by Jim Scarantino | Jun 23, 2021 | General
Bayside Housing wants $1.8 million from Jefferson County to complete and expand the Cherry Street Project. $1.6 million more than has already been spent would go into finishing the 70-year old Carmel Building, which has been sitting vacant and open to the elements for over four years. The total final cost of that building alone would exceed $3 million. In addition, Bayside wants $300,000 from the City of Port Townsend, and $500,000 from an unspecified block grant.
Bayside proposes to contribute $200,000 of its own money, for a total cost of $2.8 million for its new vision for the 1.5 acre property. Bayside’s proposal was submitted with supporting documents to the BOCC for its 6/21/21 meeting, and may be read at pages 457-462 of the correspondence file. Here is the cover letter:
The Carmel House would provide 12 bedrooms through 4 two bedroom units and four small one bedroom units. The total square footage of the building, as reported by the Port Townsend and Jefferson County Leader, is about 5,000 square feet. The Port Townsend Free Press previously reported that this “affordable” housing project was already one of the most expensive developments on the Quimper Peninsula. Under Bayside’s proposal, the cost would exceed $600 per square foot.
Bayside’s estimate of what it would take to rehab the Carmel House is $600,000 higher than the estimate provided by Homeward Bound Community Land Trust to the Port Townsend City Council in November 2019, when it said at least another $1 million was needed. Homeward Bound had been given the land and building in 2017 and a generous loan from the city. It defaulted in July 2020 and the city reclaimed the project. City taxpayers remain on the hook for the more than $1.4 million in principal and interest on the bond the city floated to raise the funds. Public records show that the loan to Homeward Bound contained a hidden interest subsidy of more than $400,000. Because Homeward Bound never paid a cent of its debt, taxpayers have been paying down the full indebtedness since 2018.
The project would be transferred free of any debt to Bayside. With the additional $1.6 million of county money going into the building plus the $1.4 million city-absorbed indebtedness factored in, the total cost of rehabbing the old building would come to more than $3 million. The city has already sunk over $500,000 in the building to bring it here from Victoria, B.C. and to put it on a foundation. That amount would be included in the $3 million final cost for the Carmel Building.
These figures do not include the cost of the land, valued in 2017 at $600,000, or other miscellaneous expenditures by the city for utility and project management work. In an October 2, 2020, report we calculated the cost of the project as of that date at $2,329,961. That was still $1 million short of the Homeward Bound’s estimated cost to complete, and is $1.6 million short of Bayside’s latest estimate of cost to completion. Our figure included the $600,000 value of land given by the city to Homeward Bound, which would again be donated, this time to Bayside Housing.
In addition to rehabbing the Carmel House, Bayside proposes to build two six room “boarding houses” on the property, at a combined cost of $850,000. That is the same number of rooms, newly constructed, as would be available in the old Carmel House, but for $2.15 million less.
Bayside is not proposing a contract, under which it would be responsible for completion of the building by a date certain and built to plans and standards approved by the county. It is simply asking for millions of dollars with the promise that it will provide “affordable” housing. Its contractor estimates that if the money is provided promptly the proposed project would be completed within the first half of 2022. Bayside’s letter does not identify the contractor or reveal whether it has gone through any sort of competitive bidding process.
Bayside submitted letters of support from Dove House, Jefferson Community Foundation and Oxford House, an international program of sober living communities. The organizations did not commit to any financial support.
At present, the land and the building are owned by the City of Port Townsend. City Council directed the City Manager in September 2020 to negotiate a handover to Bayside Housing of the Cherry Street Project. The City Manager ignored a $1 million cash offer from Keith and Jean Marzan of Port Townsend to bail the city out of the failed project, with the pledge that they would construct affordable housing at their own expense on the site. The City Manager told them he had been directed to deal exclusively with Bayside.
The original estimated cost of rehabbing the Carmel House with the addition of the four basement apartments was under $400,000, with a projected completion date in September or October 2017. That estimate and schedule were known to have been “bogus” by Homeward Bound’s leadership and city officials. See also, “Multimillion Dollar Fraud on Taxpayers: The Cherry Street Project Unmasked,” PTFP, 7/27/20.
In a May 28, 2018 article we identified a 36 bedroom Port Townsend apartment building, built in the 1990s, on the market for $1.5 million. That now looks like an even better bargain. But instead of securing that property, or pursuing less costly approaches, such as manufactured housing, the city kept sinking more money into the old Carmel Building structure.
