$1.5 Million Judgment Against
Art Frank for Misconduct
Weighs on Campaign, Prosecutor
[Updated with comment from Sheriff Nole]

by Jim Scarantino | Sep 20, 2022 | General

Unlawful arrest, malicious prosecution, making false statements, misleading the prosecutor.

A California Federal District Court jury ruled that Art Frank and another Glendale, California police officer unlawfully arrested and caused the malicious prosecution of Edmond Ovasapyan. The case arose out of a 2005 home invasion in which a teenage son was murdered in front of his mother. The federal jury in 2009 found that the officers lacked probable cause to arrest Ovasapyan, misled the prosecutor and withheld exculpatory evidence from her.

The case has surfaced in Jefferson County as Frank campaigns to unseat his boss and incumbent Sheriff Joe Nole. Frank serves under Nole as a detective and previously held the number two position in the Sheriff’s Office under Nole’s predecessor, Dave Stanko, another former Califiornia police officer relocated to Jefferson County. Stanko hired Frank and made him Deputy Sheriff, ousting Nole from the position he had held under Stanko’s predecessor, Sheriff Tony Hernandez. During Stanko’s years in office Nole served under Frank. When Nole defeated Stanko’s bid for re-election and was elected Sheriff, he moved Frank over to a detective position and made Andy Pernsteiner Deputy Sheriff and his #2.

Word of the case against Frank has been quietly circulating for months. On September 16, 2022, Jefferson County Prosecuting Attorney James Kennedy issued a letter to criminal defense lawyers notifying them of a judicial ruling of misconduct by a law enforcement officer that could impeach the officer’s testimony. Kennedy restated the jury’s findings, but also said he believes the jury ruled incorrectly. Nonetheless, the jury verdict poses a headache for Frank’s effort to persuade voters to put him in charge of the Sheriff’s office, as well as possibly giving defense lawyers ammunition in any case where Frank is a witness for the prosecution.

Edmond Ovasapyan versus Art Frank, et al.

Jefferson County Detective Art Frank

Frank has addressed some of the facts in the case when asked at election forums what his biggest regret is in his 43 years in law enforcement. Frank has served with distinction through those decades in many positions, from patrol officer, to working on a SWAT team, to training other officers, to accomplished detective work. He has saved lives and taken killers off the street. He saw his partner die next to him. He has seen the worst side of humanity in his years in Los Angeles County, and, let’s be honest, also here in Jefferson County. Though he is opposed in his bid for office by local first responders and all the men and women he serves with in the Sheriff’s Office, I am told by some of those same people that he is respected for his skills as a detective. But they do not think he should be Sheriff and do not want to work for him if he is elected to that position. Those feelings are strong, and account for the unprecedented support among first responders and law enforcement for the re-election of Sheriff Nole.

The Ovasapyan case was as bad as anything he had encountered. Frank has in campaign forums related how five men invaded a home and how the teenage son was shot in the chest in front of his mother. He says he regrets that Ovasapyan spent months in jail for something he didn’t do and says it was he who eventually exonerated Ovasayan.

Frank has left out of those accounts the fact that a jury found he had engaged in very serious misconduct, so serious that the trial judge deprived him of law enforcement officer “qualified immunity.” That means Frank was held personally liable for the judgment because, as the court found, no reasonable law enforcement would not have known that the conduct in which Frank engaged was illegal. This is an uncommon finding by a trial court judge.

Ovasapyan was awarded $1.16 million in compensatory damages. The jury also awarded him $75,000 in punitive damages against Frank and $75,000 against the other officer. The trial court awarded the plaintiff $271,495.57 in attorney fees and $5,543.85 in costs. Frank was ruled jointly and severally liable, meaning personally responsible, for all but the punitive damages against the other officer. The City of Glendale paid the judgment, attorney fees, and costs though it was not legally required to do so. It paid approximately $1.7 million after unsuccessful appeals.

The trial court denied Frank’s motion for judgment as a matter of law, meaning that the court found there was enough evidence to support the jury’s verdict. The judgment was upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which specifically ruled that the District Court was justified in finding enough evidence to support the jury’s verdict.

Prosecuting Attorney Kennedy Says the California Jury Got it Wrong

JeffCo Prosecuting Attorney James Kennedy

In his letter to defense attorneys, Kennedy wrote that “it has recently been brought to my attention” that Frank was found liable for misconduct in a civil case. Kennedy stated that he conducted a public records request of the City of Glendale, spoke with a Los Angeles County Assistant District Attorney familiar with the case and obtained and reviewed the entire trial transcript.

Kennedy told defense lawyers he had concluded that the jury was wrong. He concluded that Frank had been blamed for actions taken by others. He concluded that the evidence Frank allegedly withheld was, contrary to the jury’s ruling, already in the possession of defense counsel and not of any material exculpatory value. Frank allegedly failed to investigate alibi evidence; but Kennedy concluded that alibi evidence, even if true, would not have ruled the plaintiff out as a participant in the crime. Lastly, Kennedy credited Frank with ultimately exonerating the plaintiff when DNA evidence pointed to another individual whom Frank tracked down. Frank learned from that individual that Ovasapyan did not participate in the crime and relayed this information to the DA who then dropped charges. By then, Ovasapyan had been in jail for about eight months.

“In conclusion,” Kennedy wrote, “it does not appear that Det. Frank personally authored any reports or directly engaged in any aspect of the investigation that lead [sic] to the false arrest or malicious prosecution of the Plaintiff. Contrary to the findings made by the jury… it appears that Det. Frank’s actions are what actually lead [sic] to the charges being dismissed against the Plaintiff.”

Res Judicata

The matter has been decided. Res judicata is a legal principle that “a decision by a competent court in a case fully and fairly litigated is final and conclusive as to the claims and issues of the parties and cannot be relitigated.” Prosecuting Attorney Kennedy may be absolutely correct that Frank got a raw deal from a California jury. The verdict against Frank may have been as great an injustice as the wrongful imprisonment of Ovasapyan. Justice is sometimes ill-served in our judicial system. Maybe Frank’s lawyers were incompetent. Mr. Kennedy said in an e-mail that the city of Glendale chose to use its in-house lawyers instead of contracting with more skilled and experienced outside counsel, and those lawyers did “a pretty poor job.”

However wrong the Ovasapyan jury may have been, its decision was upheld by a United States Federal District Court judge and later by the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The argument that there was insufficient evidence to find that Frank did the things he was accused of doing was rejected by both courts.

Kennedy’s independent review of the records may blunt the impact of the Ovasapyan verdict outside of court. The reputation Frank has built since moving here may remain intact, though bruised. Frank can point to Kennedy’s conclusions in defending himself on the campaign trail. But when Frank testifies in court, and the defense seeks to impeach him with the Ovasapyan verdict and findings, the trial judge will likely not entertain arguments that the Ovasapyan jurors and several federal judges messed up or that Frank was screwed over by his lousy lawyers. Relitigation of the facts of that case will in all likelihood not be permitted, and Mr. Kennedy’s conclusions–regardless of how well they may be reasoned–will not be allowed in a court of law.

Frank Responds

Good morning Jim,

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the Ovasapyan case. The civil verdict is just one part of the story and has to be viewed in the context of the original investigation in order to be properly understood.

Though it is one small event in my 43-year career and history in law enforcement it is something voters should consider. I have always been transparent about it.  I have spoken about it openly and publicly during the campaign, including at the Democratic Party forum and the League of Women Voters forum, both of which were recorded and are available online. I have answered questions about it from voters and community leaders.  Both the fact of the verdict and the underlying investigation were fully known and understood by my opponent prior to my hiring in 2016 as he was the person who hired me.  He has never raised it as an issue in the campaign because he understands the facts.

