Both Sides Now: Who Bears Responsibility for YMCA Protest Fallout?

by Stephen Schumacher | Sep 19, 2022 | General

The Port Townsend City Council heard my policing concerns in this Public Comment at their September 6 meeting:

Staff and Council Response

City Manger John Mauro responded that some of my policing concerns would be addressed in his later city manager report, pointing out the city’s August 11 Mountain View Pool Q&A explaining how the city’s decision-making is based on state law (but not mentioning any policing issues as it preceded the August 15 assaults).

In his City Manager’s Report, Mauro spoke mostly about the September 3 event:

[Police Chief] Tom deserves a lot of kudos, but so do the agencies we work with, East Jefferson County, Sequim, Port Angeles, state agencies like the Washington State Patrol, Federal agencies, specifically working with a lot of jurisdictions and Public Works team … minimizing violence. …

This isn’t a decision to permit or not permit an event … When someone wants to hold a free-speech first-amendment-right rally in any location, they can do so, and there’s nothing the city can do to prevent that.

The event’s permit is a process by which we can glean information about what to expect, how we can resource up, how to prepare, and even ask: do you request police presence? In the instance of 15th, that answer was ‘No’ on that event permit, so we with two-and-a-half working days adjusted accordingly based on a request.

Now we could, of course, deny resourcing, traffic closures, as we see fit. That’s where we have yes/no decision making authority, but we can’t keep someone from assembling to exercise free speech …

That’s something we need to prepare for. There was no injury, property damage, and I would say part of the reflection talking with state and federal agencies was the appropriate but not over-the-top presence of multiple agencies is likely what prevented problems from happening in the first place.

And some of the rules literally according to the organizer killed the turnout, because we were saying here is what you can and cannot bring into a public space for this event.

In his Presiding Officer’s Report, Mayor David Faber drew big laughs with his ironic initial quip:

Not a whole lot has happened over the last couple weeks. No, actually, I had trouble coming up with my list because so much of my mental space has been occupied by other things than what I would normally want to talk about here. …

This last Saturday, the protests … I’m very glad the police coordination there resulted in, as far as I’ve been able to understand, no violence, and I’m glad that it ended up being a peaceful event. Thanks for staff and team for making sure it went off without a hitch.

Councilor Ben Thomas was the only one to touch on concerns about the August 15 assaults, closing off the meeting with these heartfelt words:

I don’t know if this is the time or place, but I don’t know when the time or place is, so I just wanted to acknowledge: We’ve got a lot of emails, in person as well, comments on the event on 8/15.

I wish we could talk more openly and frankly about this stuff and realize it’s not an easy thing to do; it’s complicated. But there are a lot of hurt feelings, possibly worse, for people on how it went down.

And I read every word, and I’m sure other people do too, of everything that gets sent in.  It’s not being ignored, there’s just not much we can do about it, going back in the past.

I’m sorry that people went through that. I did see it first hand, and I was disturbed by it. I didn’t think they were treated very well.

Even though, do I agree with everything they were saying? That’s not the point. So that did bum me out.

But also we’re getting a lot of stuff, hearing a lot about chromosomes and stuff, and this is not the body to figure out state law or how chromosomes work and gender. People are leaning on us about this, but I just don’t see it as our role.

I just wanted to say that out loud. Thank you.

Councilor Wennstrom Opens Up After the Meeting

Speaking personally, after delivering my Public Comment, I felt itchy about having singled out Councilor Libby Wennstrom by name. After the meeting broke up, I noticed her walking away alone down the sidewalk, and felt moved to call her name to connect and try to understand where she was coming from.

I started by confessing that I felt bad about singling her out in my comment, I’d found myself respecting her perspicacity and attention to detail during council discussions, so wondered what was going on with her Facebook TERF posting.

Wennstrom expressed feeling that trans people were being threatened, had noticed the TERF image someone else had made (adapted from tsunami warnings), and reposted it on her private Facebook page that was only shared with a few friends.

Unfortunately one of those friends liked or shared her post in a way that made it public for all to see. Wennstrom never intended it to go public, but in retrospect as a public official doesn’t think she should have posted it.

Wennstrom graciously continued talking with me, and we covered a lot of ground:

1. She related that various councilors and she personally have been flooded with a glut of emails, death threats, obscene images, etc., etc. Tonight was the first time she’d felt safe enough not to be accompanied by someone else for protection to a city meeting. (When she said that, realizing I stood alone about 6 feet away from her on the night-time city sidewalk, I took a step back, but she waved it away and said she didn’t feel threatened by me.)
2. Internally the city has been overloaded by these messages and surrounding issues.
3. Wennstrom said that a large number of dangerous armed Proud Boys were intending to come to the September 3 event, but were deterred when they heard there would be enforcement of a no-visible-weapons ban.
4. The reason police were focused on protecting councilors and the council building on August 15 was because of the threats they were getting after all the media attention.
5. Wennstrom said Amy Sousa hadn’t checked on the permit that organizers wanted police protection for her 8/15 event; I countered that the Peninsula Daily News quoted Sousa that Chief Olson had been repeatedly asked for separation from the counter-protesters.
6. I told Wennstrom about specific assaults and harms to attendees, mostly from a dozen violent bad actors; she had been under the impression that women were exaggerating, citing a case she had been shown of a woman pointing to bruises on her arm that were weeks old.
7. Wennstrom strongly objected to the idea that council had “directed” police not to help women being assaulted under their watch, saying neither council nor mayor has that authority and the city manager provides the police chief general policy. I reiterated that witnesses and video heard a police officer refuse to go into the crowd to help women, saying he’d been directed not to, so the question is who directed him. (That made me wonder whether Olson and/or Mauro might have been so concerned over threats council was receiving that they felt no officer could be spared from protecting council and its property.)
8. Wennstrom felt that legally there was nothing council could have done about the pool issues, since it is on property leased from the school district, controlled by the School Board, and managed by the YMCA.
9. She wished that Julie Jaman had gone through channels instead of escalating with an outside demonstration, council, Tucker Carlson, etc. resulting in doxxing of council and Y staffers, lives messed up, city disruption, the pool still being closed, budgets being drained that provide protection at events, etc. (I neglected in the time available to go into how Jaman did try to talk to YMCA management first, did try to get the Leader to publish her letter, etc. but was completely stonewalled.)
10. Wennstrom courteously heard out my opinion that mistakes might have been made on both sides, particularly that the YMCA messed up banning Jaman lifetime on the spot without due process, and city council messed up on August 1 by dismissing folks as bigots for expressing their honest narrow concerns about women and kids feeling safe in public bathrooms.  Wennstrom said she heard someone say “trans people are pedophiles” at council and that set her off; I replied that I don’t think I heard anyone say that, but even if one person did, that’s not what other public commentators were saying, but they were all getting smeared with the same brush.