The COVID Funds: The County’s, Not the City’s
Bayside is seeking $1.8 million of the county’s “COVID funds.” The county received $6.3 million under the American Rescue Plan Act. These funds are restricted to being spent on five categories of projects: (1) public health, including COVID-19 mitigation efforts, behavioral health care, and public health and safety staff; (2) negative economic impacts caused by the pandemic to groups including workers, households, industries and the public sector; (3) to replace public sector revenue lost to the pandemic; (4) premium pay to support essential workers whose health is at risk from exposure in critical infrastructure areas; and (5) investment in infrastructure such as water, sewer, wastewater, storm water facilities, and broadband access and infrastructure.
The City of Port Townsend has not offered to spend any of its $2.744 million in ARPA funds on its Cherry Street Project. The City Manager has indicated that at least half the funds will be used to make up for lost municipal revenue. Bayside’s proposal does not seek any of the City’s “COVID Funds.”
The $1.8 million requested by Bayside would be close to a third of the county’s ARPA funds. Jefferson County would be bailing the city out of its troubled Cherry Street Project, after the city had already rejected a $1 million cash offer to do the same.
Red Flags
There are certainly legal questions about whether the county can simply give $1.8 million to a private entity for a construction project on land it does not own. Where are the legally binding guarantees, the enforcement mechanisms, the claw-back provisions, the security for county taxpayers? If Bayside fails to perform, what recourse is there? How is the county assured it is getting the lowest price from a qualified contractor without a request for proposal and a competitive bidding process?
Bayside’s executive director, Gary Keister, is a convicted felon, who served time in federal prison for a complex scheme involving bank fraud, conspiracy and money laundering. After release from prison he was involved with an illegal slot machine business that drew raids and enforcement action from Texas authorities and the Security and Exchange Commission. Port Townsend Free Press was contacted by two former Bayside employees who raised ethical concerns about Bayside’s operations. One former employee has filed a complaint with the State Attorney General about Bayside’s business practices and its conflict of interest with another business owned and managed by Kiester. We wrote about those issues here, here and here.
After those articles were published, we received from a man identifying himself as a former business associate of Keister a list of more than 60 lawsuits brought by or against Keister personally, or by or against corporations he owned or managed or in which he was an officer or director. The list was the product of a search of records of nineteen Washington county court systems conducted in 2013. Mr. Keister and/or those corporations were a defendant or third-party defendant in 36 of the listed cases, plaintiff in four. In the remainder of the listed cases he or his controlled or affiliated corporations were identified as a subject of judgment, garnishment, abstract of judgment or tax foreclosure.
Preliminary Talks, Conflict of Interest
Bayside’s letter refers to previous discussions with Kate Dean, Chair of the Board of County Commissioners. Dean has been a member of the Board of Directors of Homeward Bound since 2017, during the time that organization was the owner and developer of the Cherry Street Project. She was a Homeward Bound director when it defaulted on the city’s loan and remains a director to this day. Details of the discussions between Bayside and Dean were not disclosed. In a previous Port Townsend Free Press article, Keister was quoted as saying that Bayside was being pressured by Homeward Bound to get involved in the failed Cherry Street Project.
At the same time that Bayside is seeking nearly a third of the county’s ARPA money, other nonprofits and critical needs are competing for the same funds. Dean will be one of three commissioners deciding how to allocate those significant, but nonetheless limited resources.
by Jim Scarantino | Jun 16, 2021 | General
Governor Inslee’s eviction moratorium is having the unintended consequence of keeping rentals off the market. That’s according to Christina Nelson, property manager for Townsend Bay Property Management, Inc., which manages over 175 rental properties–“doors”–in Jefferson County. It is the county’s largest property manager.
“Houses are sitting vacant,” says Nelson, “for fear of squatters,” occupants who do not pay rent. “Owners are also letting ADU’s go unrented because of the moratorium.” Owners fear that if they accept a tenant who then exploits the moratorium and refuses to pay rent, “you’re stuck. There’s no protection for landlords.”
For some landlords, their rental properties “are what they depend on for their own needs, to pay their own mortgage or maintain their own home.” Some landlords live off their rental income. Under the moratorium, they face losing their own homes or falling behind on mortgage payments and taxes.
Will there be a nightmare of evictions when the moratorium ends? Some Jefferson County “advocates for the unsheltered” in comments to the Jefferson County Board of County Commissioners have predicted 1,500 evictions and demanded an extension of the moratorium.
Nelson says that of the properties they manage, only one or two tenants have not been paying and possibly face eviction. One of them, after refusing to pay rent during the moratorium, showed up in the office and paid $1,200 of past due rent and promised to bring a similar amount next week as he pays off a $4,600 balance.
