It started in Franklin County and has now spread to Snohomish County. County Sheriffs are refusing to enforce Governor Jay Inslee’s order that is shutting down hundreds of businesses and throwing millions of Washingtonians out of work. This is the statement from Snohomish County Sheriff Adam Fortney. His county is the third most populous county in Washington. His statement speaks for itself.
Snohomish County Residents and Business Owners,
I just watched the Governor’s speech to Washingtonian’s regarding our approach to getting Washington back in business and I am left to wonder if he even has a plan? To be quite honest I wasn’t even sure what he was trying to say half of the time. He has no plan. He has no details. This simply is not good enough in times when we have taken such drastic measures as the suspension of constitutional rights. I wrote most of this about two weeks ago but I decided to wait out of respect for the Governor and my own misguided hope that each day he did a press conference he would say something with some specificity on getting Washington back to work. After what I witnessed tonight I can no longer stay silent as I’m not even sure he knows what he is doing or knows what struggles Washingtonian’s face right now.
I want to start by saying this virus is very real and sadly, it has taken 97 lives in Snohomish County. This is a very serious issue and the appropriate precautions need to be taken to protect our most vulnerable populations. However, our communities have already shown and continue to show they understand the severity of the situation and are doing all they can already to keep themselves, their families and neighbors safe and healthy.
I am worried about the economy and I am worried about Washingtonian’s that need to make a living for their family. As more data floods in week by week and day by day about this pandemic I think it is clear that the “models” have not been entirely accurate. While that is okay, we cannot continue down the same path we have been on if the government reaction does not fit the data or even worse, the same government reaction makes our situation worse.
As elected leaders I think we should be questioning the Governor when it makes sense to do so. Are pot shops really essential or did he allow them to stay in business because of the government taxes received from them? That seems like a reasonable question. If pot shops are essential, then why aren’t gun shops essential? Our Governor has told us that private building/construction must stop as it is not essential, but government construction is okay to continue. So let me get this right, according to the Governor if you are employed or contracted by the government to build government things you can still make a living for your family in spite of any health risk. If you are a construction worker in the private sector you cannot make a living and support your family because the health risk is too high. This contradiction is not okay and in my opinion is bordering on unethical.
As I arrive to work at the courthouse, I see landscapers show up each day to install new landscape and maintain our flowerbeds. How has Governor Inslee deemed this essential work? However, a father who owns a construction company and works alone while outdoors is not allowed to run his business to make a living to provide for his wife and children? How has Governor Inslee deemed thousands of Boeing employees who work inside a factory building airplanes essential? But building residential homes is not essential? If a factory with 20,000+ employees each day can implement safe practices to conduct normal business operations, I am entirely confident that our small business owners and independent contractors are more than capable of doing the same.
If this Coronavirus is so lethal and we have shut down our roaring economy to save lives, then it should be all or nothing. The government should not be picking winners or losers when it comes to being able to make an income for your family. If the virus is so lethal it shouldn’t matter whether you are building a school for the government, building a new housing development, restaurant owner, or you happen to be an independent contractor. To the contrary, if the virus is proving to not be as lethal as we thought, maybe it’s time for a balanced and reasonable approach to safely get our economy moving again and allowing small businesses to once again provide an income for their families and save their businesses. This is what I hoped for from the Governor tonight but he is not prepared or ready to make these decisions. If we are going to allow government contractors and pot shops to continue to make a living for their families, then it is time to open up this freedom for other small business owners who are comfortable operating in the current climate. This is the great thing about freedom. If you are worried about getting sick you have the freedom to choose to stay home. If you need to make a living for your family and are comfortable doing so, you should have the freedom to do so.
As I have previously stated, I have not carried out any enforcement for the current a stay-at-home order. As this order has continued on for well over a month now and a majority of our residents cannot return to work to provide for their families, I have received a lot of outreach from concerned members of our community asking if Governor Inslee’s order is a violation of our constitutional rights.