Like any career or life experience the case investigation itself did have an impact on my leadership to the extent that it reinforced that it is always important to follow the evidence no matter where it leads and that as police officers, with power comes responsibility.  In this case I had the responsibility to see the investigation through to exonerating and freeing Mr. Ovasapyan, which I did. This is a value and ethic that I live and work by and I would instill and expect from all of my staff if elected.

I did not pay any part of the judgment or costs because the investigation was part of my official responsibilities as an employee of the City of Glendale.

Regarding how the fact of the verdict reflects on credibility, the elected Prosecutor has reviewed both the civil trial as well as the facts of the underlying investigation and concluded that the allegations regarding any wrongdoing on my part are not supported.  I expect his letter re same will be released next week. The fact that I saw the investigation through to exonerating and freeing Mr. Ovasapyan proves my commitment to transparency and justice and should reassure voters that I will always do the right thing.

In my experience you have been fair and given me a full opportunity to respond.  In this case I would appreciate it if you would wait to run any story on the case until I can provide the letter from the Prosecuting Attorney.  You have a powerful voice and it is important that you have all of the information before running a story.

I will send the letter from the prosecutor as well as a more full response as soon as I have the letter, which should be early next week.

As always, thank you for your interest in the campaign and in the truth.

Art

———————————-

Mr. Frank subsequently sent a longer statement and other materials when notified we had obtained Mr. Kennedy’s letter to defense lawyers.

———————————-

Mr. Scarantino,

To best understand what happened in this case it is necessary to know some of the facts related to the crime and original investigation itself, which I have outlined below. 

There were at least six individual suspects involved.

The initial victim, a mother of two adult men, was home alone.  She heard a knock at the door and looked out to see a man who she recognized as a construction worker and associate of her older son who had done tile setting work for her at her business.

She opened the door and a group of men – including the man who knocked at the door – forced their way into the house and tied her up. They then demanded money indicating they had some familiarity with her older son, using his name.

Minutes later, her younger son walked into the house from the rear driveway access door and confronted the home invaders. He fought with the invaders to save his mother and one of the men – though not the one who knocked on the door who she recognized as her son’s acquaintance and tile setter – shot her son in the chest. He died at the scene.

All the invaders fled the house. Typical of a case of this seriousness, several detectives were assigned to work various aspects of the case.  Some of the evidence they gathered: Mr. Ovasapyan had done tile work at the mother’s business in the past. Mr. Ovasapyan had a dispute with one of her sons over a construction project.  Witnesses identified at least two vehicles outside, including a dark colored Honda sedan. Mr. Ovasapyan was known to drive a Black Honda.  The mother was shown a photographic lineup by a detective which included Mr. Ovasapyan’s photo.  She told him it looks just like him, but younger, but maintained it was the tile setter.   While running from the scene one of the suspects (not the man who knocked at the door) dropped an item of clothing. DNA analysis of this item of clothing provided a lead that identified the possible shooter. There was no DNA evidence left by the suspect the victim believed to be Ovasapyan.

I was assigned to gather all of the various reports from the group of detectives who worked the case and to present the case to the prosecutor’s office.  The prosecutor’s decision to file charges in the case was based on an evaluation of the totality of the evidence and not solely the photo identification of Ovasapyan.  As the case moved through the court system Mr. Ovasapyan maintained his innocence.  I did not rest and I continued to investigate the case, and when the DNA results returned they provided the lead that helped me to exonerate Mr. Ovasapyan prior to any trial or conviction.

I am including a letter from Steve Dickman, a prosecutor intimately familiar with the original case as well as the civil trial that followed. His letter is in the form of an endorsement written earlier this year in which he touches on the case and from which this case can be seen in the continuum of my entire career.

I am also including a motion written by Mr. Dickman which discusses the case in detail and explains why the result of the civil trial has no impact or bearing on my credibility as an investigator or witness. Every court that heard this motion did not allow evidence of the verdict or my role in the investigation to be presented to any jury on the issue of my credibility because there was no evidence of wrongdoing. 

Art Frank 

———————————-

The letter from Mr. Dickman is available on Mr. Frank’s campaign website. The motion Mr. Frank mentions is a 27-page legal brief from one party in a criminal case, not a judicial ruling. We have not been provided the motion to which this brief was filed as a response, the reply to this brief nor the ultimate ruling by a court. We print in full all written responses to questions we pose, but publishing this full brief — without knowing anything about the surrounding case and the court’s ruling — is beyond the scope of our policy.

Sheriff Joe Nole has not responded to a request for comment on the statements made by Mr. Frank. I specifically asked Sheriff Nole about Frank’s claim that Nole hired him and was aware of the Ovasapyan verdict at the time. Frank’s account would mean that Nole, not then Sheriff Stanko, hired Frank as Stanko’s second-in-command and demoted himself from the position he had held under Sheriff Hernandez and put himself under Frank’s supervision. Nole, as Frank states, has not used the case against him in debates.

———————————-

[Update to original story] It appears that the Ovasapyan veridict was known at the time of hiring, and the information was passed along to Sheriff Dave Stanko, who made the decision to hire Mr. Frank. Sheriff Nole provided the following answers to the questions we posed last week. He just got back to us after publication of the story. We can also now provide Mr. Kennedy’s full letter to defense counsel.

Q & A with Sheriff Nole:

Q: Was the judicial ruling against Mr. Frank known at the time of his hiring?

A: Yes. Mr. Frank’s pre-hire background investigation developed information on the ruling and that information was discussed with Mr. Frank.

Q: How could he have been hired with this matter so recently in his background? (He was hired a few years after the 9th Circuit upheld the verdict).

A: The information developed in the background investigation and discussed with Mr. Frank regarding the judicial ruling was presented to then Sheriff Dave Stanko, who made the hiring decision.

Q: How does the case impact his ability to do his job?

A: At this point it does not impact his ability to do his job.

Q: Does it detract from his credibility as a witness when he must testify?

A: It could, depending on the circumstances presented at trial and a judge’s interpretation.

Q: How could this detract from his ability to lead the Sheriff’s Office and defend against charges of misconduct?

A: How it could detract would be dependent on the particular situation occurring at the time.

Here is a link to Mr. Kennedy’s letter: PID Letter Det A Frank

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.

Jeffco Anti-Racist Literacy Training Pushes Vaccines, Sidesteps Open Bidding Rules, Wastes $14,999

by Rosemary Schurman | Sep 17, 2022 | General

Jefferson County Commissioners raised a host of disturbing issues by paying $14,999 for 20 county employees to attend an “Anti-Racist Literacy Workshop”. The contract between USAWA Consulting LLC and Jefferson County specifies the training will be customized “to highlight COVID-19 vaccination hesitancy and public health messaging … in reaching a goal of increasing vaccine-uptake among marginalized populations in Jefferson County.”

The course outline submitted by USAWA indicates that the training is designed to “dismantle White supremacy” from within participants “and the culture around them.” Workshop “objectives” include:

• understanding the impact of systemic oppression on maintaining white, male, heterosexual privilege;
• developing an understanding how such oppression inhibits diversity, equity and inclusion; and
• promoting an understanding of racial inequality and an anti-oppressive identity in Jefferson County.

Furthering these objectives will purportedly increase vaccine uptake among marginalized populations.

