The Port Townsend City Council opened its June 6 meeting by hearing new police hire Officer Chase Stanton take his Oath of Office.
In public comments, Julie Jaman spoke to the Gateway and Boatyard Expansion Project being hornswoggled by the project mantra “the poplars must go” instead of implementing the Gateway Development Plan that doesn’t envision cutting. Since both PUD and Port have indicated poplars can be worked around, the win-win solution is to remove and replant poplars as needed while pruning suckers per the Plan. Before cutting poplars around town, cost review is needed of functions provided by poplars like unique verticality, buffering, windbraking, storm survivability, filtration, and link to the seasons. Poplars are the right tree in the right place, preventing a paved strip-mall development contrary to community values. *
Harvey Windle focused on problems with the council’s temporary streateries reauthorization until December 31, covering documented damage to business recovery income, lack of notice, not following public input, being out of compliance with state law preventing gifting of public property for these “mess tents”, and aggravating parking scarcity downtown where streateries and all-day parkers make it hard for customers to find places to park.
Stephen Schumacher riffed on Cato’s famous catchphrase by saying “Port Townsend defendenda est” (i.e. PT must be defended), urging the council to stay attentive each meeting to critical police staffing issues, along with getting roads and potholes fixed that were exacerbated by Sunday’s downpour. He reviewed latest findings from The New York Times and elsewhere about masks having infinitesimal effect on Covid spread, their unfitness for purpose since designed for bacteria not aerobic virus transmission, and their many harms especially for kids, so encouraged council to stop modeling their misuse.
City Manager John Mauro responded to public comment by noting council’s wish is to talk about parking management in the next term. Regarding police staffing, the city has just sworn in a new officer, so there is movement in the right direction.
Following staff presentation of interim Ordinance 3291 granting a 6-month extension for temporary tent encampments, pastor Scott Rosenkrans of Port Hadlock Community United Methodist Church spoke of their experience hosting their first Tiny Home encampment. They haven’t had one problem, have enough space for another one, and host a food pantry open Saturdays 10am-1pm, and help folks transition into permanent housing. During the 18 months the tiny homes have been there, they’ve become good neighbors.
Councilor Ben Thomas asked for clarification about the 180 day effective duration of the ordinance and its potential renewal for a second 180 days. City Attorney Heidi Greenwood responded that they’d be vested so eligible for a second extension. Aislinn Diamanti moved, Deputy Mayor Amy Howard seconded, and the council passed the extension unanimously.
After completing some unfinished business adopting Resolution 22-027 for a water system cross connection control program, the council considered Ordinance 3292 to impose a $50 civil infraction for vehicles idling for more than 3 minutes, with exceptions for health or safety reasons, extreme temperatures, traffic stops, law enforcement, vehicle repair, etc.
The proposal arose from the PT High School Students for Sustainability, none of whom were present due to graduation-related conflicts. Attorney Greenwood had helped students with this, and clarified that the exception for health reasons would cover people living in their vehicles.
Thomas wished there was another way to get the same educational result without passing a hard-to-enforce law penalizing idling. Monica MickHager praised the students’ energy, but suggested next time they learn by looking at what codes could be removed to encourage sustainability. Howard felt that if the stated goal is education, then the written warning step shouldn’t be skipped.
Mayor David Faber felt the ordinance should be passed if it’s consistent with our community ideals, but wondered whether officers could be given discretion to issue a warning in lieu of a fine. Heidi explained that generally discretion is always implied on the side of the enforcing officer so long as language “they will” is not there.
After an amusing delay finding a councilor to move the motion, Faber eventually stepped up, Rowe seconded, and the idle ban was passed unanimously.
The council then took up Resolution 22-027 adopting a policy for city fee waivers for intergovernmental cooperation and non-profit organizations that provide community benefits. Howard asked why waivers are limited to two times per calendar year, and Greenwood answered that the intent was to spead them out so they wouldn’t all go to the same organizations. Thomas asked why waivers were limited to non-profits, and Greenwood said this was to keep waivers further from the line where they could be considered gifts of public funds. MickHager moved, Thomas seconded, and the motion carried unanimously.
Next up was Resolution 22-028 to join HUD’s House America initiative to respond with urgency to community homeless crises. Mauro provided background that this came about because councilors Diamanti and Howard sit on the county Housing Fund Board, and staff recommended the city join.
In public comment, Schumacher asked council to evaluate whether anything can be done quickly with the Cherry Street Project to provide housing, and if not, sell it to get this albatross off the books so the money can be used for worthy housing projects. During council deliberation, MickHager wordsmithed characterizing Housing First as “the most effective approach” to “an effective approach”. With that edit, MickHager moved, Diamanti seconded, and the motion carried unanimously.