We’d been talking for a little while and it was getting cold, but as we were winding down three of her friends joined her, so we parted on pleasant terms. I appreciated her taking the time to talk with me and being open to respectful and factual feedback.

On my side, I hadn’t realized the extent to which city personnel were feeling terrorized and overburdened by all the negative feedback, doxxing, and publicity they’d been receiving. I also felt a little impressed how they continued trying to keep a stiff upper lip and take care of city business in a professional way, as seen by generally exemplary disposition of their straightforward council agenda on September 6.

Council Watch August 1 – Road Repair vs Calming

by Stephen Schumacher | Aug 8, 2022 | General

Mayor David Faber opened the Port Townsend City Council’s August 1 meeting by moving public comments to the top of the agenda in consideration of the many members of the public present intending to comment. Nearly an hour of comments concerned YMCA management of Mountain View Pool, the subject of past and future Free Press reports, so here’s what happened during the rest of the meeting.

In non-YMCA comments, disabled musician Mark Daniel Hoskins described the city harassment he’s experienced while performing and in his own trailer.  State law allows 71 decibels in mixed residential areas like downtown, so he asks why he is harassed for playing near the ambient loudness in a town that is promoted as being artist-friendly. He is not breaking laws and just wants to be left alone to perform his music.

Jaisri Lingappa remotely attended the July 18 council workplan retreat, but found the audio was incomprehensible leaving no detailed public record of an important all-day planning meeting that covered affordable housing.  She noted that currently touted developments on Madrona Ridge and Cook Avenue are almost certain to be unaffordable. She requests a redo discussion at an upcoming council meeting with proper audio, and that councilors make their stands and plans available to the public.

Stephen Schumacher asked how many PT police officers have resigned or retired in the past two years, whether exit interviews were conducted with the departing officers, whether summaries of such interviews are available to the public, and how many city officers have left for Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office and Kitsap County positions.

In response to public comments, City Manager John Mauro apologized for the audio at the retreat, but members of public could and did attend in person, materials and minutes have been posted, and the public is invited to participate in the city/county/port/PUD conversation about housing on August 18.  Regarding police staffing, he intends to bring a status report to council from the police chief later this summer, having made some good progress there.

Taking Care of Business

Following an executive session to discuss an employee’s performance, the council discussed and unanimously approved several items of new business:

• Contracting with GeoEngineers to perform a seismic stability study (required by the State Dam Safety Office) costing up to $134,000 (all but $47,000 paid by a FEMA grant) on Lords Lake’s poor-condition East Dam.
• Disposing of $31,638 unused COVID-19 Financial Assistance Utility Bill Relief Grant funds ($25,000 from the Utility Fund, $8,138 from community donations, only $1,455 ever used to help people). Staff proposed clearing the books by offering debt relief grants to about 15 utility accounts averaging $1,900 in arrears due to lockdown impacts (2/3 residential, 1/3 landlords or small business), with remaining funds sent to OlyCap. Normally such gifts of public funds would be prohibited, but the State Attorney General allowed public funds to be spent for “promoting public health which may have an incidental benefit on private citizens.” Councilor Libby Wennstrom would like council to learn from this experience, where it set up a large amount of money that couldn’t be optimally used. Deputy Mayor Amy Howard clarified the original program limited grant amounts so the most number of recipients could benefit, but it should have been reviewed after 1 not 2 years.
• Extending deadline from August to October 1, 2022 for proposing to levy up to $900,000 in additional 2023 property taxes out of the “banked capacity” that would have been paid annually to East Jefferson Fire Rescue prior to its 2019 annexation agreement (note $600,000 was levied in 2022).
• Contracting up to $100,000 from the Stormwater Utility Fund to repair extraordinary June 5 storm damage to Walnut Street (between T and V Streets) and to the Logan Street storm pond outfall.
• Relinquishing an unnecessary utility easement to clear title for 346 Logan Street (which should have been done 60 years ago when 4th Street was vacated).

Transportation Improvement Board Grant

Public Works Director Steve King asked council for authorization and guidance applying for this year’s big state transportation grant. From staff’s summary statement:

Staff described their list of projects that might score well, including 7 to repair pavement:

1. W Street — Cherry to Walnut
2. San Juan/49th — Admirality to Fairgrounds
3. Washington Street — Van Buren to Sims
4. 12th Street — Landes to Sheridan
5. Tyler Street — Jefferson to Lawrence
6. Lawrence Street — 19th to F
7. San Juan — 19th to F

… and one to enhance crossings and calm traffic:

1. 19th/Blaine Street — Sheridan to Walker

Since staff had concerns about delivering a quality application on the first four (which are much larger Urban Arterial pavement projects), it recommends applying for either the Tyler or 19th Street projects. Grants have a 15% match requirement paid from Real Estate Excise Tax funds.