“I expect to see more properties becoming available once the moratorium ends,” says Nelson. Right now Townsend Bay has zero vacancies, “and as soon as one opens up, we rent it.” With landlords no longer fearing the moratorium and its risks, properties that have been kept off the market will return and there may be additional “doors” made available to tenants.
Why have so few of Townsend Bay’s tenants not fallen behind on rent, despite the Governor’s shutdowns and the impact of COVID fears on the economy? “Nobody has had a reason to not make their rent,” says Nelson. “We have wonderful resources in Jefferson County to help those in need. And we have job openings everywhere. I do not accept unemployment as a source of income [in the application process]. There’s no reason to be on unemployment when there are jobs everywhere.”
One more thing is necessary to bring more rental properties on the market, according Nelson: “As long as we don’t keep getting laws that favor tenants so much over landlords.” For instance, measures passed by Seattle City Council have resulted in a huge loss of rental properties, especially single homes. Regulatory risk and the burdens imposed on owners have made selling into a rising market an alternative too attractive to pass up. Windermere Property Management/Lori Grill Associates in Seattle saw a 48% increase in rental clients selling their properties from 2019 to 2020. A poll of clients taken in January 2020 showed that 35% of property owners were looking to sell because of new regulations, and the fear that more will follow.
Seattle regulations passed by City Council include a ban on evictions during the school year if the household includes a child or parent–or if anyone in the dwelling works on school property, including a contractor. Seattle City Council has also required mandatory lease renewal.
The Washington Legislature recently enacted its own set of landlord-tenant laws that make the business of renting, particularly for mom-and-pop landlords who rent out one or two properties, more burdensome, risky and costly. Tenants who did not pay rent during the moratorium must be offered a repayment plan that requires no more than 1/3 of past due monthly rent to be paid during each month going forward. The result is that it could takes years to make up all the past due rent. Low income tenants get a lawyer at taxpayer expense–landlords either face the lawyer themselves or pay thousands to get their own legal representation to slug it out in court. Landlords are prohibited from evicting tenants except for one of 17 specified reasons and face legal liability if their reasoning is challenged. Already, landlords are prohibited from using a felony conviction–other than a sex offense–as a reason for denying a rental, and must research the facts of the offense and be able to provide a reason why the crime should disqualify the renter. They again face legal liability, and a taxpayer-funded lawyer, for turning down a convicted felon and renting instead to someone with a lifetime of lawfulness.
As these new regulations have been considered and passed by the Legislature, Nelson has seen the number of rental properties under management decline from over 200, to its current level, a loss of about 12.5%.
by Stephen Schumacher | Jun 2, 2021 | General
A Jefferson County woman in her mid-60s tragically died in Seattle “after a prolonged hospitalization for respiratory failure due to COVID pneumonia” contracted out-of-state the week following her second experimental gene therapy (“vaccine”) shot. The woman also suffered from “serious underlying health conditions including a lymphatic malignancy that required ongoing chemotherapy and immunosuppressing medications,” according to Jefferson County Public Health Officer Dr. Tom Locke.
Despite the proximity to her vaccine shot, her multiple serious comorbidities, and all events surrounding her demise having occurred out-of-county, this sad passing is being headlined as “the fourth to die from COVID-19 in Jefferson County”. Like the previous three such deaths, there is serious room for doubt given special CDC instructions “that COVID-19 be recorded as the primary cause of death even if the decedent had other chronic comorbidities”.
Contrary to recent undercounting claims by debunked forecasters, Jefferson County’s own experience with doubtful COVID deaths is a microcosm of national overcounting concerns. The CDC data shows 95% of deaths “with” COVID had an average of 3 extra comorbidities and contributing causes (nearly half having flu or pneumonia), despite only COVID being blamed.
That’s even assuming most of these deaths ever had COVID in the first place, which is uncertain given 90% false positives seen with PCR testing using typical 40+ Cycle Thresholds. (Note Jefferson County uses an absurdly-high 45 Ct.)
The new wrinkle in this fourth-claimed county death is its close association with a second vaccination less than a week before her infection. The CDC received 10,262 reports of such vaccine breakthroughs through April, which it considers “a substantial undercount”.
Beyond breakthroughs, a May 20 Harvard study found SARS-CoV-2 spike proteins circulating throughout body plasma for 2 weeks immediately following mRNA vaccination. Virginia researchers “found that exposure to the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein alone was enough to induce COVID-19-like symptoms including severe inflammation of the lungs”, eerily similar to the COVID pneumonia blamed for this fourth county death.