Concerning the Major’s City Manager Evaluation, MickHager felt he did a good job so moved to approve it, which Diamanti seconded and the council approved unanimously.
In his City Manager’s Report, Mauro started talking about staff comings and going, saying it was great starting a tradition to swear in new police officers before council, feeling that’s right for the duty they provide to our community. That’s a positive, balancing the anticipated resignation of Sgt. Garin Williams after 15 years.
He’s looking to fill other openings, including police, deputy public works directory, and city clerk. Emma Bolin will be joining as Planning Community Development Director, helping among other things with the Evans Vista land purchase.
Mauro spoke of various adventures related to Sunday’s heavy rain downfall, which Public Works responded to quickly. Steve King went on the bluff to look at the stability of the slope, which mostly just lost topsoil… as Mauro quipped, it was interesting to see geology happening in real time.
Mauro feels like Port Townsend is coming back after a couple of years. Rowe was at the previous Farmers Market, and councilors enthusiastically expressed their intent to have one of them appear there the last Saturday of each month to discuss people’s concerns.
Libby Wennstrom asked what our magic number currently is for police staffing. Mauro replied it’s hard to say because we’re now in flux with training. The city has an arrangement with the county as a fallback, but fortunately we haven’t had to call on them and hope to get enough officers to be self-reliant, but as Chief Olson had said, this may take 12-18 months. Other cities are likewise having problems and are down to 30-40% police staffing.
Thomas noted that Windle and others have come to him asking about taking away the temporary streateries; he doesn’t see that happening, but looking at the temporary ordinance, he wonders if they can be terminated if not used for 60 days. Faber mentioned that King had already brought that up with the new owner of Alchemy, whose streatery seems to be rarely used.
Greenwood clarified that the temporary reauthorization until December 31 doesn’t have the same 60 day abandonment clause as in the permanent authorization proposal, but that doesn’t mean the city could not look to exercise it. In terms of process, restaurants don’t have property rights to their allowed streatery slots.
The next regular council meeting on June 20 has been canceled because many members will be out of town that day.
*Correction: The original version inadvertently omitted Julie Jaman’s public comment.
PT Free Press is expediting publication of this council report in hopes of minimizing community confusion arising from inaccurate Leader reporting that PT City Council OK’s long-term streateries program. The opposite actually took place, as can be seen by viewing the May 2 meeting.
Here follows my emailed response to The Leader and city staff:
I attended the Monday, May 2 city council meeting and took notes of the streateries deliberations, so was astounded by the Leader’s May 4 article “PT City Council OK’s long-term streateries program” saying “The Port Townsend City Council voted Monday to unanimously approve an ordinance establishing outdoor dining areas – open-air, tent-link structures located outside existing dining spots – as a long-term part of the downtown and Uptown aesthetics.”
The Leader appears to have gotten the story completely backwards, with no mention of the actual discussions and decisions that in fact took place Monday night.
Instead, my notes show that following nearly unanimous negative public comment and prolonged council discussion of whether to table the permanent streateries ordinance, the council sketched out 5 amendments (including removing downtown streateries) for staff to refine and bring back as a third reading of the ordinance for the council to consider at their next meeting. In no way were long-term streateries unanimously approved at the May 2 meeting.
Can staff confirm my understanding of what was decided Monday regarding permanent streateries? If so, I hope the Leader will start making prominent corrections.
Today’s Leader story about streateries feels like a repeat performance of its April 20 reporting that, “During the city council’s Monday, April 18 business meeting, councilmembers voted to make the streateries part of a long-term plan for downtown Port Townsend and Uptown.”
But Councilor Ben Thomas corrected the Leader in an April 24 online comment that “Last Monday the City Council only voted to amend language on the ordinance that will be up for a vote on May 2. This article makes it sound like we voted to make the streateries permanent. We did not.”
So for the second meeting in a row, The Leader completely misrepresented the decisions made by the Port Townsend City Council regarding streateries. Rather than okaying the program, the council spent much of its May 2 meetingreconsidering permanent streateries in thoughtful response to a tidal wave of near-unanimous negative public comment.
Ben Thomas kicked off council discussion by expressing that streateries seem to have gone from being a good thing to a touchstone for public process concerns, since a lot of people came out of the survey not feeling they were heard. The pushback was significant enough for him to move to table the ordinance for permanent streateries until a permanent parking plan could be developed.
Monica MickHager seconded, having grave doubts before last meeting related to the city not having moved on a parking management plan for 20 years. She’s thinking about alternatives like sidewalk cafes or restaurants with space in the back, given that downtown is just two streets with limited space between cliff and water.
