Port Townsend’s most costly public housing project sits empty. Four and a half years after being floated here from Victoria, B.C., the 1950s building, known as “The Cherry Street project” or “The Carmel House” continues to deteriorate. The doors have never been closed, letting birds and inclement weather inside. Moisture protection for the bare plywood walls has all but peeled away. Rain spouts have fallen off. The stucco is cracking; chunks of it have fallen out. The remains of a homeless camp are still evident where parking and gardens were planned. Inside, city inspectors have “observed multiple hazardous conditions such as holes in walls and floors large enough for a person to fall into.”
City Council avoids the subject of this colossal failure. For fourteen months there has been no public discussion about what to do with a relatively small project (8 modest apartments) that will cost over $3.3 million upon completion, should that day ever come. What was billed as a quick and easy “affordable” housing project has turned, per square foot, into possibly the costliest residential project on the Olympic Peninsula. By contrast, at the same time city council was buying into this boondoggle in 2017, it could have spent less than half the amount the Cherry Street project would eventually gobble up to acquire a 36-bedroom completed, operating apartment complex forty years younger than the Carmel House. As it is, the Cherry Street project, if it is ever completed, could come in at around $700 per square foot.
The city gave valuable land and a lot of money to Homeward Bound Community Land Trust so it could turn this old building into habitable space. In July 2020 Homeward Bound defaulted on its loan from the city. The city had to take the land and building back. The loan was supposed to have been enough to get the old building rehabbed and ready to rent. As a result of the default, city taxpayers are now on the hook for more than $1.4 million in principal and interest on the bond that generated the funds to loan Homeward Bound.
Instead of cutting its losses and selling the land for the best price possible, on September 28, 2020, city council decided to hand everything off to another local nonprofit. The City Manager was instructed to give it debt-free to Bayside Housing. Even with such a sweet deal, Bayside didn’t happen to have on hand the money needed to finish the project. It wanted the three hundred grand left over from the loan, all that had not been spent by Homeward Bound. It also wanted a $500,000 Community Development Block Grant to get going.
The city didn’t offer any financial help. As we reported in June, Bayside asked the county for $1.6 million to fix up the old building and another $200,000 for various related project costs. It still also wanted $300,000 in cash from the city and that $500,000 block grant. Their request for this pile of public monies has not moved forward.
The city must now regret turning its back last October on a $1 million cash offer from Keith and Jean Marzan of Port Townsend. They wanted to bail taxpayers out of this mess and build affordable housing on the site. The Marzans believe they were treated with disrespect, if not contempt, and have no intention of offering their help again.
A New City Council Should End the Long-Running Fiasco
Three individuals responsible for this mess are leaving city council. Michelle Sandoval, Ariel Speser and Pamela Adams voted to authorize spending the funds to buy the building and transport it here back in April 2017. They also voted to float the bond and loan the proceeds to Homeward Bound. In the superficial council discussion on April 24, 2017, when council got the city involved, Sandoval spoke glowingly of the project, and how proud she was that council was spending public funds to import the old building and barge it across the Strait of Juan de Fuca. She wanted the city to throw in even more money than was being discussed.
City Council may wish this meeting would go down the memory hole. They approved the project and committed the city without ever conducting their own inspection of the building, or having seen any kind of construction plan or even a basic pro forma on how this could ever be a viable affordable housing project. The group to which they gave the project, Homeward Bound, did not then exist except on paper. It had no experience with any project of this nature. It had no staff and no funds. The city had to give them a $30,000 “organizational grant” so they could get a board of directors together and set up a website.
Sandoval is an experienced real estate broker. You would think she would have shown the same concern for taxpayers that one hopes she shows clients considering buying an old house. At that critical April 24, 2017 meeting, she spoke at greatest length and most emphatically to persuade the rest of the council to commit the city to the project. She wanted the city to jump on this as “low hanging fruit.” This project had “been a long time coming,” she said. “Bully for us,” she added. “My plea is that we put our skin in the game here [and] show the community we are willing to put our money where our mouth is. This is a great start. I’m really excited about it.” The link to the video of the meeting is here. Sandoval’s comments begin at the 6:51 mark.
“A long time coming”? Then where was the building inspection, the construction plan and estimate, the feasibility study to determine if Homeward Bound could execute the project, renovate the building, rent it at affordable rates and pay the city back? The internal project estimate done by Homeward Bound, revealed in an investigative report here, was condemned by the president of Homeward Bound as “completely bogus.”
This was a pet project of Sandoval’s. Minutes of meetings of the board of directors of Homeward Bound showed Sandoval sometimes in attendance and the meetings being held at her office. A Homeward Bound director reported to fellow board members that Sandoval would give $10,000 to the group. One of Sandoval’s realtors, Paul Rice, in 2019 addressed city council and requested another $1 million. He was speaking as Homeward Bound’s president. [Minutes of Homeward Bound directors and public meetings were once regularly posted on the group’s website, hbclt.org. They are now gone, as is Homeward Bound’s own account of how it fumbled the Cherry Street Project and why it defaulted on the city’s loan. More on this, below.]
Ariel Speser objected to looking into Homeward Bound’s finances and capabilities, as requested by former council member Robert Gray in the May 2018 council meeting that was considering extending the loan to the group. Councilors Amy Howard and David Faber sided with Speser. They “had confidence” in Homeward Bound, which, after a year, had not even moved the old building off its temporary wooden supports onto a stable foundation, had blown its original loan deadlines, and had come nowhere near having the building ready to rent in the fall of 2017, an important representation made to city council when it sought initial funding in April 2017 to bring the building here from Canada.
All city councilors, except for Robert Gray, voted at every opportunity to move forward with the project, give away land worth $600,000, incur a hidden interest subsidy of more than $400,000 and obligate taxpayers to repay a bond that will cost them a total of more than $1.4 million. They voted to extend the loan to Homeward Bound even though, as Gray pointed out, Homeward Bound’s own pro forma showed them going into default in two years! Gray wanted a delay so the city could undertake its own due diligence. He couldn’t get a second for his motion. The link to the May 7, 2018 council business meeting where this debate occurred is available here. Gray’s critique of the project’s finances and his observation that the project, under its own terms, was predicted to go into an early default, begin at the 8:24 mark on the relevant agenda item.
In a separate May 28, 2018 analysis, Port Townsend Free Press reported that Homeward Bound was guaranteed to default under the very terms of its loan agreement with the city. The way the loan was set up, and considering that Homeward Bound would have no income with which to make its first loan repayment—despite a two-year grace period—default was inevitable. Robert Gray and Port Townsend Free Press called it right: Homeward Bound broke its promises and stuck taxpayers with the bill.
