The Leader‘s April 12 front-page headline “Blue Heron Middle School awarded grant for mental health” caught my attention, reminding me of a recent conversation with a high school teacher revealing that close to half of his students are in counseling for mental health issues.
This seems a staggering number, and reflects what is widely known: Our children are in the midst of a mental health crisis. Anything that might help our youth deal with anxiety and depression, easily accessed during their day at school, promises to be a good and positive change.
So that’s where School-Based Health Centers (SBHC) come in, with Blue Heron Middle School slated to become our county’s latest clinic in the fall of 2024. This article explores the SBHC concept, the entities and funding behind it, and what it all means for parents of students in Jefferson County schools.
More than likely, as a parent, in that pile of papers you signed at the beginning of the school year — and certainly, if your child received a sports physical from the school-based clinic at Port Townsend, Chimacum, or Quilcene — you, like me, signed a release giving permission to Jefferson School Based Health Centers to “perform such medical and therapeutic procedures as may be professionally necessary or advisable for me (or my child’s) health screening, diagnosis, and treatment.”
The form looks like this:
Top portion of page 1 of the two-page form giving parental General Consent for Services. The full form can be viewed here.
There is more to granting this permission than may meet the eye. In 2019, through highly controversial legislation, Washington State provided for out-patient mental health treatment for minors without parental consent. Parents’ rights were removed to even be informed about certain treatments and services that school personnel and outside professionals deemed advisable.
After citizens statewide successfully challenged that legislation earlier this year with the Parents Bill of Rights (more on that below), state policy appears to be in the process of shifting. But revised guidelines have yet to be developed. And local SBHC officials maintain that the parental rights initiative applies only to records kept by public schools, school staff, and school administrations. They contend SBHCs are separate entities from the schools and will not be required to share their records with parents even with the new law.
Parents need to be aware of what current guidelines allow for, who/what is behind the SBHC enterprise, and what is at stake. Even after researching this, the question of what parents are consenting to when they grant blanket permission to Jefferson School Based Health Centers remains shrouded in unknowns.
In 1987, the Seattle City Council funded a three-year pilot of a SBHC at Rainier Beach High School, and services started in 1988. This successful pilot paved the way for Seattle levy funding for SBHCs in 1990 and King County levy funding in 2016. State and federal funding became available for SBHCs statewide in 2021.
There has been rapid growth of SBHC’s across the state in recent years, with diverse operational and funding models, with the number almost doubling since 2017. Today, there are more than 70 SBHC sites, sponsored by more than 25 healthcare agencies, in over 30 school districts – urban, suburban, and rural – across Washington.
According to Gerald Braud, writing for Informed Choice Washington, recent legislation in our state ensures this concept will continue to grow. HB 1225 created a school-based health center program office in the Washington State Department of Health in 2022, staffed with three and half employees at a cost of nearly $2 million a year.
It is not a new concept in Jefferson County, which currently has three SBHCs overseen by Jefferson County Public Health, located at Port Townsend High School, Chimacum High School, and Quilcene K-12. The clinic at Blue Heron, scheduled to open fall of 2024, will be the fourth.
According to the Leader, the grant covering the cost of remodeling the space for the clinic at Blue Heron is from the Washington State Legislature, but the concept and support for the Washington School-Based Health Alliance comes from the increasingly influential, parent non-profit, School-Based Health Alliance, founded in 1995, and based in Washington D.C.
“School-based health care is a powerful tool for achieving health equity among children and adolescents who unjustly experience disparities in outcomes simply because of their race, ethnicity, family income, or where they live. It’s an idea that has gained currency across the country: place critically needed services like medical, behavioral, dental, and vision care directly in schools so that all young people, no matter their ZIP code, have an equal opportunity to learn and grow. At the School-Based Health Alliance, we’ve worked for over 25 years to:
Advance national policy and legislative priorities for the field
Advocate for greater support and funding
Promote high-quality clinical practices and standards
Support data collection and reporting, evaluation, and research
Provide training, technical assistance, and consultation”
Funding Sources and National Partners
Here are the current entities listed as funding this national enterprise:
Pivotal Ventures;
MacKenzie Scott;
Connecticut State Department of Public Health;
Health Resources and Services Administration;
NBA Foundation;
No Kid Hungry by Share Our Strength;
The Leon Lowenstein Foundation;
JBS International – a Celerian Group Company;
Rand Corporation;
National Council for Well Being;
Merck & Co.
I picked a few of these organizations that I thought might stand out for Jefferson County readers so we can understand who is funding the SBHA on a national level.
Pivotal Ventures manages the philanthropic efforts of Melinda French Gates, former wife of Microsoft’s Bill Gates.
MacKenzie Scott is the former wife of Amazon’s Jeff Bezos.