Owen Rowe appreciated the public input and concurred that tabling the whole thing makes sense and was worth discussing. Riffing on putting the cart (streateries) before the horse (parking), he noted the argument that streateries don’t connect to our Victorian heritage, when sidewalks were mud with carts and horses so no one wanted to eat on the streets back then.
Libby Wennstrom agreed that a parking study should have come first, but was concerned that tabling now would just kick the same questions down the road, leaving us with multiple years of tents in the interim. Aislinn Diamanti was likewise inclined to let the few businesses wanting to invest in streateries move ahead with them at least uptown, but maybe removing downtown ones.
Mayor David Faber spoke about how before tonight’s meeting, he’d thought the council could still move forward with this program, taking responsibility that originally he (not staff) had wanted to fast-track streateries because he’d heard nothing but positive feedback about them so didn’t want to push this off. But now hearing every single public comment but one expressing massive frustration against the streatery program, he’s trying to give space to those opinions by maybe going forward with just uptown streateries at this time, or delaying permanent streateries until parking enforcement improves.
The council discussed pros & cons of tabling the ordinance versus amending it so that no streateries are allowed in the downtown historic district at this time, eventually coalescing on the latter approach, after which Thomas withdrew his motion to table. The council proceeded to brainstorm draft language for 5 amendments to address every point under discussion, which staff was encouraged to tweak as needed.
Rowe moved to approve staff bringing back a third reading of the ordinance with amendments to various paragraphs as discussed, Faber seconded, and the motion carried unanimously.
Since permanent streateries would not be approved this meeting, the next issue was the imminent expiration of temporary streatery authorization. Wennstrom noted that temporary streateries combine the worst of both worlds, since they’re ugly and sit on the street surface instead of platforms, while still negatively affecting other businesses and parking; Thomas said he was more worried about permanence.
MickHager moved to approve a resolution extending the special event authorizing temporary streateries, waiving special use fees, which carried unanimously.
Permanent streateries in the downtown are off the table now. The city council will revisit an ordinance allowing permanent streateries uptown and in other business districts at its upcoming May 16 meeting.
I designated myself an “essential worker” and continued my office IT job as always, as did all my coworkers.I continued shopping at the Food Co-op, where no one wore masks during those early months and few if any got sick (borne out by food worker union statistics). I continued participating in regular services inside my church as part of a skeleton livestreaming crew.I found streets strange with few humans or cars but more wildlife.
When the initial extreme lockdowns eased, things paradoxically got harder for those never locked-down as mask and vax mandates began rolling out.Soon after reopening, Room to Move Yoga and the Rose Theatre excluded everyone unwilling to “show papers”, maintaining restrictions above and beyond Health Department orders to this day.
As even Farmers Markets set up checkpoints to impose outdoor masking, the unlocked-down responded with joyous weekly freedom rallies, walkouts, and protest marches. Community resistance continues through outlets like the Free Press and Health Freedom Information network gatherings.
Public arts took a nose dive, but a few venues provided relief.Throughout much of the lockdowns, the only cinema open to all was the naturally (un)socially-distanced Wheel-In Motor Movie drive-in theatre, joined recently by its companion Uptown Theatre reopening with a brighter new screen.
When the Wooden Boat Festival was cancelled, the neighboring Artful Sailorstepped up with its “Woulda Been a Boat Festival” featuring music from classic rock band Greased Lightning. They are again offering a free Sock Hop by the skate park this Saturday, April 30 from 5-7pm.
Most heartening for me during this time of lockdowns has been my churchcontinuing to keep its doors open with worship practices and soulfuljoyous choir music as unchanged as possible.That has thankfully translated into strong parish growth both here and in churches around the country that stayed open and focused on in-person services.
These were a few of my personal touchstones that might still have general relevance today. Outwardly I’ve mostly had it easy due to my independent nature and circumstances, but inwardly these past two years have been extremely disillusioning and disconcerting, yet laced with silver linings.
Everybody has their own lockdown story. If you’d like to share yours, feel free to post it in the comments section or submit it as an article.
Senior Leader columnist Bill Mann is at it again, unleashing his second wave of trash-talk against so-called “anti-vaxxers”, calling them “stupid”, “idiots”, “foolish”, “deniers”, “clueless”, etc., etc., etc.