Scrubbing History
Homeward Bound wants people to forget it ever had anything to do with the Cherry Street project. They have renamed themselves “Olympic Housing Trust” and scrubbed references to the Cherry Street Project from their website. They have not, though, changed their website’s URL, which remains hbclt.org. The image for their website is still a view outside through windows of the Carmel House. Their board of directors is the same cast, by and large, that was responsible for mishandling the Cherry Street Project. Kate Dean, chair of the Jefferson County Board of County Commissioners, from the very beginning has played a key role in Homeward Bound—creating and training and serving on its board of directors—and continues as a director of the [whitewashed] Olympic Housing Trust.
These folks have good reason to want people to forget their involvement in the Cherry Street project. On the one hand, the city set them up for failure. They had no experience or expertise with anything of this nature. The project never could work. It was unfair to dump such a huge, predestined failure on presumably well-intentioned, but spectacularly unqualified and incapable volunteers. That’s why we once wrote about “The Tragedy of the Cherry Street Project” [PTFP, 12/12/18]. On the other hand, this group was not always straightforward, to put it mildly, in its pursuit of public funds. That’s why we published the report, “Multi-Million Dollar Fraud on Taxpayers: The Cherry Street Project Unmasked” [PTFP, 6/27/20].
A Majority of the New City Council Does Not Own This Debacle
None of the newly elected City Councilors—Ben Thomas, Aislinn Diamanti, and Libby Urner Wennstrom—bear any responsibility for this mess. Council member Monica Mick Hager campaigned against the wastefulness and incompetence of this project when she ran for office in 2019. She has been the lone council member to push for cutting the city’s losses and selling the land and building to the highest bidder.
The other city councilor now serving who did not vote for this disaster is Owen Rowe, who came into office after the damage had been done. He did, however, vote to try to keep the project going by giving it to Bayside Housing. In city hall emails, obtained by Port Townsend Free Press through a public records request, he has complained about our reporting on the Cherry Street project. Yet he has never contacted us to point out anything we got wrong.
The current City Manager, John Mauro, had no hand in launching the project or providing Homeward Bound with a huge loan it could never repay. This is an albatross draped around his shoulders by his predecessor and a city council with different personnel.
It is time for the City of Port Townsend to admit failure, abort the Cherry Street Project, cut its losses and move forward.
The building is worthless and a money pit. As we have reported over the years, the 1950’s building can never be brought up to code and made habitable at any reasonable cost, and the costs continue to mount as construction prices soar and the building ages and falls apart. Have we mentioned the little problem about asbestos and lead contamination? It was a little detail withheld from the city by Homeward Bound until it surfaced inadvertently. We covered it in our report “Multi-Million Dollar Fraud on Taxpayers: The Cherry Street Project Unmasked.”
The land, however, is very valuable: 1.5 acres with utility connections fixed and upgraded at taxpayer cost. The city had valued the property when it gave it to Homeward Bound at $600,000. That was 2017, before a problematic old water line was fixed. In 2020 the Marzans offered $1 million. It may bring an even greater price today.
The empty eyesore of an unusable building remains the stumbling block. The city still has $300,000 from the bond that was not burned up by Homeward Bound. Those funds could pay for crunching the building and removing its remains.
Or the city could try to get someone to buy the building and take it away, just like the city did when it paid to have the Carmel House lifted off its foundation in Victoria, B.C. and barged to Port Townsend. Right. There may be a sucker born every minute, but that doesn’t mean another sucker can be found for this white elephant.
Back in 2018 when the city issued the bond that raised the money to loan to Homeward Bound, it opted to pay a higher interest rate so the bond could be repaid early without any penalty. It actually expected Homeward Bound to come roaring off a huge success with the Cherry Street Project, repay the loan in less than ten years, then charge into its next big affordable housing venture. The cost taxpayers have been and will continue paying for this bit of delusional thinking isn’t cheap: an additional $3,000 annually for a term of 20 years that started in 2018.
Time to get real. Tear the Carmel House down and cut taxpayer losses. Make the land available for housing. Sell it to the highest bidder and use the proceeds to pay off the loan early (no penalty, yay!). Stop wasting tax dollars and maybe do something concrete on the affordable housing crisis.
There Must Be Accountability and Consequences
What if there’s still not enough to pay off the bond? Accountability must be demanded; malfeasance must have consequences. Putting taxpayers into this deal was beyond breach of the fiduciary duty city councilors owe their constituents… it was reckless, gross negligence, and wanton disregard of common sense and prudent business practices.
No due diligence whatsoever was attempted. City council failed to support Robert Gray’s motion to give the city time to conduct its own due diligence because a red warning light was blinking brightly: Homeward Bound’s own numbers showed they couldn’t meet their obligations. Instead, the city council, with the exception of Gray, gladly and blindly accepted hearsay representations from Homeward Bound that a couple of people in banking and construction had looked over their numbers. Nothing in writing from those “experts” was presented to or demanded by city council before giving Homeward Bound a lot of public money. Those experts weren’t even present to take questions.
If directors of a private organization, for-profit or non-profit, had acted as did city council, there’s no doubt they would be facing personal liability.
Those councilors who pushed and voted for this project—Michelle Sandoval, Amy Howard, David Faber, Ariel Speser, Deborah Stinson, and Pamela Adams—should make up any shortfall out of their own pockets. Though legislative immunity presents obstacles, the city should take action to hold them accountable if they don’t act honorably and step up voluntarily.
Michelle Sandoval did say she wanted “to put our skin in the game” and “put our money where our mouth is.”
Sadly, we can predict (a) not one of them will accept personal responsibility and (b) the city will let them off the hook, unlike the taxpayers who have to pay for the damage done by city officials utterly failing their constituents. I am afraid we will be as prescient in this prediction as we were in foreseeing Homeward Bound’s default and the ultimate failure of the Cherry Street Project.
Port Townsend Free Press has been on this story from the beginning. We’ve been the only media to conduct any sort of independent investigation into the city’s largest public housing venture. Unlike our local papers, we’ve done more than reprint press releases and take dictation. You may access all our reports by entering “Cherry Street” in the search box in the upper right. The following sample of reports, based primarily on documentation from city files, provides a fairly compete behind-the-scenes picture of this debacle.
One day after Laura—a healthy, athletic 27-year-old Port Townsend woman—received her second Covid mRNA injection, she began having significant adverse reactions. Pressured to take the experimental injection for employment, within days of the shot her body aches and chest pain intensified to the point where she couldn’t get out of bed.
When Laura called the local pharmacy where she received the shot about her adverse reactions, the pharmacist told her that her reaction was “normal”. When her chest pain continued to escalate, she called a CDC vaccination hotline where she was advised that she should wait 24 hours before seeking medical attention. She nonetheless drove herself to Jefferson Healthcare’s ER in what turned out to be “heart attack mode.”
Not listening to “expert” advice assuring her that her intense chest pain and other troubling reactions were normal, telling her she should wait it out rather than seek medical care, likely saved her life. “The [ER] doctor said he didn’t know how I was still alive.”