The revised grant application, dated May 9, 2022, reveals the lack of documentation supporting the existence of vaccine hesitancy among marginalized communities. Documentation is also lacking which establishes the anti-racist training will promote the County’s goal of increasing vaccine-uptake in certain communities. Moreover, if there is no measurable data to identify the problem, it is not possible to measure whether the County’s anti-racist workshops accomplish the stated goal of increasing vaccinations.

The following statements in the County’s grant application reveal the lack of data to support a “need” for anti-racist literacy training:

• “[W]e estimate 4,700 people in our county are unvaccinated. We do not have much data [about] how many of those unvaccinated are part of a marginalized demographic.”

• “Anecdotal evidence also indicated most of our unvaccinated…residents were firm in their decision not to vaccinate. They are no longer open to hearing information from public health …because they do not believe we are a trusted source of information, largely due to the parallel pandemic of mis and disinformation.”

Anecdotal evidence does not constitute verifiable data documenting justification for a grant totaling thousands of tax dollars. Moreover, the County itself states that unvaccinated groups do not trust public health and are no longer open to hearing more information. Furthermore, the County provides no support for the apparent position that the anti-racist literacy program will effectively change “firm” anti-vaccine beliefs or promote increased trust in the public health department personnel.

It should be noted the advertisement and bidding requirements for the initial $9,999 contract were avoided because it was for less than $10,000 and approved by the County Commissioners. (Revised Code of Washington (RCW) 36.32.245(3) & Jefferson County Code (JCC) 3.55.070.)  On August 22, 2022, the Commissioners approved an additional $5,000 for this contract totaling $14,999.

The Agenda Request stated that:

Increase in funding is requested due to the need for more consultation hours than initially budgeted for in order to customize the training. In addition, “make up” sessions will be scheduled for those who miss sessions of the training. Lastly, there was a greater demand for registrations than originally anticipated.

As usual, the item appeared on a Consent Agenda and was passed without discussion. However, JCC 3.55.070(5) provides that: “No contract or purchase shall be subdivided to avoid the requirements of this chapter.”

In this case, there is effectively one contract for services and the advertisement and bidding requirements were by-passed by having two contracts for less than $10,000 each. The creation of two separate contracts under $10,000 is arguably contrary to JCC 3.55.070(5).

The importance of the competitive bidding process was summarized by the Municipal Research Services Center (MRSC), a nonprofit organization that Jefferson County utilizes:

Even when it is not legally required, the submission of municipal purchases and contracts to competitive bidding is generally favored in order to secure the best bargain for the public and to discourage favoritism, collusion, and fraud. Edwards v. Renton, 67 Wn.2d 598, 602, 409 P.2d 153 (1965). Accordingly, requirements in statutes, charter provisions, and ordinances to that effect are liberally construed in favor of bidding, and exceptions are narrowly construed. See Gostovich v. West Richland, 75 Wn.2d 583, 587, 452 P.2d 737 (1969).

Notably, County Commissioners also awarded an 18-month contract totaling $18,000 to USAWA for the development and execution “of a Communications Action Plan (CAP) to support Harm Reduction in Jefferson County as part of the Behavioral Health Consortium’s effort to end overdose deaths in Jefferson County.” Again, the bidding process was avoided by a citation to JCC 3.55.170 which permitted awarding a contract without competitive bidding when there is “only one source of the required… service.”

The current county regulation adopted in 2020, JCC 3.55.020, references the state statute which requires that a “clearly and legitimately” single source may avoid the bidding process. A letter from the Directors of Jefferson County Public Health (JCPH) and Behavioral Health Consortium (BHC) to the County Administrator and Chief Deputy Prosecutor, dated May 25, 2022, states the bid process exception applies because USAWA “has already worked with BHC’s key stakeholders to cement critical relationships in many pockets of the” county and is familiar with the county’s substance abuse and mental health issues.

This familiarity came from awarding USAWA a prior $2,455 contract in early 2022 to support BHC’s goal of ending overdose deaths in Jefferson County. Hence, the familiarity with the issues cited by the County to justify a “single source” exemption to the bidding requirements for the current contract appears to have resulted (at least in part) from another contract that was also exempt from the bidding process for being under $10,000.

It does not appear County Commissioners bothered to consider other local, politically neutral organizations devoted to eliminating or reducing suicides and substance abuse for this grant, nor that alternative organizations do exist.

Jefferson County is one of the poorer counties in the State of Washington with serious needs in the areas of housing, education, jobs and food. The 2021 Healthy Youth Survey also documents significant issues faced by our school-aged children following COVID restrictions.

Is it fiscally responsible for Jefferson County Commisioners to side step the bidding process and spend thousands of dollars on “Anti-Racist Literacy Training” when they have provided no data nor documentation nor measurable outcomes to support a community need for that?

Olympic Pride Doesn’t Want You To See What They’re Promoting to Children

by Jim Scarantino | Sep 14, 2022 | General

Covering its tracks, lawyering up. Olympic Pride got a lawyer to demand that Port Townsend Free Press remove photos showing its interactions with children. The lawyer said it was about copyright. But the same images have also been removed from Olympic Pride’s own website and social media. What was in those photos they don’t want you to see?

Ana Wolpin’s The Dark Underbelly of the Trans Movement: What is Olympic Pride Promoting? prompted the scrubbing and lawyering up. Wolpin’s article took a close look at how Olympic Pride is sexualizing children and promoting transgenderism to kids. That means moving children towards macabre mutilations and a lifetime of taking hormones that can harm their brain development, cause abnormally low bone density and induce severe depression and suicidal ideation. The FDA recently issued a warning that puberty blockers in minors can cause brain swelling and loss of vision. The damage caused to minors by puberty blockers is no longer considered reversible — bad news arriving too late for many young and middle-aged adults.

The mutilations may involve a greedy surgeon cutting flesh from a young girl’s arm or elsewhere to make a fake penis that will be sewn onto the pubic area where her vagina and uterus once were (they’ve been scooped out and sliced away). Many more surgeries and follow-up treatments may be required. Synthetic sex identity is big business. Surgeries can cost $300,000 and up. Just 100 minors on Lupron (a testosterone suppression drug also used to chemically castrate sex offenders) produced $27 million in sales in just seven years, and a lifetime will be required to make the “transition” stick.

Joey Maiz is a woman who at age 27 underwent sex change surgery and took hormones to try to make her a man. Here she weeps for the children being sucked into the same literal meat grinder that ruined her life. [This video is still mostly available off the Gays Against Groomers Facebook page. Try this link.]

Pressure from Olympic Pride’s Attorneys:
Mayor Faber’s Law Firm

On September 13, 2022, the small company that hosts the Port Townsend Free Press website received a demand letter from attorney Sam Feinson, of Faber & Feinson. That is the two-man law firm of Port Townsend Mayor David Faber. He demanded that six images be removed from Wolpin’s article for alleged violation of copyright laws.

Most of the images showed Olympic Pride’s engagement with children, some appearing to be of kindergarten age. These images disappeared from their website after Wolpin’s article. One of the photos was screen-grabbed from a Facebook post of a person not represented by Feinson. Images posted on Facebook are not protected by copyright, particularly when they are posted to allow sharing.

But making these arguments would require engaging an attorney and exposing the web-hosting company to the costs and disruption of legal process. They would be caught in the crossfire. Wolpin took down most of the images, and will be replacing them with others to give readers an idea of what it is Olympic Pride does not want seen by an audience wider and more diverse than the one that hangs around its website.

Grooming 101 and Gays Against Groomers

What exactly is in those images that Olympic Pride does not want seen? Did they show Olympic Pride and its supporters engaged in grooming? Grooming, according to a Wikipedia definition, is “befriending and establishing an emotional connection with a minor, and sometimes the child’s family, to lower the child’s inhibitions with the objective of sexual abuse. Child grooming is also regularly used to lure minors into various illicit businesses such as child trafficking, child prostitution, cybersex trafficking, or the production of child pornography.”

