Iran is actively supporting Joe Biden’s run for the White House. Both the FBI and the Director of National Intelligence have confirmed that Iran is attempting to interfere in the election to favor Biden’s candidacy. The latest covert actions to surface were fake messages meant to scare Democrat voters. They were dressed up as messages from the Proud Boys, but were actually written by Iran’s espionage and terrorist cadres.
Local Democrats not long ago demonstrated their support for the Ayatollahs and Revolutionary Guards of Iran, even if it came at the expense of American lives. After President Trump ordered a missile strike to prevent a terrorist attack against American troops, local Democrats flooded the internet with memes supporting Iran. One meme circulated widely purported to be a joke calling for Iran to bomb the location in Florida where the President keeps a house.
What was funny about that? Imagine in another time calling for Hitler’s war machine to bomb FDR’s retreat on the Hudson. Not so funny then. Not funny now. The Iranian theocratic dictatorship is a murderous oppressor of women, and ethnic and religious minorities. It is the world’s leading, and most blood thirsty sponsor of terrorism. About ten thousand Iranian women yearly are beaten and imprisoned for clothing issues. Women charged with adultery are still murdered. Iran denies that the Holocaust ever happened and is committed to the violent destruction of Israel and Jews everywhere.
Gary B. Larson serves as the “external communications” director for the Jefferson County Democrats. He is the elected Precinct Committee Officer for Precinct 703. He has managed the Jefferson County Democrats Facebook page and works at their campaign store in Port Townsend.
At a time when Iran was preparing to launch missile attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq, he made the Iranian flag the profile image for his Facebook page. And he put up this message, which I saved because it shocked me and should have shocked any American. He was cheering on the Iranian military as it prepared to kill to Americans.
Iran did launch its attack. Thankfully, our troops were prepared and none were killed. A major terrorist was eliminated, innocent lives were saved, and Democrats were disappointed.
The Obama/Biden Administration gave Iran over $1 billion in cash and let them get hundreds of millions of dollars that had been frozen in U.S. and foreign accounts due to their support for terrorism and the taking of U.S. hostages. The Obama/Biden administration let the Iranian pro-democracy movement be crushed, without once raising a finger to support a people demanding freedom and liberty. President Trump reversed U.S. policy and isolated Iran, while increasing sanctions that have crippled the Iranian economy and curtailed its violent aggression. Arab states that fear Iran’s militarism have joined with Israel and the United States in a number of treaties and reciprocal trade and travel agreements. Israel and Bahrain are opening embassies in each other’s capitals. Morocco, Egypt, the U.A.E., Saudi Arabia and now Sudan are joining an alliance the Trump administration is building to further isolate Iran.
Iran wants a friend again in the White House. Jefferson County Democrats want Iran to get its wish.
A man with more than $100 million in commercial and residential development experience wants to help the city fix the Cherry Street Project mess and get affordable housing built.
“It is clear that what is occurring now is a financial disaster,” says Bert Loomis of Port Ludlow, where he built the Port Ludlow Town Center and a number of town homes. “I’ve got 50 years of experience and a team of architects and contractors that can solve most of their problems. My team can get it done with their eyes closed.”
Loomis’ offer to help so far has been rebuffed by the city. On September 28, 2020, Port Townsend City Council directed the City Manager to negotiate a handover of the failed project to Bayside Housing, a non-profit that provides transitional housing in rooms rented from the Old Alcohol Plant in Port Hadlock. As we reported yesterday, it is very uncertain whether Bayside Housing will formally commit to taking over the project and whether it can amass the more than $1`million needed to finish renovation of the 75 year old building on the Cherry Street property. That building, known as the Carmel House (shown above in its current condition), was barged to Port Townsend in May 2017 and has remained unoccupied and uninhabitable since then.
The building has to go, says Loomis, if anyone hopes to complete a “financially responsible and time sensitive” housing project. “It is a losing proposition to continue to throw good money after bad.”
Loomis believes that “stick built” construction on the site can provide a range of affordable housing. New construction offers the advantage of being adapted to the needs of older users and those with disability issues and will fit in with the surrounding neighborhood. He maintains he can build such housing at far less cost and faster than any local non-profit organizations.
“I am willing to work with the city and donate a lot of time and effort to get this done,” he says. He predicts that if the city continues on the course it has been following, banking its hopes on a local non-profit with no experience and inadequate financial and professional qualifications, “they’ll still be having this conversation five years from now.” He does not appear interested in working with any “NGO,” as he calls non-profit organizations. He did express interest in talking with Keith and Jean Marzan, whose $1 million offer for the project has been rejected by the city, but which may be resubmitted in another form.