Following Laura’s heart attack, Jefferson Healthcare (JHC) ran a battery of tests, identifying pericarditis resulting from vaccine damage. She was transferred later that day to a Silverdale hospital. There she had a second heart attack. Her ultimate diagnosis was “acute myopericarditis with elevated troponin.” She learned that her heart was now functioning at 30% capacity, told by the cardiologist it looked liked that of an 80 year old.
Myopericarditis is a combination of two types of heart damage: pericarditis, inflammation of the heart lining, and myocarditis, inflammation of the heart muscle. Doctors have been warning since 2020 that spike proteins produced by the mRNA shots are toxic pathogens and that the heart is especially vulnerable. Nearly a year ago, UCLA pediatric rheumatologist Dr. Patrick Whelan sent a letter to the FDA about this problem, with links to studies demonstrating that:
“it appears that the viral spike protein that is the target of the major SARS-CoV-2 vaccines is also one of the key agents causing the damage to distant organs that may include the brain, heart, lung, and kidney.”
This warning has since been confirmed through autopsies of those who died post-vaccination and by an unreleased Pfizer biodistribution study obtained by a Japanese freedom of information act request (see my previous article). In June JAMA Cardiology published two reports of “Myocarditis detailed in 30 patients after mRNA COVID vaccines;” in July PubMed posted “a cross-sectional study of 29 published cases of acute myopericarditis;” and in August the New England Journal of Medicine reported additional cases of “Myocarditis after Covid-19 mRNA Vaccination.”
Troponin, shown to be elevated in Laura’s cardiology notes, is a group of proteins found in the heart that regulate the function of cardiac muscle fibers. They can be found in the bloodstream when there is heart damage. Elevated levels are indicative of a heart attack. “They are released into the blood when the cells of the heart are injured and not getting enough oxygen and nutrients. The more severely damaged the muscles of the heart are, the more that is leaked into the blood.” (source) Laura’s troponin was fifteen times safe levels.
None of the personnel at either hospital reported the vaccine injury to VAERS, the CDC’s Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System. While at JHC, Laura had been pointed to the VAERS website and told that she could file a report if she wanted to. The medical team in Silverdale confirmed it was her “choice” to report her vaccine injury.
As described in my previous article, CDC guidelines require medical practitioners to report these adverse reactions to VAERS. The national data system established to collect and analyze vaccine damage is not intended to be a “choice” foisted on the injured. The CDC defines it as “an early warning system… that depends on healthcare professionals to report any health problems of clinical significance that may occur after vaccination.” But feedback from around the country indicates that hospitals avoid reporting injuries and deaths following the shots as the rule rather than the exception.
Despite significant under-reporting, a search of the VAERS database brings up nearly 18,000 reports through November 12, 2021 for the cardiac issues from which Laura suffers following her shots. [As of this Dec. 2 update, 1200 new reports have been added since posting the original article.] The greatest percentage of reports is in Laura’s age cohort, although now that shots have been rolled out for the kids, those injury numbers are growing. It is recognized that heart damage is occurring disproportionately in children and teens.
We know this is a fraction of actual injuries, given that medical personnel who are seeing these patients generally deny that the shots are responsible. In my earlier article I described numerous heart injuries in Jefferson County directly following the shots, none of them reported. And as seen in Laura’s case, even when health practitioners do acknowledge the vaccine caused the damage, they avoid reporting to VAERS, passing their reporting requirements on to patients and their families who are typically daunted by the long, difficult and complicated process. It’s easy to see how the more than 19,000 cardiac injuries now in the VAERS database associated with Covid vaccines would represent just the tip of the iceberg.
Laura’s adverse reaction brings to mind the career-ending injuries and sudden deaths of young athletes all over the world following these shots. Alternative news sites have compiled lists of world class athletes, some of them publicly collapsing on playing fields and courts from vaccine-induced heart damage like Laura’s.
Click on this image to see a compilation of stories, including those listed below. “A mere 18 months ago, multiple world-class athletes dropping dead on the field in front of fans and live TV audiences would be the top news story on every station across the entire world yet now we face exactly that situation and the news media is silent.”
Athletes like these:
31-Year-Old Gold Medalist Speed Skater Diagnosed With Pericarditis After Receiving Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccine
27-Year-Old Professional Baseball Player Died 5 Weeks After COVID-19 Vaccination
29-Year-Old Professional Footballer Suffers Myocarditis After COVID-19 Vaccine
38-Year-Old Volleyball Player Developed Pericarditis After Her Second Pfizer Vaccine
Professional Mountain Biker Suffers Several Health Problems After The Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccine
World Record Holder In Static Breath-Hold Freediving Developed Myocarditis and Pericarditis After Pfizer Vaccine
27-Year-Old Two-Time Olympic Archer Died 10 Days After Pfizer Vaccine
Athletes in these articles tell a story the mainstream media will not share:
“Yes, the vaccine ended my season. One thousand percent. I was fine up until I took the vaccine. I got sick and I never quite recovered from it.” – NBA player Brandon Goodwin was told: “not to say anything about it, not to tell anybody.”
“I am not anti-vax but I have never been convinced of taking this vaccine and now I understand why. I have had and still have post-vaccine pericarditis. Who pays the price for all this?” – Francesca Marton, volleyball player
“Since I had my vaccine (between the Olympics and the US Open), I have a problem. I am struggling. I can’t train, I can’t play. In my head, it’s difficult because I don’t know how long it will last. For now, my season is over and I don’t know when it will resume.” – Jeremy Chardy, tennis player
“Damaging healthy people to preserve the health of the weakest, a choice of backward logic. I would not get vaccinated if it had to be done again.” – Antoine Méchin, triathlete
Professional mountain bike racer Kyle Warner describes a common response by medical personnel to vaccine damage. When he started having strange reactions in his heart following his second shot, he was told in the ER that it was just an “anxiety attack.” He was then referred to a psychiatrist for a “psychotic episode” by the ER doctor. Such is the medical system’s brainwashing that these shots are so safe, and injuries so rare, that adverse reactions are often dismissed as being mental delusions. Warner was ultimately diagnosed with pericarditis and a tachycardia syndrome. He, too, had to fill out his own report to VAERS because no doctor would do it for him. It took him 45 minutes to complete.
“People are being coerced into making a decision based on lack of information. Real lives are being affected by ‘not so rare’ consequences.”
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Laura’s story is becoming more common as younger age groups are receiving these shots. “Bad news about the dangers that mRNA vaccines may pose to the heart and blood vessels keeps coming.”
A report recently presented at the American Heart Association’s annual conference is described by journalist Alex Berenson:
“A new study of 566 patients who received either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines shows that signs of cardiovascular damage soared following the shots. The risk of heart attacks or other severe coronary problems more than doubled months after the vaccines were administered, based on changes in markers of inflammation and other cell damage…”[full article here.]
This article was revised on December 2, 2021 to remove information that could compromise the anonymity of the woman we’re calling Laura. Laura had shared her harrowing medical crisis in detail in the hopes of saving others’ lives.