King emphasized that it’s always helpful to make TIB applications, since they garner helpful feedback even if not successful, but staff feels stressed to get this one in before the August 19 deadline. Ideally the city would receive a big grant like for Discovery Road every 3 years, and a smaller one every year between.

Councilor Owen Rowe asked about possible traffic calming measures on 19th Street, and King answered they “could be islands, raised crossings, bulb-outs, tables … could do safety islands in the middle.”

Rowe also asked about the concurrent Safety Grant for 19th Street, which King explained was for a planning study, saying “If we don’t get the Safety Grant money, then we would need to fund that study to make sure we get it right in the public process, but at least this [TIB] grant would give us implementation dollars.”

Transportation Grant – Public Comment

In public comment, Schumacher asked how patchwork pavement repairs, newfangled projects like Edge Lane Roads (ELRs) preserving not repairing pavement, and big-ticket TIB grants fit together. He’s unclear whether the city has the money to do basic bread-and-butter repairs without depending on grants. There’s general discontent about roads not being fixed; looking at ELRs and the traffic-calming islands put on Washington Street that just make you go a little slower, they look pretty, but don’t seem cost-effective compared to just fixing the roads. So he wonders about the actual realities on the street and how these big grants relate to the city’s regular repair program.

Debbie Yanke commented, “The intersection of 19th Street and Landes is the only place we’ve had a bicycle/car fatality in our city. I’ve sat at that intersection, having cars going both directions on 19th, both directions on Landes, with pedestrians involved, and bicycles, in both directions.  And yet on Landes at 14th we have 3 crosswalks within 50 yards on Kai Thai. So I’d really like to see crosswalks for safety purposes at Landes and 19th, and wherever else on 19th it can occur.”

King responded that grant applications are periodic, not part of normal maintenance, but it’s great when a grant can take a big pavement repair job off our list. Rebuilding Lawrence Street will cost an arm and a leg, but if some pavement had been preserved, it would only cost an arm. Safety improvements can be achieved by striping at no additional cost. So the city is trying to get the best outcome it can by marrying grants within its comprehensive maintenance program.

Faber clarified that traffic calming on Washington Street was paid predominantly by neighborhood donations.

Counselor Libby Wennstrom provided an educational response:

I get this question a lot, so it tells me that people don’t understand this. Prior to 2003, municipalities got a great deal of street funding from the state, and with the rollback on car tab fees, that funding disappeared.  And that’s the point at which municipalities – and it’s not just Port Townsend, but everywhere in Washington – stopped being able to repair our streets. People say, we haven’t fixed these in 20 years – that’s why.

Port Townsend has a unique challenge, most cities of our size and tax base have far fewer miles of built road.  I believe we have 88 miles of paved roads here, and a city of 10,000 people would normally have half that or less. … We don’t begin to have the budget to fix these.

Do we pay $900,000 to pave one mile, or do we use that for grant match money so we get 20 times our amount? So that’s part of our tap dance that’s happening here.

This is how we’re going to be able to fix the streets. And if you’ve got real problems with street funding, you need to take it to the state legislature, because that’s where that’s going to get fixed.

Transporation Grant – Discussion and Decision

As the meeting was running long, Faber asked each councilor which project they’d support on the grant application.

Wennstrom deferred to staff’s expertise, but when pressed went for 19th Street as “the area of greatest pain.”

Rowe said, “These are all fantastic projects, it was when I got to 19th Street – that’s the one we’ve got to do. As Ms. Yanke pointed out, we have actually had a bicycle fatality there, and it’s been recognized as a problem area for a long time. So if we can have any chance of getting funding to address that, that’s the one to go for.”

Amy Howard expressed that, “19th Steet is bizarre, it is built like a race track. I catch myself going down it and going, ‘Oh no!’ and having to brake. And I try to follow the speed limit. … That is a place where we have a known issue.”

Councilor Monica MickHager agreed with 19th Street, since “it hits the most bullet points the way I read them.”

Councilor Aislinn Diamanti also agreed with 19th Street, but would love for the next big project to be on Washington Street.

Councilor Ben Thomas explained, “I pretty much fall with everyone here on 19th. I’m concerned about developing a piecemeal approach to traffic calming. This Washington Street thing has come up a few times, I think rightly so – it’s one of those gifts we’ve given to the public to unite everybody, unfortunately, against us. [general laughter]  I don’t know how these choices were made before my time. Do we have a sense of an ongoing strategy for traffic calming? That [19th Street] seems to be the #1 street in town that’s way out of balance with the speed limit and the desired speed there.  So it seems really important, but I want to make sure we’re ready to do something that will look good 20 years from now.”

King replied that “The comprehensive street program is going to have a chapter dedicated to traffic calming. There is no one size-fits all on traffic calming, you need to really figure out the psychology of the street and why people are speeding. We want a cohesive effort on 19th Street.  And that’s why we applied for the study money to develop a cohesive plan before we implement. We’ll need to do that regardless if we get the study money or not, need to budget accordingly with the TIB grant.”

Thomas asked King “for clarification what we as a city have contributed to the Washington Street roundabouts. The question keeps coming up, and I keep telling people we didn’t really pay for them, but have of course have maintenance to deal with. Am I wrong to say we did not pay for them?”

King answered that “the traffic calming islands on Washington Street were funded by the neighborhood; the city provided staff time, part of that for testing it out. It’s basically modeled after the Seattle traffic-calming circles that they have in their neighborhoods. I try to use the term ‘traffic calming island’ because they are really not a roundabout. They’re really designed to obstruct the line of view, so you don’t have that open runway look on the street. … yes, the maintenance is ours.”

