Leader’s “Ongoing Saga” of Food Co-op Attacks:
Anatomy of a Smear Campaign
On July 29, 2024, The Food Co-op Board of Directors removed a BLM activist from its ranks in response to his threatening conduct toward the board’s direct employee, its general manager.
The board’s self-policing took place in executive session to protect confidentiality of all parties concerned. In later communications, the board emphasized that the removal was:
because of his conduct, not his ideas about equity, belonging, and inclusion. Board members must follow our policies and our Code of Conduct, which all board members agree to abide-by when they join the board. If we do not hold ourselves accountable to our Code of Conduct, we cannot lead the Co-op or fulfill our responsibility to our member-owners. This decision was not made lightly, nor without effort to rectify the problems.
This core issue — that the board was responding to a conduct violation resulting in a hostile work environment — has been obscured in the fog of a harassment campaign, now a half-year in duration. Threatened and delivered by the ex-board member and his allies, the campaign has been waged at Co-op board meetings but mostly whipped up publicly for the past six months through relentless attacks in The Leader.
BLM Retaliation
Black Lives Matter of Jefferson County (BLM-JC) retaliated on August 8 with a long letter to the board packed with ideology, accusations, and demands. “Removing Cameron Jones as a Board Member, ” they wrote, demonstrated the “systemic oppression” of “those who have identities beyond the patriarchal ableist heteronormative parameters of white-bodied supremacy.”
Among the demands made by Black Lives Matter “Program Director” Jones and five other BLM directors was the removal of the general manager and board president and a requirement that the Co-op issue public apologies:
1) Replace the general manager and board president as soon as possible.
2) Publicly apologize to all employees, member-owners and board members who have been harmed.
3) Complete an overhaul of their policies and procedures through an equity lens that reflects their published values and operating principles with the guidance of an outside facilitator steeped in equity theory and praxis.
4) Provide ongoing training for employees and board members on matters related to equity and inclusion.
5) Conduct a series of listening sessions with target group members among constituent groups to identity relevant issues and actionable outcomes that will be reviewed quarterly until completed.
The letter closed with the threat that if the board did not agree to these demands within one week, they would “be forced to launch a campaign in response.”
Joining BLM-JC’s campaign were both Usawa consultants, one of whom is also a BLM-JC Director.
We’ve Seen This Playbook Before
Cameron Jones launched a similar campaign under the BLM-JC banner in 2022.
A self-proclaimed BLM organizer, Jones had a history of run-ins with law enforcement. Documented incidents include being arrested for attempted residential burglary after trying to force his way into a private home, crashing into the closed Fort Worden gate on his bicycle when drunk, and conduct outside the Bishop Hotel which led to an employee calling police. (See “Black Lives Matter Leaders Generated Police Calls for Help, Investigation and Arrests.”)
These and other incidents culminated in Jones going on the offensive.
On July 10, 2022, Jones sent an email purporting to represent BLM-JC to Jefferson County Sheriff Joe Nole and Port Townsend Acting Police Chief Troy Surber. His letter demanded that they pledge to realize a series of “intentions” which included disarming police officers and deputies.
An email exchange with Sheriff Nole led to Jones taking his campaign to local radio station KPTZ to levy accusations of racism at Nole on a program called “The Reckoning.” On July 30th:
“Nole endured Jones throwing at him wild, unsupported accusations such as Nole permitting White supremacy and vigilante groups to operate in the county, five Black men being lynched, and Nole imprisoning 30% of Jefferson County’s Black residents.”
An attempt to set up a Zoom meeting between BLM-JC, Sheriff Nole, Police Chief Surber, elected officials and others was cancelled by Jones, who upped his rhetoric instead. (See “Black Lives Matter Sought to Humiliate Sheriff, Police Chief.”) Jones now demanded that Nole and Surber take out a newspaper ad confessing to racism in “a direct and PUBLIC apology.” It was a classic oppressor/oppressed re-direct, trying to reframe the perpetrator as being the victim, in this case the victim of systemic racism.
This saga was reported in the Port Townsend Free Press, but otherwise received little press coverage. Jones’ attempted smear campaign fell flat when Nole and Surber refused to issue public confessions that they and their departments were racist. They also drew a line over disarming their officers.