We don’t know when or if the full original article will be able to be re-posted. This abbreviated version nonetheless speaks to the increasingly prevalent heart damage she suffered within days of her second shot, without the earlier details of her personal story.
As the Covid crisis has unfolded in Jefferson County over the last two years, a slick, relentless, well-orchestrated fear narrative has created the greatest divide many of us have ever seen in our diverse, once-tolerant community. And with the arrival of experimental injections, vaxxed versus unvaxxed messaging has pushed that divide to a near-breaking point.
Friendships have broken, families split asunder; a two-tiered society is in the making.
Several of the pieces we’ve published since resurrecting the Port Townsend Free Press have focused on the media-driven apartheid tearing apart our social fabric. One of the most striking results of publishing these articles is the feedback they’ve sparked in the Comment sections below them. Comments like:
Over these months those who called themselves friends have cut off communications.
I am worried about the future. This whole thing is like a horrible nightmare… the brainwashed people around here that are in lockstep with every little thing they are told when it comes to this virus and the outrageous measures that have just ravaged society for most likely generations.
I’m a paid member of the American Legion… I’ve never been vaccinated… and can only go in for the two meetings a month. I can’t socialize in the club or drink there.
I have lived in PT for 42 years. My old liberal and peace-loving friends are shocking me with their authoritarian and hateful rhetoric.
The Free Press is now the only media on the peninsula for open community dialog. Many thoughtful, articulate voices are joining the conversation to fill out our stories through their comments, helping to build an uncensored local forum for civil conversations.
How is the fear narrative impacting our relationships and quality of life? We find that many are questioning their political affiliations, mourning friendships abruptly severed, stunned to see how media brainwashing has created factions within their own families.
Personal stories tell the bigger tale. Below are a few of the extended comments readers have contributed that give a taste of how incessant fear messaging is devastating our community. We are struck by the heart, eloquence, and wisdom of contributors to the forum here.
We welcome your perspective on how this growing apartheid has affected you personally. If you haven’t already, please join the conversation!
——————– IN YOUR OWN WORDS ——————–
Thank you Brett, for your calm commentary on the escalating divisiveness in Port Townsend – City of Dreams…as long as your dream is the same as ours it seems. I was one of those giving you the thumbs up as I drove by. If I hadn’t been on my way out of town, I would have joined you.
I’m a relative newbie to Port Townsend – only 18 years under my belt, so will probably kick the bucket before I gain anything resembling ‘local’ status. I thought of my move here as a lateral one – PT in the early 2000s felt much like my native Marin did 30 years previous to my exit. Now, only 18 years later, I hardly recognize this place – it has become everything I left behind. Nearly gone is the visible coterie of colorful, quirky characters who kept the town alive with art, music and any excuse for a parade or celebration in the street. Certainly gone is that ambiance of easy acceptance, or at least tolerance, of everyone’s differences and opinions.
The level of fear engendered by a media-enhanced pandemic would never have happened here 18 years ago, or so I would like to believe. The community would have come together to find solutions – not bowed to the continued onslaught of fear-mongering, turning neighbor against neighbor because of differing ideas about a virus and vaccine of all things!
What has happened here?? How did we become so vicious that we’re calling each other names simply because some of us believe that what goes into our bodies is our business, not any government or medical officers’? Despite the growing rhetoric around vaxxing or not vaxxing, vaccine effectiveness vs. vaccine injury, don’t we owe it to ourselves and our community to listen to one another’s concerns without judgment? How can we possibly hope to survive as a community if we can’t even talk to each other without escalating to name calling and villifying ‘the other’ simply because our views are different? Where does it end?
Thanks for publishing Brett’s letter. How refreshing to hear a fellow citizen speak honestly about his experiences! I wasn’t at the protest, but in my view, the street corner is no longer a safe place to hold a conversation—especially when most passersby are moving at 25 miles per hour. Unlike fast-food and commercials, meaningful dialogue happens when we give time and place, and respectful listening. Sadly, when we need it most, we’ve been denied our customary venues for public conversations—pubs, coffee shops, festivals and concerts. Social distancing is a recipe for inducing depression and fear. Once I realized this, I decided not to allow myself to be manipulated. Then, I did what I always do: I sought out the wisdom of trustworthy voices—people who aren’t getting rich off of this crisis.
I turned off corporate media long ago, disillusioned by the lobbyist-influenced, gridlocked government, and the fear-mongering narratives that justify endless war and an inhumane economics. But at least—so I thought—we had independent journalism, Public Radio, getting us the truth. This morning in my car, risking a brief few minutes to listen to NPR, I was appalled (but not surprised) to hear that Facebook—a veritable fount of disinformation and authoritarian squelcher of dissenting voices—is now a financial sponsor of National Public Radio! Yikes indeed!
These are strange times, indeed, when many our fellow citizens, effectively deranged by fear-inducing narratives, seem to have forgotten about our 1st Amendment rights—the right to express our feelings, thoughts, and beliefs.
I approach controversy humbly, seeking to broaden my understanding through reading, listening, and attempting to see other viewpoints. To ridicule or censor others if their views diverge from our own denies our fellow citizens the same fundamental freedoms we hold dear.
I strive to do my part to live in a community where slow conversations happen again. I want to understand, with compassion, what’s really going on for my fellow citizens. Perhaps listening, and being listened to, from the heart will allow us all some self-reflection, and needed insight.
Enormous gratitude for speaking truth to power during this time of mass hysteria. Please know that many are reading, watching, and standing in solidarity with you. Some are afraid for their livelihoods and remain in the shadows, but this sanctimonious community would be shocked to know how many of us work, congregate and play alongside them as fellow liberals and progressives without paying dues to the Covid cult.
We are critical thinkers who read medical studies and seek out professional, credible sources who reject, through dogged, fact-checked and peer-reviewed documentation that is being censored by social and mainstream media, the dangerous misinformation promulgated by bureaucrats—from Fauci and Walensky to Inslee, all the way down to Locke and Berry. We recognize that this campaign is not about public health—not for a disease that has a 99%+ survival rate, holds a 1-5% chance of hospitalization, and laughably boasts an leaky injection that has not been proven either safe or effective. This is an obedience test and Port Townsend, you’ve passed with flying colors. Keep submitting to your every-six-months jabs, of which you have zero idea what the medium and long-term effects are and ignore the short-term effects, including permanent heart damage, Guillain-Barre Syndrome, and death. Keep relinquishing your bodily autonomy and your Constitutional rights because you have become slaves to the fearful rhetoric.
Those of us who refuse forced vaccination will keep fighting and yes, it is your rights we are fighting for. You claim the shot, masks, and lockdowns are about what’s best for the community at large (psst, no, they are not, have not and will never be about or benefit public health—the evidence is right there, available to you if you can get past your fear and disbelief that everything you’ve absorbed and believed and practiced these past 20 months is wrong wrong wrong). Meanwhile you are succumbing to mandates that have done more harm to our children, our brothers and sisters of color, our poor, those without shelter, our small business owners, our economy, and our future than ten back-to-back Trump administrations. I was shattered when Trump won in 2016. I never imagined that far worse awaited, and it would be at the hands of those I had once considered my political tribe.