Faber agreed that 19th Street is essential, but wondered what is the cost difference between the Tyler and 19th Street projects. King answered that 19th Street would be a little more expensive.

Faber figured it would have been the other way around, so concluded, “If 19th Street is more expensive, then that settles it.  I was going to suggest, if it would be more cost effective to take the same money for Tyler Street, and then just ask that maybe 19th Street could be considered in some of the annexation dollar project so we could do both – but great … do the expensive one.”

However King clarified that banked capacity can’t be used on federal aid routes like 19th Street, whereas TIB grants can’t be used on anything but federal aid routes.

MickHager began moving to support a TIB grant application for 19th Street project with up to $75,000 match from Real Estate Excise Tax funds, when King interjected that the match needed to be increased to $150,000 to correct an error in the staff report. With 15% match, 19th Street could be a million dollar project.

Incorporating this amendment, MickHager moved, Wennstrom seconded, and council approved unanimously.

Request for Reconsideration

As the meeting wound down, I felt uneasy about the decision to focus this year’s big street improvement grant on slowing down 19th Street instead of repairing roads in bad condition, so I wrote council on August 4 requesting reconsideration of their choice:

Speeding problem or speed limit problem?

Years ago I attended a traffic planning meeting where expert consultants advised raising the speed limit on 19th Street to the 85th percentile of traffic speeds per transportation engineering best practices:

Research shows that the speed limit has little effect on how fast people drive. … While many drivers ignore speed limits altogether, others do try to follow them out of a sense of safety or obedience. This difference in speeds is actually more dangerous than if everyone were driving at a faster speed. We’ve all felt the frustration of being behind slow drivers and annoyance at aggressive drivers weaving through traffic. Both of these situations are dangerous and make traffic worse.

Raising the speed limit also has other benefits. It improves credibility of the speed limit sign if it consistently marks a reasonable speed for most drivers, not the speed at which politicians wish they would drive. It also improves relations with law enforcement. Rather than having to reflexively brake when seeing a police car, or worrying about selective enforcement of speed laws when everybody is traveling over the speed limit, rational speed limits mean that average drivers can simply go about their business. No one should have to worry about being pulled over for driving in a safe manner.

I wonder about the rationale now for reducing speeds on this arterial whose speed limit is arguably already too low. Does 19th Street really have a bad safety history over the decades?

Reading old Leader articles about the 2018 tragedy where a bicyclist flew over his handlebars into a car that turned in front of him, an accident that could have happened on any street in town and where car speed was not involved, it seems perverse to use this singular tragedy to prioritize up to a million dollars worth of irrelevant “safety islands”, “raised crossings”, “bulb-outs”, and “traffic calming” on a safe arterial in preference to repairing pavement or widening shoulders on roads that really need fixing.

Much of this is based on the backwards notion that if the majority of drivers have a hard time staying inside the speed limit on 19th Street, that proves there’s a dangerous safety crisis on this arterial — whereas the 85th percentile engineering approach takes this to indicate its speed limit has been set too low.

I drive or bicycle along 19th Street nearly every other day, and I don’t think I’ve ever noticed it having any problems or “speeders” going more that 5 mph over the limit. It’s been probably my favorite stretch of road in town for forty years, and is practically perfect as it is, not Port Townsend’s #1 problem to solve. There is no need to mess with 19th Street and make it worse, at great taxpayer expense.

Give 19th Street some love and some paint and occasional maintenance, and it’ll be okay.

Council Watch July 5 – “I Can’t Drive 25”

by Stephen Schumacher | Jul 12, 2022 | General

The Port Townsend City Council’s July 5 meeting centered around a potentially wide-reaching project to calm speeds by replacing double-lane streets with single-lane two-way “edge lane roads”, following a revealing Public Works experiment performed on Blaine Street.

The meeting began quietly as council recused itself into executive session for 15 minutes to discuss the legal risks of a proposed action. Upon council’s return, Deputy Mayor Amy Howard as chair opened the meeting up for general public comment.

Stephen Schumacher urged continued attention to police staffing issues.  Again seeing only one other unmasked face in the room, he summarized how much-cited CDC mask effectiveness claims are based on cherry-picked data, exposed by a new Lancet review of the full data set showing masks actually increased cases, echoing randomized controlled trials finding masks provide no significant viral infection protection. Lying with statistics undergirds masking propaganda, obfuscating the fact that viruses freely flow through and around conventional face coverings.

City Manager John Mauro responded to public comment by noting that the CDC recommends masking but it is not required, so people can make their own choices.

The first action item was a public hearing on Resolution 22-029 to adopt the 2023-2028 Six-year Transportation Improvement Program (STIP). Public Works Director Steve King explained that each year the city must submit its STIP to the State listing proposed projects and costs so they can be eligible for grants, since needs typically exceed available funding. This year’s STIP identified 47 projects costing $93 million. Councilors Ben Thomas and Aislinn Diamanti moved and seconded, then the resolution passed unanimously.

Idle Ban Again

In unfinished business, Ordinance 3292 banning 3+ minute vehicle idling on property open to the public came back for a second reading, having added emphatic intent language that:

The City Council encourages education rather than penalties in the enforcement of this Chapter, particularly for first offenses.

In public comment, Schumacher said he’s not thrilled about the freedom aspect of criminalizing what people do inside the privacy of their own cars. There are endless good reasons why someone might want to idle for more than 3 minutes to keep warm, recharge batteries, etc., and this measure disproportionately affects elderly and disabled people. It’s unlikely anyone will get charged given the numerous exceptions, but having victimless crime laws on the books is a dangerous practice that can lead to selective enforcement. Perhaps a health case could be made for restricting idling in congested areas like school pickup zones, but not elsewhere. He wished one of the student initiators could have attended council to advocate for their proposal.

