“By the time weekly boosters are mandated,
symptoms will be reduced to a mildly ticklish nose
& a vague feeling of being conned.” comment below a YouTube video
——————————
I’ve just recovered from the Omicron variant of Covid. Because common Covid tests do not determine which variant a person has contracted, my supposition that I had Omicron is based on my symptoms and experience. That, and the CDC’s data tracker showing that as of early January more than 95% of reported Covid cases were due to the Omicron variant.
Health officer Dr. Allison Berry mirrors that pronouncement:
“At this point, in our community, it is reasonable to assume that if you are diagnosed with COVID-19 that it is most likely Omicron. That is far and away the majority variant that we are seeing in our region at this time.”
Based on reports from cases in the US, South Africa and UK, there are eight common symptoms of Omicron:
Scratchy throat
Lower back pain
Runny nose/congestion
Headache
Fatigue
Sneezing
Night sweats
Body aches
Sounds like a glorified cold, doesn’t it? A flu at worst.
”A consortium of researchers from America and Japan released a study last month revealing Omicron causes less damaging effects on the lungs, nose and throat.” This variant results in a lower viral burden in upper respiratory systems, “making its viral load and replication in those tracts milder and thus less damaging.”
The reality of what some are calling Omicold is so upsetting to pharma’s narrative, our health officer has had to spin a new version of her danger requires compliance tale in order to maintain her twin objectives: keeping her subjects in terror of the virus and demonizing the unvaxxed.
Unvaxxed now means un-boosted, says her latest narrative, and unless you keep topping up your shots, you will “overwhelm” our hospital, and quite possibly die. Boosted means you’re bulletproof and helping our hospital system.
Spin doctor Berry embellished her fanciful story during one of her recent Board of County Commissioner soliloquys:
“What we know about the Omicron variant is that it is incredibly infectious, it’s very, very transmissible, and it is a little bit less severe than the Delta variant…
The Omicron variant, if you are unvaccinated, is actually more severe than the original COVID virus. It is not the cold, it is not the flu. It can be very severe if you are not vaccinated. The good news when it comes to the Omicron variant is that if you are vaccinated we are seeing very, very low rates of severe disease. So the vaccines hold up really well at preventing hospitalization, at preventing death, the things that we want it to do. So if you are vaccinated, the probability that this will feel like a bad cold or the flu is high, which is important to know, because if you have the symptoms of having a cold, you need to get tested, because if you are vaccinated, that’s what Omicron would feel like. But if you are unvaccinated, it can still be incredibly severe, it can still lead to hospitalization and death, and given how transmissible it is, we are very likely to see an overwhelming of our hospital system again, just because of how transmissible it is and just the large enough proportion of our population—both in Jefferson and in our region as a whole—who are not vaccinated. So that can overwhelm our hospital systems even with a minimally less severe virus.
The other key thing to know is we are seeing a lot of reinfection. So if your only protection is prior infection, we’re seeing a lot of reinfection with Omicron and we are seeing a lot of breakthrough infection. So whereas a couple months ago if you were fully vaccinated you could feel pretty confident that you were unlikely to contract or spread COVID-19, that is no longer true. If you just have completed your series and not gotten your booster, then it is still very possible for you to contract and spread COVID-19. So the key thing to minimize that risk of spread to others is to get that booster.
The boosters are working really well. We’re seeing about 70% efficacy against any COVID-19 disease at all. So it’s a really key method for our community to reduce your risk of contracting COVID-19 and giving it to others. So, long story short, if you’re vaccinated, you’ve done a really important thing, you are still less likely to get COVID, and you are much less likely to get hospitalized or die, but the really key step to take now is to get the booster, to make you less likely to get COVID and to give it to others. And if you are unvaccinated, the Omicron variant is not a cold, it’s not the flu, it can be incredibly severe, it can cause you to get hospitalized or die, and that can overwhelm our system. And so we are really encouraging anyone who has not yet gotten vaccinated to do so.”
Berry’s incessant fear-mongering and finger-wagging at the non-compliant to get the shot continues. Never mind that sources inside our hospital tell us that two-thirds of those hospitalized are jabbed. According to our health officer, only if you’ve obeyed her and kept up on your shots will Omicron be no more than a pesky cold. If not, you’re in for an “incredibly severe” ride. This flight of fancy—where the inconsiderate unvaxxed are clogging up hospitals with worse-than-the-original-virus! Omicron and dying, while the dutiful fully-fully-fully vaxxed and boosted have smooth sailing—bears no resemblance to reality.
As Stephen Schumacher commented at the Jan. 10th Board of County Commissioners meeting:
“Good news! The Omicold variant is sweeping the country with mild cold symptoms and zero death so far nationwide, bestowing robust natural immunity wherever it goes, obviating any rationale for getting on the vaccine booster crazy train… some have called it God’s vaccine.”
Not a single verified U.S. Omicron death
The truth is that not a single person in the U.S. has died from the Omicron variant. Not one American fatality has been verified, vaxxed or unvaxxed, despite it being “incredibly infectious”, causing an historic spike in cases around the world. No Omicron deaths have occurred among even those in their nineties who have four, five or six co-morbidities.
While the pharma-controlled media have beaten the bushes to find a poster child in support of their desperate narrative, the report that “the first American to die of the Omicron variant was an unvaccinated Texas man,” was swiftly debunked as yet another grasping at straws. The man did not die FROM the virus, he tested positive for Omicron and died WITH it.
4-minute video putting a sharp point on the media’s lockstep with the pharma agenda to convince the public that being unvaxxed means risking death.
Where have we heard that before?
But how can drunk-on-power health authorities keep the public on the vaccine booster crazy train if the vast majority of Covid cases are now akin to a cold or flu?
Berry tells us that data out of the U.K. shows that:
“Omicron is 20% less severe than the Delta variant, but you have to remember that the Delta variant was 50% more severe than the original COVID virus. So the Omicron variant, if you are unvaccinated, is actually more severe than the original COVID virus.”
Think about those mental gymnastics. A virus that no one has died from, which generally presents as a cold, is now “actually more severe” than one that has caused tens to hundreds of thousands of deaths, depending on the narrative you subscribe to. (Even CDC Director Rochelle Walensky is now admitting that Covid death numbers have been grossly inflated by the “dying WITH Covid” sleight of hand: “The overwhelming number of deaths, over 75%, occurred in people who had at least 4 co-morbidities,” she said.)
Yes, Omicron is “very, very transmissible.” On Jan. 11, FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock told a Senate committee, “It’s hard to process what’s actually happening right now, which is, most people are going to get COVID.”
That is actually good news for creating herd or community immunity because highly infectious Omicron is generally benign. Just like the common cold. It is typically described as being a bit worse than a cold, but less than a flu. And once you’ve had it, chances are you’ve got strong immunity to all Covid variants going forward.
In the Express article “Over 70s Ten Times Less Likely to Die from Covid than Last Year,” U.K. Professor Anthony Brooks, who compiled research based on National Health Statistics reports, says Covid no longer poses a threat to “the vast majority of people.”
“Infected individuals are at dramatically less risk of becoming seriously ill or dying than a year ago… Omicron is about 4-fold less dangerous – it’s like nature’s vaccine.” [source]
Boosters failing against Omicron
As for the “boosters are working really well” claim, that’s more Berry pie in the sky.
“We must be aware that even triple-vaccinated are likely to transmit the disease… It is obvious we are far from 95 per cent effectiveness that we obtained against the initial virus.”
As a result, BioNTech is “already designing a coronavirus vaccine adapted to the new variant.”
They know the third shot isn’t working, the existing vax does a poor job recognizing Omicron, and at best boosters offer only a month or two of limited protection. That presents pharma with a stellar opportunity to rake in more profits experimenting on a mandated populace, liability free, with yet another new shot. The Omicron-specific vaccine is expected to be ready by March. But until then, Berry and her ilk are pushing a near-useless third shot designed for the original strain.
Pharma’s motto is that when a product isn’t working—as evidenced by infection rates rising in tandem with vaccination rates—no need to pause. Just push more doses.
One need only to look at Israel, which recently began administering it’s fourth shot—booster number two. Infections continue to rise in that medical apartheid state despite one of the most vaccinated populations on the planet. Citing “waning immunity a few months after the third shot,” the Pfizer-shackled Israeli government foresees endless boosters, shots administered closer and closer together. Scientists have long known that approach will lead to disaster.