Local and far-flung liberals alike have bought into the mainstream media narrative that those speaking out against vaccine mandates and/or are questioning the safety and efficacy of the vaccines are Trump-loving, MAGA-hat wearing red state conservatives. Or hippy-dippy anti-vaxxers. Perhaps because they cannot handle the cognitive dissonance that there are multitudes like me, members of my family, and friends who are (were, now) lifelong Democrats, liberals in the true sense of the word. All caught up on our vaccinations, until this—this lie bigger than anything a gaggle of Deep State fantasists could conjure.
And we vote. Many of us have now become one issue voters: the preservation of our constitutional freedoms. And we will vote in any candidate, from county commissioner to state rep to governor to president, who vows to dismantle vaccine mandates at every level and restore our freedom of choice. We no longer care what letter follows a candidate’s name. We don’t care what their positions are on voting rights, taxation, abortion, gun control, climate change, social justice. There is one issue and one issue only: release from tyranny. We have never been more afraid for our and our country’s future than we are now—watching this country and the world cave from fear, lies, deception, corruption. Know, too, that many of us who have taken the jab to preserve our jobs are even angrier: vaccine mandates may work in the short term to boost the stats and make the vaccine cultists congratulate themselves with smug pats on the back. The blue afterglow will turn a nightmarish red in the midterms. Enjoy your hollow victories now. If the jab hasn’t turned your brains to jelly in a couple of years, your collective political heads will explode when you realize what you have unleashed. You’ve just destroyed your own party. A party we were once proud to call our own. Now we are politically homeless, but we will align ourselves with those who understand this is the greatest threat we have ever faced.
I live in Southeast Florida (Palm Beach County which had stricter protocols than other parts of the state) for about 8 months of the year and PT in the summer. Masks are currently only required, as far as I can tell, in doctor’s offices and hospitals.
When the pandemic began and before we knew anything about what was going on and how to treat Covid, my husband and I were cautious for about 3 weeks. After research, we both went essentially back to normal life although I washed my hands more often after being out in public. When masking became required here in public spaces about spring of 2020, I went from not touching my face to constantly adjusting my mask, such that it was (a thin scarf that did not impede my ability to breathe).
I have made essentially no adjustments in my life except when in PT last summer. Your rules made me crazy and then you shut down the restaurants to unvaccinated me. Yes, I’ve researched whether or not I should be vaccinated, too. We both got one Moderna shot at Safeway and instantly regretted it. I was fine, but my husband was sick for a few days and then had lingering problems for a few weeks.
My son’s wife (they live here in Florida) felt so much pressure from her boss that she got vaccinated with the one shot J&J several months ago. She developed some health issues that her doctor told her were vaccine-related as they have seen a good deal of her particular reaction. My son and their two children, 9 and 11, are recently recovered from Covid. My son went right and got Gov. DeSantis’ Regereron which he has made available throughout the state. He was fairly sick for all of 12 hours and then described his subsequent symptoms as like a cold. My grandchildren had no symptoms whatsoever unless you count one who had a fever of 100 at one point but we only know this because his mom took his temperature. They all tested negative about a week to a week and a half after testing positive, the kids being quicker than my son to test negative.
I have many unvaccinated friends who do as I do and take the vitamin, mineral and Quercetin protocol for prevention. None wear masks except when required and never have, with one literally never wearing one unless specifically asked to. Some have gotten Covid and some haven’t. All have recovered with no issues. Some had it and didn’t know it until later when they discovered they had the antibodies!
To this point neither my husband nor I have had Covid and if we do get it we are prepared with the recommended protocol to avoid the hospital at all costs where treatment seems to be not much more than a ventilator when you get bad enough.
I have never seen a health issue so poorly handled by the government. I have lost all faith in the CDC, the NIH, and Dr. Fauci. When Rahm Emanuel said that we should never let a crisis go to waste, he was prescient regarding this “crisis.” Our feckless government and those of many states, Washington included, have taken the opportunity to exert as much control over people as they can get away with. We the people need to push back and resist. I for one, even if I were fully vaccinated, will refuse to show my vaccination status to anyone. (Strangely, I’m never asked by health care providers to whom I’d be glad to share my status.)
Will I return to PT next summer? Honestly, I’m not much inclined to although we have family there, many great friends, and a fine church. I will certainly truncate my stay unless Gov. Inslee and Jefferson County loosen up significantly. I am SO grateful to be a Florida resident.
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What housing crisis? County Commissioners plan to make it even harder to afford housing in Jefferson County. They intend to increase the property tax levy at the same time that gas, food and all other costs are spiking. Homeowners already struggling to make ends meet will have to pay even more money to the county to keep from losing their homes.
The Commissioners have put taxpayers on notice that they intend to raise the ad valorem tax by 1%, something that has become an annual ritual for them. Raising property taxes makes housing more expensive. It also makes rentals more expensive, as landlords pass along rising costs to tenants.
Back in 2017 the BOCC declared a housing emergency. That emergency has been constantly reaffirmed in commissioner discussions. But the BOCC has never acted as though it took the emergency seriously. It has never taken advantage of the emergency declaration to loosen regulatory and land use restrictions, which drive up the cost and and limit the supply of housing. And every year it continues to add to the cost of housing by raising property taxes.
How bad is our housing affordability crisis? Try finding an affordable rental. Good luck with that. And good luck to the first time home buyer. Young people who grew up in this county have no hope of buying a home here.
The crisis is real and strangling our economy. Employers lose workers, or prospective hires go elsewhere because they can’t afford to live here. We have people with jobs living in their cars, for heaven’s sake, because housing is so insanely expensive. Many members of the creative class, who have made Port Townsend such a special, vibrant place, are leaving because they can’t afford to live here.
Jefferson County is the second most unaffordable county in Washington state, after San Juan County—and nobody gets a house in San Juan County unless they are a millionaire or fortunate to inherit an island property.
Median home prices have jumped 65% in just five years, from $276,600 to $455,900. The minimum wage boost is insignificant when measured against such huge inflation in housing prices. Other incomes in Jefferson County have been almost stagnant.
Rental vacancies range from absolutely nothing to only 1%, meaning that even those with incomes can’t find a place to live.
29% of renters pay 30% and more for housing.
Let’s hope housing activists speak out against the BOCC making housing more expensive for everyone. These painful tax increases hurt the poor, seniors, workers and young people the most. There is nothing “progressive” whatsoever about the BOCC’s property tax increases.
Anybody reading this who lives in Jefferson County knows too well the staggering property tax bills hitting them every year. Very few homeowners who do not have appreciating significant stock portfolios are seeing their incomes rise at the same rate their property tax bills keep going up.