Such a process might explain some of the many reports of high-risk elderly dying after vaccination, such as 14 nursing home patients “dropping like flies”, and 32 dying in an a New York nursing home, and 23 frail elderly patients dying in Norway shortly after receiving vaccine.
Dr. Locke acknowledges that “most vaccinations, including the new COVID vaccines, are ineffective in those who are profoundly immunosuppressed.” Moreover, according to Peter Doshi, associate editor of the British Medical Journal, since the immunocompromised and frail elderly were not “enrolled into vaccine trials in sufficient numbers to determine whether case numbers are reduced in this group, there can be little basis for assuming any benefit”.
Given the 4,863 VAERS-reported deaths associated with COVID vaccines through May 24, and given they are “ineffective” and have no demonstrated benefit for profoundly immunosuppressed patients such as the decedent, it’s strange that Dr. Locke says “she was appropriately vaccinated”.
Also not included in the vaccine trials were children and adolescents, yet they are likewise being pushed toward risky vaccinations from which they can expect negligible benefit. Lancet shows the Number Needed to Vaccinate to prevent one COVID case is between 76 and 117 for the various vaccines, while the CDC estimates Infection Fatality Ratio of 0.002% under age 18. That means it takes 5 million vaccine doses to save a single young life, while risking many more young deaths in the process – a recklessly dangerous gamble.
Health officials promoting these vaccines in schools need to take care lest the next COVID-related death in Jefferson County might be a child dying days after receiving the vaccine.
by Jim Scarantino | May 28, 2021 | General
Internal communications between the Port Townsend City Manager, police and the Food Co-op reveal a coordinated effort to use police to suppress dissent. The communications, uncovered through a public records request submitted by Rachelle Merle and shared with Port Townsend Free Press, reveal that she was arrested and is being prosecuted, regardless of the merits of her case, to deter other protests against the county’s and governor’s masking mandates.
Merle was arrested April 5, 2021 in response to a call to the Port Townsend police from the management of the Food Co-op. Merle had been shopping without wearing a mask and had insisted that as a co-owner of the Co-op (she is a member) she had the right to be in the store to shop for her family. Her actions were a protest against the Co-op’s rules, which she and others contend are fanatical, not science-based and make no exceptions for members who cannot or will not cover their faces. Merle and others have contended that other retail establishments are far more accommodating.
As Ana Wolpin, the first general manager of the Co-op and a past director later wrote the chief of police, Merle’s actions were an attempt “to initiate a long-overdue conversation that the Co-op board and management should be having with its member-owners.” See: The Arrest of Rachelle Merle, PTFP, 5/1/21.
In response to this effort by one of its co-owners to initiate that conversation and challenge Co-op policy, Co-op management called in police. Merle was handcuffed, led out of the store and has been charged with second degree trespassing. If convicted she faces a penalty of up to 90 days in jail and/or a $1,000 fine.
The Co-op has denied that it is pressing charges and has insisted that the decision to prosecute Mrs. Merle is out of its hands and driven exclusively by law enforcement. As I’ve explained previously, that denial strains credulity. A trespassing prosecution requires the co-operation of the property owner (which, in this case, oddly includes Merle herself). Recently received communications further undermine the Co-op’s implausible denial.
In a May 27, 2021 email to the Port Townsend Free Press, the Co-op’s secretary, Claire Thomas, stated, “the policy of the store is to call the police when someone breaks the rules of the store.” Breaks the rules. Not commits a crime. The Co-op’s various rules are not criminal statutes, yet the Co-op admits it will use police to enforce those rules.
In one of the emails Kenna Eaton, the Co-op’s general manager, thanked the then acting chief of police for having “helped us trespass an unmasked person.” Eaton omits the fact that this person is one of the Co-op’s co-owners. A substantial issue exists as to how Merle could be trespassed from property she owns. I’ve written about that significant legal defense to Mrs. Merle’s charges and the fact that Eaton violated the Co-op’s By-laws and Articles of Incorporation by stripping Mrs. Merle’s ownership rights without honoring the protections required by the very documents that created the Co-op.
Eaton added, “As you are now likely aware, it was staged to make us look bad.” Merle sought to initiate a change in Co-op policy, or at least open dialogue. The Co-op claims to and encourages its member-owners to “treat disagreements as a chance to see things from someone else’s point of view and an opportunity to learn.”