Before the photos were removed you, the reader, could have judged for yourself whether the photos were evidence of grooming. Apparently, that is a judgment Olympic Pride does not want you making.

Gays Against Groomers opposes indoctrinating and sexualizing children under the guise of “LBGTQA+.” They state, “our community that once preached love and acceptance of others has been hijacked by radical activists who are now pushing extreme concepts onto society, specifically targeting children in recent years.” The featured image at the top, from a gay pride parade, is an example. Olympic Pride is the local sponsor of transgender promotion to children, and the sponsor of Jefferson County Transgender Support. Photos of transgender promotion and celebration with young children were among the photos Olympic Pride demanded The Free Press take down.

From Gays Against Groomers FB page

According to Gays Against Groomers, “The overwhelming majority of gay people are against what the community has transformed into, and we do not accept the political movement pushing their agenda in our name.  [T]hese radicals aim to restructure it entirely in order to accommodate a fringe minority, as well as seek to indoctrinate children into their ideology.”

They are talking about groups like Olympic Pride.

“There are millions of gays within the community.” Gays Against Groomers continues, “that want nothing to do with this Alphabet religion and join the fight with parents and concerned people everywhere to protect children. We also aim to return sanity and reclaim the community we once called our own. The gay community is not a monolith. Those pushing this agenda do not represent or speak for us all, nor do we want to be associated with them in any way. What we are witnessing is mass scale child abuse being perpetrated on an entire generation, and we will no longer sit by and watch it happen.”

Gays Against Groomers recently helped defeat trans ideology indoctrination in Florida schools. Their truck was photographed in Miami outside a critical school board hearing. They recognize evil and speak out against it. Raising concerns about the life-long damage done to children by the promotion of trans ideology and what it physically entails cannot be dismissed as homophobia.

Olympic Pride aggressively seeks contact and interaction with children. It sponsored the recent “Queer/Trans Pool Party,” where it occupied the entire Mountain View pool and locker rooms. It was an “all ages” event. Olympic Pride sponsors the Rainshadow Youth Collective, which specifically targets those under 19 years of age. The “Collective” (an interesting choice of a Marxist term) promoted the “Queer/Trans” all ages pool party to kids and holds a variety of ostensibly innocent events for children.

Remember Joe Camel? 

Marketing experts know how to get kids’ attention. The makers of Camel cigarettes once employed the character of Joe Camel to entice children to try its carcinogenic product. He was one cool, fun dude and everyone liked him. Food marketers use cartoons to entice kids to eat junk food. Toy companies have long used cartoons to sell their products to kids (or parents, pressured by kids). The USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism states, “Many different organizations, ranging from governmental health agencies to cigarette companies, develop specific campaigns that are designed to appeal to children. These advertisements may target youths’ interests and attention in many ways, such as through the use of cartoon figures or the promise of maturity.”

Among the images Olympic Pride demanded be taken down were the cartoons it uses to promote transgenderism to children. Their lawyer’s demand letter stated that these images were “illustrations and graphics created to advertise Olympic Pride events.” They are more than that. They are Olympic Pride’s advertising tools to reach children.

Fair Use and Facebook

Use of the images objected to by Olympic Pride’s lawyer is arguably “fair use” and not a copyright infringement. As Facebook explains, copyright “laws allow people to use, under certain circumstances, someone else’s copyrighted work [for] criticism, commentary, parody, satire, news reporting, teaching, education and research.”

That’s what Wolpin did. The images she used were already out there, and she used them for the purpose of criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching and education about what Olympic Pride is up to. But being right does not end a fight with lawyers. Vindication comes through sometimes expensive and burdensome litigation. The Free Press did not want to get its hosting company or its contributors and editors consumed in legal wrangling that would distract from its mission of reporting and commenting on what is happening in our community. We think that by demanding that the images be hidden from the public Olympic Pride is telling on itself. Their attempt to erase the evidence gave us an opportunity to draw more attention to what they are up to.

Olympic Pride also demanded that photos from someone else’s Facebook page and website be taken down. Those photos depicted Beau Ohlgren, who runs Olympic Pride’s Jefferson County Transgender Support Network. Ohlgren is also director of Family Ministry at the Quimper Unitarian Universalist Church (QUUF). The photos Olympic Pride demanded be removed were Ohlgren’s head shot from the QUUF website and a photo of Ohlgren in a leotard with waist-length hair from another person’s Facebook page (which had enabled sharing). Wolpin declined to take down these photos.

Why Mayor Faber’s Law Firm?

David Faber’s selfie on Twitter, in a toilet stall

Mayor David Faber has written on his social media that, “As mayor, I am legally required to be a pervert and deviant,” and also “absolutely filthy.” He has described himself as a person who has sex with dead chickens and discussed having sex with a dog. He has written that Pee Wee Herman, who was convicted of possession of child pornography and public masturbation, “did nothing wrong.” He has embraced Vaush, a YouTuber who argues for the decriminalization of child pornography and lowering the age of consent. New York magazine contributor and former Washington Post reporter Mandy Stadtmiller, Andy Ngo and other journalists have recently dug into Faber’s troubling, creepier alter-ego.

Faber’s selfie, published on his Twitter account for the world to see, shows him wearing eye liner in a bathroom stall. What is that about? Ugh.

Feinson, Faber’s partner, is well aware of Faber’s social media revelations and has engaged with him on the same Twitter account Faber used to issue these abhorrent declarations. This has been established by Substack researcher and commentator Mattie Watkins. Her two articles are here and here.

This is the law firm Olympic Pride chose to use to demand that the Port Townsend Free Press remove photographs that may show evidence of grooming and aggressive marketing of transgenderism, and all that entails, to children. Faber has even encouraged the teenager at the center of the Julie Jaman/YMCA controversy to cut off his genitals by giving him $200 through his GoFundMe page towards what is euphemistically called “bottom surgery.”

Tweet from David Faber

Olympic Pride has helped organize and lead the protests against Julie Jaman and women who have called for safe, dignified spaces where they change, shower and go to the bathroom. Olympic Pride, as did Faber, had a large hand in whipping up the crowd (mob) that bullied and roughed up mostly older women at the August 15, 2022 press conference. Rape survivors and a Black woman pleading for the same consideration trans people claim faced a crowd screaming that they were “c*nts” and TERFS, a sexist slur used to justify violence.

Faber fanned the flames — indeed, the press conference had been organized in response to his taunting rape survivors and women’s rights activists. Faber wrote on his Twitter feed, where he makes official statements in his capacity as Mayor (including his perceived job requirements about being a pervert and deviant), that what happened to the older women, whom he has also called TERFS — was “beautiful.” Council member Libby Wennstrom subsequently called for the expulsion from Port Townsend of all women who did not agree with her that men can become actual women and belong in women’s showers and bathrooms.

Olympic Pride was asked if it condemned such hate speech. It has remained silent despite its self-proclaimed welcoming “inclusive” mantra.

Olympic Pride Doesn’t Want You Knowing Their “Pride Partners”

Wolpin’s article copied a collage of logos of the local businesses Olympic Pride says are its “Pride Partners.” Their lawyer demanded that image be removed. One would have thought Olympic Pride would want people to know about the businesses supporting their indoctrination and grooming of children so they might choose genital and other bodily mutilation and a lifetime of hormone treatments. Or maybe not. Maybe those businesses have been hearing from customers following publication of Wolpin’s article, and they’ve passed that ire along to Olympic Pride.