Together, in January 2024, these two donated $23 million to the School-Based Health Alliance to help launch school based health clinics in Atlanta, Chicago, Houston and Miami as well as fund general operations.
Rand Corporation (yes, that Rand!) is usually associated with the military and self-described as “a non-profit institution that helps improve policy and decision making through research and analysis.”
Merck makes, markets, and sells drugs and is self described as “aspiring to be the premier research intensive biopharmaceutical company.”
This enterprise also incorporates corporate interests and advocacy groups in its dozens of SBHA National Partners. Along with health associations and organizations like American Academy of Family Physicians and Boston Children’s Hospital, current partners include Colgate-Palmolive, National LGBTQIA+ Health Education Center, Beyond the Pill, Unity Consortium/United for Adolescent Vaccination, and Conrad Hilton Corporation (full list at bottom*).
As mentioned previously, the Washington School-Based Health Alliance is the state level outreach division of the national SBHA. Here is the current list of entities described as grant funders, event sponsors, and individual donors for the Washington School-Based Health Alliance:
Kaiser Permanente;
Ballmer Group;
Washington Association for Community Health;
ARCORA the Foundation of Delta Dental of Washington;
Washington State Department of Health;
Washington State Health Care Authority;
Community Health Plan of Washington;
Molina Health Care;
Swedish Hospital.
Kaiser Permanente is a health insurance provider in Washington State and, in its own words, “exists to provide high-quality, affordable health care services and to improve the health of our members and the communities we serve.” The latest information I could find stated that in 2019 Kaiser Permanente entered a three year, $1.2 million agreement to provide start-up funds for two school-based health clinics in Washington State.
The Ballmer Group manages former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and his wife’s philanthropic efforts. They donated $450,000 to general operations for the Washington SBHA from 2022 to 2025.
“The ACA, through section 4101(a), funded the Health Resources and Services Administration’s (HRSA) School-Based Health Center Capital Program, which provides $50 million a year for four years (2010 through 2013) for one-time funding for construction, renovation, and equipment for SBHCs.”
The pipeline remains open to this day. In 2023, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), through the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), and the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), announced $206 million in grant awards towards youth mental health.
Why This Matters – Losing Parental Consent
Why have I just overloaded you with information? Why should any parent, or anybody in Jefferson County, care about any of this?
“I give permission to Jefferson School Based Health Center to perform such medical and therapeutic procedures as may be professionally necessary or advisable for me (or my child’s) health screening, diagnosis, and treatment.”
What parent could imagine, with those few words regarding medical care at school, that they could be opening a door that allows access to their adolescent children for the massive conglomeration of federal, state, and private entities that populate the above lists? Or that the procedures they are allowing could potentially be provided without their consent?
What have we done by signing this release?
I wish we were talking about what many of us experienced in public school when life was a bit less complicated. You didn’t feel well, you went to the school nurse who looked you over, maybe gave you a band-aid. If you were running a fever, your parents were called to come pick you up.
But it’s not that way anymore.
Please look over the following chart from the website of the Washington School-Based Health Alliance, titled “Providing Health Care to Minors under Washington Law: A summary of health care services that can be provided to minors without parental consent.” School-Based Health Centers are an entry point providing access to these treatments through mental health care or referral to care providers off campus. Critics may note that this graphic is dated July 10, 2015, but I include it because it is posted on the Washington School-Based Health Alliance website, provides the best summary I could find, and continues to reflect the current state of the law.
One change not reflected in this chart regards recent house bills passed in Washington State that some suggest might open the door to gender reassignment surgery for adolescents (13 years and older) without parental consent via out-patient mental health treatment:
SB5904 allows “adolescents to confidentially and independently seek services for mental health and substance use disorders.”
SSB5889 requires insurance providers to communicate only with the person receiving the care regardless of who holds the policy.
And SB5313 bans insurance companies from rejecting gender affirming surgical procedures previously considered cosmetic, if they are deemed medically necessary.
The Pendulum Swings Back – Parents Bill of Rights
On March 4, 2024, the Washington State Legislature passed Initiative 2081 to establish a Parents Bill of Rights, by a wide bi-partisan margin. As a successful citizens initiative, signed by over 450,000 voters, it did not need the governor’s approval and became law ninety days later on June 4.
The opening paragraph of Initiative 2081 reads as follows:
“The legislature finds that: (a) Parents are the primary stakeholders in their children’s upbringing; (b) parental involvement is a significant factor in increasing student achievement; (c) access to student information encourages greater parental involvement.”
The initiative then lists the rights of parents and legal guardians of public school children younger than eighteen years old. Most of the rights mentioned already exist in state law. The key rights defined in this initiative, relative to medical care without parental consent, secures the parental right to inspect their child’s school records in accordance with RCW 28A.605.030.