Loomis-built townhomes, Port Ludlow
Loomis’ initial offer to talk with the City Manager was rebuffed on October 2. After reading our report about the uncertainty of Bayside accepting and being able to complete the project, Loomis reached out again to the City Manager. He has not yet received a response.
Loomis’ career in development and construction is indeed extensive and impressive. He is the developer of 13 properties in Port Ludlow. His resume of projects, which he provided to Port Townsend Free Press, backs up his claim to more than $100 million in construction, ranging from large commercial properties to sizable condominium projects, mostly in California. A rough calculation shows that the total square footage of his building projects approaches half a million square feet. Loomis has received numerous awards for his developments.
“Me and my team can get it done. We can help the city make this happen,” says Loomis. “But we can’t have politics dragging this out for twenty years. I would think that someone who is serious about getting affordable housing built would be eager to talk to someone with my kind of experience and knowledge.”
Bayside Housing has not yet committed to taking on the failed Cherry Street Project.
“First, let me tell you this is not a done deal,” says Gary Keister. He is serving as the acting managing director of Bayside Housing. It has been without a permanent managing director since last year.
“We were being pressured into this by Homeward Bound,” Keister told Port Townsend Free Press.
Keister is the man behind the Old Alcohol Plant. His group of investors bought the building out of foreclosure in December 2014 and renovated a hotel that had been vacant since 2011. Beginning in 2016 the tower at the Port Hadlock property has been rented to Bayside Housing, a non-profit that provides transitional housing. The Old Alcohol Plant itself operates as a for-profit hotel and restaurant and bar business.
On Wednesday September 30, both the Port Townsend Leader and the Peninsula Daily News reported that Bayside Housing was going to take over the Cherry Street “affordable” housing project following the default by Homeward Bound Community Land Trust. Homeward Bound had been resurrected by the City of Port Townsend to take on turning a 70-year old four-unit apartment building barged from Victoria, B.C. in May 2017 into affordable rentals.
As readers of this site know, the Cherry Street Project has been a debacle from the start and keeps getting worse. When Homeward Bound could not find its own financing, the City shouldered a $1.3 million principal-and-interest bond obligation to lend the group the money to cover its cost estimate. Homeward Bound never got beyond putting the building on a foundation when it came back to the city saying it would need at least another $1 million. They did not get more money and defaulted on their loan in July 2020. They still hold title to the property, though the terms of their loan require that it revert to the city upon default.
The city and Homeward Bound prematurely announced that Bayside Housing would accept the project. Even on the fantastically generous terms offered by the city Bayside Housing does not appear to have the resources to take it on. At this preliminary stage, it has already faced financial setbacks.
It failed to secure a $700,000 bank loan. Its request for a separate $100,000 from the county was denied because an analysis of the project’s financial details showed it could not be a viable low income housing project. (See reporting by Patrick Sullivan at the Jefferson County Washington Facebook page).
And there’s this: Bayside Housing has never built or renovated anything. The group rents rooms from the Old Alcohol Plant and provides social services to its clients. It is not a building contractor. It does not own any real estate. According to its most recent IRS 990, it had only 4 employees, and that was before it lost is managing director.
The Port Townsend City Council on September 28 authorized the City Manager to negotiate a takeover of the project by Bayside Housing.
We asked Keister if Bayside Housing had the resources to see the project through and whether it was, in fact, going to assume responsibility for the Cherry Street Project.
In an email from Keister he told the Port Townsend Free Press,
First, as you know the council only voted to allow city management to negotiate a Purchase & Sales Agreement with Bayside. First, the City is not in a position to do that since ownership still rests in the name of Homeward Bound. The Bayside board is considering this matter at its next meeting. No decision has been made. I am not a board member nor an officer of Bayside. My role is to seek housing for the unsheltered. I have tendered my report to the board regarding Cherry Street, and brought to their attention the offer tendered to the city, as you related, for the purchase of the property by Keith Marzan. When and if Bayside makes a decision I will advise you.
The offer to which Keister refers was a $1 million offer from Keith and Jean Marzan to acquire the Cherry Street Project and build affordable housing, on the condition that the old building be removed and the land certified as asbestos free. Port Townsend Free Press had reported discovering in the city’s files an inspection conducted on the building before it was barged to Port Townsend. The inspection found asbestos in kitchen flooring. It also found lead paint on all the walls.
Port Townsend Free Press has also learned that asbestos was found in old pipes during excavation for the foundation.
The City Manager rejected the Marzans’ offer late last week. The Marzans may resubmit the offer with slightly different terms. They remain committed to building affordable housing and hope to work with the city to that end. Keith Marzan has a long career in banking and finance and has built nine homes in Port Townsend. Keith Marzan says he has already lined up an experienced and qualified project manager.