As your Snohomish County Sheriff, yes I believe that preventing business owners to operate their businesses and provide for their families intrudes on our right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I am greatly concerned for our small business owners and single-income families who have lost their primary source of income needed for survival.
As your elected Sheriff I will always put your constitutional rights above politics or popular opinion. We have the right to peaceably assemble. We have the right to keep and bear arms. We have the right to attend church service of any denomination. The impacts of COVID 19 no longer warrant the suspension of our constitutional rights.
Along with other elected Sheriffs around our state, the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office will not be enforcing an order preventing religious freedoms or constitutional rights. I strongly encourage each of you to reach out and contact your councilmembers, local leaders and state representatives to demand we allow businesses to begin reopening and allow our residents, all of them, to return to work if they choose to do so.
The great thing about Snohomish County government is we have all worked very well together during this crisis. I’m not saying we agree all of the time, I’m saying we have the talent and ability to get this done for Snohomish County! This is not a time to blindly follow, this is a time to lead the way.
No sense of urgency. More discussion of plastic bags and Earth Day than doing anything to alleviate the economic crisis already devastating our community, destroying lives and sowing despair and anger.
That sums up the Port Townsend City Council’s weekly meeting on April 20, 2020. Before it was convened, councilors, each on camera from home or an office, talked about books they had been reading. When it was convened the people who are supposed to be leading our city through these dark days turned first to an Earth Day proclamation.
Then they corrected a bookkeeping oversight that showed $316,000 remaining unspent in the account for the vacant, rat infested Cherry Street Project. (We know of the rats after interviewing a neighbor to that derelict “affordable housing” project).
Then they took the sad action of ratifying temporary furloughs of some City Hall employees.
Then they took up whether a temporary reprieve from the city’s plastic bag ban should be approved as restaurants were running out of paper bags and reporting they could not obtain more from suppliers. Several councilors were upset that one of the city’s “larger grocery stores” had been using plastic bags without asking permission. Deputy Mayor David Faber stated “it stuck in my craw” that a bagger had encouraged him to accept a plastic bag when he could see some paper bags that might be available. Another councilor pondered whether grocery stores might also be running out of paper bags. Concern was expressed about upholding “the City’s values” as they wrestled with the “expediency” of the situation. City Councilor Pam Adams saved the day when, unlike anyone else on Council, including its two members who are lawyers, she bothered to read the words of the city ordinance. It already permits use of plastic bags for take-out food and in the event of shortages of paper bags.
Then Mayor Michelle Sandoval gave her report, mostly dealing with wanting people to wear masks outside.
Then they heard a report from the City Manager, which did not discuss how to help any of the cratering businesses, unemployed workers and struggling households in Port Townsend, but did ask for understanding from the public who might be unsettled seeing public works crews doing their jobs. He stated that at a future meeting an effort would be made to assess the city’s declining tax revenues.
Then City Councilor Ariel Speser raised a suggestion of helping downtown retail businesses by finding a way they could resume limited operations. She floated the idea of outdoor sales, which, though she didn’t draw the analogy, would be similar to the Farmer’s Market that is opening in coming days. Mayor Sandoval said maybe discussion of that idea could begin at a future meeting, say the next regular Council meeting on May 4.
And then they adjourned with an admonition from Mayor Sandoval to “stay safe.”
The video from last night’s brief meeting can be viewed at this link.
No deaths, no new cases, ICU’s not overrun, hospital beds open. Where’s the emergency for the Olympic Peninsula?
Neither the Port Townsend City Council nor the Jefferson County Board of County Commissioners have discussed at their meetings any plan for getting businesses reopened and people back to work. There have been no proposals for clearing regulatory burdens to make it easier for job creators to create jobs, or just resuscitate the jobs suffocated by the Governor’s shut down order. There have been no suggestions from elected leaders that maybe, just maybe taxes should be cut as a form of local stimulus and a step to make it easier for hard-pressed and suddenly unemployed homeowners hang onto their homes.