It goes on to enumerate that public school records include all of the following: public school records, medical or health records, records of any mental health counseling, records of vocational counseling, records of discipline, records of attendance, also notifications of when medical services are being offered to their child, notification of any medical service or medications having been provided that result in any financial impact to the parent’s or legal guardian’s insurance payments or co-pays, notification when the school has arranged directly or indirectly for medical treatment that results in follow up care beyond normal school hours, and immediate notification if their child is taken or removed from their public school campus without parental permission.
Previously the schools followed administrative rules provided by the Washington State School Directors Association, WSSDA. In particular Policy 3211 — Gender Inclusive Schools, and Policy 3211 — Procedures – Gender Inclusive Schools. The key sentence in these procedures is: “Before contacting a student’s parents, the school will consult with the student about the student’s preferences regarding family involvement and consider whether safety concerns are present for the student.”
Parents might also want to know that these procedures seem to suggest setting up two sets of books — “Official Records” under the students legal name, the only one of which is the standardized high school transcript; and “Unofficial Records,” explained in the procedures, kept under the name chosen by the student to represent “how they choose to be addressed in their transgender or gender expansive status.”
The following paragraph from the procedures details the current policy In regards to what schools will release to parents (emphasis mine):
Information about a student’s gender identity, legal name, or assigned sex at birth may constitute confidential medical or educational information. Disclosing this information to other students, their parents, or other third parties may violate privacy laws, such as the federal Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) (20 U.S.C. §1232; 34 C.F.R. Part 99). Parents have the right under FERPA to request their student’s records and if requested, the District will provide the student’s educational records to the parent according to 3231/3231P.
State and Local Responses to Requests for Clarification
In the second week of May, I contacted Annie Hetzal, the School Health Services Consultant, at the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI), and asked if Washington State Superintendent Chris Reykdal had made any statements or issued instructions to school superintendents in regards to the parental rights initiative so that parents can access all their children’s school records, including from school-based health clinics, as soon as the initiative became law in June.
She told me in a text that the state Superintendent’s latest statement to district superintendents was “that OSPI is working on guidance for schools that is not yet finished.”
To clarify some of these issues on a local level, I contacted Jefferson County Public Health and spoke with Susan O’Brien, a family nurse practitioner in the Jefferson SBHCs.
Susan started with a brief history. Jefferson SBHCs got their start in 2007 with a grant from the Washington State Department of Health. Clinics were opened at Port Townsend High School and Chimacum High School for the 2008/2009 school year. The clinics were finished with donations of labor and materials from citizens and businesses in Jefferson County. This was the community coming together to fill a need that they believed wasn’t being met elsewhere.
The school clinics are primarily run by Jefferson County Public Health in cooperation with Jefferson Healthcare, and the Jefferson County School Districts. The hospital regularly provides funds for the clinics, and has a designated liaison, Dr. Sara Schmidt, who works as the main contact for requests coming from the clinics.
The recent funds from the state legislature are paying only for the remodel of the space at Blue Heron Middle School that will be used as a clinic. This was the first time that funding came from outside the community.
Students are allowed to come in with their friends, often just to ask questions like “What is going on with my body?”
Susan gave me an example of how these clinics can help families new to the community. A parent who just moved here had a child with asthma who needed help. Setting up a primary care provider can take months. The SBHC at the child’s school was able to utilize their close relationship with Jefferson Healthcare to shortcut the process and get the needed treatment for the child.
The Jefferson SBHCs track student use in two categories, medical visits and mental health visits. The information below also details how many “visits” translate into “users” or actual treatment:
Chimacum: 200 medical visits from 89 users, 203 mental health visits from 89 users;
Port Townsend: 325 medical visits from 157 users, 457 mental health visits from 42 users;
Quilcene: 79 medical visits from 40 users, 392 mental health visits from 35 users.
Breakdown of mental health visits and users in the report. Note that Brinnon which is K-8 does not have an SBHC, however their high school students attend Quilcene HS, which does.
Typical requests are sports physicals, birth control, concussion management, immunizations.
If needed, the SBHCs try to work directly with the student’s primary care physician. Other partners in the community include Discovery Behavioral Health and Jefferson Healthcare. Referrals for physical therapy to Jefferson Healthcare or Discovery Physical Therapy in Port Hadlock are not uncommon.
Obtaining Healthcare Without Parental Consent
When I ask about what I have found to be of greatest concern among parents — the ability of adolescents to obtain medical and mental healthcare without parental consent — Susan is clear in stating: “We follow the laws of Washington state. At the same time, we encourage the students to talk to their parents. Some students don’t feel safe. That’s why we have these laws in Washington state.”