Thomas echoed some of this comment, appreciating text added to clarify “the point of this is to educate not to penalize”; he still feels a little torn, but it’s great that kids are getting involved.

Councilor Monica MickHager felt likewise, thanking staff for hearing council discussion by adding a really nice ending sentence under Intent; she shared her surprise finding herself no longer idling while waiting for coffee now that she “got educated.”

Councilor Libby Wennstrom described similar educational benefits seen while waiting at ferries, dumpyards, and banks.

Howard related catching herself doing the same thing; she appreciates this now being in the forefront of her mind and hopes it will land in the forefront of others’ minds as a very small thing that can be done.

MickHager moved, Wennstrom seconded, and the finalized ordinance adding Chapter 10.08 to the PT Municipal Code passed unanimously. Howard drew laughs by quipping, “If the kids were here, they’d give it a round of applause.”

Staffing Resolutions

Several ordinances and resolutions were designed to beef up and reorganize staffing and its compensation:

• Ordinance 3293 replaces the Deputy Clerk (sharing the City Clerk’s meeting and records management duties) with a Public Records Officer (PRO) specializing in responding to increasing Public Records Requests and storing accessible digital records, allowing the City Clerk to focus on meeting management. The timing is good while both Clerk and legal assistant positions are open. Councilor Owen Rowe asked whether Clerk and PRO would be cross-trained, which City Attorney Heidi Greenwood answered affirmatively. Rowe moved to waive council rules to allow approval at first meeting, Thomas seconded while thanking staff for thinking outside the box, and the ordinance passed unanimously.
• Resolution 22-030 further reorganizes by replacing the Finance and Budget Analyst (making $78,090-$99,817 per year) with an Accounting Manager ($83,516-$116,295), and the Public Works Project Manager ($78,090-$99,817) with a Civil Engineer II ($85,706-$102,846). MickHager asked the difference between a Civil and City Engineer, so King clarified that a Civil Engineer II is a licensed engineer with a low number of years of experience, Civil Engineer III has more experience, and City Engineer includes managerial competence. Wennstrom noticed the “pretty big” salary range change, so asked about the budget impact if the city hires at the top end for both of these; Finance Director Connie Anderson responded that increased levels of responsibility justified that, and vacancies this year are helping to cover amounts in 2023. MickHager appreciated the great job restructuring and moved to approve. Diamanti seconded, and the resolution passed unanimously.
• Resolution 22-031 authorized a 2022-2023 Teamsters Union contract for police wages and benefits, as negotiated by Anderson, Human Resources Officer Pamela Martinez, and Chief Thomas Olson (all present for this agenda item). Mauro said collective bargaining agreements are complex, so he was glad to have this team on it. Anderson said the emphasis was on retention and recruitment. Wennstrom noted wages changes start July 1, while benefits became effective January 1. MickHager moved, Thomas seconded, and the resolution passed unanimously.
• Resolution 22-032 authorizes an accounting contract up to $35,000 with CPA firm TDJCPA. Anderson noted the city was missing a Finance Manager since last summer until a replacement was hired in January and Anderson arrived in March, so TDJCPA would help her fill that gap, put in controls, and build her team going forward. Wennstrom asked if this was included in the budget and would be ongoing. Anderson answered it was not in the budget, but the money is already covered by a position not yet filled; whether to renew will be re-evaluated, since TDJCPA provides a lot of services to fill in gaps for small communities. Rowe moved, MickHager seconded, and the resolution passed unanimously.
• Long-line road stripe repainting was contracted out to the low bidder despite being $25,000 over budget due to pent-up demand and significantly higher fuel and paint prices. Wennstrom moved to proceed with reduced project scope per staff recommendation, Thomas seconded, and council approved unanimously.

ADU Parking Relief Delayed

New Planning Director Emma Bolin turned it over to Planning Manager Judy Surber to report back about amendents to PT Municipal Code 17.72 requested by council on March 14 to eliminate ADU parking requirements. The Planning Commission asked to broaden the scope of parking-related changes to include boarding houses, multifamily homes, B&Bs, etc.

Rowe and Diamanti were concerned how slight a delay this would be for their ADU priority, and agreed that anything arising that might bog down the process should be skipped. Thomas wanted a time limit, and Diamanti suggested 3 months.

Wennstrom wondered whether parking places should always be required to be paved with gravel and asphalt; the goal was to make it easier for existing dwellings to add an ADU, but current parking requirements make that harder.

MickHager proposed just keeping it focused on ADUs and doing that well. Diamanti responded that she understands staff’s preference is to combine changes as a more effective use of resources, which Surber confirmed. Howard was disinclined to stop the Planning Commision from doing this work.

Wennstrom moved to task the Planning Commission to explore other parking code amendments in tandem with ADUs with a request to get back to council by November 2022. MickHager seconded and the council concurred unanimously.

Edge Lane Roads Presentation

Public Works Director King and his staff explained Edge Lane Roads (ELRs) as a tool to address public concerns about street repair conditions and traffic calming.

ELRs turn narrow roads where folks often walk into explicitly single lane roads, forcing cars to slow and negotiate any obstacles like oncoming traffic, pedestrians, bicycles, and deer.  They work better as two-way roads to make folks more cognizant of slowing down for safer passing. Installation costs are less than adding pedestrian/bicycle shoulders or concrete sidewalks.

Most important for preservation of our pavement, with streets decaying from the outside in, ELRs give the remaining pavement a longer life, as vehicles no longer drive on the edge of streets.

Edge Lane Road Experiment on Blaine Street

Public Works installed an experimental Edge Lane Road on two blocks of Blaine Street between Tyler and Adams at the cost of $1,000 plus $15,000 for initial engineering, outreach, and research.

One thing Public Works would have done differently would be to put the doorhangers up before the temporary lane was put on Blaine.  But there were good discussions afterwards and better understanding after explaining this is now just a single-lane road.