Several counties, such as Chelan and Douglas, have passed resolutions providing definition to many of the vague terms in the Governor’s Essential Business decree to enable local businesses to operate while observing safe practices. Elected officials elsewhere have been imploring the Governor to amend his decree to recognize the fact that their communities have never faced and do not face an emergency justifying the destruction of their economies. Many of the pleas from those officials are simply for the Governor to exercise discretion, an even hand, and common sense.
The latest data for the Olympic Peninsula shows that Jefferson County has been reporting no new COVID-19 cases and has not experienced one death. Jefferson County has seen a grand total of 28 COVID-19 diagnoses. Neighboring Clallam County has seen half that number. Far more populous Kitsap County on our southeastern border has topped out at 139 diagnoses, but only 1 death. Mason County to our south has seen 22 cases and no deaths.
But the entire Peninsula has seen its economy and livelihoods instantly destroyed because we have been subjected to the same measures required for the three I-5 counties which account for the bulk of virus cases and deaths.
At the very least, our local governments could write the Governor asking him to modify his order to acknowledge different circumstances and allow our economy to start to recover now. One grade higher would be to start using the Governor’s own order to get people back to work.
In Port Angeles, the construction of a swimming pool will proceed. It has been deemed “essential” because it incidentally will provide for some child care. Safe practices have been established by the contractor. Our local governments could be identifying many projects and businesses around our community as “essential” by creatively, but legitimately working at the boundaries of the Governor’s decree.
But they are doing no such thing. They have no plan. They are not advocating for the county’s and city’s unique interests and situation.
If they wanted to boldly stand up for this community, they could declare the city and county “sanctuaries” against the nonsensical, irrational aspects of the Governor’s order, such as his ban on all residential construction, while allowing large publicly financed projects to proceed. Families have been told work on their houses must stop because the Governor has declared an emergency. Contractors are going to be wiped out. Yet that same administration sent crews to work near Gardiner on the Olympic Discovery Trail just recently .
We have had another crisis in this community. It precedes the Governor’s emergency declaration. In 2017 the BOCC declared an affordable housing crisis. That crisis will be with us whenever the Governor lifts his decree, and it will be worse because of local government passivity and inaction.
Last week the Port Townsend City Council spent its time discussing how to get people to drive less and change their purchasing decisions in order to further reduce CO2 emissions. They discussed raising property taxes to accumulate a pool of money that could be used “creatively” to help the same people whose taxes they just raised. Our report on that meeting is here.
Tonight’s Port Townsend City Council meeting will discuss Earth Day, a bookkeeping measure to move some funds around, temporary furloughs for some City Hall staff, and…. That’s pretty much it. Nothing is on the table to help businesses reopen, workers work, and get our community back to being healthy economically when the data shows that, as far as the virus is concerned, we’ve been pretty physically healthy all along.
The Board of County Commissioner’s agenda for its next meeting has not as of the posting of this article been released.
He has only himself to blame. Senseless, irrational, and transparently political decisions have undermined the integrity of Governor Jay Inslee’s “stay at home” order.
Protests and defiance are building. A protest against his order is set for this Sunday, April 19, 1-2 p.m. at the Capitol in Olympia. It has drawn regional and national attention and the numbers of those indicating they will participate is growing.
The protest in Lansing, Michigan that drew tens of thousands is sparking similar protests around the country. The Michigan protest was fueled by perhaps the worst abuses of a governor’s powers, starting with an order prohibiting physicians and hospitals from deciding which treatment would be best for COVID-19 patients to banning the sale of vegetable seeds but not other products.
Facebook groups dedicated to reopening Washington and fighting Inslee’s continued lock-down have in the past 48 hours drawn thousands of new members. The discussions range from traditional petitioning of government to outright collective violation of Inslee’s order.
Inslee enjoyed widespread support and trust at the start of his exercise of extraordinary emergency powers. But his obvious political favoritism, and his relentless insistence that there is no limit to his powers and that he can extend his lock down order indefinitely, and unilaterally, has eroded that support.
We have previously reported how Inslee has ignored statutory limits on his powers and has favored political allies, particularly unions, in defining the “essential” entities and activities that may continue. Inslee’s imposition of an order suited for I-5 counties on the rest of the state, despite dramatic differences in infection rates and economic and social circumstances, has generated growing contempt across much of Washington.