The county is the beneficiary of unprecedented federal largesse. At the October 11, 2021, meeting of the Board of County Commissioners, acting county administrator Mark McCauley, in response to a question from Beth O’Neal, stated that Jefferson County has already received $3.129 million and will receive another $3.129 million in May 2022. Furthermore, the county expects another $4 million over the next two years from Washington State revenue sharing of those federal funds starting in September, 2022.
There is always reason to question how the BOCC is spending the tax money it is already collecting. The same BOCC that again wants to raise taxes on a county still struggling with the economic costs of the COVID lockdowns and mandates, on top of inflation at the highest level in 20 years, found enough extra money to give out $337,000 in bonuses to county workers. Those bonuses were from taxes paid by many people who lost their jobs and saw their businesses close during the lockdowns.
Affordable housing requires affordable property taxes. To keep the cost of housing from continuing to rise, property taxes must be held in check, even reduced. That is a direct and immediate step the BOCC could take to do something to address our housing affordability crisis.
It is time they act on the emergency they declared.
The hearing on raising property taxes yet again will be November 15, 2021. The Commissioners will be protected from facing angry, scared taxpayers as the meeting will be on-line. Written comments may be sent to jeffbocc@co.jefferson.wa.us. Follow instructions in the public notice on how to participate in the Zoom meeting. Click here to read those instructions.
At the October 4th meeting of the Jefferson County Board of County Commissioners, Department of Emergency Management Director Willie Bence provided the following update:
“We’re unlikely to do any more large clinics for the Pfizer booster dose population. Our next priority beginning the end of this month is going to be five to eleven-year-olds. So we’re eagerly awaiting that approval, so we’ll be ready for that at the end of this month through November…”
How did EM Director Bence know that this poorly-tested product was going to be approved, when less than a week before, the headline from this CNN report read “Pfizer submits data on Covid-19 vaccine for kids ages 5 to 11 to FDA, not seeking EUA yet.” In fact, it wasn’t until October 7th that Pfizer announced its formal request to the FDA for EUA—three days after Bence made his prescient announcement.
Willlie Bence, Jefferson County Emergency Management Director
What sort of crystal ball are they gazing into there in the Emergency Management office? I’ve filed a Public Records Request to find out, and I’ll share with PTFP readers what I learn.
The Nov. 4th edition of The Leader carried the water for the Jefferson/Clallam County Public Health officer, braying, “In other good news, Berry noted the potential approval of a COVID-19 vaccine for children ages 5 to 11. ‘We’re very excited about that,’ she said.”
In the article “Pfizer COVID Vaccine Fails Risk-Benefit Analysis in Children 5 to 11,” Toby Rogers, PhD, explains the critical metric NNTV—it’s the “number needed to vaccinate” in order to prevent a single case, hospitalization, ICU admission or death. The best study to date determined that:
“…the NNTV to prevent one death is between 9,000 and 100,000 (95% confidence interval)… injecting all 28,384,878 children ages 5 to 11 with two doses of Pfizer, which is what the Biden administration wants to do, would save, at most, 45 lives… So then the NNTV to prevent a single fatality in this age group is 28,384,878 / 45 = 630,775. But it’s a two-dose regimen, so if one wants to calculate the NNTV per injection the number doubles to 1,261,550. It’s literally the worst NNTV in the history of vaccination.”
”Kirsch, Rose, and Crawford (2021) estimate the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System undercounts fatal reactions by a factor of 41, which would put the total fatal side effects in this age-range at 5,248. Kirsch et al. represent a conservative estimate because others have put the underreporting factor at 100… Simply put, the Biden administration plan would kill 5,248 children via Pfizer mRNA shots in order to save 45 children from dying of coronavirus.“
Why is Willie Bence so “eager” and Allison Berry so “very excited” to inject this dangerous experimental gene therapy into our kids?
It would be comical were it not so diabolical. The first “pop-up” clinic for these young kids is at Blue Heron Middle School this Saturday, Nov. 13th from 9am to noon. The following weekend, Nov. 20th, the injection wagon rolls up to Chimacum Junior/Senior High School.
Pfizer’s Superhero theme is parroted by state and local health authorities on their social media pages, illustrating pharma’s complete capture of the agencies meant to oversee them.
Why are we vaccinating children?
It was predicted by many that the highly profitable injections would eventually be aimed at the children, regardless of this age group’s negligibly low risk of severe or fatal outcomes, and despite the low transmission rates in schools and from the young to the old in household settings. With an eye on profit alone, career criminal outfit Pfizer sought EUA approval from the FDA for use of its mRNA jabs for this young cohort.
On October 26th, the FDA Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) supported Pfizer’s pitch, voting 17-0 (1 abstention). Most of the committee have histories of deep commercial bonds with industry; eleven of them were “temporary” members. Committee member and apparent psychopath Dr. Eric Rubin, an infectious disease physician and editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine,said without a trace of irony,
“We’re never going to learn about how safe this vaccine is unless we start giving it. That’s just the way it goes. That’s how we found out about rare complications of other vaccines.”
Risks of myocarditis and pericarditis were acknowledged, but ultimately discounted. By the drug company’s own admission, the trial population size “was too small to detect any potential risks of myocarditis associated with vaccination.” The safety data provided by Pfizer showed that the two study cohort groups were followed for irresponsibly short periods of time—one for just two months, the other just two-and-a-half weeks. Throwing caution to the winds, they are experimenting on our children.
Aaron Siri, lead attorney at Siri & Glimstad, has won multiple lawsuits against Health and Human Services and its subordinate agencies. On behalf of the Informed Choice Action Network (ICAN), his firm is enlisting the aid of Congress members who care about civil liberties. He writes:
“The legal authority for the Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) to issue an EUA for children for this product is lacking, including because there is no medical emergency for children and the vaccinated still become infected with and transmit the virus. (Infra § I.) It is also improper to issue an EUA for children when the data does not demonstrate that the known benefits outweigh the known risks, the trial was underpowered, and there are serious concerns regarding how they were conducted. (Infra § II.) The foregoing issues are compounded by the fact that federal health authorities have given financial immunity to Pfizer for injuries caused by this product, including if it engages in willful misconduct, despite a history of such conduct by Pfizer. (Infra § III.)”
There’s one more important fact that mainstream media isn’t reporting. On page 14 of the FDA fact sheet, it says “To provide a vaccine with an improved stability profile, the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 for use in children 5-11 years of age uses tromethamine (Tris) buffer instead of the phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) as used in the previous formulation and excludes sodium chloride and potassium chloride.” Tromethamine is a blood acid reducer often used to stabilize people with heart attacks. Curiously, less than 5 months ago, the FDA approved Pradaxa, “the first oral blood thinning medication for children.”