Instead, Eaton called in men with guns. She had other options, options taken by other merchants who have unmasked people entering their premises. The most obvious and appropriate option for the general manager may have been to (1) recognize that Merle is an owner who cannot be “trespassed” from her own property, (2) let Merle finish her shopping, then (3) ask the Board to initiate the procedures the By-laws and Articles of Incorporation state are the only way to strip from a member-owner of their rights to use the store.
Mrs. Merle remains a co-owner of the Co-op. But the trespass order obtained by Eaton with the help of the PT police orders her to stay off her own property for the period of a year, with the admonition that she will be arrested if she steps onto the property during that time.
A Coordinated Campaign to Suppress Dissent
Merle is being prosecuted, despite the legal fallacy of the charges against her, in order to suppress other acts of protest. Based on emails obtained by Mrs. Merle, it appears that Dr. Thomas Locke, Jefferson County Public Health Officer, and John Mauro, Port Townsend’s City Manager, are the driving forces behind using the police to deter and punish dissent.
The emails shared by Mrs. Merle show that following her arrest, a decision was made by Locke, Mauro and the police to encourage business owners to call in police if they were faced by any protests of Locke’s edicts. In an email from Mauro to Troy Surber, then acting chief of police, Mauro wrote, “In Dr. Locke’s words, while it’s probably annoying that this may be happening more regularly, he thinks it’s useful for the community to see how law enforcement appropriately responds to these criminal acts in the name of protest.”
The next day, April 8, Mauro emailed Vicki Kirkpatrick, Director of Jefferson County Public Health. He wrote that the acting chief would contact PT Main Street to encourage store owners to “hone their response to similar events, including quickly triggering a trespass.” Once a trespass “was triggered,” police could make an arrest.
Mauro, in an April 7 email, revealed how he also sought to get the Jefferson County Sheriff to adopt the same “trigger trespass” approach to unmasked persons.
Former Acting Chief Surber, in the back-and-forth on adopting a policy to suppress and deter protest against the masking mandate, seems to have recognized the difficulty in using a trespass charge for a protest at the Co-op by a member owner. Apparently, the Saturday before Merle’s protest there had been another expression of protest at another business at or near the Tyler Street Plaza, where weekly protests against the mask mandate had been taking place. While some businesses have welcomed and encouraged the unmasked musicians and protestors, other businesses and their employees have not been pleased. Surber wrote about both incidents, “Unfortunately we need to be careful about how we address the issue for two reason[s], public space and different trespassing rules, and first amendment concerns. These folks want us to respond with a mask ticket, as their goal is to push this issue. It differs from the Co-op as we can go to a trespass immediately and no need to address the mask issue.” He added, “There isn’t an easy solution to this issue and being an unpleasant person isn’t a crime.”
So far, no arrests of mask protestors in any outdoor public space have occurred. Those protests have continued downtown, and also outside the Co-op and at the Farmer’s Market. The “issue” of a “mask ticket,” referred to by Surber, concerns arresting someone for violating the Governor’s mask mandate, which he purported to make a gross misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in jail. “The issue” is whether the Governor can create a new crime that would imprison a citizen. To my knowledge, there has been no prosecution for violating the Governor’s unilaterally-declared new crime.
More and more research, as reported on this site and elsewhere, shows that mask mandates have made no difference in transmission rates. Texas, where the state was reopened fully and the mask mandate lifted, has been doing better than states maintaining lockdowns and masking mandates. Research, such as the well known Stanford study, confirms that masks are ineffective and create serious health hazards for the wearer. Anecdotal evidence is mounting, including reports of schoolchildren in Port Townsend passing out.
Developments in Merle’s Case
Mrs. Merle reports that she recently received a donation of $5,000 to her legal defense fund. The donation came from a local business owner and a now-former Food Co-op member. Merle’s trial is set for July 1, but rescheduling may be sought by her attorney.
The “All Are Welcome” sign that once hung proudly above the Co-op’s door is gone. The sign in the photo at the head of this article was subsequently seen outside the main entrance.
On an interesting side note, staff in the county prosecutor’s office don’t wear masks. In the course of settling my First Amendment lawsuit against Jefferson County I was twice admitted to the entrance to the prosecutor’s office. I could clearly see that staff were not wearing masks and only put one on when they approached me. They didn’t need to do that, as far I was concerned. I don’t mean to get anyone in trouble, as I think the mask mandate should be lifted or widely ignored. But the office that is prosecuting Mrs. Merle should at least observe the same masking mandate that is the premise for punishing her.