It’s said a picture is worth a thousand words. Olympic Pride doesn’t want us using pictures, so we’ll use words.  And we won’t need anywhere near a thousand to wrap this up. Here is a full list of Olympic Pride’s “Pride Partners,” who wittingly or unwittingly are endorsing its marketing of transgender ideology to children, which includes surgical and chemical “transitioning”:

• Shanghai Chinese Restaurant
• Propolis Brewing
• Tommyknockers
• Sirens
• The In Between
• The Old Whiskey Mill
• Vespertine
• Jefferson Healthcare
• Newport Healthcare
• Bunny’s Bath
• The LI Law Firm
• The Production Alliance
• PT Shirt Company
• The Food Co-op
• Gift of Grace
• Discovery Behavioral Healthcare
• Corvus Crafts
• Pride Foundation
• Jefferson Community Foundation
• Sugarfoot Studios
• Bill’s Plumbing
• Dove House
• Chimacum Corner Farmstand
• Bell Tower Brokers
• Frameworks
• MJ Photography
• Sea Change Cannabis
• Uptown Cutlery
• Port Townsend Picnic Parties
• The Washington
• Greener Housekeeping
• Finnriver
• Marrowstone Vineyards
• Oak & Well Acupuncture
• Mad Hatter & Co.
• With These Rings
• Two Hooligans Cider
• The Rose Theatre
• Mystic Monkey Yoga
• Seal Dog Coffee Bar
• PT Scene
• Zack’s Donuts

Smart Meters Coming
to a Neighborhood Near You!

by Annette Huenke & Ana Wolpin | Sep 13, 2022 | General

“By anyone’s assessment, traditional electromechanical [analog] meters are an amazing piece of engineering work. Refined over a hundred years, the design of a standard residential electricity meter became an impressive combination of economy, accuracy, durability and simplicity.”
– Electric Power Research Institute

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A program is now underway in Jefferson County to replace existing utility meters with two-way communicating Smart meters.

You have a choice, though. Because of an Opt-Out Policy created several years ago, PUD customers can reject a Smart meter and opt for a non-transmitting analog meter instead.

According to the “Grid Modernization – Meter Replacement Process” page on JeffPUD’s website:

Utility-wide replacement of aging meters with new advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) [Smart meters] will begin on September 19th in Kala Point. Meter replacement will be done in zones over time, with full replacement projected by early-2024.

General Manager Kevin Streett reported at the PUD regular meeting on Sept. 6th that the ‘Gateways’ — a system-critical piece of hardware used for data relay between the consumer and the utility — are in short supply, thus are being rationed by the manufacturers. The speed of the county-wide rollout to 20,000 customer/owners will depend upon that supply chain, and that of the so-called Smart meters themselves.

If you know you do not want a Smart meter, you don’t have to wait until you are notified of the rollout reaching you. You can request an analog meter at any time using the PUD’s “RF Transmitting Meter Opt-Out Application” (see below).

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How We Got Here

In 2017, AMI technology, more commonly known as Smart meters, was rejected by more than a thousand county utility customers on a petition titled “We Want Analogs. No Smart Meters.”  Over the course of two years, a group called SMOG — Smart Meter Objectors Group — challenged the PUD’s intended Smart meter rollout.

In response to concerns put forward by SMOG, in 2018 the meter replacement plan was put on pause. In November of 2019 and 1,000 signatures later, PUD commissioners granted utility customers the choice of opting for a non-transmitting analog meter, then or at any time in the future. Since that time about 175 customer-owners have requested that their existing one-way transmitting meters known as AMR — Automatic Meter Reading, not AMI/Smart meters — be replaced with analogs.

Now that the commissioners have decided to move forward with the AMI “Grid Modernization”, unless you opt out, your one-way transmitting AMR meter will be replaced with what many critics consider a far-more problematic two-way transmitting Smart meter.

One of approximately 40 Smart meters installed to date by Jefferson County PUD. The county-wide rollout begins Sept. 19th.

The authors are two of SMOG’s co-founders (Annette continues to monitor and participate in PUD meetings), and are among the early opt-outs. This article will describe the concerns around Smart meters and why you might want to opt for an analog when the meter replacement program comes to your neighborhood.

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Utility companies love Smart meters,
but are they better for the customers?

2017 SMOG information sheet

There are multiple issues with Smart meter technology that SMOG initially addressed:

1. High costs for new infrastructure to support this technology that generally leads to utility rate hikes;
2. Short meter lifespan, with frequent meter replacement adding to utility costs;
3. Safety issues – the meters’ lack of grounding potentially causing house fires and the shorting out of household appliances;
4. Questions about smart meter accuracy, affecting utility bills;
5. The potential surveillance by Smart technology, gathering information on household habits;
6. Control of meters remotely by the utility;
7. Time-of-Use rate adjustments increasing utility bills;
8. Health concerns resulting from the electromagnetic radiation emitted by Smart meters.

We won’t dwell on the first four concerns for the following reasons:

1) JeffPUD has already decided to go down this road, with a workplan budget of $4,060,000 for this 2+ year project. Cost overruns can be in the millions with these rollouts, particularly additional infrastructure expenses where there are terrain issues like we have in Jefferson County. Time will tell how this affects our rates.

2) If the Smart meter obsolescence figure of 5-7 years given in Congressional testimony in 2015 holds true, with costs shared among the PUD’s customer base, even those who opt out will see rate increases if their Smart-metered neighbors require more frequent replacements.

3) The incidence of fires following smart meter installations was alarming in the early rollout years, but not much news has surfaced the past few years. It remains one reason to choose an analog, though, if you want the safest possible tech on your property.

4) A 2017 study showed that Smart meters gave false readings from 30% too low to 582% too high. That could mean you pay more or less than your actual usage. We just don’t know. We do know that analog meters have stood the test of time, holding their accuracy within industry standards for decades.

The issues we can clearly address by opting out of a Smart meter at this point include:

Invasion of Privacy,
Surveillance and Data Collecting

A major difference between two-way Smart meter technology and our current one-way-transmitting meters is in their ability to communicate detailed data wirelessly to our utility.

An analog meter does not broadcast any frequencies at all, it is read manually on-site by a meter reader.

Our current one-way meters broadcast infrequently, sending overall energy usage to a collector, recorded by a meter reader in the field.

A Smart meter broadcasts RF frequencies 24/7, every few seconds or even faster, up to 190,000 bursts of pulsed radiation per day.

While our PUD has not added this feature to the AMI meters being purchased, one of the promises of Smart technology is its potential to not only broadcast our usage remotely to the utility, but to communicate with any Smart gadget or device — appliances, heating and cooling systems, lights, video doorbells, security cameras, door locks, an ever-expanding array of Smart tech — and send detailed information to our utility about how and when we use energy.

That is seen as a benefit by some, potentially offering the customer more specific data on their power consumption to encourage better energy habits. But that doesn’t play out in real life. As studies like this one from Keele University show, Smart Meters Have Little Impact on People’s Energy Usage Habits.

What detailed data collection does achieve is in-home surveillance, sending personal information to the “Cloud” that potentially allows your utility — or a hacker — to monitor your household’s private habits in real time. It can reveal when you are home or not, when and how much you use specific appliances, in some cases even your TV viewing habits. It’s been dubbed “the household device that spies on you 24/7.”

The data collected can be sold to third parties. Miles Keogh, Director of Research at the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, warns, “I think the [smart meter] data is going to be worth a lot more than the [electricity] commodity that’s being consumed to collect the data.”

