, Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief, (ESSER), and Governors Emergency Education Relief, (GEER), Washington State will eventually receive $2,604,821,223—that’s 2.6 billion with a B—dollars in taxpayer funds from the Federal Government.
The Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction is allowed to skim 10% off the top for three things: learning recovery, reserve, and administration of the program. Port Townsend High School alone will eventually receive over $5.2 million in taxpayer dollars to operate during government declared emergency conditions.
As you can imagine there are strings attached, and just in case you didn’t notice, the disbursement of the funds is scheduled to run through the year 2024. If schools do not follow the many Covid-related proclamations of the federal government and our governor, the funds will simply be withheld from their monthly apportionments (bureaucratic term for the money needed for school operations), until they do cooperate.
The legal authority for this comes from reporting requirements in the applications filled out by school districts in order to apply for the funds, and anewsection of Washington Administrative code conveniently added over the holidays without public notice or consent.
Checklist required for schools to receive U.S. Department of Education funds (see page 7)
No one has summed up what looks a lot like strong-arm tactics deployed by the Governor and the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OPSI) better than Informed Choice Washington, an organization of parents, families, medical professionals, and educators who are trying to shine some light on this subject. Here is what they have to say:
“This new OSPI rule is intended to undermine the school boards and districts that read the full body of science on the DOH’s approach to COVID-19, listened to the concerns of parents, teachers, and staff, and decided to operate their schools in a manner that provided the overall best environment for everyone. The new rule is intended to silence dissenting actions and dissenting opinions. Health is not the motivation for OSPI— securing and retaining all of the federal money flooding to schools is the motivation. That federal money is tied with COVID-19 masking, testing, tracking, isolating, and vaccinating strings.”
Indeed, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Chris Reykdal, has stated that he is all in on the jab mandate and that this will be a state level decision, not a district-by-district choice. Knowing all of this it is hard not to believe that school boards have been intentionally removed from the decision-making process by the state bureaucracy. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be asking our school board members to refuse this money rather than risk the health of even just one child in our community.
Back at the January 6th meeting I also told the school board I could try and reason with them that the shot clearly doesn’t stop the spread of Covid. Why would three shots be required in less than a year if this was effective?
I could give them the data showing that children suffer far more from the side effects of the shot than from the symptoms of the disease.
I could urge them to look up the list of young athletes that have been injured or died from heart attacks shortly after taking the shot.
Instead, I wanted to appeal to them as a parent who just knows that this is wrong and has to stop. I pointed out that if there was the slightest doubt in their minds that this specific shot might not be safe and effective, then they had the moral obligation to protect the children of this community and carry this message up the chain of command to State Superintendent Reykdal and say no. I have heard nothing from any of the board members. One of them waved to me from a coffee shop window as I walked by.
On Wednesday, January 12th the Washington State Board of Health held a public meeting where they began the first deliberations in the process of adding Covid shot mandates to the list of vaccines required for attending public schools in Washington State. Seventy-five hundred (7,500) individuals signed up to make a public comment before the list was closed. Due to time and technical difficulties, only a small fraction were able to speak. No one I heard supported the mandate. There are so many more of us than there are of them. Start saying no.
Speak up by contacting the Washington State Board of Health at wsboh@sboh.wa.gov to let them know how you feel. The next Port Townsend School Board meeting is Thursday, January 20th at 5:30 p.m. School board members can be reached at sboard@ptschools.org.