If there is a problem with care received at a Jefferson SBHC, the practitioners, who are licensed employees of Jefferson Public Health, would be the responsible party. There is no direct state oversight. However, the Jefferson County Board of Health and Health Officer for Jefferson County, Dr. Allison Berry, provides oversight of the clinics at the county level.
Susan O’Brien stated, “The most important thing for parents to know is that school-based clinics are like clinics anywhere in Washington state — adolescents can receive mental health care without their parent’s consent.” She went on to explain that what the practitioners in the Jefferson SBHCs want is to support kids to be healthy in every way possible. Parents, she said, can choose for their children to not use the SBHCs if they so wish.
The Jefferson County Public Health website is not clear regarding that assertion. While their page about SBHCs notes that “students must be registered with signed parental consent to be seen for medical concerns,” it also displays a prominent notice assuring teens that they can access many services without their parents’ knowledge.
Notice featured on Jefferson County Public Health’s website describing SBHC’s “Confidential & affordable healthcare for students.”
As to the parental rights initiative, Susan confirmed that the Jefferson SBHCs have yet to receive any guidance from the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction and “will be following the laws of Washington state.” As noted earlier, Jefferson County Public Health’s current position is that the Parents Bill of Rights will not affect their policies, that it applies only to records kept by public schools, school staff, and school administrations. Susan says the SBHCs are separate entities from the schools and will not be required to share their records with parents. She summarized it this way:
“We don’t share our records with the schools, and the schools don’t share their records with us.“
It remains to be seen how or if the parental rights initiative will be implemented as the law now goes into effect (assuming it survives an off-mission American Civil Liberties Union legal challenge).
Ultimately, if parents are unhappy with the current state of affairs, it will be up to these parents to become familiar with current state law to establish their rights, while working cooperatively with their school administrators, school boards, and School-Based Health Centers to get the information they need to care for their children.
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*Full list of SBHA National Partners: AASA/The School Superintendents Association; American Academy of Family Physicians; Adolescent Health Initiative; Alliance for a Healthier Generation; American School Counselor Association; Apex; Association of Asian Pacific Community Health Organizations; ASTDD; Bi-State Primary Care Association; Beyond the Pill; The Center for Health and Healthcare in Schools, Child Trends, Coalitions for Community Schools; Institution for Educational Leadership; Community Health Center, Inc.; Conrad Hilton Corporation; Farmworker Justice; National LGBTQIA+ Health Education Center; Futures Without Violence; Health Outreach Partners; Johns Hopkins Consortium for School Based Health Solutions; Kaiser Permanente Thriving Schools; Mental Health Technology Transfer Center Network; Mid-Atlantic Tele-Health Resource Center; South Carolina Telehealth Alliance; Medical University of South Carolina; National Association of Community Health Centers; National Center for School Mental Health; National Health Care for the Homeless Council; Public Health Management Corporation’s National Nurse-Led Care Consortium; Trust for America’s Health; University of California/San Francisco; Unity Consortium/United for Adolescent Vaccination; American Academy of Pediatrics; Kaiser Permanente; National Association of Community Health Workers; Center for Adoption Support and Education; Prevent Blindness; Moses/Weitzman Health System; National Association of School Nurses; National Center for Safe Supportive Schools; Colgate-Palmolive; National Association of School Psychologists; Health Leads; Boston Children’s Hospital.
Years have gone by since the Covid outbreak of 2020, many meetings have been held, studies have been done, mountains of data have been compiled. What problem would you guess the Washington State Board of Health (WSBOH) would focus on, would ask for help in the form of millions of taxpayer dollars and three full time employees, to improve their response to future pandemics?
An in-depth review of the effectiveness of Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Covid treatment protocols?
A search for the reasons behind the large increase in vaccine related, died suddenly incidents, and injuries compiled in the VAERS data?
A panel discussion on exit strategies from Big Pharma capture of federal, state, and local health agencies?
Nope.
Just over a year has passed since I reported on the April 2022 meeting of the WSBOH during which they voted, for the time being, against adding the Covid shot to the list of vaccines required for children to attend school in Washington State.
You may recall during this meeting that one of the board members stated that “loss of public trust” was her “primary concern in this process.”
So, a year later, after hours and hours of public comments, thousands of emails, and thousands of pages of public letters offered in opposition to the WSBOH Covid pandemic policies and procedures, we find a PDF file, nestled amongst the many requests that are part of WSBOH’s 2023-25 Budget Proposal, titled “Restore TRUST to Public Health.” The agency recommendation summary for this budget request is as follows:
The Department of Health requests funding to launch a 5 year multifaceted campaign focused on rebuilding trust in Washington public health, and its information to ensure people in Washington are less skeptical and more likely to follow through on the desired behaviors central to risk mitigation. Over the past two years, public health has become controversial. Without this campaign, the public’s perception and relationship with public health agencies may continue to decline, and the Department will have less resources to repair and rebuild its trusted brand.