Some of the reaction is reasoned and principled. Opponents rightly point to obvious unconstitutional implications of Inslee’s order, and the senselessness of his ban on residential construction while permitting large-scale, unionized construction projects, and publicly financed projects to continue. The ban on fishing has also made it easy for people to take their first step in ridiculing Inslee’s order.
Inslee’s refusal to relent, and make his order dependent on safe practices rather than his subjective decision as to what is “essential,” threatens to trigger widespread defiance and, worse, casual disregard for health measures necessary to end to the pandemic in Washington.
The contempt Inslee has bred is now leading to people rejecting the need for social distancing. We are seeing more people asserting their right to ignore the one aspect of Inslee’s order that is based on unarguable medical science. Inslee has lost his ability to talk to these people. Instead, he is reverting to the old Inslee. Rather than thoughtfully address problems he created, he is eager for battle and is belittling those speaking against his unchecked powers.
This will lead only to a greater defiance, and a greater erosion of Inslee’s authority. The more Inslee looks, speaks and acts like a dictator, the more people will rise up against him.
Sunday’s protest in Olympia will not be the last. Inslee needs to change his approach, now, and start treating Washingtonians fairly, with respect, and correct the favoritism and senselessness of the aspects of his order that are feeding contempt.
Stop telling people they are not essential. We are all essential, Mr. Inslee. Every job that puts food on a family’s table and pays rent and bills is essential. Nobody is going to accept being told that what they do to keep a roof over their head is not essential. They are going to hate you for it.
You are dividing Washington, Governor. End the essential/non-essential made-up list. Accept that everyone is essential. Then focus on what can be done safely and how every worker in this state can get back to their jobs, and every business can reopen, while observing the same practices you have concluded were adequate for the businesses and operations you have allowed to continue since the inception of your “stay at home” order. End the favoritism, end the irrationality.
Faced with the worst economic and social crisis in generations the Port Townsend City Council met to work on a recovery plan that would slash the costs of doing business and creating jobs, cut taxes to make housing more affordable for those getting by on less, and other bold, but necessary measures to reduce government’s footprint on industry, commerce and consumers.
If only.
No, the PT City Council spent its weekly meeting discussing CO2 emissions and raising taxes.
City Councilor Amy Howard wants to raise taxes on “the ownership class.” Other city councilors echoed her call, because it would give the city funds to turn around and spend “creatively” on new programs to help people whose taxes they just raised.
CUTTING CO2
Council spent the first half of its April 13, 2020 workshop hearing from the Climate Action Committee on how Port Townsend and Jefferson County are doing in reducing CO2 emissions. More than a decade ago local leaders set a target of reducing county-wide CO2 emissions to less than 80% of 1990 levels. (Whether those goals were set arbitrarily and on the basis of theories and computer models which have been shown to be wrong is a subject for another article. I have written previously about Jefferson County’s fake climate emergency, here, here and here).
Councilors were told that Jefferson County is nearly halfway there, thanks mostly to technological innovations and substantial expenditures by the Port Townsend Paper Company and the transition by PUD to hydroelectric power from coal-generated electricity.
But Council and the Climate Action Committee expressed concern that people are driving more, and with more people driving more, CO2 emissions from transportation have increased. They are also concerned with what Jefferson County residents buy. The Climate Action Committee counts in the Jefferson County CO2 assessment the greenhouse gases it estimates were emitted in producing everything we purchase and consume.
So, if a Jefferson County resident buys a Tesla, they count the greenhouse gas emissions generated by unregulated cobalt mining in the Congo and rare earths in Third World nations, shipping the ore to China and Europe where it is smelted and processed, the emissions generated in shipping raw materials to a Tesla factory by boat, truck and rail, the CO2 emissions that were generated in building that factory and the CO2 emitted in manufacturing plastics, glass, steel, copper, rubber, vinyl and chrome–all the CO2 emissions it takes to turn raw materials into a shiny $100,000 Tesla (and maybe the CO2 emissions generated in earning that hundred grand). They then estimate the greenhouse gas emissions behind the parking lot built for the Tesla employees and what they emit commuting to and from work, the greenhouse gas emissions emitted by Elon Musk as he travels the world in private jets attending global warming conferences, lobbying for government subsidies and mandates and meeting with Chinese officials in Shanghai office buildings powered by massive coal pollution in rooms with furniture built in Chinese factories powered by coal pollution…..