The Food Co-op was much easier pickings. This time around, Jones and his BLM posse were abetted in spades by The Leader.
Leader Provides Unlimited Free Coverage for BLM’s Smear Campaign
August 7: The first peep appeared immediately after Jones’ removal in an unattributed 5-paragraph news brief composed entirely of quotes from Jones dissing the Co-op and saying he’d been “unexpectedly removed… without proper notice, documentation, or evidence… my removal seemed premeditated to silence dissent.”
August 14: The Leader followed up with two responses from Co-op Directors. Board President Owen Rowe explained that:
A Board member, Cameron Jones, jeopardized the working Board/GM relationship through his words and actions. From April through June, I and other Board members tried to work with Cameron. He would not acknowledge the damage his actions had done and he rejected repeated requests to repair the relationship. Instead, he continued to undermine every attempt of the Board to hold itself accountable.
By July, with the elected terms of several Board members who had witnessed Cameron’s actions coming to an end, I had determined to ask Cameron to resign from the Board — or ask those same Board members to vote to remove him…
I scheduled an executive session of the Board, giving the advance notice required by our Bylaws. Although some Board members raised schedule concerns, in the end every single Board member attended and participated in the meeting as originally scheduled. The required two-thirds of Board members approved the removal of Cameron Jones.
The lone dissenter Juri Jennings wrote that she resigned from the board afterwards because she disagreed with the decision and process, felt rushed, and wasn’t clear about the grounds for removal, saying “Cameron was a great board member” and listing several good “reasons I asked Cameron to be on the board in the first place.”
August 21: A letter to the editor (LTE) opined, with no evidence, that Owen Rowe’s recounting was “an obvious white-washing of what really happened… the GM convinced four Board members that she no longer wanted to deal with Mr. Jones and he needed to go.” The writer elsewhere suggested that the motive for Jones’ removal was racism: “The board lost two people of color… based on votes of people not of color.”
August 28: The lead LTE alleged that “the only Board Member of African descent was removed because he was supporting a trans person.” The writer said he’s “collaborated with Cameron on multiple projects and he sits on my board… dedicated to racial healing.”
September 11: Two new Leader trends emerged this issue: (1) front-page coverage and teasers promoting the “Turmoil at Co-op” narrative; and (2) lengthy opinion pieces reiterating BLM-JC campaign talking points about “The Co-op debacle” penned by The Leader’s regular “As I See It” columnist Jason Serinus.
The news story summarized Rowe and Jennings’ earlier pieces with commentary from Jones, adding from Co-op Secretary Lisa Barclay that:
“It was Cameron Jones who mistreated an employee, breaking the board’s Code of Conduct. … He was removed for his conduct, not for any other reason.”
Most of this news article presented the point of view of BLM advocates. In mentioning BLM-JC’s August 8 “letter to the board with grievances,” it tried to frame the list of demands as “requests, not demands,” neglecting to report the concluding ultimatum that they would “be forced to launch a campaign in response… if these requests are not agreed to by August 15.” And indeed, eight days later on August 16, BLM-JC “launched a boycott and a petition for member-owners to sign.”
Serinus’ column described the pressure campaign’s progress, including “Multiple organizations have called for a boycott of the Co-op and demanded the resignations… at least four informational meeting have occurred… and many Co-op members have aired their grievances at Sept. 4’s monthly Co-op board meeting.”
He quoted Co-op GM Kenna Eaton describing Jones’ actions toward her as “threatening”:
“I felt I had to go to my boss, the Co-op board, and say I don’t feel safe in my workplace. His actions negatively impacted my ability to feel safe…
I know my board tried to work with Cameron. He would not accept that. He didn’t want to acknowledge it. And ultimately, I think that the board felt they had a fiduciary responsibility to make the decision they did. I didn’t ask them to do it. That was their decision.”
Serinus ignored workplace safety and fiduciary concerns, concluding “the Co-op erred grievously in removing Jones, one of its most forward-looking and proactive members. A small group of white people ousted the only Black director on the board… I urge the cisgendered straight white folk who govern the Co-op to understand that when oppressed people channel frustration into anger, it’s appropriate for its recipients to pause, breathe through fear, and accept that righting many centuries of harm is a messy but nonetheless essential affair.”