Bayside Housing does not apparently have on hand the more than $1 million estimated by Homeward Bound needed to complete work on the old building. An additional, unknown investment will also be required to compete civil engineering and landscaping outside the building, a sum which Homeward Bound said was not included the final project cost estimate.
In its most recent publicly available filing with the IRS, Bayside reported 2018 net assets of $670,000, after contributions and grants of just over $1 million. But of that sum, $802,000 reported as income was actually pledges and grants receivables. Because the 2019 IRS Form 990 is not yet publicly available, we cannot report whether those pledges were received and what Bayside’s balance sheet showed at the end of 2019.
In April 2020 Bayside disclosed it was facing financial pressures. At the same time that it rents rooms from the Old Alcohol Plant, it also depends on the Old Alcohol Plant and its restaurant for financial support. Because of the Governor’s lock down order, those commercial enterprises, like all Washington hotels, bars and restaurants, saw their revenue almost completely dry up. Jefferson County is only in Phase 2 of the Governor’s reopening scheme, which places severe restrictions on bar and restaurant operations. Washington’s hotel industry has shrunk by about 25% and across the nation nearly 50% of hotel rooms have been vacant.
Under the terms floated by the City to have Bayside assume responsibility for the project, city taxpayers will take a hit of about $2.33 million. This and other details uncovered in two years of investigative reporting can be found by starting with our last report, “Latest Cherry Street Giveaway Hits Taxpayers Harder.”
Jefferson County has a suicide rate far above the state average. Port Townsend’s suicide rate is staggering. The Jefferson County Board of Health has spent more time on climate change, nuclear disarmament and wordsmithing a resolution on “systemic racism’ than it has on a real public health crisis that is killing people, young and old.
Clallam County’s Board of Health and the community as a whole have done a lot to address their suicide crisis. It has been front and center in local discussions and programs for years. Clallam’s suicide rate dropped a third from 2018 to 2019.
Jefferson County’s suicide rate has not budged. This year the funerals for two young men who killed themselves, one only 13 years old, were held on the same September weekend. In recent weeks, four young people attempted to kill themselves and required hospitalization to save their lives.
The alarm bells should have been ringing long ago. Jefferson County has a suicide rate of 44 per 100,000 population. The statewide figure is 15.9. Jefferson County’s suicide crisis is far worse than neighboring Clallam County, where the suicide rate per 100,000 population for last year was 27, still bad, but not nearly as bad as our situation.
Jefferson County’s suicide rate has increased 42% since 2011.
In Clallam County, the suicides have been geographically dispersed. In Jefferson County they are concentrated heavily in Port Townsend. Eight of the 14 suicides for 2019 were inside city limits. That gives Port Townsend a suicide rate greater than 82 per 100,000 population, more than six times above the state’s grim metric, and three times worse than the states with the highest suicide rates nationwide.
Better Things to Do
In the past two years, the Jefferson County Board of Health has never had the county’s suicide crisis as an agenda item for any of its meetings. Not once has time been set aside to address the tragic deaths that make Jefferson County, and Port Townsend in particular, a dark place where despair, the nightmare of addiction, mental illness, and loneliness kill people.
Cynics say that local leaders suppress discussion of our social ills and their cost in lives because it would be bad for real estate sales. Word cannot get out that things are worse here than in Clallam County, supposedly the poor, economically depressed, lower-class poster child for addiction and suicide epidemics against which Jefferson County is frequently measured, but not honestly.
The truth is that none of the members of the Board of Health have demonstrated any interest in confronting our suicide crisis. Judging by how they use their time and staff resources, they just don’t seem to care.
But they do care about pet social justice issues.
Much time has been devoted to discussing climate change and whether it should be declared a climate emergency. Several Board members are climate activists. It has been an agenda item at a number of meetings in the last two years and the Public Health Officer has been instructed to use his limited time and resources on the subject–but not the suicide crisis.
Several times the Board of Health has visited the subject of increasing public acceptance of psychedelic drugs.
At their July 2019 meeting they discussed, debated and individually signed onto a resolution calling for the United States to adopt the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
And, of course, hours have been consumed wrangling over the wording of a resolution declaring “systemic racism” to be a public health emergency in Jefferson County, though not one instance of racial discrimination has come before the Board.
After multiple redrafts and hours of debate, the resolution is still devoid of specifics. It fails to cite any measurable adverse health impact on even one individual of the “systemic racism” supposedly plaguing every aspect of our government, schools, and law enforcement agencies.