Or something like that. They have software and models, you know. The result is that the Climate Action Committee and City Council are concerned you are buying and using things they want you to stop buying and using because, wherever and however it was produced, it adds some numbers to their CO2 tally. We will be called upon, or compelled, to change and sacrifice even though it won’t make one bit of difference to global climate because, during Elon Musk’s meting in Shanghai, China opened three new coal-fired electricity generating plants.
The Climate Action Committee wants to add forestry to its calculus. But they did not discuss factoring in the extent to which the already miniscule CO2 emissions in Jefferson County feed and nourish the sprawling forests around us, and how much CO2 those trees soak up.
This was the discussion in a week where one of the city’s legacy businesses collapsed, other businesses are gasping for air, unemployment is soaring, despair is rising, tourism is dead, and tax revenue is shrinking.
RAISING TAXES TO SPUR RECOVERY
Council then used the second half of its workshop on an agenda item entitled “Annexation Banked Capacity Discussion.” Few people would have guessed this meant, “Raising Property Taxes, Again.”
City Manager John Mauro and Mayor Michelle Sandoval revealed internal discussions about raising taxes so city leaders could accumulate a pot of money which they could then use “creatively” to address social and economic impacts of Governor Inslee’s lock down order.
Raising general and regressive taxes during an economic downturn is a very creative idea. It is the opposite of what governments must do to keep economic recessions from turning into depressions. Keynesian stimulus calls for loosening of government controls and injecting liquidity into the economy, not sucking it out through taxes, wringing it through inefficient, time-consuming procedures, deliberations and regulations, and coming out the other end with less than went in.
Deputy Mayor David Faber was the only one who spoke clearly against raising taxes. The rest of the Council was either supportive of raising taxes (Howard, who has it in for people who own their homes), telegraphed interest (Sandoval, who wants to unleash her creative juices–see, e.g., The Cherry Street Project) or signaled at least a willingness to consider the idea. Raising property taxes will be discussed more in coming months. Hopefully the agenda will not again camouflage the issue under discussion.
Video of Council’s April 13, 2020, may be viewed here.
We face great dangers to life and liberty, not just from a novel virus, but also from political leaders who too quickly embrace the role of dictator and abuse their power. That’s how it goes with dictators. And that’s how it’s going with Jay Inslee.
On one hand, Inslee has done some things right, though his delay in responding to the COVID-19 crisis and his administration’s lack of preparation cost lives and allowed the virus to spread. An in-depth review of events by the Seattle Times shows that Inslee’s initial steps were grave missteps.
Inslee’s decision to order a statewide emergency, and trigger his emergency powers, had the desired impact. He got the state’s undivided attention which had been missing, in part due to Inslee’s own downplaying of the threat from the virus, as the Seattle Times reports.
Finally, on March 23, Governor Inslee issued his stay-at-home order, accompanied by his list of businesses he deemed essential, with the consequence that all those that did not make his list had to cease operations.
Dictator For How Long?
Inslee has begun unilaterally to expand his emergency powers beyond those permitted by state law, RCW-43.06.220.
His order extending the statewide stay-at-home order to May 4 goes beyond the thirty days voters approved when they agreed to subject themselves to a temporary dictatorship during a state of emergency. Inslee has said he might give himself an even a longer term as dictator. The law required consultation and consent of legislative leaders to any extension of time. By claiming the extension unilaterally he has put legislative leaders into a position where they either acquiesce or are forced to take action to preserve the rule of law. The Legislature and courts are in Democrat control. Inslee likely faces no serious challenge to ruling by fiat. Especially, since as is next discussed, Inslee has been using his powers to favor Democrat interests and constituencies while harming those that fall into the Republican camp.