It is important to note that by Sep. 11 everyone involved either knew or should have known that there existed a credible allegation of threatening workplace behavior, which the Co-op staff and board were legally obliged to handle as they did. By all accounts, the Co-op bent over backwards to work things out with Jones… the grievance against the Co-op is that they didn’t bend far enough.
In the view of BLM-JC sympathizers — including the dissenting board member and Leader writers like Serinus — whatever Jones did or might have done doesn’t matter given “hundreds of years of oppression,” while the victimized employee and board members doing their jobs should be disbelieved, blamed, and relentlessly attacked until they bow to BLM.
September 18: In an open-minded LTE, the writer confessed that he came away from Serinus’ column “feeling that I still don’t know what happened… I say this with a great amount of respect: Maybe everyone needs to step back, and avoid suggesting the board is racist or transphobic, or even merely grossly insensitive, until we know everything that happened.”
September 25: A positive “We are listening” update LTE appeared from the Co-op President and GM, along with another blast from Serinus criticizing the board for “jettisoning a Person of Color for sharing ideas in tones that express the very marginalization you pledge to end.”
Regarding the question of “threatening” behavior, Serinus talked “to Jones at length to get his side of events,” eliciting a series of recollections that didn’t directly address the issue. At no point does Jones specifically deny threatening the GM; instead he described his efforts to avoid confrontation at a board meeting and an interaction in which he apologized to the GM afterward.
October 2: The lead LTE identifies several ways Serinus’ last column “skews the narrative, devaluing the Co-op board… The narrative focuses on Cameron Jones’ perspective, portraying him as a victim. There is no room in this rhetoric for repair or redemption, only demands and accusations.”
November 20: BLM-JC continued its campaign by packing board meetings with antagonistic public comments and picketing the store, but The Leader took an election-focused break until Serinus’ column reported that “the ongoing campaign to achieve accountability and redress wrongs” was bearing fruit: Co-op President Rowe said he, “as an individual, will be meeting privately with Black Lives Matter… that will perhaps open the door to a conversation with the Board.”
December 4: An LTE replied to Serinus that “Cameron Jones was removed for hate speech, a code of conduct violation. Period. End of story. Racial politics have no place in a community food co-op… The only thing BLM achieved was burning down black neighborhoods in major cities enticing a self proclaimed race war… Gas-lighting people for having morals and standards is shameful no matter what your political bent may be.”
December 18: The Leader ran a trifecta of opinion pieces critical of the Co-op. Angela Gyurko welcomed that “the Dec. 4 meeting’s 90 minutes of public comment… gave board members and member-owners a chance to talk to each other.” She asked for a board statement along these lines: “We understand now that People of the Global Majority and folks with differing gender expressions in the county have had more negative experiences at the Co-op than we realized… We understand now that we must change our way of doing business, and move away from the rigid bylaws that have bound us… We therefore pledge to reform our bylaws so that they can never again be used to silence dissent.”
Five folks co-signed an LTE to publicly commend Serinus’ Co-op coverage and call the Dec. 4 LTE-writer critical of BLM racial politics a racist, suggesting he be censored and undergo re-education.
Serinus’ “ongoing saga of dismissal and injustice” asked a board member about her resignation, then berated the remaining board for “the potential harm of calling the actions of a BIPOC man in our community less than civil… Are not board members aware that their action, for some, has reinforced images of the big Black boogieman intimidating a poor innocent white woman? Are they not aware that expelling what was then their only Black member has, for some Black people, invoked the trauma of thousands upon thousands of heinous murders and lynchings for perceived offenses?… It is their duty… to set things right by meeting with Jones and BLMJC/WO, making amends…”
January 1, 2025: An LTE (from this article’s co-author, Stephen Schumacher), was “grieved by the continuing series of antagonistic opinion pieces run in The Leader“, where an “internal Co-op personnel matter has been latched onto in order to create a phony scandal via flimsy charges of systemic racism, etc., against the woke Co-op, which The Leader has been credulously channeling… Is it any wonder when confusion, suffering, and resignations result from these dispiriting harassment campaigns? The Food Co-op was founded in an era when color-blindness was the ideal, per Rev. Martin Luther King saying ‘I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.’ BLM activists criticize the Co-op and others for doing just that.”