The WSBOH is asking for thirty million dollars, $7.5 million a year through 2027, for a public relations campaign — not to acknowledge and address the public concerns with how the WSBOH responded to the pandemic, but to ensure that the citizens in Washington State are “more likely to follow through on the desired behaviors central to risk mitigation.”
Clearly the problem, from the WSBOH’s perspective, isn’t with what they were saying, it is just that they weren’t saying it loudly enough, in enough places, or often enough for the public to finally realize their “safe and effective mantra” is the absolute truth.
If you were one of the many who took the time to write, email, or speak directly to the WSBOH, in good faith, hoping to help them make the right choices in a time of great difficulty, the following is what they think of you. This paragraph is taken from the section of the “Restore TRUST to Public Health” PDF labeled as “Problem”:
Over the past 6 years misinformation/disinformation has spread rampant throughout the nation. Over the last two years in Washington, DOH saw firsthand the impact of these disinformation campaigns through audience research, ongoing polls, and community feedback. As a result, some people have become more likely to believe something false from a friend or family member than something true from the government, which in some cases, leads to decisions to not access lifesaving public health services.
If you find this statement by our state health officials condescending, you are not alone.
Further down in the document, in the section that is labeled “Proposal,” the actions to be taken are detailed. The line that seems to be attracting the most attention is the following:
The effectiveness of any public health intervention depends on the ability to influence the specific audience’s behavior.
Here in Jefferson County, we know what happens if a Board of Health intervention doesn’t influence a specific audience’s behavior. Those of us who would not comply were the first in the nation to face proof-of-covid-shot requirements for entry into restaurants and bars.
Take your concerns regarding the efficacy and legitimacy of county health practices to the local board of health and your statements will be dismissed in an avalanche of words from Public Health Officer Allison Berry, who has been shown, many times over in the Port Townsend Free Press, to have a problematic relationship with the facts.
Now we have County Commissioner Kate Dean appointed to a position on the WSBOH. She is an ideal candidate, a skilled politician who has demonstrated a willingness to follow the recommendations of Health Officer Berry… though her Board of Commissioners did draw the line at requiring the covid shot as a condition of employment for county employees (unlike Jefferson PUD).
Does that mean we will have a representative at the state level that can provide the citizens of Jefferson County with some transparency as to WSBOH actions? Or will this assure our position at the top of the list of test beds for future board of health actions in regards to pandemic policy?
In defense of the members of the WSBOH, after sitting through a few meetings, I am convinced that these are well-intentioned people that do their best to follow the illogical and arbitrary mandates handed down to them by the Governor. Over the last three years it has become readily apparent that everyone involved in state regulated health care, including doctors and nurses, has very little latitude for independent opinion without risking their ability to be employed.
However, following these mandates without reflection on their effectiveness was the beginning of a bad relationship. The complete lack of dialogue between the WSBOH and the citizens of this state has only solidified the problem. The few public comment opportunities at WSBOH meetings are similar to school board, city council, or county commissioner meetings. Speakers have two minutes to make their case. WSBOH members have no obligation to respond. There are no follow-up questions.
Nothing in the 2023-2025 budget request addresses this aspect of the WSBOH/citizen relationship.
Will thirty million dollars of taxpayer money and three new state employees (who are required by the governor to be up-to-date on all Covid shots before they can be hired) make everything better? Will enough public relations voodoo be generated over the next five years to restore your confidence in the WSBOH, so the next time around you will not hesitate to “follow through on the desired behaviors central to risk mitigation?”
I was among the three hundred plus citizens who packed the meeting room at Fort Worden Commons for what the city described as Open House #1, City of Port Townsend Golf Course plus Mountain View Commons Planning Effort. This meeting marked the midpoint of a roughly ten-month time line that started about five months ago with a series of community meetings from which the city extracted that the public would like to explore alternative uses for the golf course property.
Mayor David Faber opened the meeting and passed the microphone to City Manager John Mauro who said a few polite remarks, and then passed the microphone to Carrie Hite, Director of Parks & Recreation Strategy. Hite announced this was the start of a community discussion, part of a process that will lead to a vision for the park, but no decisions had yet been made. Someone in the audience reminded all present that the golf course is not a park.
Eventually the microphone was given to Chris Jones, principal and founder of Groundswell Studio, the Seattle firm hired by Port Townsend to put the alternative uses proposal together. He did a fine job discussing the history of the golf course property, the details of landscape as it currently exists, and finished with a review of several similar projects done in other towns around the United States.