Related from Port Townsend Free Press: Masks Don’t Stop Viruses: The Latest Research
by Gene Farr | May 20, 2021 | General
Why are we constantly being hammered with climate alarmism, Covid alarmism and racial alarmism?
The journalist and social commentator H. L. Mencken explained it decades ago: “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” Or paraphrasing President Obama’s chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, “Don’t let a good crisis go to waste, even if you have to invent one.” Of course, the solutions proposed are always more massive government intervention and scrapping our capitalist economic system.
What do Climate Activists Want?
It certainly is not about saving the environment. It is about forcing us to accept a socialist system. Here are a few examples of what key climate alarmists have said.
Maurice Strong, who spearheaded the United Nations 1992 Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro where the unveiling of Agenda 21 kicked off the original climate crisis campaign linking dire environmental dangers to Western prosperity has said: “In order to save the planet, isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring about an economic collapse?”
Christine Stewart, Canada’s former minister of the environment said: “No matter if the science is all phony, there are collateral environmental benefits. … Climate change [provides] the greatest chance to bring about justice and equality in the world.”
Tim Wirth, former U.S. undersecretary of state for global affairs under Bill Clinton and the person most responsible for setting up the Kyoto Protocol, said: “We’ve got to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic policy and environmental policy.”
“Climate justice” campaigner for Friends of the Earth, Emma Brindal, said bluntly, “A climate change response must have at its heart a redistribution of wealth and resources.” Not protecting earth from manmade carbon-dioxide emissions or natural and manmade climate change, but redistributing wealth and resources, presumably according to formulas self-appointed ruling elites like herself decide are “socially just.”
Ottmar Edenhofer, lead author of the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report summed up the situation quite clearly. He advised: “One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. Instead, climate change policy is about how we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth.”
Or as U.N. climate chief (executive secretary of UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Christiana Figueres candidly remarked, the true aim of the recent Paris climate conference (2014) was “to change the [capitalist] economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution.”
Chief of Staff for Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Saikat Chakrabarti said in 2019: “The interesting thing about the Green New Deal is it wasn’t originally a climate thing at all … Do you guys think this is a climate thing? Because we really think of it as a how do-you-change-the-entire-economy thing.”
Prominent climate activist and meteorologist Eric Holthaus admitted in 2020 that climate change activism is not about climate science, but really about “justice.”
President Biden is trying to sell the UN plan for worldwide socialist government “Build Back Better”. This is the same old UN Agenda 21 plan being marketed with a new name.
Comprehensive coverage of climate facts is found in the book, Climate Change Reconsidered, by the Heartland Institute. All the alarmist deceptions and lies are exposed
What have the proponents of bigger government done in response to the Covid “crisis”?
The Democrat governors and Democrat mayors have used the Covid problem as an excuse to take more control over the people they govern while making special allowances for their major donors. Democrats in the US Congress got the federal government to provide massively more welfare that encourages people to not work, and funds to pay for the debts they incurred paying for ill-advised programs. The sending of senior citizen Covid cases back to the nursing homes by the New York governor looks as if he was channeling Chairman Mao’s cultural revolution to get rid of the elderly and more conservative population.
We also see that teachers unions are demanding that socialist policies be implemented before the teachers will go back to work. They ignore the fact that children have minimal risk of serious problems or death due to the virus as well as that most teachers and parents are in an age group that is not likely to be seriously affected.
What are the Black Lives Matter and other organizations promoting?
The Black Lives Matter organization and their supporters are promoting Marxism. Since the original Marxist class warfare model (workers vs. capitalists) did not sell in the USA, they are using a different class warfare model – blacks vs. whites. This new brand of Marxism is also being presented with the title “Critical Race Theory” in order to obscure its Communistic – Marxist intent. How can causing division and stirring up hatred ever lead to a positive outcome?
If the BLM organization and others really cared about poor black people, they would work to eliminate the black on black violence and inner city crime that disproportionately victimizes black Americans and deprives them of safety in every aspect of their lives. If the BLM organization and others really cared about poor black people they would promote better education options in black communities and stable, strong families. As the late Walter Williams wrote, “marriage, stable families, education and hard work…are immeasurably more important” to black success than divisive identity politics or politicians’ skin color.