They actually started work on that resolution in February 2019, as young people were killing themselves or failing in their attempts all around them. They had previously tasked the Public Health Officer to do a literature search–not on preventing suicide–but on “looking at racism and bigotry as public health issues.” Quoting from the minutes of that meeting:
The Board had comments and questions on local actions to address bigotry, promoting community resilience through already established forums (such as the Community Health Improvement Plan), learning from the study of other detrimental conditions where abuse is passed from one generation to the next, exploring training programs offered by the Mandala Center for Change, mitigating risk factors, and moving towards a more compassionate society.
They’ve been on “systemic racism” for eighteen months.
An earlier draft of the “systemic racism” resolution contained the observation that Whites kill themselves at higher rates than other groups. Any mention of suicide was struck from the latest version.
Only 4.5% of Washington’s emergency room hospitalizations were COVID related for the seven-day period ending October 14. As of October 14, only 18 people statewide with COVID-like symptoms were on ventilators.
You won’t get much detail on the state of the COVID outbreak in nightly television news updates. They only report new cases and deaths and total numbers, and always play up the drama. The old adage applies equally to COVID news as it does to other reporting: “If it bleeds, it leads.”
COVID has been a serious challenge, but never a dire situation for our hospitals, as we reported previously. There has never been an out-of-control COVID hospital crisis, despite what our Governor said as he toured the Army field hospital he ended up giving away. We have always had a surplus of hospital beds, even at the peak of the COVID case load in March, April, and May. The stress on our hospitals is even less now.
In this report we dig into the latest charts and tables from the Washington Department of Health.
The situation continues to get better. 2,169,192 Washingtonians have been tested for COVID as of 10/15/20. Total positive tests numbered 96,185. Deaths counted as a COVID death (and there are reasons to believe the figure is inflated) numbered 2,232, producing a mortality rate of 2.3%. This is much less than half of the death rate earlier this year, meaning that the daily death numbers have dropped so dramatically they are pulling the overall average down.
Six counties still report no deaths. Twenty-three counties report 10 or fewer, and thirty-one counties report fewer than 25 deaths connected or suspected of connection to COVID. As we reported previously, the concentration of COVID deaths continue to be limited geographically.
The distribution of deaths by age has not changed except by 1% during the entire COVID episode. 89% of all deaths continue to be among those older than 60 years, and 51% of all deaths are among those more than 80 years old. No one under twenty years of age has died from COVID. Unlike the flu, COVID is not killing children.
Hispanics have accounted for 40% of all positive tests, versus being 13% of the state’s population. No other ethnic or racial group has been so disproportionately infected. Whites, while comprising 68% of the population, have accounted for 48% of the positive cases. The reasons for these disparities remain largely speculative, but that has not stopped some activists from seizing upon them for political purposes.
By contrast, when it comes to deaths, all racial and ethnic groups closely match their percentage of the population. No group has suffered disproportionate mortality. Hispanics account for 14% of those deaths counted as a COVID-connected death, while their percentage of the population is 13%. Whites’ mortality percentage exactly matches their 68% of the population.
Overall, the survival rate for COVID patients is now nearly 100%, only dropping to 94.6% for those above age 70. That remains the best news of all.
The Economic Hit: Incredible Good News, But…
Jefferson County’s unemployment remains higher than the national average, down markedly from the first months of the Governor’s lock down order. Jefferson County unemployment stands at 8.8%, compared to the state average of 7.8% and the national average of 7.9%. Neighboring Clallam County’s unemployment comes in higher at 9.6%.
In May 2020, Jefferson County’s unemployment rate reached 16%.
Sadly, the list of permanently closed businesses in Washington continues to grow. Downtown Seattle has seen hundreds of businesses announce permanent closures, a consequence not only of COVID restrictions, but also the Antifa/Black Lives Matter riots, escalating crime, the regulatory environment and problems from an uncontrolled homeless population.
The list of dead businesses elsewhere has also continued to grow. There is no official state count of closed businesses, but a Facebook page, Inslee’s List–The Dead Business Log, collects daily posts about dead businesses in communities across the state. The posts share owners’ sad statements about their decision to close, local newspaper articles on communities losing businesses or eyewitness accounts with photos of the closed businesses.
These business closures translate to fewer employers, and a redirection of commerce from small businesses to large corporations that were permitted to continue to operate under the the Governor’s orders. Amazon and Costco have seen record sales during past months while small businesses died.
Increased economic concentration may be a legacy of Governor’s Inslee’s actions. The destruction of small businesses could be a lasting structural obstacle to a complete recovery, as small businesses are primary job creators.
We are still far from that complete recovery. 2019 saw historically low unemployment in all demographics, with the lowest unemployment and highest labor participation rates on record for Black and Hispanic Americans, as well as women. The U.S. reached a 50-year low of 3.5% unemployment in September 2019. Washington’s unemployment rate for January 2020 was 3.9%, half of where it now stands.