Inslee has also ordered all public and private schools to close for the remainder of the school year, another action extending dictatorial powers beyond the time period to which voters consented.
Playing Favorites
A close analysis of Inslee’s essential business designations shows he’s been playing political favorites. Because his list produces ludicrous results, we should ask hard questions about what is going on.
Under Inslee’s decree, you can build a pot shop, but not a house. Because Inslee has decreed that marijuana retail is an essential activity–but not residential housing construction–remodeling, or expansion of a pot shop is permitted.
The state gets huge tax revenues from marijuana farming and retail, and the marijuana lobby is a well-funded, influential lobby solidly in Inslee’s column.
You can organize unions. You cannot oppose them.
Inslee has deemed unions and “worker advocacy organizations,” and everything they do, as essential activities. Union organizers can continue to organize and play politics. But employers and their lawyers, even workers who don’t want to be unionized, can’t come out of their houses. Inslee has shut them down. Along the same lines, a union can hold meetings of members, but a church congregation cannot gather to sing songs outside in a parking lot, even if everyone stood twenty feet apart.
Surgical abortions may continue, but many cancer patients have been told their procedures are canceled indefinitely. So the cancers inside these patients continue to grow, and they and their families are left to worry and pray. Limited and strained resources that could be used save lives, Inslee has permitted to be used instead to end lives.
You are likely already providing the explanation yourself: Inslee and the Democrat Party are pro-abortion and strongly supported by abortion activists and businesses that make money killing unwanted human beings. Those powerful interests contribute heavily to Inslee and Democrats, directly and through their own political action committees.
Realtors can show and sell houses and earn real estate commissions, but new houses can’t be built. Realtors can meet with clients, title companies, prospective purchasers, conduct home showings and closings. But carpenters can’t work at opposite ends of a new house, a plumber can’t work alone under the house, a painter can’t be on a ladder outside. Multi-million dollar homes and condos can be bought and sold, but a low income family cannot buy a new manufactured home, because those are not sold by realtors. But they can buy a used one, as long as a realtor is in the deal getting a commission. FSBOs are non-essential under Inslee’s central planning.
Realtors spend tons of money on politicians, mostly Democrats. They have powerful political action committees, and trade organizations with lobbyists who know their way around Olympia and have the phone number for the Governor and his chief of staff.
Inslee has hit rural counties disproportionately hard. Some of these counties were already suffering Applachia levels of despair and unemployment. They have seen very few, even no COVID-19 cases or deaths. Inslee has hammered their struggling communities by making them subject to the same restrictions needed in King County.
Rural Washington did not put Inslee in the Governor’s mansion and he’s not counting on rural Washington to keep him there.
Some of this nonsense can be attributed to central planners who just aren’t very good at what they’re doing. But some of these bizarre situations are no doubt due to political favoritism.
Projects Inslee supports go forward. Those he doesn’t care or know about are stopped dead. People working on the Key Arena construction, Sound Transit projects and government funded housing can keep working. He sees these things. He doesn’t see the small businesspeople who work alone, or with family members or the small teams of people who build much of the affordable housing in this state. If workers on publicly financed housing can continue without spreading the virus, why can’t they? The answer won’t be found in science or medicine. The answer lies in politics because nothing else makes sense.
Inslee has also benefitted himself politically by shutting down his opposition.
It is impossible to follow the news and not see Inslee’s daily press conferences, sometimes more than one appearance on camera per day. Inslee has been out and about, doing photo ops, delivering speeches, cutting ribbons and being seen with health care workers, business leaders, and other political figures. Much of it is plain old campaigning. There’s no reason for Inslee to be there, except to get his face on television. Having declared himself, his staff and all he does as “essential,” he can dominate the evening news every night. He can monopolize media attention. And he can work on his campaign for re-election.
The people seeking to replace him this election year? Non-essential according to Inslee. He is all Washington needs. All those other guys have to stay home.