In Conclusion
If you agree that these alarmists and their fellow travelers in the media are pushing our country in the wrong direction, then you must become active in spreading the truth and countering their false narratives. You must provide verbal and written testimony to our County Commissioners, City Council members, school boards, the print media and wherever else you see misinformation being presented. You must run for public office or actively work to get kindred souls elected to government positions.
by Jim Scarantino | May 18, 2021 | General
The Food Co-op insists it is not pressing charges against Rachelle Merle. It is soley the prosecutor who’s pushing this, they have asserted in correspondence with Co-op members. But, this doesn’t get the Co-op out of the dock. What will be its position when its general manager is on the stand testifying under oath? Or the President of its Board of Directors? Somebody from the Co-op will have to testify that Rachelle Merle was a trespasser for the case to get past a motion to dismiss.
Are Co-op member-owners owners or not? And, if they are owners, how can they be guilty of trespassing when that offense requires being or remaining upon “the premises of another“? How can the Co-op exclude Mrs. Merle from the Co-op for a year–as it has with a “trespassing” order–if she is a co-owner of that same property?
In my previous article I wrote that the Co-op had not answered written inquiries as to why Mrs. Rachelle Merle was handcuffed, marched out of the store and charged with second degree trespassing. Did not the Co-op’s foundational documents, and the Co-op’s repeated statements that members are “owners,” give her a property and/or contractual right to be in the store during regular hours? And was not her status as a co-owner protected against being stripped except in accordance with the Articles of Incorporation and By-laws of the Co-op? Those documents guarantee that a person remains a member-owner until such time as they have been given notice that the Board will consider terminating their member-ownership for cause, a chance to respond, and no less than a 2/3 vote by the Board in favor of termination.
Now the Co-op has answered….sort of.
Following publication of that article, I received a written response form Claire Thomas, the Co-op’s Secretary. First, my inquiry, then her answer. My inquiry of April 7 was addressed to Owen Rowe, the Co-op’s President:
As a member-owner, as well as editor of Port Townsend Free Press, I would like to know how a member-owner can be charged with trespass and excluded from the property without a 2/3 vote of the Board having occurred as required by the By-laws. Are members owners or not? How can they be trespassing, during regular business hours, on property they own? Did Co-op employees on their own tell the police to file charges against Ms. Merle, or did they consult with you or any members of the Board? Can an employee deprive a member-owner of their property rights without action by the Board that meets the requirements of the By-laws? Was it necessary to summon men armed with deadly weapons to address Mrs. Merle’s actions? Why were not less violent, or implicitly violent means pursued?
On May 13 Ms. Thomas answered:
Thank you for your patience regarding this issue. The Board of Directors wanted to thoughtfully discuss this matter before responding. It is the Co-op’s policy to call the local police department when someone threatens the safety of our customers and staff. At the time of this incident, face masks were required indoors to comply with the county and state mandates. At no point has the Co-op pressed charges regarding this incident. The decision to press charges regarding this incident lies with the county prosecutor. For more information, you can view this blog post from our General Manager on what it means to be a member of a co-op.
Mrs. Merle had requested observers out of fear that she would be physically harmed or subjected to intimidation or threats of violence. I had been present to cover the event for Port Townsend Free Press. Mrs. Merle had lined up other observers for her protection. Good thing she did. In my previous article I wrote how one Co-op employee, Corvus Woolf, had immediately started spreading flat out lies, stating Mrs. Merle “literally took off her mask and coughed on an employee.” When notified that Mrs. Merle had been under continuous observation by a half dozen witnesses who would expose his lie, he tried to remove that statement from comments to posting of the video of Mrs. Merle’s arrest.
Is the Co-op now adopting a strategy of lying about the incident? From the moment Mrs. Merle, maskless, entered the store she minded her own business and was by herself, away from other customers and staff almost the whole time. She was approached by store employees and the manager. She did not at any time threaten them or any other customer. When she did interact with an employee, it was when she approached the counter in the back and made a request courteously. The response from the employee was also courteous. Mrs. Merle stated her position to management and the police, and did not offer resistance when handcuffed and obliged the officer when he walked her out of the store to his patrol car.
What Mrs. Merle did was try to do her shopping without wearing a mask. That was it.
Is the Co-op going to maintain that not wearing a mask is “threatening the safety of our customers and staff”? Will trial now involve the science of masking? The Co-op only requires a simple cloth mask, nothing more. As reported here and in many medical and scientific studies, those masks are pretty useless in stopping a virus. And, since Mrs. Merle would no doubt testify that she was in fine health and not suffering any symptoms of a viral infection, there was in fact no threat of her harming anyone. Will they have employees testify that they felt threatened by her maskless presence, even though they were wearing masks and she had not approached within six feet of them? Is there a single reported case of someone being infected because a shopper in a store had not worn a mask? The data on transmission from retail store customers is almost nonexistent. Seriously, this could turn into a farce
But Mrs. Merle was not charged with any offense involving making threats or engaging in threatening behavior. She was charged with second degree trespassing. The absolutely necessary element of that offense is that she entered or remained upon “the premises of another.” For the Co-op there’s no avoiding the fact that to this day Mrs. Merle remains a co-owner of the Co-op because the necessary action to terminate that status has not even been started by the Board.