Immune system fatigue and NEGATIVE vaccine efficacy
“Some scientists warned that the plan could backfire,” says a Dec. 28th NY Times article about Israel, “because too many shots might cause a sort of immune system fatigue, compromising the body’s ability to fight the coronavirus.” This problem of immune system fatigue has been long-recognized in vaccinology. There are “concerns that a fourth shot in less than a year could actually weaken immunity.”
Preliminary studies on Israel’s 4th dose show the second booster is already disappointing. “We were hoping for better results,” says Director of the Infectious Diseases Unit at Sheba Medical Center Professor Gili Regev-Yochay. Regev shares the concern that vaccination every few months is not sustainable. “If these results bring us back to antibodies level of approximately four months ago, then it means we will need to get vaccinated every four months, and that’s not the goal.”
On January 11, the World Health Organization issued a statement acknowledging problems with existing vaccines and variants like Omicron: “a vaccination strategy based on repeated booster doses of the original vaccine composition is unlikely to be appropriate or sustainable.”
But uber-vaxxed Israel seems committed to careening down the tracks on a runaway train they can’t stop. Health officer Berry is following suit.
In stark contrast to Berry’s disinformation that the triple vaccinated have greater protection than the unvaxxed, new data from Denmark, Canada, Iceland and the U.K. show the opposite. In “Has Covid vaccine efficacy turned negative?” journalist Alex Berenson says, “Data from highly vaccinated countries suggests strongly that the answer is yes; vaccinated people are at higher risk of infection from Omicron.”
“We already know vaccine protection against earlier variants of Sars-Cov-2 falls sharply within months of the second dose, as the vaccine-generated antibodies fade.
“But the new data go a step further, showing that previously vaccinated people are actually more likely to contract Omicron.
“The government of Ontario has reported exactly the same pattern. So have Danish researchers, in a paper two weeks ago, when they found protection against Omicron turned negative three months after the second dose.”
DANISH STUDY: Vaccine effectiveness against SARS-CoV-2 infection with the Delta and Omicron variants, shown separately for the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.
Negative effectiveness does not mean a person’s protection wears off, though that happens, too. It means that unboosted Covid vaccines make you more vulnerable by suppressing your immune system, accelerating infection and transmission. If vaccinated people don’t get boosted every few months, they will be at greater risk for infection than if they were never vaccinated.
The research out of Denmark shows that compared to the Delta variant, Omicron is far more likely to infect people who are fully vaccinated and boosted than those who are unvaccinated. The study looked at 11,937 Danish households during the month of December 2021. It revealed that to keep the virus at bay vaccinated people will need injections every 30 days. “Why are we encouraging people to get ‘vaccinated’ or ‘boosted’ with a ‘vaccine’ that within a few weeks probably increases their risk of becoming infected with the newly dominant variant of Sars-Cov-2?” asks Berenson.
“If people don’t get boosted as required, they will be MORE vulnerable to Delta and Omicron than if they weren’t vaccinated,” writes Steve Kirsch. “That’s what NEGATIVE vaccine efficacy means.”
German government data is “showing that vaccinated people are 8X more likely to develop Omicron than unvaccinated people,” says Kirsch. “This is not surprising, since a paper from Germany showed the same thing: the more you vaccinate, the worse it gets.”
Data out of England corroborates this effect. A negative relative risk reduction for Covid infection after vaccination is most pronounced in the 40-49 year-old range, at minus (-) 140%. But every age group is in the negative.
Kirsch concludes, “The longer you stay on the vaccine treadmill, the harder to get off in the future and the easier you’ll make it for the virus.”
“In short, we’ve been lied to about the vaccine. It is protecting you less and less over time. While you may get a benefit for earlier variants, the benefit for other variants (and likely other diseases) is going to be negative… you are getting a short term benefit against Delta, but at the expense of a degradation of your overall immunity to everything else.”
These repeated shots are not only likely to weaken your immune system. They compound the build-up of dangerous spike proteins wreaking havoc in the body. Heart attacks, strokes, clotting… we’ve been documenting the fallout from the toxic spikes for nearly a year.
Are the boosters more deadly than Omicron?
What is the risk/benefit of vaxxing for Omicron? Comparing deaths from the variant with fatalities from the jab is an obvious place to start a risk/benefit analysis.
Contrary to Berry’s if you’re not vaxxed it can cause you to die threat, the Omicron virus is not proving fatal. Risk of death from the variant to date is effectively zero. But deaths from the boosters are piling up. Lack of efficacy and even negative vaccine effectiveness pale in significance to potential damage from the shots themselves.
One of the many fatalities from vax-induced myocarditis (heart inflammation) came after 26-year-old Joseph Keating’s third jab on Nov. 8, 2021. The young South Dakota man died just four days after his Pfizer booster.
An autopsy confirmed the vax was responsible: “myocarditis in the left ventricle due to the recent Pfizer COVID-19 booster vaccine.” From what we know about spike protein damage to the heart (occurring disproportionately in young males), chances are that his cardiac injury began developing over the first two shots and the booster was the final straw.
According to his mother, a critical care nurse of 35 years:
“When the pathologist looked at the 22 segments of Joseph’s heart, it showed the vaccine inflamed and attacked his entire heart. There was so much damage… It was full multi-focal myocarditis, and it wasn’t just affecting one part of his heart, it was attacking his whole septum and ventricles.”
The CDC—which, like Berry, has swept this kind of devastating heart damage under the rug—has not investigated his death.
Berry and her fellow vaccine damage deniers would have you believe that most injuries and deaths following injection are coincidences. In one of her most incredible disinformation statements yet, she told us that since the rollout began a year ago there have been only ELEVEN deaths from all Covid shots across the U.S.: “I believe it’s 11 nationwide.” (“TOP TEN 2021 Spin Doctor Disinformation Statements”)
Here’s just a small sampling of deaths within a few days, some within hours of the jab, reported in the VAERS database. All occurred in the last few months, following the third shot, either Pfizer or Moderna boosters. (Few are in the younger age range where we are seeing increasing vax-related deaths, because most in that demographic have not yet had boosters.)
66-year-old Wisconsin woman dead of a heart attack the day after her Dec. 16th Moderna booster.
“My mother received the booster shot and approximately 24 hours later passed away from a massive heart attack. she had no known or pre diagnosed heart conditions that we are aware of.” [VAERS report 1962279]
75-year-old Michigan man with atrial fibrillation and hypertension dead less than two hours after his Oct. 25th Moderna booster.
“This spontaneous case was reported by a physician. Reporter stated that patient did not had [sic] covid-19. Patient was very active, biked 12 miles a day and roller skated 3-4 hours a day, 3 days a week, with no cardiac symptoms. Patient was not overweight.” [VAERS report 1983864]
Washington woman with a history of seizures, only 22, dead less than 24 hours after her Dec. 16th Moderna booster.
“The family reported that the decedent was reported to have received a Covid19 booster vaccination on 12/16/21 at approximately 1500 Hours. Her sisters related that the decedent began to suffer from chills, body aches, and head ache around 21-2200h. The decedent was last known to be alive at approximately 0900H on 12/17/2021.” [VAERS report 1968418]
Two days after his Nov. 1st Moderna booster, Wisconsin man, 50, dead from severe heart attack.
“11/1/21 received moderna booster and first flu shot ever 11/2 headache, didn”t feel well 11/3 pain in right leg – collapsed at md and couldn”t be revived. Mother describes him as healthy and no underlying conditions though clot earlier this year and pt using asa. We are told md ruled death heart attack as a result of pulmonary embolism.” [VAERS report 1857987]
33-year-old New York man found unresponsive the day after his Nov. 24th Pfizer booster.
Reported by pharmacist: “Patient and mother came in Wednesday 11.24.21 afternoon for Covid booster. Mother reported to pharmacy on Friday 11.26.21 (department closed Thursday 11.25.21) that patient had started feeling “unwell” (fever/tiredness) late 11.24.21 / early 11.25.21. Mother reported didn’t think much of it but that her son (patient) was going to rest. Mother reported that later in the day son went into the bathroom and was in there for some time. She could not get the door open. Upon opening the door, son was found unresponsive. Attempts to revive son were unsuccessful.” [VAERS report 1909570]
57-year-old Louisiana woman with no pre-existing conditions, hospitalized after her husband called 911 the day after her Oct. 25th Moderna booster.
Finding her pulseless, medics performed CPR. Hospital notes show “EKG indicated pulseless cardiac arrhythmia treated with cardio-conversion X3, intubated heart.” She died two days later. [VAERS report 1869372]
74-year-old Utah man with high blood pressure had his third Moderna shot on Dec. 1st, dead two days later.
