by Jim Scarantino | Aug 2, 2021 | General
This letter from neighbors around the Fairgrounds to the Board of County Commissioners speaks for itself. Recall that OlyCap’s effort to regulate and control the camp was frustrated by the City of Port Townsend, which insisted on imposing prohibitively costly and burdensome regulations rather than recognizing this as the emergency and crisis it is. The letter was sent in recent days to the following public officials and others involved in the Fairgrounds transient/homeless/drug dealer encampment.
VIA EMAIL AND REGULAR MAIL
The Jefferson County Board of Commissioners (jeffbocc@co.jefferson.wa.us) Commissioner Kate Dean (kdean@co.jefferson.wa.us)
Commissioner Heidi Eisenhour (heisenhour@co.jefferson.wa.us)
Commissioner Greg Brotherton (gbrotherton@co.jefferson.wa.us)
cc: Mayor Michelle Sandoval ( msandoval@cityofpt.us )
Cherish Cronmiller (donate@olycap.org)
Kathy Morgan (donate@olycap.org)
Gary Keister (info@baysidehousing.org )
Sue McIntire (jeffcofairgrounds@olypen.com)
Joe Nole, Jefferson County Sheriff (jnole@co.jefferson.wa.us)
Thomas Olson, City Of Port Townsend Chief of Police (tolson@cityofpt.us)
As a collective of neighborhoods to the Fairgrounds who are the most negatively impacted by the close proximity of the homeless encampment at the Fairgrounds, we are writing to again strongly voice our very real concerns. We respectfully request this letter be placed into the formal public record of the BOCC. We also respectfully request a full response in writing, addressing all of our concerns as contained herein.
Since being formally located in our neighborhoods almost a year ago, the encampment has been, and continues to be, an unmitigated public hazard, directly affecting our physical and emotional safety and the peaceful enjoyment of our homes.
We remind you that there was never a public hearing or request for public comments prior to the placement of the encampment. There was no management plan, no proposal to lessen the impact on the community, and no effective oversight. Dangerous individuals have been allowed to come and go and return with impunity. There are neighbors who have been terrorized by the anti-social behavior of some of the campers. Despite our continual pleas for help, it nonetheless remains the “Wild West.” We have borne the fear and distress it has brought to our lives, the complete disregard for our basic rights, and the lack of effective enforcement against those who violate even the minimum standards of behavior and actual laws such as excessive noise, fire setting, threats of violence and trespass of private property. The overt drug trafficking and use, resulting in multiple overdoses and at least one death, contribute to an already volatile environment. It is a myth that the campers are positively “self-governing” in any meaningful way. To claim that they are “self-governing” at the Fairgrounds does not release you from culpability for the actions, and the results of those actions, of the campers over whom you have assumed full agency.
With the passage of HB 1054 and HB 1310, we are more in peril than before, as police are hamstrung in their efforts to keep our community safe.
We have lost valued neighbors, who have left their homes and moved out of the County and the State because of the trauma of dealing with the encampment. Who answers to them? Who answers to us? Because of fear of reprisal, several signing this letter are afraid to reveal their house number, their street name or even sign this letter at all.
We are not without empathy; we have made every attempt to work with the situation. We understand how difficult it has been to find alternative properties. However, going back to the BOCC meeting of August 3, 2020, then-Commissioner David Sullivan deemed the idea of using the Fairgrounds as a homeless encampment as “another example of people without legal access to a piece of land wanting it for their purposes and asking someone else to do the work to make it happen.” In the same meeting, Sullivan enlisted Mark McCauley to develop a list of county-owned properties that compared “challenges such as infrastructure, access, park plans, etc.” Yet, only in mid June of 2021 was this list actually presented to the Board. During the whole of the Moratorium, time that might have been spent putting plans into place in anticipation of the expiration has instead run out. It is now eight weeks to October 1st.
In one form or another, unofficial or official, we have lived with this situation for almost two years, and we are tired of being placated with empty promises and lack of results as you would be if you lived where we make our homes. We are exhausted by living with the result of short-sighted mismanagement. Good intentions do not guarantee good outcomes.
It is important to remind you that the Fairgrounds has historically served the whole of the population in this County. More than just the Fair, the Fairgrounds is 4-H, Little League, clubs and events that bring the County together. It is also designated as a tsunami evacuation zone. It deserves to be restored and supported for the benefit of all. Any notion that the land and facilities might be used for any other purpose is unsupportable.
To this end, this letter will serve to put you on formal notice that we will not accept any further extension(s) to the September 30, 2021 eviction date. We will not accept any further payments made to the Jefferson County Fair Association to keep the encampment on the campgrounds after September 30, 2021. We will not accept any
further deviation from the plan to close the Campgrounds on September 30, 2021 and move the campers to another site, whether that site is ready or not to accept them.
In the meantime, we will feel free to further explore our rights and remedies at law without further notice to you.
Sincerely,
Ricardo Peregrino 4284 and 4147 Hill Street
Gary & Gloria Wessen 905 56th Street (4268 Hill Street – Owner)
Ed Farren 4660 Holcomb and 4617 Jackman
Linda Noble 336 47th Street
Chris Witkowski 4268 Hill Street
Helen Wilson
Lisa Greenfield and Mike Hilt 717 41st Street
Jerry Johnson 4002 Holcomb Street
George & Katherine Thomas 4001 Holcomb Street
Russ Howell 4682 McNeill Street
Lisa Thomas 3946 Hill Street
Virginia King 4166 Jackman Street
Allen Peugh 4272 Hill Street
Lisa Frankel Sarah Frankel (Clark) 4284 Hill Street
Steve & Lori Kraght Holcomb Street
Victoria O’Donnell 3910 Hill Street
Hendrik Taatgen & Marga Kapka Jackman Street
Marianne Sears 4567 McNeill Street
Marilyn K. Kurka, CPO Property Manager for 4284 Hills Street and 4174 Hill Street Resident of 4284 Hill Street
Keith Fleming Hill Street
Janeann and Eric Twelker 303 47th Street
James Schultz and Heidi Minnich 4510 Holcomb Street
Janice Rivera 435 47th Street
Russ Kunz 16 lots at Jackman and 49th
Beki McClemans 4617 Jackman Street
Sam & Lucy Obetz 49th Street
Kris Strand
Ann King Jackman Street
Jack and Johanna Perkins 247 43rd Street
Charley & Kathy Hough 4105 Jackman
Patricia & Robert Drolet 3963 Jackman St
Kristin Harlan 4079 Hill St.
Sally Murray 4246 Hill Street
Beki McClemans 4617 Jackman
Glenda Tavemakis 4024 Hill Street
Heidi Barber 45th & Holcomb
Sarah Grossman & Jennifer Carl 43rd Street
Jane Patrick 251 47th Street
Caroline Seibert 43rd Street
Betty Renkor & Stephen Nelson Hill Street
Neil & Karen Erickson 4444 Holcomb Street
Kenny & April Speer
Patrick & Pamela Moore 275 47th Street
Diane Baxter Holcomb Street
Dan Meyerson & Pippa Mills 4053 Jackman Street
Linda Egan 4043 Hill Street
Colby Fox 4419 Jackman Street 6
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.