January 8: Former Co-op President Rowe wrote an opinion piece explaining his end-of-year resignation, recanting his past statements including that he was the decider who “had determined to ask Cameron to resign from the Board — or ask those same Board members to vote to remove him.” His new story was that “I was pressured to protect the staff and board from the community… now is the appropriate time to make way for a new general manager… Senior board members should follow my example and clear the way… I apologize for the harm my past actions and statements caused to Cameron Jones, Juri Jennings, Black Lives Matter Jefferson County/Well Organized, and Usawa Consulting.”
Two LTEs defended the Co-op. One praised staff and particularly GM Kenna Eaton for all the improvements and remodeling seen over the past 10 years, saying, “It is easy for all of us who shop there to take for granted our amazing selection of goods available in this small store but it requires outstanding leadership and a dedicated staff working daily.”
The other LTE likewise praised the store for “good food… support to farms and to the Food Bank… courteous, even friendly to all customers… no hate talk or political insults stain their business space.” It asked why The Leader gave Gyurko a featured opinion column pretending to speak for the “community” making demands over undefined “issues”.
A third LTE by Serinus attacked Schumacher’s Jan. 1 letter, misquoting it as having claimed Jones’ alleged abuse of staff happened “repeatedly”, when that word was not in the letter. He also attempted to discredit Schumacher’s perspective with the charge that he “failed to disclose his status as a former Co-op ‘officer'” (thirty years ago).
January 15: GM Kenna Eaton strongly disagreed with Rowe’s “misguided characterization of the Co-op’s, and in particular the board’s actions… Board members represent the interest of all our member-owners, not just a particular subset… no individual board member can act, make promises or speak for the board unless given the responsibility to do so by the board… While the board has been struggling with the criticism of some of our members (most of which has been based on rumor), things are going great at the store: We had record sales last year, gave a bonus to our team members and have $79,000 in our Farmers Fund… to help local farmers.”
She outlined steps the Co-op is taking this year for “creating a culture of diversity, inclusion and justice”:
- “Working with… a DEI consultant… on teaching effective engagement with diverse communities, creating empathy in the workplace, preventing burnout and communication strategies for difficult conversations”;
- “Working with local equity expert Beau Ohlgren, who will help us develop new training programs to make our store more welcoming and engaging for everyone”;
- “A six-session ‘Inclusion Inspiration Lab’ crafted for co-op grocery operations, looking for practical applications of inclusion in the Co-op”;
- “New staff groups for LGBTQIA+ team members… to promote belonging”;
- “Make our product selection more reflective of the changing diversity of our members… that fit our high product standards and are also more culturally rich.”
January 22: Cameron Jones’ guest column asserted “changes at Co-op don’t go far enough to address systemic change,” complained that two women “remain in their leadership roles,” and mentioned he is also part of the ItsMyCoopToo social media campaign.
An LTE expressed that “Co-op boycott ‘activists’ look… performative. There have been multiple articles by a former Co-op board member and other guests who have seemed to delight in the fact that their professional headshot and brooding language has been plastered all over The Leader for months. I attended a board meeting and witnessed white or white-passing individuals berating a board that contains two BIPOC board members… This activist group exists in an echo chamber and refuses to acknowledge the tangible work the Co-op has done in this community… Your activism clearly comes from a place of ignorance and privilege.”
Transparency Over BLM and the Removed Board Member
While the newspaper ran sometimes-weekly attack pieces, there has been NO examination of the attackers and their motives. Black Lives Matter of JC’s initial threat to “launch a campaign” if their demands weren’t agreed to within a week was never even mentioned.
What about this group that issued the August 8 ultimatum — and even attempted a boycott that could have put the store out of business — if the Co-op didn’t immediately kowtow to all their demands?
BLM is not a justice league of do-gooders immune from investigation or criticism, but a “fuzzily applied label used to describe a wide range of protests … or a loose confederation of groups advocating for racial justice” per Wikipedia.