No one in the crowd of around three hundred was allowed to speak. If they did, they were ignored or told their questions would be answered in the Q&A session later. In lieu of public comment, we were given a piece of paper on which to write a question. The papers were gathered by the consulting team who then flipped through the several hundred questions and selected a few to hand to Mr. Jones. He then read them out loud and either provided an answer or passed it on to city staff.
Half an hour was allotted for the Q&A session. No follow up was allowed during the session, except when the Parks & Rec director neglected to say how much had been spent so far and more than a few people yelled “How Much?” — loudly enough that Hite said her time plus $125,000 to the consultant.
My question wasn’t answered, nor were the majority of the questions because there just wasn’t enough time, clever that. To be fair, we were told we could talk with the staff and consultants after the meeting, but gone was the power of the community speaking their minds to city officials in public. It seems the only polite choice on this evening was to follow the city’s lead.
What caught my attention during the presentation (and this is listed in the history of this project on the city website) was that the golf course is zoned municipal and thus, as it stands, can only be used for municipal purposes. municipal purposes are generally defined as all purposes within municipal powers as defined by the constitution or laws of the state or by the charter of the municipality. Whether all the options presented fall under the definition of municipal purposes remains to be seen. Mayor Faber, in answering a question about affordable housing, believed that it would be difficult to rezone the golf course for such a purpose.
With the presentation and Q&A session over, we were supplied with six green sticker dots and six orange sticker dots.
Mr. Jones instructed the crowd to number these stickers one through six. We were to step up to the poster boards prepared by the Groundswell Studio and place sticker number one on the image of our preferred choice and then on down the line to choice number six. We were not allowed to put all six stickers on one choice, only one per choice, or we could give our stickers back to the consultants. Green corresponded to the Golf Course options and orange to Mountain View options.
Hopefully accompanying photos will show you how the attendees prioritized their votes. In order to handle the crowd, there were three sets of each poster board.
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Golf Course Site Potential Uses
Even though we were assured many times over that no plans had been made for the golf course, it took two boards to showcase all the options. They are as follows: Golf Course as-is, event space, sports fields, educational center, exercise stations, boardwalk, picnic, art, multi-use lawn, affordable housing, habitat.
Three each of the two boards were set out for people to put green stickers on. The sixth board from this compilation below is the one featured at the top of the article.
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Mountain View Commons Potential Uses
Fewer options were presented for Mountain View Commons, so there was only one poster. The options were: pool, plaza, farmers market, educational center, festival street, pickle ball, splash pad, art, affordable housing, dog park, playground. Three identical boards were set out for orange stickers.
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Can you tell me what is missing?
I describe this experience as being led into a candy shop with no prices and told you can pick your six favorite items. Months later you get the bill and you think to yourself, “I might have made different choices if I had known the particulars.”
The poster boards presented only pretty pictures — no prices, estimates of cost, or sources of funding associated with any of these options. I understand this is the start of a process, but at least with the ongoing taxpayer funded multi-million dollar nightmare of the Carmel Apartments, we had a starting price of about $250,000 to barge that broken dream of affordable housing down from Victoria.
So here we go again. If you want a say, or in this case, a question written on a small piece of paper that may or may not be answered, on the options for the future of the Port Townsend Golf Course or Mountain View Commons, now is the time to make your opinion known.
The City Council will be briefed on the project January 17th. The consultants will analyze the boards and present the two or three community favored options for both facilities at Open House Number Two in mid-April, where I assume more stickers will be handed out and more choices will be made. Open House Number Three in June will reveal the one or two most favored options. More information can be found here on the city website.
Summer is over. The rains have begun. I am back at my desk.
While we were enjoying the fine weather, our federal and state governments have continued with their plans to protect us from Covid. Let’s play a little good news/bad news and find out what they have been up to.
Good News! On August 31st the FDA authorized the new, fast-tracked, Covid boosters by Pfizer, Moderna and BioNTech for adults and children. The fast tracking was determined to be necessary to get ahead of the constantly mutating virus because past efforts took too long to produce effective substances.
Bad News! It was only tested on mice. Eight mice.
Good News/Bad News? They only needed to test it on mice because much of the data used to develop these fast-tracked shots came from the previous mRNA vaccines that the pharmaceutical companies, and our government, have told us — come on everybody, let’s say it together and make Allison Berry happy — are “safe and effective”.
Spoiler alert: this is sarcasm, but it is factual. I have paraphrased this information in effort to speak the truth plainly. If you think I am making this up, feel free to fact check by reading through the FDA document yourself.
We continue.
Good News for Pharma/Bad News for Parents
In what looks a lot like an end run around the many massive state-level protests against adding the Covid shot to the vaccines required for children to attend school, parents found the following in their news feeds on Thursday, October 20th.