Helpless Bystander Nonsense
The Co-op is not a helpless bystander in this. The prosecution would not be going forward without their support. The Co-op will have to take a position at trial. What it means to be a member-owner is really the only issue in dispute in this case–unless, of course, the Co-op’s witnesses choose to lie on the stand.
The blogpost referred to by Ms. Thomas was written by the Co-op’s general manager, Kenna Eaton. It is entitled, “What it means to be a member of the Co-op” Missing from that title is the word “owner.”
The omission of the word “owner” is not insignificant. Mrs. Merle’s case brings into sharp focus an abandonment of the foundational principles of the Food Co-op that has raised concern among many of its long-time members and some of those who helped create it or steered it in its early years. They were always careful to use the term “member-owner” because it was ownership that made it a co-op. It was supposed to be much, much more than a frequent buyer program for groovy food. The Co-op’s current website devotes an entire page to “Ownership.” “Why Be An Owner?” it asks. Membership is ownership and it is protected by the By-Laws.
But the general manager’s blogpost never mentions those rights and how they are protected. It is all about how members have responsibilities. Not once are the responsibilities of management and the Board mentioned. Not one mention is made of the prohibition against management or the Board depriving an owner of their ownership rights except in accordance with the procedures required in the By-Laws. When she uses the phrase “member-owner” Ms. Eaton says, “Being a member-owner comes with responsibility. Members are expected to treat staff and each other civilly and respectfully, and they must follow rules and procedures.”
The general manager and Board must also follow rules and procedures. They have not in Mrs. Merles’ case.
A Co-op or a Whole Foods with a Rewards Club?
While the Co-op unpersuasively claims no role in the prosecution of Mrs. Merle, it is responsible for “trespassing” Mrs. Merle. At the time of her arrest Mrs. Merle was notified that she was being excluded from the Co-op for one year. Were she to return during that time, she would be charged with trespassing. Police don’t have authority to issue such an order except at the request of the property owner. It is the Co-op that has deprived one of its co-owners of her rights to use the store. Nothing in the Articles of Incorporation or By-laws permit this. It may not be a termination of membership, but it is definitely a suspension. There is no provision in the Co-op’s governing documents for suspension of membership.
Effectively, a one-year trespass order is a termination. A member would have to continue to pay their membership dues for a year even though they would not get anything in return. If they stopped paying for receiving nothing in exchange their membership would expire. Even if they kept up their membership, by not patronizing the store for a year they would no longer be a member in good standing and would be denied their right to vote in any matter submitted to member-owners. If the Co-op holds any member-owner meetings or other events on its property during that year, Mrs. Merle would be arrested for trespassing were she to attend.
Mrs. Merle has entered a not guilty plea. She has a good attorney. There will be a trial, and Mrs. Merle is demanding a jury. The Co-op will be on trial every bit as much as Mrs. Merle. And while it does not face the prospect of jail time (the potential perjury of witnesses aside), it is in jeopardy of becoming just a miniature Whole Foods with a forgotten history of cooperative ownership.
Co-ops were birthed out of a spirit of rebellion and free thinking. They were revolution, an economic uprising and a refusal to conform. They were the alternative to Big Ag and Big Pharma and defiance of government control over our diets and health. The Port Townsend Food Co-op was once an expression of independence and self-determination. It pushed back and sought to cut its own path. Has it been transmogrified by financial success into an expression of affluence and conformity, aligned now with the very powers it once resisted?
Mrs. Merle was challenging the Co-op to change its policies. There have been many complaints that the Co-op has been unnecessarily rigid and draconian–perhaps even fanatical–and has failed to make reasonable accommodations for those who will not or cannot wear a mask. Other stores provide opportunities for such people to shop under controlled conditions. The Co-op makes no exceptions. Mrs. Merle’s peaceful act of civil disobedience, a mother shopping for her children while showing her face, was intended to prompt an internal dialogue and liberalization the Co-op’s leaders have avoided or blocked. It was met by calling in men with guns.
Mrs. Merle’s trial is set for July 1, 2021.