As previously stated, this information will not be available with these new Smart meters — the PUD has assured us that it is not their intent to carry out this kind of data-mining on us, or to sell it for profit. It will require an upgrade for that capability.

It is, however, a slippery slope. We take the PUD’s current management at their word, but once this technology is in place, it opens a Pandora’s box for future abuse.

Remote Disconnects, Control and
Rationing of Your Energy Use

One of the upsides for the utility in switching over to a Smart meter network is the remote disconnect feature. If the PUD needs or wants to turn off your power, no one has to physically come to your property; your service can be disconnected remotely by the utility.

This feature is prominently displayed on the new Vision Smart meters.

And with additional hardware installed, there is also the potential for the PUD to control your power use in other ways. For example, as 22,000 utility customers in Colorado were recently shocked to discover, thermostat settings can be overridden remotely. During a heat wave just weeks ago, we saw the headline Power Company Seizes Control Of Thermostats In Colorado During Heatwave.

“After temperatures soared past 90 degrees, residents were left confused when they tried to adjust their air conditioning and found locked controls displaying a message that said ‘energy emergency’.”  Utility customers discovered that their thermostats were locked in at 78 or 79 degrees. Those with heat-related health issues were unable to adjust for their comfort level; temperature regulation was completely out of their control.

Again, this is not something that will be possible with the initial Smart meter rollout in Jefferson County. But the infrastructure will be in place for increasing control and energy rationing by our utility in the future.

Current Billing Structure
and Proposed Time-of-Use Rates

At present, we are charged a flat fee (base rate) for the privilege of connection to the electric grid, and a kilowatt-per-hour usage fee (you’ll easily find these on your power bill).

It’s elementary that there are typical peak times in most households when far more energy is consumed — most commonly between 4pm and 9pm — when families get home from work and school and prepare dinner, turn on lights, televisions, computers, EV chargers, appliances etc. Power generators charge more to utilities when these peaks stress their systems.

Time-of-use billing aims to pass most of those cost increases directly on to the consumer in order to nudge them to modify their usage behavior by shifting much of their consumption to the shoulder lower-peak hours, or better yet, midnight-to-6am off-peak hours. (Some of us have been doing this voluntarily for years or even decades.)

Sounds reasonable enough, but there are caveats. What about people who are disabled, at home all day with elderly parents or small children, or underemployed and constantly juggling jobs?

A study published in Nature Energy in December 2019, titled “Varied Health and Financial Impacts of Time-of-Use Energy Rates Across Sociodemographic Groups Raise Equity Concerns,” summarized their findings in this way:

“The elderly and those with disabilities face greater increases in electricity bills and worse health outcomes under some time-of-use electricity rates. This suggests that vulnerable groups should be considered separately in time-of-use rate design, and future rate designs should be tested to ensure that they do not increase hardship.”

The paper pointed to typical hardships in lower income, rural counties like ours — inefficient appliances, leaky homes and the prevalence of rentals rather than home-ownership — which effectively prohibit the consumer from improving their comfort through increased energy efficiency. This can contribute to negative health outcomes for those who are forced to suffer through cold winters, hot summers and higher overall bills.

What I can’t see can’t hurt me.
Right?

Perhaps the most controversial aspect of this technology relates to the health impacts from the high-intensity pulsed radiation (RF transmissions) that Smart meters emit. Many decades of research have established that electromagnetic fields (EMFs) can cause profound health issues.

When Smart meters first began rolling out in the U.S., the incidence of people reporting new health challenges spiked dramatically. Former Silicon Valley engineer Jeromy Johnson is one who experienced a decline so debilitating after a Smart meter was installed that he turned EMF educator. Within a week of its installation, the meter’s impacts changed him from an early-adopter tech enthusiast to someone unable to function in his normal work and home environments.

As described in Johnson’s acclaimed 16-minute TED Talk (with thousands of corroborating comments), the most common adverse health effects linked to EMF exposures from these meters include:

• • • Headaches
    • Insomnia
    • Fatigue
    • Tinnitus
    • Heart arrhythmia/palpitations
    • Decreased immune function
    • Irritability
    • Decreased cognitive function

Estimates of those who suffer from electrosensitivity range from 3 to 10 percent of the population. This concern was a major reason our PUD commissioners agreed to create an Opt-Out Policy. A future article will explore this issue in more depth.

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Why Choose an Analog Meter?

Two styles of analog meters our PUD is using for opt-outs — the original “clock face” style that records usage on small dials and a later style with a numerical display.

Local craftsman and contractor, Sebastian (Seb) Eggert, is nearing completion of his ElectroMagnetic Radiation Specialist (EMRS) certification with the Building Biology Institute and was a founding member of SMOG. He is the host of a semi-monthly Zoom call with other working EMRS professionals in which they discuss their cases and host guests, among them many of the most well known leaders in the field. He is hired by business and home owners to ‘survey’ offices and domiciles for the unseen presence of electrical, magnetic and radio frequency radiation (RF) as well as high frequency voltage transients emitted by wiring, known as dirty electricity (DE). He shares this primer, beginning with the beauty of analog technology:

“Electromechanical (analog) meters were the mainstay of the national electrical system for more than a hundred years. The amount of electricity used is indicated on a series of small dials or a digital display. The electrical current moving through the device constantly turns the mechanism in proportion to the amount of electricity consumed. A miniscule amount of friction in the system is the only loss of energy in the device.

If calibrated properly they are highly accurate and have been known to run reliably for as many as fifty years. They produce no other nuisance radiation of any kind, other than that created by the electricity in and moving through the wires.”

Traditional analog meters are safer, less expensive, more reliable, longer lasting and more secure than wireless Smart meters. With an analog meter there is zero chance for Smart surveillance, no possibility of the utility remotely disconnecting or controlling your energy use, no way to impose Time-of-Use rate structures, and no harmful radiation or dirty electricity is ever generated.

Unfortunately, manufacturing of new analog meters came to an end as industry’s push for ‘smart grid’ technology was prioritized. However, even according to Randy Austin, CEO of Vision Meters (our new supplier), refurbished analogs operate reliably and within industry standards for 25-35 years.

Non-transmitting Analog
or Non-transmitting Digital?

Our PUD also offers a second type of non-radiating meter as part of its opt-out program: digital non-transmitting meters. Eggert explains:

“These meters look like the new two-way transmitting [Smart] meters but do not have radio transmitters or receivers, thus — like analog meters — have to be read monthly by a meter reader. The switch mode power supply that measures the electricity used and displays it on the meter does generate some high frequency voltage transients, also known as ‘dirty electricity’, or ‘DE’. This is considered objectionable current by the building biology community and some electrically sensitive people are negatively affected by this form of radio frequency radiation.

The digital non-transmitting meters average the current used by sampling the amperage moving through the device over time and taking an average of those readings. Some engineers suggest that spikes from power surges (such as when a refrigerator starts up) can skew the average to be higher than what the usage is, resulting in higher electricity bills.”

Analog meters do not use this kind of averaging which can inflate your utility bills, nor do they generate dirty electricity — more reasons they are the superior meter choice.

Analog advocate Jeromy Johnson says, “I encourage you to do everything possible to opt-out of your Smart meter.”  And with our hard-won Opt-Out Policy in place, we have that choice in Jefferson County.

Sign Up for Your Analog
Opt-Out Meter

If you want an analog meter for any or all of the above reasons, we are happy to report that our PUD has made it an easy process with a simple one-page opt-out form.

Opt-Out Application is on the last page of the packet here.

Our utility is offering non-transmitting analog meters for no initial installation charge and only a $5.00 monthly fee added to the power bill. The $5 surcharge goes towards the cost of a meter reader coming to your property every month to manually read your power usage.