Think they’re anticipating problems? Pradaxa is for patient populations “3 months to less than 12 years old with venous thromboembolism (a condition where blood clots form in the veins).” The press release casually adds, “The most common side effects of Pradaxa include digestive system symptoms and bleeding. Pradaxa can cause serious and fatal bleeding.”
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With the yoke of liability off their neck, Pfizer is set to win the house with this gamble. News site Axios reported on Nov. 2nd that Pfizer’s jab “has quickly become the highest-selling drug in the world” adding that the pharma behemoth “forecasts revenue from the COVID-19 vaccine it developed with BioNTech will now reach$36 billion this year, up 7.5% from its previous estimate of $33.5 billion.” The billions that would surely be paid out in civil courts for injuries and death from these therapies is being funneled directly into undue influence of the media, academia and clinical research. Market analyst site statista says “Pfizer spent around 11.6 billion U.S. dollars on selling, informational and administrative expenses in 2020.” Advertising is included in that budget.
Ana Wolpin reported on the life-altering injuries sustained by Pfizer clinical trial participant, 12-year-old Maddie de Garay, in her Oct. 30th in-depth article on this site. The Vaccine Safety Research Association created a 30-second ad highlighting Maddie’s adverse events—severe damage Pfizer denied for months, eventually reporting to the FDA that she had a “stomach ache”—in advance of the VRBPAC meeting. Comcast initially agreed to broadcast the advert during episodes of “Saturday Night Live” and “Meet the Press.” The day before it was scheduled to air, Comcast officials pulled it.
Maddie De Garay, now 13, was severely injured after receiving the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine as a trial participant. Comcast agreed to run this 30-second ad, then pulled it. Click to watch what Comcast censored.
Normalizing the abnormal
In the “new normal” characterized by inversion, life as we understood it no longer applies. “Vaccines” that are not really vaccines are “safe and effective” even though they cause injury and death and do not prevent transmission, infection, hospitalization or death. Influenza, the seasonal respiratory illness that typically kills over half a million people a year, magically disappears for 18 months, but now we’re told by these Svengalis that it will definitely return this winter. Anaphylaxis, arrhythmia and fainting are commonplace. Top athletes regularly drop dead on the field, school mates die in zoom classes and strokes are to be expected in kids.
KIDS HAVE STROKES TOO – pharma’s New Normal
A nurse friend who left the employ of Jefferson Healthcare hospital this past spring related to me her shock and dismay at the constant refrain sung to co-workers who were out of commission for days post-injection with debilitating headaches and flu-like symptoms — “That means it’s working!”
Where are the adults in the room?
Port Ludlow residents Madison and Michael Clevenger, parents of three children aged 8 to 14, became concerned about state overreach while following SB-5889, which passed in March 2019. They were alarmed to learn of the concept of “protected individuals” which includes “A minor who may obtain health care without the consent of a parent or legal guardian, pursuant to state or federal law.” When Madison took their 14-year-old daughter to her sports physical this year, she was stunned when:
“…the doctor’s office would not email me a copy to turn in to the school because our daughter had not signed the waiver giving me access. The doctor’s office was able, however, to fax a copy to the school district without needing her signature.
“We could see that this experimental gene therapy would be pushed on our children in an environment where other adults can influence or pressure kids into major medical decisions without the consent of a parent. It was a very difficult decision to homeschool our children, but now that we are doing it, our kids are thriving and we all wish that we had started doing it years ago. It feels like a weight has been lifted. Every day that they would come home from school over the last couple years, they were stressed and there was hardly any joy left in what should be a happy childhood.”
They recounted another chilling experience of abrogation of parental rights:
“They [Chimacum School District] tested our daughter [the Covid swab test] without our consent, and that raises a lot of concern about other things the school district could ask a child to do without the consent of a parent or guardian.”
Pfizer is doing their very best to stealth a workaround of mindful parents like Madison and Michael, delivering the message directly to the kids with the best propaganda campaigns dirty money can buy.
Truthful information about vaccine risks like those Maddie experienced is censored, while pharma’s control of the global narrative is absolute. As seen earlier in the promo for vaccine clinics in Port Townsend and Chimacum schools, our health department repeats Pfizer’s insidious “Superhero” messaging to manipulate and brainwash our kids, with local schools marching in lockstep.
Just prior to publication, a reader of the Free Press shared a Port Townsend School District alert received on his phone as “Parent News.” The rather lengthy update was titled “Information on Covid-19 Vaccinations for Students,” with a sub-head reading “Positive Impacts of Vaccination Status.”
This parent highlighted the upshot, which he considered to be the height of audacity and overreach:
*The school district will be participating in a program called Test to Stay, where unvaccinated students may still attend classes, but cannot participate in extracurricular or after-school or social activities, are expected to quarantine when not at school, must submit to COVID testing three days per week at school, must stay six feet away from others when traveling to and from school, and must eat outdoors (or stay six or more feet away from others when eating indoors). Individuals who don’t want to comply with this option will be placed in the seven day at-home quarantine. NOTE: Students who are siblings in the same household with a COVID infected individual do not qualify for Test to Stay, due to the high rate of transmission within the immediate family.
*As the weather becomes cooler and we have to opt for more indoor activities, the different requirements for vaccinated vs. non-vaccinated may become more obvious. Indoor athletics and activities may be restricted for some students – as an example a positive COVID case on an indoor athletic team would require an unvaccinated basketball player to quarantine, whereas a vaccinated player (as long as he or she is asymptomatic) will continue to participate in the basketball program.
*Please know that the school district is not the decision maker for student vaccination mandates. Decisions on vaccination requirements are made at the federal and state levels. We don’t know when such decisions will be made by our governmental health entities, but do know that we, like other public schools, are required to comply with all state mandates.
If the last two years have taught us anything, we must expect that these draconian measures will soon be applied to the five to eleven-year-olds. Homeschooling is sounding better by the day. This Yale epidemiologist agrees—I’d Pull a Healthy Kid From School Before Giving Them the COVID Vaccine.
A crisis of faith. Anybody who has recently traveled outside Washington State has good reason to seriously doubt the necessity for the lockdowns and mandates decreed by Governor Inslee and our public health officer. Other states are much freer. Some never locked down. Others required only looser restrictions for a much shorter period of time than we have experienced. Yet those states are doing better. You can feel it and see it in the shops and restaurants, in the museums and churches, in performance halls and on the streets.
I have taken two long trips since our public health officer required vaccine passports to dine out and masks indoors for everyone. One excursion was a 4,600 mile road trip through seven other states. We reached Iowa on a route across Oregon, Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, and Nebraska. After wandering back roads and visiting small towns and villages amid Iowa’s cornfields, we returned on a northerly route through South Dakota, Wyoming again, Montana, Idaho’s panhandle and Washington’s Palouse country.
After leaving Washington, we were required to wear a mask only once, in the Pendleton factory store in Pendleton, Oregon. But the restaurant where we ate in that town told us not to bother.
In Idaho we saw next to no one wearing masks.