In a bizarre reversal of reality, Mann blames lockdown opponents for locking his grandchildren into a “bubble” that “deprived [them] of a normal childhood”:
I don’t blame my cautious daughter in Oregon for the protectiveness she affords our two under-5, un-vaxxed grandkids. They’ve never been in a store or restaurant. They only go to empty playgrounds. They have only one “bubble,” three other kids in a small family that they play with. And we can all hardly wait until the day those kids under age 5 can get vaccinated. If all the clueless and heedless had been vaccinated, our grandchildren may not have been deprived of a normal childhood.
Mann is mistaken regarding the relative risks versus benefits of the Covid quasi-vaccine for otherwise-healthy youngsters, who have virtually zero risk of death from the virus but serious known and unknown risks from the vax.
New studies are finding healthy boys have about 4-6 times higher chance of cardiac hospitalizations than catching Covid,with 1 of every 4515 adolescents hospitalized for myocarditis in Hong Kong after the second dose, and similar destruction of young hearts in the U.S.
Mann’s new column is a sequel to his similar screed from August 25, 2021, which unloaded even more vituperative verbiage:
dehumanizing his neighbors as “boneheads”, “spreadnecks”, “dolts”, and “knuckle-draggers”;
demonizing them as public enemies “making innocent people sick, especially children”; and
urging they “should not be allowed in public spaces” and “not work.”
The Leader‘s blithe promotion of Mann’s provocative hate speech, coupled with their continued censorship of contrarian voices, unleased a flood of letters to the editor and critical responses online. When none of this criticism was allowed to see print in their Opinion Forum, protests outside the Leader offices followed.
Unfortunately, Mann is not just shouting at the moon, but is a small but angry cog is a larger campaign to fan up fear, hatred, deplatforming, discrimination, and violence against so-called “anti-vaxxers”.
The “anti-vaxxer” slur has nonsensically been extended to embrace those who are pro-vaccines but anti-mandates, as well as anyone who questions any aspect of the current lockdown narrative.According to its current usage, the majority of Americans are “anti-vaxxers”, given the unpopularity of vaccine mandates.
The authoritarian risks from this hate campaign are not just academic… an unhinged Department of Homeland Security has now issued a crazy dangerous bulletin targeting those spreading “misleading narratives” or factual “malinformation” including about “vaccine and mask mandates” as “domestic terrorists”!
If the malefactors behind this classification get their way, what’s next?
Burning books and outlawing free speech, as is already happening via social media monopolies following illegal executive branch marching orders in defiance of the First Amendment?
Rounding up thought-criminals into concentration camps like those being built in Australia?
Freezing or stealing their bank accounts as done to working-class truckers and their supporters in Canada?
To his credit, Mann now expresses openness about ending mask mandates, but is quick to say that doesn’t make him “anti-mask”.Wrong again… at least according to the broad-brush “anti-vax” definition rules, Mann’s statements are as “anti-mask” as the nuanced views of most supposed “anti-vaxxers”.
Given that his county health officer is still urging everyone to wear masks, the fact that Mann’s “anti-mask” published views differ from the official truth means Mann is spreading medical “misinformation” as defined by Homeland Security. That also means Mann may now officially be a “terrorist”, whom the covid coup threatens to censor and persecute along with the “anti-vaxxers” that Mann despises. Maybe he can share a prison cell with them.
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The Leader saw fit to print Mann’s two feature columns dedicated to abusing “anti-vaxxers”, despite (or because of) their being filled with “insults, taunts, bullying, intimidation, and profanity” … the very language that specifically violates the Free Press commenting policy against flame wars deterring and drowning out serious discourse.
As writers and editors, we wrestle to discern what level of civil discourse we should aspire to and enforce… what would be most true, kind, and helpful. I am concerned that my own words of criticism are sometimes too barbed and unkind in this and other articles I have written, and if so, I truly apologize.
But it is also true that our own county’s namesake was adamant that his sharp words should stand in our Declaration of Independence, where Thomas Jefferson wrote: “A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.”
Let me relate a poignant personal awakening I experienced after delivering the following public comment to the Jefferson County Board of Health at its February 17 meeting:
My comment is about recent statements made by Health Officer Berry.
Beware, Dr. Berry… mentioning this fact got a reporter censored off Twitter on July 31
I appreciated her telling Commissioners on Monday about the original Pfizer trials showing 15 all-cause deaths from those getting vaccinated exceeding the 14 all-cause deaths from the control group.
She then went on to soft-peddle the number of deaths, saying “in those early trials … they were vaccinating very, very elderly people.”
That’s actually not true.In fact, there were only about 800 people 75 years and older (4.4%) in each of the two 18,000 size subject groups.
BMJ editor Peter Doshi noted that “frail elderly people … are not enrolled into vaccine trials in sufficient numbers,” and a JAMA study found older people have disproportionately been excluded from CV trials in general.