“Left Arm pain all the way into the neck area, fever, chills, and shortness of breath. He died 2 days later unexpectedly.” [VAERS report 1932871]
28-year-old Texas woman with no prior medical history, dead from cardiac arrest two weeks after Oct. 1st Pfizer booster.
“Prior to vaccination, the patient was not diagnosed with COVID-19. Patient previously received the first dose of BNT162B2, intramuscularly on 03Jan2021 (lot number: EL0142) at 27-year-old, and the second dose intramuscularly on 23Jan2021 (lot number: EL9262) at 27-year-old for COVID-19 immunisation. The patient experienced cardiac arrest on 15Oct2021. Unwitnessed at home. When found, patient passed away already without any signs of calling 911 or rescue. No treatment received. An autopsy was performed and results were not provided.” [VAERS report 1839201]
58-year-old Ohio man “received booster shot of Moderna covid vaccine on 11/5/2021,” lost consciousness that evening.
He was “found unresponsive and asystolic,” given CPR, “taken to hospital via squad where resuscitative efforts were continued by ambulance staff and hospital staff.” He was pronounced dead the next morning. [VAERS report 1869769]
77-year-old woman in Arizona got her third Pfizer shot on Oct. 28th, had fatal heart attack two days later.
“Cardiac arrest due to suspected myocardial infarction <36 hours after receiving Covid-19 booster shot. Had previously recieved second dose of Moderna Covid vaccine on 2/24/21 without complication.” [VAERS report 1933614]
Four days after his Moderna booster shot on Dec. 23rd, 57-year-old man in Virginia dead from a heart attack.
“Had cardiac arrest walking to car without exertion. Ventricular fibrillation. CPR at scene with multiple shocks and Epinephrine. Transferred to medical center where resuscitation continued but was unsuccessfull. Previously healthy without ongoing medical problems or medications. Non smoker. No illicit drugs. No history of hypertension. No family history of sudden death or Aneurysms.” [VAERS report 1988711]
56-year-old California woman with no preexisting conditions in fatal cardiac arrest just hours after her Dec. 20th Pfizer booster.
“Family heard the patient scream and complained of sudden and severe onset headache and hearing loss in the right ear, followed by a seizure and cardiac arrest. She was brought to hospital where she was resuscitated and found to have a large subarachnoid hemorrhage. She was transferred to hospital, a stroke center but it was determined that that she was already brain-dead. Family denied any family history of brain aneurysm or subarachnoid hemorrhage and also denied the patient have any history of high blood pressure or any other significant medical problems.” [VAERS report 1967509]
Coincidences or a bit of Russian roulette?
While the mainstream media works overtime to find and hype a single death from the Omicron virus, the millions of injuries and possibly hundreds of thousands of deaths from the experimental injections don’t make the news. Now and then a story that can’t be ignored—like the shots causing myocarditis in young people—is permitted in order to broadcast pharma’s spin assuring the public that it is “rare” and “mild”, two of Berry’s favorite terms to dismiss tragic outcomes.
A few local Omicron anecdotes
I am in that dreaded “high risk” demographic based on age, but have no co-morbidities… a healthy oldster who will never willfully take the dangerous experimental injection. My symptoms were that of a mild cold. So mild, in fact, that it didn’t occur to me that I possibly had Covid. What got my attention after some days of congestion, vague body aches and low energy was significant lower back pain. Then I realized it wasn’t a cold, it was an Omicold. Were it not for that back pain which I couldn’t make sense of, I’d never have known I was dealing with Covid.
Three days of ivermectin and upping zinc, vitamin C and D3, and all symptoms were gone. Was it the ivermectin that kicked it or had it just run its course? I’ll never know, but there was no down side in using a medication that has successfully treated millions for Covid worldwide. Contrary to Berry’s disinformation, and snide statements from County Commissioner Greg Brotherton insinuating that it’s not fit for human use, 75 peer-reviewed studies comparing treatment and control groups show it to have an average success rate of 70% (some trials found 96% and 100%).
Brotherton, who had “a very mild case of Covid over the winter break,” said ”I was not tempted at all… to go out to the barn and get our ivermectin, because that stuff is like horse de-wormer.” Media propaganda along with Berry’s disinformation has captured nearly all of our electeds.
My cold symptoms had been negligible, hardly noteworthy. But in fairness, my experience was worse than a common cold because of the back pain.
Others—from young and healthy to aging with health conditions, from unvaxxed to fully vaxxed—describe their encounters with the Omicron variant. All were in the last few weeks:
An unvaxxed teenage girl in Hadlock, 16, came down with with chills, body aches, a headache and was “super tired”. A home test kit diagnosed her Covid-positive. She was down for three days, dosing with vitamins C and D and zinc, and by day four had recovered.
Her father, also unvaxxed and in his 50s, caught it from her. He had a bit of a cough and felt pressure in his chest and also tested positive at home. He, too, dosed up on vitamins C and D and zinc. The following day he felt fine, but was hit harder on day three—he felt weak, “super tired”, had chills and body aches, a cough, a “pressure headache”. He continued dosing with his supplements and by the next day felt fine but had a bit of residual cough. He said, “It was a cakewalk compared to colds and flus I’ve had throughout my life.”
His two other unvaxxed children also caught it. One son, 23, had similar symptoms to his daughter: headache, sore throat, body aches, some chills, fatigue. Like his sister, he was down for three days and then felt fine.
It “barely grazed” his 14-year-old boy who recovered in two days. He had “a momentary sore throat,” was a little achy and had a slight headache. No chills or fatigue. Both sons were dosed with the same C, D, and zinc protocols he’d used.
A 65-year-old fully vaxxed Port Townsend man didn’t test, but thinks Omicron hit him recently. He had “a runny nose, headache and absolute fatigue.” After a hot bath, many naps, “a lot of zinc, vitamin C and D3,” he was fine the next day.
A 22-year-old Port Townsend woman, unvaxxed, had a cough, body aches, and a high fever. She upped her vitamins C and D and felt fine after about seven days.
After developing a cough and an unusual symptom—his skin hurt—a 50-year-old Clallam man already in ill health tested positive. He is unvaxxed on medical advice, high risk because of serious heart issues. A friend brought him a Covid kit put together by a local physician which included ivermectin. He used the kit, “took it easy” and recovered in a couple of days.
An entire Port Townsend family all came down with Omicron Covid around Christmas. The family matriarch, 83, double vaxxed but not boosted, tested positive after three days of fever and extreme exhaustion. Her doctor prescribed steroids which she began taking on day four. The fever was already gone by that time and her exhaustion started diminishing within four hours of starting the steroids. It took another three days (a week total) for her to get back to normal, though normal now includes atrial fibrillation that manifested after her shots.
Her Port Townsend daughter, 52 and unvaxxed, had “a bad headache,” cough, fever, body aches and fatigue. She upped her zinc, quercetin, and vitamins C and D. Her symptoms resolved within a week.
An unvaxxed Port Townsend man, 50, had a low fever, headache, fatigue and body aches. He increased his supplements slightly and felt fine by the week’s end.
An unvaxxed 63-year-old Port Townsend man “had a slightly scratchy throat” earlier this week, “followed by occasional mild runny nose, infrequent coughing, slight congested feeling in my head, itchiness around my eyes, some night sweats, maybe a little achiness, along with an odd fatigue and distractedness.” It was mild and intermittent. The symptoms have been resolving with little more than citrus fruit and juices.
Sounds like our typical bout with winter bugs, eh? Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine professor Dr. Marty Makary says,
“Think of this season as a bad flu season. There’s a very common respiratory pathogen called Omicron, and it causes infection which causes discomfort. And you’re out like you would be for influenza. It affects everybody differently and it’s ubiquitous… Omicron infection may actually be nature’s vaccine.”
Nature’s vaccine, God’s vaccine
The best news isn’t that another experimental shot will save us as spin doctor Berry would like you to believe. It’s that, as Stephen Schumacher said, cold and flu-like Omicron is “bestowing robust natural immunity wherever it goes.” While mRNA injections provide a single rapidly-fading line of defense against just a specific spike protein, natural infections create broad-based immunity against the entire virus.
One peer-reviewed study we’ve reported on found that while the spike protein generated by the vaccine can create five different antibodies, “infection by SARS-CoV-2 could lead to 55 different antibodies: 5 from the spike, 50 from the other viral proteins.” Scientist James Lyons-Weiler reports that with natural infections, “there are 50 ways to be immune that do not involve the spike protein.” The immune system will recognize many more pathogens, mount a response to a broad range of viruses, not just the signature spike of a specific virus.