In Salt Lake City, Utah, some of the waiters and store clerks wore masks, some did not. Customers dared show their faces. We caught Michael Bublé at the Vivant Arena. His performance had been rescheduled two times since the onset of the pandemic. Admission required proof of vaccination. (I had weighed much of the evidence and studies, including articles on this site, and decided my health needs were best served by getting the Moderna vaccine.) Inside, the sold-out crowd of nearly 20,000 was maskless, as was Bublé. I can’t imagine him delivering Louie Prima’s “Just a Gigolo” through a blue surgical face covering. Some members of his orchestra wore masks—like the piano player—but not, of course, the men blowing saxophones or trombones or his backup singers.
In Wyoming and Nebraska, some employees at truck stops wore masks, as did some travelers. If the station were part of a national chain, the staff usually wore masks, but not at independent businesses. Nobody wore masks in the huge Cabela’s flagship store in Sidney, Nebraska.
Monumental taxidermy exhibit, Cabela’s, Sidney, NE
Mask wearing was entirely voluntary throughout the trip. The vast majority of people we saw chose not to wear masks.
In Dodge City, Iowa, the woman in the featured photo at top haphazardly wore a mask, but only as part of her costume. She was dishing out free cups of mac n’ cheese and mashed potatoes at a gas station, “just to cheer folks up.” That’s Iowa friendly, for you. Iowa really is a cheerful and amiable place. People meet your eye and smile at you on the street, in the stores… everywhere.
It was great to see so many smiling faces again. It’s a shame we had to travel to the center of the country for that pleasure.
The iconic Taylor’s Maid-Rite, Marshalltown, Iowa
For over a week we had seen no signs requiring masks until we were inside the Badlands National Park. At the bottom of a hill in the middle of nowhere sat a diminutive National Park Service tourism center. It announced that federal law required masks. About half the people complied. At Mount Rushmore nobody paid attention to placards repeating President Biden’s mask decree, though some people in masks did pose for photos with the four presidents—maskless—towering behind them. Go figure.
Like its big sky and sprawling landscape, Montana was wide open. We got snowed in for two days in Livingston and holed up in a chain hotel. The staff wore masks, sort of. One of our fellow stranded travelers walked his dog after the blizzard lifted. He was out there alone making tracks in a patch of white and wearing a surgical mask. God is great, beer is good, and people are crazy, so the Billy Currington song goes. Rather than “crazy”, it might be more accurate to say this man was “irrationally terrified.” But that would never work in a country song.
When we reached our hotel in Spokane on the return leg I caught the evil eye from a masked hotel clerk as I passed through the lobby trundling luggage to our room. Right, I’m back in Jay Inslee’s domain. It took me a while to locate the mask I had stuffed somewhere in the van. At least we did not have to pull out our vax passports for the unexpected delight of a dinner of fiery Ethiopian food. Showing our papers in order to dine out would not happen again until we had returned to Jefferson County.
We saw no bodies in the streets along our route. No black crepe over doors. I know that’s overstating how we would measure the success of these states’ measures against COVID. But I paid attention to local news and read nothing about any medical crises.
Jay Inslee points to Idaho as a way of trying to convince people his dictatorial decrees and their costs and impositions are medically necessary to save lives. Yes, Idaho has gone through a challenging period of time as it struggled to maintain the delivery of medical services to everyone. But so did Washington. Starting in March 2020 for several months Governor Inslee flat out prohibited any medical procedures except treating COVID, addressing immediate threats to life (e.g., gun shot wounds) and surgical abortions. Hospitals were never close to overwhelmed. (See my article from last year, “You Can’t Believe Jay Inslee: His Big COVID Hospital Crisis Lie.”)
Please recall that Seattle received an emergency Army field hospital and sports arenas were turned into expansive hospital wards. Except for Inslee’s photo ops, these facilities were never used. Hospitals were actually quite empty and laying off nursing staff. Inslee ignored the pleas of the Washington hospital association and medical society to let doctors care for their patients. One can only wonder how many people Jay Inslee killed and caused to suffer grievously. One can only wonder how many cancer cases advanced to more serious stages because of Inslee’s orders that blocked preventive care and kept surgical theaters empty. I have a friend who was rushed not long ago into surgery to remove part of his cancerous colon. A fairly young man, his colonoscopy had been cancelled by Inslee’s 2020 order. The log jam caused by the disruption of delivery of medical services pushed his rescheduled appointment out almost a year. He was in the ER before that postponed appointment came around. He is now undergoing chemotherapy.
And, of course, there’s Florida, which I did not reach on my travels. That state has been mocked by our Governor and former public health officer for minimal restrictions that favored upholding the merits of personal and economic freedom. Yet Florida for some time has had the lowest per capita incidence of COVID infections in the country. Its economy is booming and it is not suffering infrastructure problems. Meanwhile, Inslee’s government has slashed ferry schedules and announced that mountain passes may not be regularly cleared of snow because the Washington Department of Transportation has lost so many key people to his vax mandate penalties.
I am writing now from Pennsylvania. In the past week I have worn a mask only in the senior facility where I’ve visited family members. The rule there is a bit nonsensical. The octogenarian walking to dinner must wear a mask, though they may be alone in the hallway. Inside the dining room, by way of contrast, I saw over a hundred senior citizens seated at tables talking and laughing without masks. Everyone has been vaccinated, and there have been no outbreaks of COVID since the start of the pandemic. The ladies playing cards in the Bistro and chatting in the lounges on the resident floors, I will add, regularly ignore the masking rules and management has let them be.
Life seems normal here. One can shop at the historic Allentown Fairgrounds Farmer’s Market. No need to cover your face to stock up on smoked pig’s ears or smoked beef trachea. And don’t pass up the fresh scrapple, a Pennsylvania Dutch delicacy. Yum.
I am heading back to SeaTac in a short while. Except when I am eating and drinking, I will have to wear a mask from the time I return my rental at the Philly airport until I reach my own car at SeaTac. Allowing people to remove their masks at any time during their flight seems to undermine the rationale for mandating masks at any other time. All those passengers crammed in a metal tube without masks eating and drinking (and stretching out their meals to extend their taste of liberty) would seem to risk spreading COVID—if there were a real risk. Alaska Airlines assures us that the air filtration systems in their planes are amazingly effective, rendering cabin air perfectly safe to breathe. I believe them.
I scored a first-class seat on the return trip. Conceivably, I could eat and drink for the six-plus hours it will take to cross the continent. “Another coffee, please.” “Do you have more nuts?” I could then nibble my cashews and almonds one at a time and order a drink to sip afterwards and then request a bag of popcorn and stretch that out. And then, of course, I would again need to wet my whistle, very, very slowly.
Rick Steves says travel “acts as our greatest teacher.” So what are the lessons of traveling beyond our fear-riddled, mandate-hobbled community? The answer is obvious: It doesn’t have to be this way.