Some caveats apply. From the PUD’s website:

Net metering (solar power) customers are limited to the [non-transmitting] digital meter, and must pay a $75 installation fee.

PUD customers who rent their homes will need to have their Opt-Out applications signed by the property owner in order for the application to be processed.

You’ll find the AMI/Smart meter opt-out form here.  It cannot be filled out online, rather must be downloaded and printed out, or picked up at the customer service counter at 310 Four Corners Road.

Except for a point of confusion over whether to choose the non-transmitting analog or non-transmitting digital, we’ve not heard of any snags from others who have already opted out. We strongly suggest the analog option as the safest, most robust meter available.

Analog meters are available for most customers, but our PUD states that only the non-transmitting digital option will work with solar systems.

We will be happy to answer questions in the comments below.

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Top photo from PUD website

Clementine Adams Interview
Reveals Shortcomings
in Local YMCA Child Protection Rules

by Jim Scarantino | Sep 10, 2022 | General

Clementine “Clem” Adams finally spoke. And when he did, he revealed shortcomings in local YMCA child safety rules, the policies designed to prevent the sort of conduct that has led to lawsuits against the Y for child sexual abuse and numerous cases of sexual assaults across the country.

We’ve written how the Port Angeles Y expelled a family for reporting child pornography and sexual misconduct, and how the Mountain View pool managed by the Y is no longer a safe place for many women and girls. These reports have touched on the increasing incidence of sexual assaults against women and girls in YMCAs nationwide. Adams’ interview reveals a level of negligence that should alarm upper management and any parent who entrusts their children to inept and poorly trained YMCA employees.

A Stitcher podcast hosted by “Garrison” was released September 1, 2022, entitled, “How Transphobia Took Over a Town.” For the first time Adams gave his version of events when Julie Jaman encountered him while showering in the Mountain View women’s showers. Adams is a 19-year old male who in March 2022 said he is now a woman. He is fully male and is “interested in women” according to his Facebook profile just a few weeks ago (a screenshot saved it).

Jaman says she heard a male voice and there, close to her shower curtain, was a “man in a woman’s swim suit looking at little girls.” The girls, Jaman says, were partially naked as they took off their swimsuits to use the toilets, only ten to twelve feet away. Jaman says she asked Adams, “Do you have a penis?” He answered, “None of your business.” She then told him “Get out of here!” He refused. He said in the interview that he just shook his head, “no.”

The pool manager, Rowen de Luna, then entered the woman’s shower area, told Jaman she was “discriminating,” was being banned from future use of the pool and the police were being called. Neither he nor de Luna informed Jaman that Adams was an employee of the Y. (He was not wearing a uniform or any identification.)

Jaman’s and Adams’ accounts agree on these basic facts.

We had offered Adams the opportunity to tell his side in writing, without any editing by us — completely and verbatim — before our first report on this incident, that since led to international attention and two demonstrations in Port Townsend attended by hundreds of people. Adams has not responded.

The same invitation to de Luna also went unanswered. Instead, we were contacted by Erin Hawkins, communications director for Olympic Peninsula YMCA, and instructed not to attempt to contact any Y employees. The Y offered a few vague details and accused Jaman of a “documented” history of misconduct, but has refused to reveal those documents or tell even Jaman what that alleged misconduct is.

Adams’ FB profile pic, added 9/9/22

Now we hear directly from Adams, and what he has to say vindicates Jaman and shows that her maternal instincts were correct: she was seeing something very wrong in the women’s showers at Mountain View pool on July 26, 2022.

Adams Speaks 

“Garrison” was able to record the first interview with Adams. Just a few words about him:

“Garrison” is a man who says he has been taking hormones for about a year. He is virulently anti-woman. He expressed total disdain and contempt for women’s rights activists and feminist/women’s rights publications such as the influential Reduxx, which has covered this controversy extensively. They were the first to publish photographs of Adams. “Garrison” repeatedly called women who object to biological males in their private spaces “TERFs,” a recognized sexist slur and hate speech used to dehumanize woman and frequently justify and encourage violence against them. This man called women who disagree with him, “so-called feminists.”

Adams obviously felt comfortable talking with Garrison and his story spilled out. He said he was observing the Y’s “Rule of Three” but apparently does not understand the rule. We were informed by Hawkins that rule requires two adults to accompany any child to the bathroom. This is confirmed by mention of the rule found in the polices of other YMCAs. The presence of another adult deters misconduct and also protects the adults in the event of false accusations.

But Adams said the rule allowed him, alone, to take two young girls to the bathroom where he admits he touched one of them and saw at least one of them partially nude. He also revealed that other little girls came to the bathroom unescorted. And, to make things worse, he claims that because he was not wearing his glasses he couldn’t see much of anything, and even had trouble finding Jaman though she was but a few feet away.

Inadequate Local YMCA Child Protection Rules 

According to Hawkins, the employee manual for Mountain View YMCA employees says the following regarding bathroom procedures:

“Children who are participating in YMCA programs are not to be sent to bathrooms without a YMCA staff member present. Staff will make sure the rest room is not occupied by suspicious or unknown individuals before allowing children to use the facilities. This policy allows privacy for the children and protection for the staff (not being alone with a child). No child, regardless of age, should ever enter a bathroom alone on a field trip or at other off-site location.” [Italics added.]

What policy? What in those bare four sentences on an issue as important as protecting children from the sexual predation and misconduct that has plagued YMCAs provides privacy for children and protects staff from being alone with a child? Something is missing from what Hawkins says is the Olympic Peninsula YMCAs bathroom policy for children. The “Rule of Three” of which Adams spoke in his interview and Hawkins described to me is not there. Yet, both have stated this “Rule of Three” is a requirement regarding bathroom use by children.

I asked Hawkins if she had sent me the entire, unredacted children’s bathroom policy in force at Mountain View. She did not respond. Did the Y send us an edited version because the full policy and procedures would show that Adams and other Y staff deviated from mandatory child protection measures? We’re left to wonder.

A search of child protection policies posted online by other YMCAs around the country, from California to Kansas in our search, found uniform, quite detailed child protection procedures, far more protective of children than the scant, incomplete four sentences Olympic Peninsula YMCA is saying is their bathroom policy (but not confirming it is their entire policy). Adams and the Y’s pool manager violated even those flimsy regulations by allowing him to be the only staff person with children. His conduct also violated other child protection requirements in force uniformly at YMCAs that publish their entire policy manual for the public to see.

We found the following exact same child protection policies (even formatted exactly the same) in a number of YMCAs in different areas of the country. This is copied from the manual of the Silicon Valley YMCA:

Adams and the Y management, which permitted and has supported his conduct, violated these YMCA child protection rules as follows:

• Without another staff person he took two little girls to the bathroom. (Paragraph 3).
• No other staff person could see Adams when he was with the little girls. (Paragraph 3).
• He did not stand in the doorway to grant the girls privacy, but entered the bathroom area and stood directly outside the toilet stalls. (Paragraph 5).
• He had physical contact when he pulled up a little girl’s swimsuit. (Paragraphs 5 & 6).
• He assisted the little girl in putting on her swimsuit without a second staff person present. (Paragraph 5).
• Two other little girls were permitted to leave the pool and come to the women’s showers and bathrooms unattended by adult staff, and Adams allowed them to leave, again unattended. (Paragraph 5).