Neighbors shared a variety of comments and observations, such as:

• Why do this for an area that already has a sidewalk (not much used because it ends)?
• One of the neighbors saw 4 times that a car sped up to get ahead of a pedestrian.
• Another neighbor said speeds are now higher (perhaps not borne by data readings).

Speed monitoring revealed some curious and troubling results: average speeds dropped slightly inside the ELR Test Area, but grew substantially a block away, maxing out at 75.3 MPH!

King recommended keeping ELRs on streets with volume lower than 2,000 trips a day, at least to start, focusing on high pedestrian streets needing shoulder restoration. Due to the relationship between speed and severity of accidents, there’s big drop-off of dangers at 20 MPH compared to 25 MPH. Edge Lane Roads are a new tool, and staff appreciates feedback.

Edge Lane Roads – Public Comments

In public comments, Dan Burden said he went out three times to record what people were doing and what they thought, which was all positive. But what people saw was no change in speed, which surprised him. What’s wanted with traffic calming is to bring down the higher range of speeds. Burden offered great compliments to staff, since less that 1% of cities are doing this.

Schumacher thanked staff for opening his mind to these new ideas, but he’s concerned about arterials being deprecated. He related his experience attending a traffic planning meeting in the 90s where experts advised raising the speed limit on arterials like 19th Street to match the natural speed most people were driving, but the police chief vetoed the idea. There should be a balance to keep things moving along the arterials while making the backwaters safer. He’s also baffled by the 85% percentile speeds on Blaine from Quincy to Madison going up from 37 MPH (!) to 40 MPH (!!) right outside the ELR test region, since he hardly ever sees people drive more than 5 MPH above the speed limit in town.

Scott Walker said he’s generally supportive of the idea. In Austrialia, outback highways are one lane with shoulders, so if you see a truck coming, you move to the side, which works better than two lanes. He emphasized that paint is not a substitute for a physical separator. Blaine is a highly used street to get to Chetzemoka, so folks shouldn’t be asked to walk in the streets. Howard Street from Hastings to 35th has a huge amount of bicycles and pedestrians.

Edge Lane Roads – Council Comments

Thomas wondered what areas in town have more than 2,000 car trips per day; King replied that Landes Street by Safeway gets that. Thomas also wondered if striping would lead to more parking in ELRs.

Diamanti and Wennstrom asked about the $15,000 engineering cost; King replied that was the budgeted internal cost as if it came from an external engineering department.

Wennstrom asked about the 75 MPH maximum speed detected during the test. King replied it was an outlier, but staff was shocked and checked the equipment was working correctly.

Councilors brainstormed other parts of town they’d like to install ELRs, springing off of staff’s recommended list.

MickHager was glad Landes was taken out, but would like ELRs added in the areas around Castle Hill, Howard Street, McPherson Street, and Hancock Street near Memory Lane.

Wennstrom suggested one on Sheridan Street between Hastings and Umatilla. Rowe suggested around Cherry and Redwood Streets; he supports continuing with this and hopes it does become something accepted in town.

Thomas asked whether these are as good as a two-lane road with bike lanes on each side for safe bicycle usage. King replied that depends on the specific situation and condition of the shoulders; for streets like F Street it’s important to have separated bike lanes per Walker’s comment.

MickHager said she’s for this idea, and was very surprised that she didn’t get one positive response from anybody in her community! She wonders how to spread ELRs diversely to the community out into places like Castle Hill and North Beach, because most of the sites on the list are in the older part of town. She thinks people could get used to them if they were put in popular roads like 14th Street.  

MickHager continued jokingly that she’s glad “you’re going to lower the speed limit to 20 miles an hour; please could we do that on all our streets? That’s how I feel about it. My family does not talk to me anymore, because that’s how I feel about it. They think I’m crazy, but I’m not!”

Wennstrom said that having cars parked on the side of streets in residential neighborhoods helps with traffic calming. She noted that 80% bicyclists on San Juan Avenue ride on the sidewalks rather than on the bike lanes. She laughed in incredulity that, “Wow, we took out all this parking and built these big huge bike lanes, and right on the sidewalk!”

Diamanti said that feedback has been a lot more favorable than the infrastructure committee was afraid of when they first started talking about ELRs. She thinks it’s a really smart option and a chance to be leaders.

Howard joshed that “she sincerely hopes whoever was driving 75 was experiencing some sort of an emergency, and not having a temper tantrum because we forced them to do something new.” She did try driving it herself, and the hardest part was the signage, which was too small if you were driving, so you had to slow down to look at it.

Howard added that the biggest problem is Americans are fiercely individualistic and try to get their car in front of others’, so we need to make this a community culture thing where we share our streets and make them accessible to everyone, which should be part of the messaging. She would like it if ELRs discourage giant delivery trucks: “Maybe narrowing it they’ll have a harder time and won’t use that one as much, preserving that pavement quite a bit.”

Wennstrom concluded that “it’s an educational opportunity. I remember, when we were first talking about putting in roundabouts, the screaming and yelling… and now people have pretty much got the feel for the roundabouts and see the value. So getting past that initial ‘whoa, that’s scary and weird,’ and some familiarity before it happens in your neighborhood, I think is a great idea.”

Closing Reports

Deputy Mayor Howard announced her election to the Board of Directors of the Association of Washington Cities.

City Manager Mauro reported about recruiting clerk, public records, and police officers. The city’s 2023 Workplan Retreat is being held Monday, July 18, 10am-4pm at the Northwest Maritime Center, and any member of the public is free to attend. The city is part of an electric network consortium getting a $4 million grant to build up fast chargers for electric vehicles.

Mauro ran through updates on large capital projects including Discovery Road, Kearney Street, Lawrence Street, Chetzemoka kitchen shelter, library, golf course, and optimizing City Hall for comfort and efficiency.