A new study by scientists at the Africa Health Research Institute observed just that in comparing vaxxed and unvaxxed individuals who contracted Omicron. They “found that those who were infected with the Omicron variant”—but not the vaxxed subjects—”developed an enhanced immunity to COVID’s Delta variant.”
The robust, broad and durable immunity afforded through natural infection has always been far more protective than any vaccine. Johns Hopkins Medical professor Makary says,
“The data on natural immunity are now overwhelming. It turns out the hypothesis that our public health leaders had that vaccinated immunity is better and stronger than natural immunity was wrong. They got it backwards. And now we’ve got data from Israel showing that natural immunity is 27 times more effective than vaccinated immunity. And that supports 15 other studies.” [source]
Nonetheless, a full year into her divisive vax campaign, health officer Berry refuses to recognize the strong and likely superior immunity in the Covid recovered. Nor has she allowed for proof of a negative Covid test to be used for entry to restaurants and pubs in lieu of vaccination.
Despite the irrefutable evidence that the vaxxed carry and transmit as high a viral load as the unvaxxed—and regardless of the failure of her draconian policies to demonstrate reduced infection rates in Jefferson and Clallam counties (we’re at the bottom of 39 counties – see “Safest Counties Now Are Those With Least Restrictions”)—the obedient are rewarded with special privileges. A vaxxed person just as likely to spread Covid as an unvaxxed is permitted to enter local restaurants, but a Covid-recovered resident who built the best possible immunity from fighting the virus and has no use for an experimental shot cannot dine in county eateries.
How any thinking person could justify Berry’s dictates as being about public health is a head scratcher.
Omicron is seen by many experts as a blessing. In the report “Omicron May Provide Natural Immunity With Mild Symptoms,” Dr. Omar Hamada, an emergency room doctor and former U.S. Army Special Forces lieutenant colonel, says, “This may be actually something good in terms of getting people immune without necessarily having to depend on a vaccine that’s not incredibly effective.”
“Though we’re seeing an uptick in number of people affected, the severity of disease seems to be minimal, so it shouldn’t really cause much of a problem. And in fact it may actually provide more immunity if the infectivity is greater, but the virulence or severity is less.”
“If you believe in a God, this looks an awful lot like a Christmas present,” says vaccinologist Dr. Robert Malone, one of the co-inventors of mRNA technology.
“The good news with Omicron is very low disease, highly infectious. It looks an awful lot to the experienced vaccinologist like a live-attenuated virus vaccine that you might design for purpose. This is about as good as we could possibly want right now in terms of outcomes.” [source]
The Berry Covid cult has been sold the lie that they are only truly safe among their own kind—which currently means fully vaxxed and boosted. Anyone else in their restaurants, bars, theaters, entertainment venues and other gathering places could infect and kill them with a noxious but invisible virus the non-compliant are presumably shedding all around them. Sticking with their fellow Covidian vaxxers and shunning the unvaxxed will protect them, they believe. That mass delusional psychosis has claimed a good portion of our community.
Click for 29-minute video of interview with Dr. Mark McDonald, author of “UNITED STATES OF FEAR—How America Fell Victim to a Mass Delusional Psychosis”
The hysteria plays out throughout social media, which like local newspapers, censors comments that question the group-think. A recent NextDoor post exemplifies the mass psychosis:
“Why isn’t it headline news that: IF IT HAS BEEN OVER 6 MONTHS SINCE YOUR 2ND SHOT, AND YOU DID NOT GET A BOOSTER, THEN YOU ARE NOT FULLY VACCINATED AND YOU ARE AT SERIOUS RISK OF GETTING SYMPTOMATIC HIGHLY CONTAGIOUS OMICRON VARIANT OF COVID!”
If the story being told outside the mainstream media is true, how will the deluded masses reconcile that they’ve been hoodwinked and hypnotized? Science is actually showing that –
– the vaxxed are no more “protected” than the unvaxxed;
– they carry and transmit as much of an infectious viral load as the unvaxxed;
– their repeated vaccinations have likely increased, not reduced, their risk of infection;
– their blind trust in authorities has destroyed businesses and livelihoods, torn apart families and communities, compromised their own and their loved ones’ health, and saddest of all, traumatized an entire generation of children.
Turns out, as censored doctors and scientists have said all along, that it’s the Covid-recovered—especially the unvaxxed—who are safest to be around. The Omicron invasion may be our best hope of creating community immunity for bridging a way out of this mess.
——————————
“In these trying times of distrust and division,
let us remember the one thing that unites
us all, the vaxxed and the unvaxxed:
neither will ever be fully vaxxed.”
Get Out of Clallam and Jefferson Counties if you’re worried about OMG! Omicron! Counties with the least restrictions seem to be doing the best during the Omicron “surge.” Clallam County, struggling under Dr. Allison Berry’s exclusion of the unvaccinated from dining and drinking establishments and a strict masking requirement for indoor public spaces, has one of the highest rates in the state. The Wild East, those counties where they look at you funny if you wear a mask into a bar, are beating not only Clallam, but also Jefferson County in the 14-day Covid rate matchup.
Rates per 100,000 Population of Cases, Hospitalizations and Deaths by County 1/11/22
Only King, Pierce, Snohomish, and Thurston County are experiencing a higher rate of positive cases. King County, which like Jefferson and Clallam also bars the unvaccinated from dining or drinking establishments (but allows negative test exemption), has the highest 14-day rate in the state, at 2209.
All those draconian Dr. Berry orders, the burden on restaurant staff, the loss of business for food and drink service businesses, the societal divisions and stresses don’t seem to be making much difference—at least not in the right direction.
Ferry County, where just about no one wears masks and where a vaccine passport requirement would earn the Public Health Officer a ride out of town on a rail, has a 14-day rate of only 594. Other “Wild East” counties also show rates lower than Clallam: Adams, Asotin, Benton, Chelan, Clark, Columbia, Cowlitz, Douglas, Franklin, Garfield, Grant, Kittitas, Klickitat, Lewis, Lewis, Okanogan, Pend Oreille, Skamania, Spokane, Stevens, Walla Walla, Whitman, even Yakima. On the western edge of the state, Grays Harbor, Island, Pacific, San Juan, Kitsap (where Jefferson and Clallam’s unvaxxed go to dine out), Mason and Wahkiakum are doing better than Berry’s locked-down Clallam.
I have been traveling around Washington since June 2020 reporting here on how most of the state is getting along just fine and is operating close to normal. But when you re-enter Berryland, you feel the curtain coming down. The restrictions are supposed to but are not producing superior public health results to what we are seeing in counties where the Public Health Officers and Board of Health are not imposing a kind of medical apartheid on the populace.
What of Jefferson you ask? Jefferson County is also ruled by Berry’s dictates and is doing no better than much of the state. Jefferson’s 14-day rate, as of this writing, was 1010. This is worse than 16 counties (all of them “Red” conservative counties with loose Covid rules and enforcement). Berry’s proof-of-vaccine requirement is not paying the health dividends that would justify the damage it is doing to businesses and community spirit.
But if you’re really, really, really terrified of OMG! Omicron!—I mean if you’re terrified it is going to kill you—where, oh where can you hide?
The answer is: just about anywhere. Only Yakima and King County are showing anydeaths. Yakima has a whopping 7-day death rate of 0.4 and King’s death rate, despite having the highest case rate, is only 0.1. The marginal death rate is dropping so fast statewide it is pulling down the cumulative death rate for the entire period of the pandemic. That’s what weeks of zero will do.
And if you are still scared silly, take solace in this week’s admission by the Director of the CDC that throughout the pandemic “the overwhelming number of deaths, over 75%, were among people who had at least four comorbidities,” something we’ve been pointing out here for a long time. Fatalities occurred in people who were already very, very ill in several ways. Dr. Scott Atlas, the Robert Wesson Senior Fellow in health care policy at Stanford University, reports that two-third of deaths reported as Covid deaths were in people with six comorbidities.
Clallam County recently reported a Covid-related death. Whether the death was contributed to by the virus or whether the person died from other causes while also having Covid we don’t know. This sad event apparently has not made it yet to the DOH’s data base. The fact that Clallam has had a Covid-related death while counties without Berry’s proof-of-vaccine order have not further undermines the case for her extreme order.
So, relax. Your chances of dying from OMG! Omicron! are pretty much a big goose egg, the number you will find in DOH’s latest table on death rates in Washington counties.
Did They Learn Anything? With the trashed-out Cherry Street Project nowhere near housing its first human occupant, Port Townsend City Council has gone big, very big. Last month they approved the purchase of 14.4 acres next to the first traffic circle at the entrance to the city. They envision an entire neighborhood of subsidized housing. It may have shops. It may have apartments. It may have row homes and townhouses. It may have a plaza. Michelle Sandoval said at a December City Council meeting that she would “love” a plaza, preferably with a Hispanic name.