Today, CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) recommended updates to the 2023 childhood and adult immunization schedules, which includes incorporating additional information for approved or authorized COVID-19 vaccines. CDC only makes recommendations for use of vaccines, while school-entry vaccination requirements are determined by state or local jurisdictions.
How long before Washington State’s Board of Health reverses their decision from April 13th of this year, and makes the Covid shot mandatory to attend public school, stating that they “are just following CDC recommendations”?
If you don’t think this could happen, I point you to the continued medical tyranny of Jay Inslee as demonstrated in Directive of Governor 22-13.1 dated August 5, 2022. The Governor’s emergency powers were supposed to end on October 31; not true if you are a current or future state employee.
Here is the heart of the directive (bold emphasis mine):
To address this continuing threat and ensure the health of our workforce, I am directing a permanent COVID-19 vaccination condition of employment requirement for state executive and small cabinet agencies as follows:
New Employees. As a condition of employment, all new employees of state agencies must be fully vaccinated against COVID-19, as recommended by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Current Exempt Employees. All current exempt employees must be fully vaccinated.
As defined by Directive 22-13.1, an employee is “up to date” with their COVID-19 vaccination when they have received all doses in the primary series and all boosters recommended for them by the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.
Just in case loyalty to Jay Inslee isn’t enough to assure compliance, the directive also authorizes the state Office of Financial Management to incentivize state employees to remain fully vaccinated.
On September 21 the Seattle Times revealed that a tentative deal between the governor and the Washington Federation of State Employees Union includes a $1000 bonus for each state employee receiving a Covid-19 booster shot. The cost of this bonus to state taxpayers has been estimated at close to $41 million.
Back at the federal level, why was this CDC approval necessary?
Was it because the federal government was concerned for our children’s health?
Or could it be that once the Covid shots are recommended for the list of official childhood vaccines by the CDC, there is no longer any legal liability for these corporations?
Direct from the Health Resources and Services Administration’s covered vaccines webpage:
The National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) covers most vaccines routinely given in the U.S.
For a vaccine to be covered, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) must recommend the category of vaccine for routine administration to children or pregnant women.
The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 created the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP), a federal government managed, no-fault alternative to the traditional tort system providing compensation to people found to be injured by certain vaccines.
The funding for this program comes from an excise tax on all vaccines administered across the country.
The latest information I could find that attempted to evaluate the effectiveness of this program was from a 2014 General Accountability Office report that calculated an average time to adjudicate claims at 3.5 years. Imagine how well the program is working now with the VAERS report listing 1,442,261 adverse effects just for Covid shots?
Could there also be a profit motive involved in being approved to the childhood vaccine list, a guaranteed income stream created for these pharmaceutical companies from now until well into the future?
In what has to be pure coincidence, only hours after the CDC recommendation, Pfizer management, on a call with holders of Pfizer stock, announced a 400% increase in the price of their Covid booster. They had been charging our government $30 a dose. Now that private insurance will be paying, Pfizer will be requiring $110 to $130.
Let’s end with some good news.
On Friday, October 21, the day after the CDC recommendation, the Informed Consent Action Network, ICAN, announced they will fund a legal challenge to any state that mandates the Covid-19 vaccine to attend school. That same day the governors of several states — and just in case you are planning a move, let me list them here: Florida, Virginia, Wyoming, Utah, Oklahoma, Iowa, Alabama, Tennessee, Missouri, South Dakota, Montana, South Carolina, Ohio, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho — announced that regardless of recent CDC recommendations, they will not be mandating Covid-19 vaccines for school attendance.
Now is not time to sit back. Chris Reykdal, Washington State’s Superintendent of Public Instruction has been clear in his statements that he wants to mandate the Covid-19 vaccine for school attendance. He has been clear that this will be a statewide decision and no district can opt out.
Keep talking to your political representatives, find them here. Keep making phone calls (360-236-4110) and sending emails to the State Board of Health. Make it clear that the October 20th CDC recommendation changes nothing. If there is even the slightest doubt in their mind that this shot might not be safe and effective for our kids, then they have a moral obligation to keep the Covid-19 vaccine off the list of Washington State’s requirements for attending school.
— UPDATE —
This promotion was sent to PTSD parents after 10pm on Thursday, Oct. 27th. This is how desperate they are. Back in the day, our parents taught us to never take candy from strangers…
Two weeks ago I gathered with a few friends in what will remain an undisclosed location in Port Townsend to watch, via Zoom, the Washington State Board of Health (SBOH) vote on whether the COVID-19 vaccine should be added to the list of shots required for public school attendance. It certainly wasn’t the Super Bowl, but for those of us invested in the health of our children it was the culmination of several months of grass roots lobbying of our state public health officials.