Update: Does Jefferson Healthcare’s MyChart Send Patient Data to Facebook?

by Stephen Schumacher | Jun 21, 2022 | General

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UPDATE and CORRECTION: After talking this afternoon with Amy Yaley (JHC Director of Marketing and Communications), it appears likely that your medical data is NOT being sent to Facebook through Jefferson Healthcare’s MyChart portal, even though Facebook Pixel Code scripts are present on their regular web pages.

My original article statements were based on recollecting having seen Facebook scripts while inspecting my personal MyChart patient data, but the screenshots below that have evidence of Facebook scripts show the web address “jeffersonhealthcare.org“. If this page had really been from inside MyChart, then the web address would have been “wamt.myonlinechart.org“, as seen in the feature image above.

There are still some unanswered questions, and I am waiting to connect with the person who can answer them. I will update this story with any further clarifications.

What we are left with is that many hospitals around the country have websites that compromise patient data to Facebook, but at this point Jefferson Healthcare does not appear to be one of them.

[Original article text follows:]

Nonprofit technology watchdog The Markup discovered that “a tracking tool installed on many hospitals’ websites (33 of Newsweek’s top 100 hospitals in America) has been collecting patients’ sensitive health information — including details about their medical conditions, prescriptions, and doctor’s appointments — and sending it to Facebook. … We found the tracker, called the Meta Pixel, sending Facebook a packet of data whenever a person clicked a button to schedule a doctor’s appointment.”

This Meta Pixel tracker was detected inside password-protected patient portals such as the MyChart system provided by Jefferson Healthcare. Data breaches uncovered by the crowd-sourced Pixel Hunt project included:

When one real patient who participated in the Pixel Hunt study logged in to the MyChart portal…, the Meta Pixel installed in the portal told Facebook the patient’s name, the name of their doctor, and the time of their upcoming appointment.

When another Pixel Hunt participant used the MyChart portal…, the pixel told Facebook the type of allergic reaction the patient had to a specific medication.

Clicking on one button prompted the pixel to tell Facebook the name and dosage of a medication in our health record, as well as any notes we had entered about the prescription.

Clicking the “Schedule Appointment” button on a doctor’s page prompted the Meta Pixel to send Facebook the text of the button, the name of the doctor, and the search term we used to find the doctor: “Home abortion.”

When The Markup clicked the “Finish Booking” button…, the pixel sent Facebook not just the name of the doctor and her field of medicine but also the first name, last name, email address, phone number, zip code, and city of residence we entered into the booking form.

In addition, if a patient is logged in to Facebook when they visit a hospital’s website where a Meta Pixel is installed, some browsers will attach third-party cookies — another tracking mechanism — that allow Meta to link pixel data to specific Facebook accounts.

After learning about this potential problem, I signed in to my own Jefferson Healthcare MyChart account, which I’m told “offers secure online access to portions of your electronic health record”. By right-clicking and choosing the “Page Source” or “Inspect” option, it was easy to verify that Jefferson Healthcare’s MyChart webpages are laced with Facebook connections and scripts. See this screenshot:

Here’s another screenshot showing Jefferson Healthcare explicitly including “Facebook Pixel Code” for the Meta Pixel tracking software:

Note that HIPAA law “prohibits covered entities like hospitals from sharing personally identifiable health information with third parties like Facebook, except when an individual has expressly consented in advance or under certain contracts” — which has certainly not happened in this case.

I originally learned about this nationwide problem from Dr. Robert Malone’s substack, where he writes:

I was struck that patients should demand that their data not be entered into such systems. That a movement to return to data entry systems that are not corrupted by Meta, Facebook or Google needs to be jump-started.

As late as 2017, the government was actually worried about medical systems being hacked. But now? Where is our government in protecting patient’s rights?

Clearly, “we” the people can not rely on the US government. Therefore, we have to protect ourselves. Our doctors and hospitals are being encouraged to buy cloud-based, software solutions to “protect us.”

These medical providers also need to be educated — these large cloud systems-based solutions have been corrupted. The medical providers must understand that patients should be given a choice to opt-out of the system. The right to privacy extends to healthcare in its entirety.

The Free Press reached out to Jefferson Healthcare to inform them of this concerning situation and ask for comment. Despite being occupied in an all-day staff meeting at press time, Jefferson Healthcare was able to issue the following statement: “Our goal is to provide exceptional patient care to every patient we serve. Jefferson Healthcare complies with all laws and regulations protecting patient data. We are actively investigating.”

[Editors’ note: The Free Press will update this article as more information becomes available.]

Public Health Sacrificing Kids for the Greater “Good”

by Stephen Schumacher | Jun 13, 2022 | General

Last June Jefferson County Emergency Management popped up vax clinics at the Saturday Farmers Market, in those pre-booster days excitedly advertising “Johnson & Johnson vaccine available today! One and Done!” Not seeing any takers, I tried talking with one of the masked doctors there, and was surprised by his enthusiasm to give these experimental injections to young children regardless of kids’ risks exceeding benefits for the sake of supposed societal good.

Vaxxers at PT Farmers Market, June 5, 2021 (photo: Stephen Schumacher)

I was reminded of this attitude while reading a peer-reviewed study finding “teenagers are [up to 6 times] more likely to get vaccine-related myocarditis than end up in hospital with Covid,” where a commentator expressed that “Whether or not [young kids] are at high risk relative to the adverse side effects, they should be vaccinated to reduce the probability of older, more at-risk people from getting it.” (Since the injected appear to be more infectious, it’s unclear how that helps grandma.)