Plaza Sandoval perhaps?
The former mayor may not get a monument-to-me anytime soon. The City still lacks over $4.2 million for the infrastructure that would open to development all 14.4 acres and perhaps be a meaningful step to extending city utilities to the Glen Cove industrial area. Construction of anything, if Cherry Street is any indication, is a long, long way off. They don’t even know what they will build or who will build it.
But there’s no need to wait to honor Sandoval and her decades of influence over the city’s regulations, taxes and vision—a combination of policies that have contributed greatly to the current housing crisis. There is an edifice available right now that could bear her name. She played a leading role in its entry into our fair town. She was its chief advocate. I’m speaking of the ill-fated, tax dollars-suck of a building called the Carmel House—the heart of the Cherry Street Project. Henceforth, so we not forget, let us recognize this shabby but iconic memorial to ineptitude and dysfunction as Casa Sandoval. In its current state it goes well with the deteriorated condition of most Port Townsend streets, another Sandoval legacy that took years to achieve and will be with taxpayers for many years to come.
Sandoval may be moving on after 20 years of elected power and influence, but taxpayers still have to pay off the $1.4 million indebtedness she and her City Council yes-people incurred. Sandoval the real estate broker will be showing houses in the neighborhood as taxpayers eat the costs of crunching and removing Casa Sandoval. They will be paying the extra charges for toxic materials mitigation inside the same building Sandoval the real estate expert led the charge to buy without ever requesting an inspection.
A Demonstration Project
Mayor Sandoval touted the Cherry Street effort as “a demonstration project.” That was early in the game, back in 2017, when taxpayers were told it would cost only a couple hundred grand and be finished and occupied in the Fall of that year. Projected costs have climbed into the millions. Almost five years later Casa Sandoval remains empty and suffers from vandalism and neglect. It has blighted the neighborhood and is now a safety hazard. Lawyers and insurers would call it “an attractive nuisance.” Kids easily get in there, where city inspectors have found holes in floors and walls large enough someone can fall through. Sometimes people who get into Casa Sandoval launch refrigerators out windows to see if they might fly.
So just what did Mayor Sandoval’s “demonstration project” demonstrate? Are the city councilors who got PT into the Casa Sandoval mess any smarter for the experience? Nope. They have no regrets and proudly declare that if they had it to do over, they wouldn’t do any thing differently.
Denial and Delusion
It’s the December 6, 2021 City Council business meeting. Council is being briefed (click for video) on the possibility of acquiring what is known as the 14.4 acre Evans Vista property. The state Department of Commerce will give them money, more than $1.3 million. With this land, they can do so much more than rehab a modest 70-year old building. They can build an entire neighborhood of affordable and workforce housing. But there’s still that unfinished Cherry Street Project hanging around, what Ariel Speser in her last days on council called “the elephant in the room.”
David Faber, now PT’s mayor, took the white elephant by its ivory tusks.
“I wouldn’t change a single thing about what we did,” David Faber proclaimed. “I am nervous,” he said, about “again” getting “the city significantly involved in a project that doesn’t necessarily have a perfectly clear end project yet—given the status of the Cherry Street project and so forth.” He did not want to get the city involved “in a long-term dragged-out morass.”
But, he would do Cherry Street all over again, the same way, no changes, no regrets.
Pamela Adams, who was in her last month of service on council and who strongly supported the Cherry Street debacle, stood with Faber and declared, “I don’t regret having trucked that, barged that over there.” (Casa Sandoval was barged across the Strait of Juan de Fuca and trucked from a landing next to the Pourhouse to its present hillside above the golf course.)
Ariel Speser, in one of her last meetings, acknowledged, “It is hard to think about this without thinking about the Cherry Street Project.” Ya think? She went on to dismiss the debacle. Failure, she suggested, was to be expected. “It is very rare that you have a successful housing project on the first try.” Since when? Is that a rule-of-thumb for private homebuilders as well as politicians?
Michelle Sandoval was “nervous” but “excited” about getting into another big “affordable” housing project. “We took a risk,” on Cherry Street, she said, “and we got a lot of grief.” (Oy, such a price to pay for wasting millions of dollars and five years in the midst of a housing emergency.) Everybody makes mistakes, she pleaded as if that excused the utter negligence demonstrated by City Council in buying a building without inspection, without a realistic construction estimate, without anyone to do the work—without any plan. This next project, she recognized, is much, much bigger. “It is going to be incredibly expensive.”Buckle up, taxpayers. Like duct tape, your money will be used to fix everything.
But everyone was relieved that “this time,” unlike the implicit “last time,” the city was doing “due diligence.” What exactly is this confidence-inspiring “due diligence” that washes away all sins and failures? Except for confirming compatibility with city zoning, conducting a cultural resources assessment, and snagging enough state funds to pay the asking price, there’s….nothing. The city has merely bought raw land with someone else’s money. It has no plans, no artist conceptions, no number or type of buildings, no street or landscaping schematics, no feasibility study to determine if the units once built can actually be offered and maintained as “affordable” and workforce housing–that magical and all-critical accomplishment known as “penciling out.” There’s no organization that can be held responsible for getting it done (or not), no builder willing and qualified to take on something so big, no reliable statement of projected costs. No money to build the thing.
Just like the Cherry Street Project.
A week after the 12/6/21 discussion, Council voted unanimously to purchase the Evans Vista property for about $1.3 million without any idea of what to do with it.
I will be writing more on the Evans Vista project. It is huge in scope and “incredibly expensive,” as Sandoval admits. This will probably be the largest project ever undertaken by the city. Let me now address those who will say that by doing this I’m trying to stop affordable housing, just as they criticized me for following, predicting and exposing the failures of the Cherry Street Project—er, Casa Sandoval. Port Townsend desperately needs affordable and workforce housing. Casa Sandoval has provided no housing whatsoever. It has absorbed resources and land and been a huge opportunity lost. Barging that building to PT was one of the stupidest things any elected body has done. The result is that the city’s largest housing project has accomplished nothing positive.
It could have been otherwise. That land where the vandalized hulk sits could have been, for instance, a terraced hillside of manufactured homes. Going simple and small, incrementally, being hard-headed, bird-dogging costs and saving money instead of indulging in a grandiose, wasteful gesture—a guilt offering for years of making PT exclusive and expensive—would have helped this city and a good number of workers who can’t afford to live here.
Because it came from the state, money for purchase of the Evans Vista property was free in the eyes of City Council. But that is how they have treated the tax dollars wasted on Casa Sandoval. Every dollar wasted is a dollar that could have but did not accomplish something beneficial.
That old adage about “those who fail to learn the lessons of the past are condemned to repeat them” rings out. City Council appears to have learned nothing. I asked the rhetorical question previously about what Casa Sandoval has demonstrated. Now I propose an answer: it has demonstrated that the City of Port Townsend is very bad at the business of building affordable housing. The cliquish, virtue-signalling, peer pressure-regulated proceedings of City Council have not produced sound decisions. There’s little reason to conclude that things will change under Mayor David “No Regrets” Faber.
The public needs to keep an eagle eye on what happens with the Evans Vista property. We’ll be here, and so will Casa Sandoval.
“Mom! They’re throwing a refrigerator out a window!” Teenagers easily gained entrance to the derelict Carmel House and trashed it. Almost every window has been broken. Furniture, light fixtures, random kitchen utensils, a door and, yes, a refrigerator were hurled through glass. I found shards of glass twenty yards from the building. There is broken glass everywhere. Rainspouts were ripped off and thrown over the fence. Drawers launched through the windows have been claimed by a cat as litter boxes.
Note refrigerator against fence behind cat claiming a new litter box.
A neighbor ran to her own window when her son yelled about a refrigerator going airborne. She saw two teenagers in the act. She has seen teenagers in the derelict building on two to three previous occasions and had called the city. A crew eventually boarded up an open ground floor window and pushed the rear fence closer to the building. That window had been wide open for two years. I had seen evidence that it was being used to access the building. The chain link fencing was never locked tight. There has always been an opening at the rear of the building, conveniently in a blind spot—a spot near the place in the trees with the piles of empty beer cans. Teenagers pulled the fence open and pushed in two large plywood sheets and went to work.
The neighbor (who asked that her name not be used) called the police as the kids rampaged through three floors of the building. The police arrived 40 minutes later and entered the building the same way the kids did. “Come out with your hands up,” the neighbor heard the police shouting. The kids were long gone. The neighbor and I found their fresh footprints in the muddy path leading out the back of the building, through the party site and further up hill.