I played a very small part in the effort. As a group it appears we overwhelmed the systems of a state agency that was used to operating under the radar, debating issues that rarely caused any controversy. I mentioned in a previous article one early Zoom meeting of the Technical Advisory Group (TAG), set up to assess the criteria for adding the shot to the required list, had 7,500 people sign up to make a public comment.
For this final meeting, where the SBOH would vote on whether to adopt the recommendations of the TAG, over 1,500 pages of emailed comments were received and entered into the record. The SBOH didn’t state how many people signed in to speak at this final meeting, but the comment period was expanded to an hour and a half, with two minutes per comment. Even with the extra time, fewer than fifty people were actually heard. No one supported the COVID-19 shot for kids.
Like many, I was hopeful, yet ready to be steamrolled by the bureaucracy. As you have probably heard by now the SBOH voted unanimously to not add the COVID-19 shot to the list of required vaccines for kids — for now. The option to reconsider in the future was left open. I will consider the decision a victory against the forces of medical tyranny. In a conversation I had recently with Gerald Braude, a writer for Informed Choice Washington, he describes the decision as a strategic withdrawal. I fear he may be right. You can read his in-depth article about the April 13th SBOH meeting here.
Screenshot of April 13 State Board of Health Meeting
At least for the moment we still have the choice, if only at the public school level, on whether we want the COVID shot for our children. Regrettably, this does nothing for families like mine with older children heading off to our state colleges, also public schools, but at this point offering no choice regarding the COVID shot other than applying for a religious exemption. We may have begun to turn the tide. We must not stop here.
When government does something bad, we have a right to redress of grievances. When government does something good, which has been admittedly rare over the last few years, we should let also let them know, as well as address any concerns they may have expressed during the decision-making process. Here is my letter sent to the Washington State Board of Health after their unanimous vote on April 13th:
To the Washington State Board of Health. Thank you for your hard work over the last two years, and for your latest decision to not add the COVID-19 shot to the list of requirements for children to attend public school. You have made the right choice. It seems a few fragments our democratic system may yet be working.
One of your members mentioned the loss of public trust as being her primary concern in this process. I heartily agree. As a citizen of Washington State, I have lost all trust in my public officials.
This loss of trust began with the Governor seizing power through an emergency declaration and then forcing illogical and arbitrary mandates on me. More than two years have passed and Governor Inslee refuses to give up these powers. His latest reasoning in a long list of ever-changing excuses, the need to keep federal dollars flowing into our state, does nothing to rebuild my trust.
I also lost trust with my state representatives who have looked the other way this entire time, aiding and abetting our tyrannical governor.
The loss of trust continued with the Superintendent of Public Instruction, who clearly stated he was pro-COVID shot, while threatening any disloyalty to his COVID orders with defunding of non-compliant school districts. When asked, State Superintendent Chris Reykdal stated the COVID shot requirement would be made on a statewide basis, undermining the authority of school boards, and therefore eliminating both school administrations and most importantly concerned parents, from the decision-making process.
Finally, public trust was lost by you, the State Board of Health specifically, through continuing to promote only the vaccines for treatment despite the VAERS data showing tens of thousands of deaths, and well over a million injuries to Americans from the COVID-19 injections.
Will the SBOH ever examine whether the vaccines you would be forcing on our children, formulated for the original strain of COVID-19 way back in March of 2021, even be effective against the current mutations? (We can see they aren’t. Why can’t you see that?). Will the board ever discuss the data that clearly shows that children have a much higher likelihood of injury from the vaccine than from the disease? Please look over the latest study from Children’s Hospital in Seattle published March 25th, 2022 in the Journal of Pediatrics. Has the board reviewed the benefits of natural immunity, or other options including the clear success of the Dr. Peter McCullough protocols advocating early treatment with safe, inexpensive, and readily available antiviral medications?
If you were to ask me, I would tell you the restoration of public trust will begin when you give up the mantra of “These vaccines are safe and effective”, and start having a transparent and truthful conversation with the people, not the politicians, of this state. The thousands of comments from thousands of well-informed parents should be evidence that you are not in possession of all the information.
I understand the extreme pressures you are under to support the official government narrative. Yet someday, in the not-too-distant future, we will look back and see this pandemic vaccination program for what many of us believe it to be, a crime against humanity. In the end, I would want to be remembered for supporting the freedom of choice for the individual citizens of this state, and not in support of a governor who puts billions from the Federal Government before the rights of his constituents.
Respectfully,
Brett M. Nunn
I expect my suggestions will fall on deaf ears like just like all of my attempts to pull back on the “safe and effective” curtain here in Port Townsend and to start conversations with our public officials. In watching the SBOH debate this issue, a few of the members seem to be asking the right questions. We need to keep speaking to them until the message finally gets through. I will be presenting this information to the Port Townsend School Board in the following weeks just to make sure they have heard the good news as well.