This attitude mystified me back then, but I understand it better now after reading Dr. Robert Malone’s explanation of the dark philosophy that has replaced “Do no harm” in modern Public Health:

Dr. Robert Malone interviewed with Dr. Ryan Cole in Gig Harbor, WA on Feb. 21, 2022 (photo: Stephen Schumacher)

As taught in most Universities, “Public Health” (as in the Masters of Public Health degree programs) is also largely based on these two 18th and 19th century philosophical theories (utilitarianism and malthusianism).

As opposed to the disciplines of Medicine and clinical research, which are grounded in the principles of the Hippocratic oath and beneficence as applied to the individual patient.

Examples of beneficence in clinical research and medical practice include “Do no harm,” “Balance benefits against risks,” and “Maximize possible benefits and minimize possible harms.”

What’s so bad about replacing individual patients’ rights and well-being with Public Health’s new utilitarian emphasis on purported “greatest good of the greatest number”?  Consider this thought experiment:

A man walks into his doctor’s office for a health checkup. After completion of the exam, he asks “Doc, how am I doing?” His utilitarian MD-MPH turns and says, “You are in perfect health. Your heart is perfect, your liver is perfect, and your kidneys are perfect. And I have four other patients that will die in the next week if they do not get transplants requiring a donated heart, liver or kidney. So I will be prepping you for surgery in one hour.”

Four lives saved for one sacrificed. I think that we can all agree that, while this scenario may meet a utilitarian standard, it fails to meet the fundamentals of Judeo-Christian belief systems regarding the Hippocratic oath and principle of beneficence. But if reports are correct, in the very utilitarian, marxist reality which is modern China under the CCP, organ harvesting is a fact of life.

Dr. Malone concluded that:

As we look back at the long list of public health lies and tragedies that have occurred since January 2020, I have been trying to think through what systemic changes should be implemented to help prevent such catastrophically poor decision making in the future.

I suggest that at the top of the list we include jettisoning both the philosophical dependence of public health decision making (as taught in MPH programs) on utilitarian philosophy, and instead substitute a Judeo-Christian values-based public health decision making process. We have let the MPH utilitarians interject themselves in place of the traditional role of the Physician, and have had to live through the consequences.

Those consequences are now being revealed by research volunteers studying “the 55,000 internal Pfizer documents which the FDA had asked a court to keep under wraps for 75 years”.

PFIZER DOCS: FDA HID PREGNANCY & BABY HARMS

Dr. Naomi Wolf summarized Pfizer documents showing that:

Pfizer (and thus the FDA) knew by December 2020 that the MRNA vaccines did not work — that they “waned in efficacy” and presented “vaccine failure.”

Pfizer knew in May of 2021 that 35 minors’ hearts had been damaged a week after MRNA injection — but the FDA rolled out the EUA for teens a month later anyway, and parents did not get a press release from the US government about heart harms til August of 2021, after thousands of teens were vaccinated.

Athletes and college students and teenagers are collapsing on football and soccer fields. Doctors wring their hands and express mystification. But BioNTech’s SEC filing shows a fact about which the CDC and the AMA breathe not a word: fainting so violently that you may hurt yourself is one of the side effects important enough for BioNTech to highlight to the SEC.

Pfizer (and thus the FDA; many of the documents say “FDA: CONFIDENTIAL” at the lower boundary) knew that … the mRNA spike protein and lipid nanoparticles did not stay in the injection site in the deltoid, but rather went, within 48 hours, into the bloodstream, from there to lodge in the liver, spleen, adrenals, lymph nodes, and, if you are a woman, in the ovaries.

Lipid nanoparticles, the tiny hard fatty casings that contain the MRNA, traverse the amniotic membrane. That means that they enter the fetal environment, of course. (They also traverse the blood-brain barrier, which may help explain the post-MRNA vaccination strokes and cognitive issues we are seeing). … The assurance that the vaccine is “safe and effective” for pregnant women, was based on a study of 44 French rats, followed for 42 days.

While pregnant women were excluded from the internal studies, and thus from the EUA on which basis all pregnant women were assured the vaccine was “safe and effective”, nonetheless about 270 women got pregnant during the study. More than 230 of them were lost somehow to history. But of the 36 pregnant women whose outcomes were followed – 28 lost their babies.

This week the FDA is gearing up to grant new Emergency Use Authorization to inject this witch’s brew into babies as young as 6 months old, and the White House is rolling out 10 million doses prior to authorization.

Biden Administration Makes Available 10 Million Doses of COVID Vaccine for Kids Under 5 — Before FDA Authorizes Shot

Children’s Health Defense chairman Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. gave notice to the FDA and CDC on February 9 and June 10 that:

Should you recommend this pediatric EUA vaccine to children under five years old, CHD is poised to take legal action against you. CHD will seek to hold you accountable for recklessly endangering this population with a product that has little, no, or even negative net efficacy but which may put them, without warning, at risk of many adverse health consequences, including heart damage, stroke and other thrombotic events and reproductive harms.

Commenting on the White House targeting babies with Covid countermeasures that were “never about science or public health” prior to FDA safety review, Kennedy made clear that:

Now they have departed from common sense and into naked cruelty and barbarism. By recommending an unapproved, experimental, zero-liability and high-risk medical intervention for an illness that poses zero statistical danger to that age group, the White House has made itself the enemy of America’s children.

The Pharma gods have demanded child sacrifice and the high priests of public health have offered a generation of infants. Now more than ever, parents and physicians must step into the breach to protect our babies from our government.

Our regulatory agencies and elected officials are not protecting us because they are in lockstep with Big Pharma and mainswamp media promoting this sacrificial message. Their propaganda has been internalized by many who we used to trust to know better, as evidenced by the enthusiasm of the doctor I spoke with at the pop-up vaccine clinic. Jefferson County Public Health’s website is teeming with information on where these dangerous shots are available for 5-11 year olds. Will they soon be adding kids under five?