The front doors have been open to the elements for five years, as if the city and Homeward Bound, the nonprofit that had the project for four of those years, did not care what happened to the building. Now the windows are open and a second level door on the back.
I have been in the process of writing a story on the Cherry Street Project and its lessons for the even larger 14.4 acre “affordable” neighborhood development City Council has bitten off. That article should be out this week. Cherry Street was supposed to be, as then Mayor Michelle Sandoval said in 2017, “a demonstration project.” She and the rest of City Council at the time loaded taxpayers with about $1.4 million in debt, and gave away tens of thousands of dollars in cash and services to a nonprofit that couldn’t even pick up construction trash. The latest cost estimate, as we’ve reported, calls for another $1.8 million just to rehab the old building. Looking at photos taken today, ask yourself, exactly what has the Cherry Street Project demonstrated?
Newly elected Mayor David Faber at a December 6, 2021 meeting said that if he had it all to do over again, he would not have done anything differently. Ponder that attitude, taxpayers, and keep your eyes posted for the upcoming story on “Casa Sandoval.”
In early October 2021 the Leader reported that the Lombardy poplars along Sims Way were to be cut down. Subsequently we have learned that a three-pronged project is underway moving at precipitous speed. It was initiated in August 2021, receiving approval from the Port Townsend City Council, the Port of Port Townsend, and Public Utility District commissioners.
In November these agencies went to the County requesting infrastructure grant money. Their piecemeal plan ignores the visions and intentions adopted and recorded in numerous public documents. Furthermore this fragmentation appears to skirt the State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA), which requires public review to avoid vague and ambiguous planning, unknown impacts and consequences.
Known as the Sims Way Project, the plan proposes to cut about 150 poplars along the right of way (ROW), the Port on the south side and Kah Tai on the north; to underground the electric line used as a backup located between the poplars and the Port’s fence line; and to expand the boat yard by placing the fence closer to the highway ROW. The phone line most visible from the road and the madronas close to Haines Street intersection have not yet been mentioned.
In fact, many parts of this project are yet unknown, such as the massive vaults amongst the poplars, the CenturyLink phone lines, the fiber optic vault, the two storm water drains at the Haines Street signal, the two fire hydrants with water lines, and the Port stormwater swales. The proposed plan supplies no options either in expense or design, ignoring any more affordable or common-sense alternatives.
The Leader’s “Guest Viewpoint” printed December 15 opens, “Occasionally we’re forced to walk hastily through a doorway when we’re not ready or willing.” We infer that the City, Port, and PUD managers have launched a proposal they really didn’t want but felt forced to do, not knowing precisely what further steps will be necessary. This “leap before you look” process shows major deficiencies in the system that pushed forth the Sims Way Project.
PUD Concept Misleading concept from the PUD. The poplars on the left along the Kah Tai Park right of way are to be cut down also.
The proposed project does not operate in isolation. Instead it will alter the entire viewscape in the section of the Gateway Development Plan known as the Flats. Rather than entering a Victorian Seaport and Arts Community (the golden eggs of prosperity announced to tourists at the entrance to town), the PUD concept depicts instead a 21st century vision of streamlined sterility and linear convenience… the same boring monoscape used for strip malls throughout the United States.
The above concept view reflects a paucity of understanding of the essence of this community: its inspiration and investment for architecture, policies, advertising and volunteering, with development guided by years of public process in defense of the historic and cultural legacy and habitat. Numerous plans adopted over the years reflect this effort, founded in pride of place, knowledge of the ecology and stewarding of the beauty and history of this community.
The managers, all new to their jobs, have sketched some steps for the project. The tree cutting will begin soon — no one will say when. At some time ditching will begin, but it will involve all manner of pipes and lines that are already in place. In the future, after the poplars are cut, the managers will choose 10 people as “professional stakeholders” to decide on a new landscape design that precludes replanting Lombardy poplars, justified by mostly bogus information.
These managers are either unaware of or hold little regard for the years of community meetings, committees, and surveys providing the vision and guidance for what we value about this place. They have conceived how Sims Way across the Flats will look in the future — stripped, paved and planted to formula store specifications.
Someone has decided that the park-side poplars, planted and replanted over almost one hundred years, will be taken and not replanted, regardless of the trees’ resiliency, spectrum of ages, and numerous functions unaccounted for. The poplar roots may have caused two slight bumps along the north Kah Tai walkway. How the city decided those two bumps would get priority over all the patched, potholed, and neglected residential streets in town is unknown.
The argument of native and non-native is bogus, the city tree list is all non-native.
It claims poplars take up water and root space from the firs – more likely the poplars act as a windbreak for the fir and pines planted in dredge spoils, needing the sheltering from the salty environment. That their root systems are in the way for ditching and will die if some roots are cut belies the existing southside underground utilities located amongst the poplars and madrones: the trees tower over vaults for electric and fiber optic lines, water and sewer lines, fire hydrants and deep ditching along the foundation of the brew pub — the poplars live.
From the managers’ viewpoint, first, patronizing and then bewildering:
“They have a history, are a majestic statement about who we are to anyone coming into Port Townsend, and are loved by many, us included. For years—decades in fact—those who knew about this fast-growing species embedded the need to find an eventual replacement into planning documents.”
Their confusion is embarrassing. There is no embedded, fixed or implied replacement such as interpreted by the managers. These documents with vision statements took years and broad public support to create. They offer guidance for the future that does not destroy our heritage. And if you doubt that, then bring us into a public process.
The Landscape
The poplars mixed with madrones and needled trees are impressive across the viewscape, once a tidal estuary. From the adopted Gateway Development Plan: “All development should maintain and enhance existing plantings and trees located parallel to, and set back from, Sims Way and provide a backdrop for the buildings along the Gateway Corridor.” And, “Most importantly, the Gateway Development Plan sets out a community-wide vision that the City and Washington State Department of Transportation will use in the design, permitting and funding of new roadside improvements along SR 20.”
The Lombardy poplars along with madrones are a part of our history and have important attributes including a complex relationship with mycorrhizal fungi in the soil. This symbiotic relationship sequesters heavy metals in the trees and fungus filaments keeping heavy metals from the bay waters. These functions must be taken into consideration when designing for the future landscape and the aesthetics of the Gateway corridor. Photo: Larry Eifert
The View
The view from the top of the S curve, the poplar tunnel, is eye-catching; verticality, seasonal color along with the caprice of light and wind pandering to the leaves is stunning. These trees are able to thrive in poor soils; no need for expensive soil amendments or irrigation. They break up the prevailing on-shore breeze, filtering dust and fumes, and do not fall over in big storms. In fact, they provide extensive natural services as well as beauty unlike the tiny urban clones proposed to replace them.
There are multiple poplar-lined corridors, layered from the Port, along the lagoon, and threading the golf course all the way to F Street and beyond, throughout the Quimper Peninsula. Does the City plan to log out all of them?
“Primarily native to North America, the poplar species has been well categorised under different name heads, namely: Aspen, Cottonwood, and the Balsam Poplar species. The name Populus has its foundation derived back to the Roman Times, where there was a predilection to plant the poplar trees around the public meetings areas.” Photo: Julie Jaman
The Functions
The Flats, once a series of tidal wetlands and ponds, was filled with nutrient-poor dredge spoils in the mid-twentieth century, over 200,000 yards dug from the marina. That’s why the firs and pines are struggling. The poplars and madrones are some of the few tree species that can tolerate and thrive in such soils. They also help buffer the firs and pines from the salty wind. The Gateway Plan states the poplars should be thinned and replanted when they wear out or fall down, an explicit path to why we still have them. But regular maintenance hasn’t happened in years and they sure need a cleaning up. They, like all trees and public landscapes, need tending; a regular inspection and limb pruning as needed every few years along with encouraging young seedlings to replace any trees that must come down.
“Poplars are some of the fastest-growing trees in the world. They can tolerate the worst conditions and are heavily favored by wildlife. In places where land has been degraded or is falling apart, the poplars can rebuild. They produce tremendous amounts of biomass, feed unbelievable numbers of insects, birds, and mammals, and suck tons of carbon out of the sky like gigantic outstretched vacuums.” (source)
Poplars provide good bird habitat; dense and complicated foliage for gleaning insects and nesting sites. This photo shows a poplar with one of 50 American Bushtits flashing through. Photo: Nancy Cherry Eifert, Oct 2021
Community Input
This very small town brings lots of love and support for both the historic and modern boat culture. Much of the “…marine-related manufacturing, assembly, haul out and repair activities..” and industrial lighting are polluting. But it is the Port’s responsibility to capture pollutants: volatile organic compounds caused by welding, sanding, painting, and varnishing. It is not the community’s responsibility to relinquish its unique landscape to make way for industrial growth.