The national Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation was founded by self-described “trained Marxists” and evolved into what CharityWatch describes as “a giant ghost ship full of treasure drifting” with no financial transparency and no documented board meetings. Its Wikipedia page details its long tangled history of fraud, scandal, and grift, partially recounted by New York Magazine in “The BLM Mystery: Where Did the Money Go?”
The local Black Lives Matter of Jefferson County describes itself as “a collectively run 501(c)3 organization which seeks to eradicate white supremacy, and ableist hetero-patriarchy. BLM-JC formed in 2020 in the aftermath of continued police brutality towards Black people in the United States and a recognition that white supremacist doctrine also manifests in a myriad of other institutions and systems which prevent economic, social, and political liberation for BIPOC [Black, Indigenous, People of Color].“
Among feel-good bullet points like “Invest in Community” and “Economic Justice,” BLM-JC’s website promotes the 2022 campaign Cameron Jones initiated to “Divest From The Police.” That divestment continues to call for disarming the police as well as reducing the size of the police force. While the Port Townsend Police Department did not succumb to pressure to disarm its officers, its force reduced to half size in 2020 (see “PT Police Struggling Below Half Strength and Costing ‘A Lot More’“) as a result of actions by the Port Townsend City Council. The consequence was a department so understaffed, the city has had to pay the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department to cover shifts.
While demanding transparency from the Co-op, BLM communications and Leader columns have danced around the core conduct issues underlying this contretemps, being very careful to shield the person at the center from any criticism or scrutiny.
The Power of a Sensationalizing
Press to Do Harm
It is not to say there are no legitimate issues with how The Food Co-op Board of Directors handled Cameron Jones’ removal. There may well have been improprieties in the process, as alleged.
But early on, The Leader’s story ceased being about the board’s July 29 self-policing incident. Instead it became a relentless campaign to further an activist group’s ideological agenda (see “Culture Wars Besiege The Food Co-op“). Removing a member from the board who violated its code of conduct — who happens to be a black man — was twisted to redefine the story as one of racial discrimination, once again reframing the perpetrator as being the victim.
With The Leader unquestioningly supporting the ongoing attacks — and in the case of their regular columnist Serinus, even escalating them — Jones and his allies’ pressure and smears have had their intended effect. The board president has resigned, with his requisite public apology issued in a Leader guest column. The general manager has not yet been replaced. But her obligatory newspaper apologia was full of conciliatory BLM jargon, listing all the steps the Co-op would be taking to offer more DEI training and facilitation.
And the latest news, reported in the Peninsula Daily News, is that a group of Co-op employees is attempting to unionize. Claims among disgruntled workers include a lack of workplace safety, wage inequality, and “mistreatment”. An example given was that a manager “shouted at” a worker who “said harsh words” to a customer who had “touched her without her permission.” Given such horrific mistreatment, the worker left not only the Co-op’s employ, but Jefferson County. This is the state of labor/management relations being reported.
Unionizing may be a positive step for the Co-op. Still, what role has The Leader played in fomenting staff unrest and division through its over-the-top publicity of BLM-JC’s ongoing assault? How much goodwill has been lost in our community in the process? And what has this harassment campaign cost the Co-op in real terms?
Operating on the slimmest of margins, a cooperative “Grocery & Deli” is now forced to divert precious resources to high-priced DEI consultants and legal counsel. That means less capital available for store operations.
Beyond financial consequences are impacts that can’t be quantified. For six months now, The Leader has fanned the flames of escalating factions at this small-town community grocery store.
The result? Harm against the Co-op. Distraction from pursuing the store’s actual food-oriented mission: “working together to nourish our community.” Focus redirected toward the BLM agenda. And resignations as the unending harassment takes its toll.
[Disclosure: Ana Wolpin was the first manager of The Food Co-op in the 1970s, and served on its board of directors in the late ‘90s during a period of internal upheaval that involved replacing the general manager. Stephen Schumacher was Co-op president in the early ’90s involved in reforming board/management roles confused by conflicts of interest. Neither have had any role since then except as member shoppers.]