Adams Says He Really Couldn’t See Anything, Undermining His Credibility and Raising Suspicions About His Motives

“It might be worth noting,” Adams said in the interview, “I am prescribed glasses and wasn’t wearing my glasses, which is kind of terrifying, ‘cuz, you know, it was like a shot in the dark. I just heard a voice and I had to search around before I could figure out who was talking to me.”

Adams, according to Jaman, was just outside her shower curtain, where he could see her and she could see him. The distance from Jaman’s shower to the bathroom stalls, she says, is only ten to twelve feet.

“A shot in the dark” trying to find her when she spoke to him? His vision is that bad?

Mountain View Pool

But this is the person who was employed by the Y as a caretaker for kids in and around the pool. If he couldn’t see Jaman easily, from either one to two or ten to twelve feet away, how could he have been doing his job? He says in the interview he came directly from the pool with two children. Where were his glasses if his eyesight is so impaired that it is “kind of terrifying” to be without them?

Yet, in the next breath in the interview Adams said he was able to see “the concerned look” on the faces of two children who entered the bathroom unescorted.

This is a very strange part of the interview. Adams digressed to bring up the issue of his allegedly terrible eyesight. Why? To imply that his eyesight was so bad we should think he couldn’t see naked women and children in the showers?

Adams’ former Facebook profile photo shows him with wire-rimmed glasses with thin lenses. In another recent photo he posed without glasses and did not look “kind of terrified.”

An earlier Adams Facebook profile pic

Photo from Adams’ GoFundMe page

Adams, despite pronouncing himself a few months earlier to be a woman, is a heterosexual male. He is “interested in women,” according to his Facebook profile. Men are sexually stimulated visually, much more than women. That’s just how men are wired.

Adams’s interjecting a hard-to-believe diversion about extremely poor eyesight into his story of being in the women’s showers can only make one wonder about his motivation. It certainly undermines his credibility. As does the next part of his story.

Adams was the Only Staff Person with Partially Naked Children. Where was the Pool Manager?

He says that when two other children entered the showers and he saw “the concerned look on their faces, I just kinda told them to leave ‘cuz I didn’t want them to get involved.” He says they went “straight to her [de Luna, the pool manager] and asked her to help and told her that someone was yelling at me. Moments later Rowen entered and as she walked by I got her attention. And I told her, you know, there’s an older lady yelling at me to leave and I pointed at the shower stall Julie was using.”

As she walked by I got her attention. This makes no sense. The shower area is not that large, and the space where the showers and toilets are is not on the way to anywhere else. (See featured image.) This statement by Adams makes it sound like he, not the children, brought de Luna into the room, or that de Luna just chanced to enter the women’s showers, when he got her attention.

I asked Jaman about this and she said de Luna did not enter the showers from the pool but rather from a staff lounge or office area. In any event, both Adams and Jaman agree that de Luna came from somewhere outside the showers and that, therefore, Adams was the only staff person with up to four children, in violation of even the Mountain View YMCA’s flimsy child protection policy. Jaman says all four were at some point in time in some stage of taking off their bathing suits while Adams was looking at them, close enough that he actually touched one.

Child Protection Does Not Come First at the YMCA Mountain View Pool

YMCA staff violated child protection common sense and rules left and right, yet it was Julie Jaman who was punished. She may not have acted as a shy, retiring, proper little lady when her maternal protective instincts kicked in. But her instincts were correct. Yet she is the one who received a letter from the Olympic Peninsula YMCA notifying her she would be charged with trespassing if she set foot on any Olympic Peninsula YMCA property.

The first response of the pool manager was to lecture Jaman, expel her and call police.  Where was she while Adams — nearly blind, he says, so much that it was “kind of terrifying” — was taking care of children in and around the pool? Where was she when he led two children to the bathroom then helped one pull up her swim suit? Where was she when two more children wandered from the pool unescorted to the women’s showers where, according to Jaman, they also were at some point undressed in front of Adams?

As we reported about the expulsion of a family from the Port Angeles YMCA for reporting child pornography, the Jaman case shows that when it comes to child protection and making its facilities a safe place for women and children, Olympic Peninsula YMCA has other priorities and agendas.

(Mattie Watkins contributed significant research for this article. You may read her stories on the Jaman/YMCA controversy and Mayor David Faber’s dark and, to quote him, “pervert[ed] and deviant” side at lollobrollo.substack.com.)

Transcription of Adams’ Account

Here follows a transcription of Adams’ account of his interaction with Julie Jaman, excluding the interviewer’s interpretations or fills:

“I was using the women’s room, cuz, you know that works more me, and that lines up with how I feel. We went through all that (on July 26, 2022), no problem, we got the kids…the kids got changed in the stalls. Once we were out at the pool one of the kids needed to use the locker room bathroom. So I took that kid and another kid to the locker room in accordance with the Y’s Rule of Three system.

“I was waiting outside the stall with the kid being the buddy, making small talk, when Julie Jaman initiated the dialogue by asking if I was a member of the LBGTQ Plus community. I responded, uh, yes, I’m trans and she asked me if I had a penis. It kinda caught me off guard and I told her that’s none of your business. Julie asserted that I needed to leave, that I can’t be there. Then in response to her assertion I just shook my head ‘no.’ I couldn’t really leave or I’d be leaving the kids unattended and, you know, I was backed into a corner. The kid at some pointed exited the stall and had her swimming, her bathing suit wasn’t fully pulled up and she asked me for help and so I assisted her by pulling up by the straps. And there were other patrons present in the locker room at this time. As some point after the girl coming out and needing her straps pulled up Julie was back in the shower stall. Around then two more kids entered the locker room.

“It might be worth noting  I am prescribed glasses and wasn’t wearing glasses, which is kind of terrifying, cuz, you know, it was like a shot in the dark. I just heard a voice and I had to to search around before I could figure out who was talking to me.

“But any ways, two more kids came into the locker room and they overheard Julie shouting at me asked me what was going on, like, they had this concerned look on their face and then I just kind of told them to leave cuz I didn’t want them to get involved.

“”They went straight to her (Rowen de Luna, the pool manager) and asked her to help and told her that someone was yelling at me. Moments later Rowen entered and as she walkd by I got her attention and I told her, you know, there’s an older lady yelling at me to leave and I pointed at the shower stall Julie was using. Rowen kinda like posted up and stood in between me and the kids and Julie and waited for her to come out. And then Julie, you know, poked her head back out and said, ‘Get out. You’re a man.’ and Rowen intervened and said, ‘No, actually you need to leave. You’re discriminating and kind of being a bigot. So it’s actually you that needs to leave right now.’ And Julie told Rowen she was confused about gender and Julie pointed at me and said, “He has a fucking penis. He has no business being around little girls. He has a penis and he could rape someone.’

“After that Rowen sort of ushered me and the little girls out of the locker room and told me to go to her office. Then the other staff members found me and helped me. Rowen stood outside the lobby side of the office when I was in there and, I guess, like, after the police had been called Julie came out and engaged with her and they were yelling. But I couldn’t hear what was going on. And that’s kind the end of it.”

Several other questions arise:

If the little girl was done using the toilet and had her suit back on, and Adams could tell the two later-arriving little girls to leave, why didn’t he just leave with the little girls that had accompanied him?

As for the question that initiated the “dialogue” with Jaman, her asking him, “Are you a member of the LGBTQ Plus community?”, Jaman denied this ever happened, saying: “I can’t ever remember all the letters. LGBXYZ. No, we were not having a dialogue. He was leering at little girls.”

Jaman, as reported previously, also denied using an F bomb.

As for other patrons being present, Jaman says she did not notice a woman who may have been in the room until she had dressed and was on her way out. Jaman says that woman told Jaman that she agreed with Jaman’s actions.