Further, the Lombardy poplars provide some needed services including the uptake of heavy metals from the road and the Port stormwater. The poplars function as air and chemical filtration as well as carbon capture.
About the yard lighting: LED lights on high poles cast glow and glare into the night sky and across large spaces disrupting creatures’ night habitat and lighting the windows of residents on the hillsides -a “high end” view.
“Uptown was where the merchants, sea captains, and professionals of Port Townsend built their homes… overlooking the port and the buildings of Downtown.” The poplars help to block such intrusive lighting. There should be a thorough review and plan for the lighting: placement, intensity/lumens, color, height, and hooding. Light pollution on land or at sea, can be dealt with in a cost-effective and safe way. Shielding lights with blinds, using warmer lights (more red hues) and installing motion-triggered lights can reduce seabirds’ attraction to their harmful glow.
The trees provide some separation for pedestrians from the toxic fumes and dust of the boat yard and they help to infiltrate stormwater. The trees provide a semi-screened view of the tattered silver and blue tarps and big, white tents in the work yard; tree services to help keep the Port in good stead with the community.
This is what the Port Director promises the people of Quilcene about the Herb Beck Marina Planning. And this is what we want for the Sims Way Project proposal.
“With imagination as our limit, there are a few key principles that must be considered before the plan is recommended to the Commission.”
The plan must have broad community support and must be aligned with the community’s vision for the future.
The plan must be consistent with and help to implement the mission and purpose of the Port.
The plan must meet the Port’s triple-bottom line (a common mantra for organizations). That is: It must balance the economic, environmental and social consequences of the proposed actions.
“A key question is: Does each element have to be profitable? I don’t believe it does. However, the plan as a whole should be financially sustainable for… [the Port]… so the vision imagined in the plan remains viable for future generations.”
Conclusion
This three-in-one plan needs a SEPA process to provide the community an opportunity for in-depth review, confirmation of data, consideration of new information and a selection of alternative solutions including landscape design options not yet considered. Port particulars about chemical fumes, dust, lighting and stormwater are clearly needed. PUD particulars need to include costs for options, i.e. taller poles and other mechanical adjustments that are less expensive than undergrounding. City particulars should include clarity about infrastructure project priorities and scheduling regular tree maintenance. Consider if the trees were not removed, the electric wire was put on higher poles, the Port fence was moved closer to the trees, then what level of service is needed alongside the boatyard and park ROWs?
“The Gateway Corridor includes many of the natural elements that give Port Townsend its character. Because the alteration of the natural environment will continue as more development occurs, it is important to restore a landscape that is in concert with the natural environment. Recognizing topographical opportunities and retaining existing vegetation are beginning points for good design.”
Look in the adopted Gateway Development Plan, the Comprehensive Plan, the Vision 2020, the Non-motorized Trails Plan, The Formula Store Ordinance, the Trees for Port Townsend project, the Kah Tai Park project, Parks, Recreation and Tree Functional Plan. Over the years the community has supplied vision and guidance for our small town aesthetics as we proceed into the future.
These three agencies, managers, council and commissioners, should not ditch years of community involvement in favor of a concept idea that belies the overarching visions and guidelines honed to cradle the legacy worthy of one of the loveliest historic seaports in the country. A course correction is needed before the saws come out.
The following organizations are seeking an open public process to
add essential information about the project and respecting the tradition
of community inclusion:
Representatives from these three groups wrote letters to the Port, the City and PUD with documentation and concerns about the project proposal and the absence of meaningful public process.
“Kevin, at the end of the day, I believe that this mandate was the wrong choice for the PUD and our community and wholly unnecessary. Ultimately it was your decision that put your work force in a compromising position, boxed in a corner and forced to make a choice they never should have been forced to make.”
Kurt Anderson,
former PUD Lineman
————————————-
T’was the night before Christmas, and all through the district…
Jefferson County Public Utility District employees and contractors got unwelcome surprises in their stockings this year—ultimatums, coercion, pink slips. The holiday mood around our little utility is far from merry and bright. Management’s extreme position on vaccine mandates has cost our PUD precious staff, loyal contractors and a great deal of good will, both inside the facility and out. As the winter storm season threatens, remaining linemen are concerned about power restoration and public safety.
Speaking under condition of anonymity, former and current line crew expressed deep frustration with management, this policy and its execution, particularly the dismissal of three* of their team at the worst possible time of year. “We have terminated quality hands for speaking their minds and/or not complying with the mandate.”
Fewer men will have to cover more work, which will impose unnecessary hazards on remaining linemen. They fear it will impact response time for outages.
In-house staff runs lean and the PUD relies on full-time contracted high-voltage crews to help handle all of our needs. Titan, the largest of these, was not interested in complying with the mandates. Now they will have to be replaced. Sources describe “a scramble to get line contractors” because the mandate is so unpopular “and not desired by the absolute majority.” The list of contractors who aren’t submitting their “attestation letters” is long indeed. Documents obtained by the Free Press show that half of the PUD’s subs have refused to comply with the new mandate.
When the prospect of mandating Covid vaccines for all PUD employees was first publicly raised at the Oct. 4th commissioners meeting, numerous customer/owners wrote and Zoomed in to express their concerns, both for the employees and what it could mean for our service needs. As reported by the Free Press days later, not one of those concerns was addressed.
That article detailed how our PUD was exceeding what was required by Inslee’s mandate and recommended by WAPUDA (Washington Public Utility District Association). It also asked why two out of three elected PUD commissioners abrogated responsibility for such a significant policy decision. Commissioners Jeff Randall (District 1) and Ken Collins (District 2) avoided concerns raised by ratepayers, Citizen Advisory Board members and staff by cutting the discussion short. They sidestepped their policy role by directing General Manager Kevin Streett to make the call instead.
At the Dec. 14 meeting I asked how many PUDs in this state are following the hard line that ours has taken with the mandates, and how many are not mandating jabs at all? No one cared to respond to those questions. A week later, excavation contractor Marty Kithcart reached out to the Free Press, happy to answer those queries: Not one other Washington PUD is mandating jabs for jobs. Not one.
Portion of JeffPUD “attestation” letter sent to contractors – Vaccination Requirement
Kithcart and a buddy canvassed all state PUDs plus many others around the country, and they couldn’t find a single PUD enforcing these mandates. Why should any of the contractors mold their company policies to satisfy the demands of one small utility? GM Streett has claimed we implemented the mandate to be “compliant” with state orders. Why are no other PUDs afraid to be out of compliance? Don’t expect an answer.
The backlash from this mandate zealotry has potential to do real damage. It appears there were inconsistencies in the offering of weekly testing as an option. Some employees and contractors were given religious exemptions, others were told they could “not be granted accommodation.” Unfair labor practices would further expose the utility to litigation. Just about every day we hear of another huge employer walking back the mandates for whatever reasons—GM, 3M, Verizon, Amtrak, Cleveland Clinic, Advent Health and (last week) Boeing. Will those who were coerced to accept the jab to keep their job come after their employers? Who could blame them if they did?
The screen shot below shows the PUD’s roster of electrical staff before the mandate was announced by GM Streett in October. Even at that time the utility was short-staffed, advertising for additional Journeymen Linemen to fill out needed crews. “We’ve had a job posting for a lineman for almost 2 years unfilled,” one employee said. “We had three local linemen let go at a time when it is a struggle to find them.”
October 8, 2021 screen shot from PUD website showing electrical employees before mandates were announced. Employees in red have either walked or been terminated for refusing experimental injections.
A veteran lineman responds to his termination
Someone high up the food chain decided that “terminations” were going to be re-labeled “separations” for Build Back Better times. Sounds softer, gentler. Separation is way better than divorce, right? Long-time lineman Kurt Anderson’s lengthy response to his termination is as raw as it is well-considered.
“Kevin Streett’s premise to go forward with a vaccine policy was quote ‘to be in compliance’ with Washington State Department of Transportation’s own policy. I believe this to be a false premise.”
“In my just shy of 7 years at the PUD when I have worked on state right of ways or projects I have not encountered any state workers in close proximity to the job site. If I was still employed by the PUD and should a situation arise where I encountered a state employee/s on the job site I do believe I could follow the CDC guidelines to achieve safe distancing…. If I could not maintain social distancing while working aloft, I would stay on the ground in a support role…. we have survived almost two whole years with the initial covid safety policy in place and I feel safe with it as it is.”
