What's a Puppet Master to Do?

Stephanie Buffum is learning that the life of puppet master isn't the life of leisure that it's cracked up to be ... what with all the County employees needing constant TLC to advance the Friends agenda from the inside. It's work rigging public meetings.

Below is yet another email between Stephanie Buffum of the Friends and Barbara Rosenkotter, Salmon Recovery Lead for our County. Recall that Buffum and Rosenkotter have a special relationship (aka Stephanie Rosenkotter), even sharing rants where they liken themselves to Ghandi, Rosa Parks, and MLK.

In the email below, Buffum is informing Rosenkotter of her selection to run an upcoming County SMP meeting (now make it so Barbara). Buffum's preferred speaker is unavailable, so she is resigned to the inevitability of having to make do with Colin Maycock who is, after all, on "our team" as Buffum puts it. Remember, Colin Maycock is nominally in charge of the County SMP update, but it doesn't seem like he's de facto in charge from the looks of this email.

Why don't we stop pretending and just include the Friends on the County organizational chart as the County Department of Natural Resources, which has been an ambition of Stephanie Buffum's for years anyway. The Friends already have a more direct line of authority to some staff than either the Council or the Administrator.

Note: We don't know who "Tim" and "Bob" are referring to in the email below, but we suspect Bob Fritzen of Ecology. There are several possibilities for Tim, including Tim Beechie of NOAA, Tim Strickler of the PSP, or Tim Quinn of WDFW/PSP ... maybe even Tim Hyatt of the Skagit River Cooperative or Tim Trohimovich of Futurewise ... or Tim Gates of the Washington Department of Commerce. But we admit that we don't know, but maybe one of you does.

From: Stephanie Buffum [mailto:stephanie@sanjuans.org]
Sent: Friday, January 28, 2011 1:29 PM
To: Barbara Rosenkotter
Subject: Feb 24 - SMP speaker

Hi Barbara,

I spoke with Tim in detail on Wed. He is sympathetic and overwhelmed with his new position which now also includes Watershed Lead for Thurston County.

After much discussion, we determined that Colin would be the best person, with Bob being back up in the back of the room. I saw Colin’s most recent SMP presentation to the county council and with some minor tweaks to make it fit 15 minutes I am confident that it would be fine. Especially if Bob is in the room as back up for questions. Since this is only an SMP appetizer I think this will work fine with our limited timeline.   Tim was going to be talking with Colin yesterday at the SMP coordination meeting for planners in Olympia. I asked if he would provide some extra tlc to Colin. He may not be Tim, but he’s on our team and we need to do what we can to make the most out of his skill set. I would be happy to meet with him and refine his presentation with him. He’s going to have to improve his public speaking and there’s no time like the present.  

So, it seems like it may make the most sense for you to approach Colin and Bob.  I am getting prepared for our BIG meeting on Monday and a bit stressed for time this next week.

I look forward to meeting on Monday 2/14 at your office to refine the agenda.

Stephanie Buffum Field

FRIENDS OF THE SAN JUANS

Executive Director

360. 378.2319 office

360.472.0404 cell

Stephanie@sanjuans.org