More importantly, Dr.Berry apparently doesn’t know about the July 28 FDA data update, which showed “Pfizer somehow miscounted – or publicly misreported, or both – the number of deaths in one of the most important clinical trials in the history of medicine.”In fact the FDA is now showing there were 21 all-cause deaths among the trial jabbed compared to 17 in the control group, which is 24% more deaths in 6 months.
The fact that significantly more people died in the vaccinated group than the control group should be raising major red flags.
I also wish to draw your attention to two troubling quotes from your Health Officer in the Feb. 10 Peninsula Daily News.The story noted that “Many parents have said their children experience mental health crises while wearing a mask, according to national reports.”Dr. Berry gaslighted and discounted the authentic experiences of these many parents by curtly claiming, “There is no data for this.”
She continued blaming parents by saying, “What is challenging for students is the position that they are put in when they see the misbehavior of their parents. When we see them put in a position where their parents are encouraging them not to wear masks and their teachers are saying they have to, that’s a really difficult position for kids.”
Yes, the whole situation is difficult for kids and everyone involved, but Berry sees the whole problem as one of parental misbehavior, guilty of the crime of having different deeply-held beliefs than the bureaucrats who created this situation.
Health Officer Berry did not directly respond to my public comment, but tangentially said the following:
As far as vaccine safety, I think the simplest explanation is we’ve over 500 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccines delivered in the United States, with continuous monitoring of safety of the vaccines and of the trials around them.We have more data around the safety of these vaccines than any vaccine that has ever come before, and we do continue to see that they are safe and they are incredibly effective.The majority of the county has gotten fully vaccinated, and as we continue to see the same here, I really want to encourage as many of our citizens as possible to move forward and get vaccinated, especially as we move into this next phase of the pandemic, that’s going to be increasingly important.
Though we may have “more data around the safety of these vaccines than any vaccine that has ever come before,” that data disturbingly shows the novel mRNA injection is associated with more deaths and adverse events than ALL previous vaccines COMBINED throughout the monitoring system’s 32-year history.
The only other response touching my comment was from Commissioner Kate Dean:
From my perspective on the masking issue, between my husband and I, we have four kids.So we have a lot of kids around us often.And I will say from that experience with lots and lots of kids, the only kids I see having trouble with masking are kids whose parents have trouble with masking.And of course, kids are welcome to create their own opinions on things, but that is really consistently true.I certainly related to Dr. Berry’s comments that I see kids struggle when they’re told that they will struggle.
Thinking about this particular commenting experience afterwards, something seemed different than past ones, leaving me with a bittersweet feeling of culmination and completion.
The Board of Health has notoriously squeezed off public comment in the past, but I had no complaints about their commenting process this time: they allowed a full 3 minutes to each commentator, they offered extra time to the first commentator after a technical snafu, nobody was cut off, and chairman Greg Brotherton’s moderation was friendly and respectful.
In terms of my own performance, I felt my points were well-supported, understandable, and well-delivered for a change; I spoke fairly naturally from organized notes; I didn’t run out of time nor get lost in the weeds with points too hairy to understand; I didn’t say anything insulting nor personal nor push any buttons that could distract from my points.For who I am and what I was saying, I could hardly have done much better.
But what was the end result?Everybody there seemed to completely ignore everything I had to say, not even deigning to ridicule or take offense or contradict any point I had made.There wasn’t even a veiled reference to “misinformation” or “partisanship” or any other supposed sin blamed on commentators in the past.I didn’t get a rise out of anybody.Berry did not even pretend to respond to my specific criticisms of her.
I tried to provide them new information from authoritative sources about matters of life and death, demonstrate that their in-house Delphic Oracle was not always trustworthy, and make clear that her demonization of parents is not okay.
The Health Board was not having any of it.They simply did not care.Or maybe because I had not made any apparent mistakes they could puncture with a cheap shot, they had nothing to say.Or maybe they identified me as a misinformation super-spreader, so guarded themselves from catching my bug.Or maybe they had at last consciously adopted a strategy that their best course was to politely ignore me and not “feed the troll” nor provide ammunition for future Free Press articles.Who knows?
But what I do know is that Berry did not even bother to acknowledge or stand corrected or disagree or defend herself or attack back against any of my specific points. Instead she just trotted out her usual talking points and called it a day.
And everybody else there seemed to be totally okay with that, completely incurious and uninterested in anything I had to say.After all, they had a full agenda they needed to get on with.So they turned their attention to their next order of very important health business: namely, racial health equity work.
The Board of Health has succeeded in sealing themselves off from reality and new information. What else is there to say? The rest is silence.