Terminating a long-time unvaxxed employee in a hard-to-fill critical position under the premise that he could be a safety hazard to a vaxxed state worker is beyond foolhardy for an already-understaffed small county utility. The premise doesn’t even hold water. Anderson has done his own research; his statements about the jab are factual:
“I would like to point out that as history plays out on covid-19 vaccines there is very little difference between a fully vaccinated person and a non vaccinated person, BOTH can get covid, BOTH can spread covid, BOTH can survive covid and BOTH can die from covid. The shot was not meant to stop the spread of covid, only to lessen the severity of symptoms and raise an individual’s chance of survival should they contract covid, secondarily to relieve pressure on hospitals.”
He goes on to highlight the indefensible posture assumed by authorities in the face of the spectacular failure of the jab policies, seen within his own workplace:
“One only has to look to the PUD roster to see this truth, after being fully vaccinated a PUD employee contracted covid. The fully vaccinated coworkers of this individual were allowed to continue working regular and overtime hours, the unvaccinated coworkers were sent home on unpaid time off for 10 days quarantine with the requirement to complete a covid test as directed by the county health department, option to use PTO [paid time off] allowed. Some online training classes were set up to help offset the unpaid time off.”
So vaxxed workers who are just as likely to contract and transmit Covid as the unvaxxed are given a free pass, while the “non-compliant” must quarantine and lose pay. The official response is to double down, forcing a punitive, duplicitous “solution” onto those who had nothing to do with the outbreak from the beginning.
“When speaking with many of my fellow PUD employees, regardless of their vaccine status, most felt the mandate was unprecedented and wrong… I believe many voices fell on deaf ears and the ones most affected were never heard at all.”
Anderson’s full letter to the PUD in response to his termination is here.
Losing half of the PUD’s contractors, too
Landmark Excavation crew at PUD’s Landes Street project
Marty Kithcart has operated Landmark Excavation for over 30 years. For almost 5 years, he’s provided trenching and other infrastructure services and support for the PUD and its larger contracted outfits like Titan. And like Titan and other contractors who refused to go along with the mandates, Kithcart was just “separated” by our PUD—while he had two open contracts, and had purchased water main materials for the project that was awarded to him. He has three employees. They and their families depend on local work near where they live. He declined other work to honor those contracts.
Streett broke the PUD’s contracts even though Landmark had bid them in good faith prior to the mandate. The PUD told him they will reimburse him for those materials, but that’s small comfort for the four men who just lost these jobs. Will GM Streett replace them with a more “compliant” crew, one which perhaps uses religious exemptions? Or medical exemptions? How are those workers safe to be around, but Kithcart’s are not?
How many other contracts did the PUD breach midstream? It’s unlikely Landmark is the only one.
When Kithcart asked Streett about exemptions, he got a firm “no.” Then he bumped into another contractor who told him they got a religious exemption. Kithcart was told that his crew was not allowed into the PUD yard where contractor supplies are kept if everybody wasn’t jabbed. He contacted his District 2 Commissioner Collins to look for his reasoning for moving forward with this policy.
Collins eventually called to tell him if he had one “vaccinated” worker, that one man could access the yard and his company could continue to be a contractor. Then Kithcart was told by Operations Director Scott Bancroft that if everybody wasn’t jabbed, they can’t work on PUD projects. GM Streett told Kithcart the PUD would sever ties come December 20th. Mirroring the constantly shifting directives coming from the feds, even local authorities seem to be making it up as they go along, depending on the rolling ratio of compliance-to-pushback.
Kithcart told the Free Press that he’s shocked and angered that the PUD would take this singular and unpopular step at this most important time of year.
“This is the season of giving. How could they treat loyal employees and contractors this way? All of these workers get called out in the middle of the night in the worst kind of weather. Without complaint, we put our heads down and get the job done. We all help out where help is needed. For twenty months we’ve worked side by side with other crews without a problem, now all of a sudden we’re a threat?”
“These are all good people at heart,” Kithcart says of the GM and commissioners, “so why didn’t they think this through? I look for people in need and do what I can to make their life a little better. This is going the wrong way. How it is that the commissioners didn’t give serious consideration to what other PUDs are doing? How could they throw away all these long relationships with really good people?”
Kithcart was heartbroken by the firing of lineman Kurt Anderson. “You’ll never meet a nicer guy. He was so competent at his job.”
Landmark Excavation crew at PUD’s Landes Street project
With the winter storm season approaching, and crushed Christmas and New Year’s plans for families devastated by unemployed breadwinners, he’s most concerned for those who have lost their jobs, and the many customer/owners for whom an extended power outage could prove fatal.
Kithcart’s wife, Sarah, was also just fired from her job of nearly 8 years as a Medical Assistant with Dr. Dimitri Kuznetsov, for declining the jab. Kuznetsov’s clinic was subsumed by Jefferson Healthcare a while back. Another Medical Assistant in the office, a 9-year veteran, then quit because Sarah was fired. Both their days were spent providing maintenance urological care. Many of their patients will now have to turn to Jefferson Healthcare for these services. Think about that the next time you hear news reports about overwhelmed hospitals. The healthcare system is undergoing a controlled demolition.
The Kithcarts will be having a more solemn Christmas than usual, but they’re far more worried about what all this is doing to our community.
Another question I raised at the Dec. 14 meeting was how many employees did not want to receive the Covid jabs, but relented in order to keep their jobs?
PUD counsel, Joel Paisner, spoke up:
“Before staff weighs in, I just wanted to say that some of that information is really confidential to the employee and I don’t think it would be appropriate to comment on the individual status of each employee… I’ll just say that… it’s a matter of opinion whether it was coercion or not, it’s not a factual matter.”
I asked for the total number of employees who took an unwanted jab to keep their job, not for personal details. Paisner’s red-herring response sounded awfully similar to health officer Allison Berry’s well-practiced sidesteps from providing evidence when asked for it.
Coercion is a matter of opinion, not a factual matter? In Kurt Anderson’s opinion, coercion is very much a factual matter. His letter continues to address GM Streett:
“In the October 4 meeting you stated you had spoken with a lot of your staff…”
“I was never asked how I felt about any of this ahead of your decision and I believe there are other PUD employees who were also left out… The injustice of what happened to them is shameful. When they were faced with the many challenges listed above, this group of employees choose [sic], against their will and got vaccinated to retain their job. This is defined as COERCION…”
Jefferson County residents voted to purchase this electric utility from Puget Sound Energy to gain local control of our power, and to provide living-wage jobs which also fortify the tax base. That control is in the hands of our elected PUD commissioners (BOC) who determine policy that the General Manager is charged to carry out. In the case of this Covid policy, two out of three commissioners not only shirked their responsibility to determine sensitive policy, they’ve made the situation worse because of a hiring policy they passed two years ago.
Despite arguments that we need as broad a pool of applicants as possible for difficult-to-fill positions like linemen, the BOC enacted policy restricting employment to Jefferson County residents only. Streett has now terminated specialized experienced local workers. Our county pool for these highly-skilled jobs is exhausted and even if there were lineman available elsewhere, policy prohibits hiring staff outside Jefferson County unless they relocate. New hires who may have been willing to commute, from Port Angeles or Kitsap for example, must move here for employment.
We’ve already seen how difficult it is to procure trained linemen. Do you think a lineman with a good job and no mandate is likely to jump ship for a PUD with the most onerous policy in the state, where housing is in short supply?
Or will we be hiring out-of-county contractors to replace the local workers we just fired? Will both of these ill-advised policies now have to be rescinded (further exposing the PUD to legal action) in order to keep the lights and heat on?
District 1 Commissioner Jeff Randall’s seat is up for election next autumn. Talk is that he will have an opponent. The fallout from his support for the disastrous mandate policy will be verdant pasture for a challenger.
————————————-
About as far away as you can get from JeffCo on this continent, Gainesville, Florida attorney Jeff Childers successfully challenged and won an injunction to shut down a “vaccinate or terminate” policy that the city was attempting to enforce. The director of their utility begged them not to do it, arguing that he “couldn’t guarantee safe and efficient operation of the utility if I lose that many people.” Like our PUD, the city charged ahead. The presiding judge sided with the utility and 250 other plaintiffs in the case, and stopped the mandate in its tracks.
JeffCo PUD customer/owners may not be so blessed. Successful lawsuits against our little public utility may haunt ratepayers for a very long time, even as extended outages amid staffing shortages bedevil us this winter.
Errata: GM Streett stated at the Jan. 4 meeting that only two line crew were lost due to the mandate.
