If a Tree Falls In a Wood, And the Committee Can't Remember It ...

In several previous posts, the Trojan Heron has covered CAPR's lawsuit about the Open Public Meetings Act (OPMA). This lawsuit has to do with the alleged secret meetings of the former CAO Implementation Committee, which was comprised of County staff (including a Deputy Prosecutor) and three former Council people. The committee was formed to help shuffle the CAOs along, which are the subject of a separate lawsuit involving the County, the Friends, and the Common Sense Alliance.

Regarding the OPMA and the CAPR lawsuit ... the closed meetings of the CAO Implementation Committee took place regularly for months. CAPR's position is that these meetings should have been open to the public, according to the OPMA, because the committee took action on behalf of the Council in reviewing and discarding CAO options ... and because the committee involved a negative quorum of Council members (three members being sufficient to vote down a proposal).

The County alleges that no actions were taken in these meetings ... nothing happened. There were hundreds of hours of meetings, and nothing substantive occurred. They invited in consultants and staff, but only discussed ministerial functions such as scheduling. There are no meeting minutes, only some hand scribbled notes in addition to emails between staff and committee members. When deposed about the content of the meetings, participants could not recall what they discussed. 

• Lovel Pratt was deposed on January 3, 2013, and she expressed 67 denials of knowledge (63 "I don't recall", 4 "I don't know")
• Richard Fralick was deposed on January 3, 2013, and he expressed 22 denials (21 "I don't recall", 1 "I don't know")
• Patty Miller was deposed on January 4, 2013, and she expressed 63 denials (51 "I don't recall", 12 "I don't know")
• Shireene Hale was deposed on January 17, 2013, and she expressed 100 denials (52 "I don't recall", 31 "I don't know", 17 "I just don't have a specific recollection")

Despite all this "nothing" going on, in a January 2013 Council meeting, the Council spent time in one of their non-secret meetings congratulating themselves on the work they got done in committees and subcommittees. Councilman Stephens even referred to the CAOs directly. Pratt said that she could hardly remember any Council votes where subcommittees didn't get their way.

Yesterday, this case finally reached the Washington Supreme Court. Oral arguments were heard. A ruling is still several weeks away. The justices were very engaged and asked good questions yesterday. Several seemed skeptical that the County could spend so much time in secret doing nothing.

They aren't the only ones.

Creating The Eco Matrix

The movie The Matrix depicts a dystopian future in which reality as perceived by most humans is actually a simulated reality called "the Matrix," created by sentient machines to subdue the human population, while their bodies' heat and electrical activity are used as an energy source.

In San Juan County, our dystopian present is created by the Machine to subdue our human population using trumped-up eco-doomsaying, while grants are used as an energy source. We saw this on display today during Amy Windrope's presentation for the undead San Juan Initiative. The zombie San Juan Initiative 5-Year Review was funded by a TACT grant from the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife. We've talked about the TACT grant before. It stands for "Trouble shooting, Action planning, Course correction, and Tracking and monitoring." Under this grant, the Friends and members of our MRC reportedly worked with armed state police in boats from WDFW's Enforcement Division to map supposed shoreline violations. Sources suggest that this grant-funded activity resulted in a phonebook-sized inventory of purported violations, especially along the west side of San Juan Island, where activity was focused.

This was all supposed to come together in a neat little package. The on-the-ground mapping of the TACT/San Juan Initiative was supposed to be reinforced by Pictometry. The Conservation District would facilitate State agency enforcement (enforcement based on bias and misinterpretation). It was all arranged, and "they" just needed an obsequious, complicit County government to play along with the demands of the State agencies (WDFW, PSP, Ecology), the grant-driven whims of our non-profits/quangos (Friends, Kwiaht, Madrona Institute, Stewardship Network), the illusory subject-matter expertise of the Conservation District, and the self-interests of the tribes.

That's how homeowners get framed. That's how the Eco Matrix is created, and before you know it (see the video), we have soccer moms talking like jackbooted thugs before the Council asking, "What is the concern with armed boats?"

She understands our concern ... sure she does.

The Walking Dead Bureaucracy

Back in the heady days of 2006, the County entered into an agreement with a 501(c)(3) called Shared Strategy for Puget Sound to develop an ecosystem-based management system for the San Juan Islands. Amy Windrope was hired as Project Manager in November 2006 while a consultant named Jim Kramer ran Shared Strategy. As with most environmental initiatives around here, there was an awful lot of coordination that had to happen, paid for by a bucketload of grant money. Meetings were held; oversight committees were appointed; regulatory agencies and experts graciously devoted their time; and in the end, a report was written. Nothing actually happened to the environment, but a lot of people got paid handsomely for talking with other people about how much they love the environment.

At the end of 2009, the sun set on the San Juan Initiative. RIP ... or was it really gone?

Late last year (while she worked for the County), Linda Lyshall applied for a grant from the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife, where Amy Windrope now works. The purpose of the grant was to report on the County's progress in implementing the San Juan Initiative's work. When the grant was awarded, it became the subject of a County discussion when the then-Council found out about it after the fact.  It was covered in a story in the Island Guardian at the time:

Council Chair Patty Miller, while supportive of accepting the invitation to join in and hold a public meeting to review progress made towards implementing the Initiative’s previous recommendations, questioned who, exactly, applied for the grant in San Juan County’s name in the first place?

Miller also asked how many more grants has the County applied for, and by whom?

And just like that, the San Juan Initiative came back to life like Lazarus ... even though it's still not clear how this undead bureaucracy rose again or who constituted it. Now, after spending another $77K in grant and matching funds during its afterlife, a group calling themselves the San Juan Initiative is set to present a follow-up report to the Council on Monday. Incredibly, the list of report preparers includes Patty Miller ... the very woman who questioned how the grant came to be in the first place.

It is not clear who appointed these people. Were they appointed by the Council or did they appoint themselves?  It's not clear if they think they are the San Juan Initiative or some group following up on the San Juan Initiative.  Their letterhead says "San Juan Initiative," and the all-too-familiar list of serial participants includes:

• Jonathan White, Co-Chair
• Lovel Pratt, Co-Chair
• Lisa Byers
• Patty Miller
• Linda Lyshall
• Stephanie Buffum Field
• Peter Kilpatrick
• Tom Cowan
• Marilyn O’Connor

Were Pratt and Miller working for the San Juan Initiative (and voting to receive their own grant money) while they were on the Council? 

I guess old bureaucracies never die, they just move on to the next conflict of interest.

Linda Lyshall of the Conservation District ... and the Madrona Institute Advisory Council ... and the San Juan Initiative ... and the Stewardship Network Steering Committee ... formerly of the Puget Sound Partnership ... formerly of the Marine Resources Committee ... grant writer and resurrector of extinguished bureaucracies

Trouble Brewing In The San Juans

On Tuesday, the current Council defeated a proposal for new rules for public meetings. It was an item left over from the previous Council. The "new rules" proposal was drafted by our previous Council to enforce "civility" at public meetings. Over the last couple of years, we have seen pleas for civility used by the Friends and their friends as a weapon to limit public participation and openness. Ironically, those who have clamored the loudest for civility here have often behaved in the most objectively uncivil ways themselves ... for example, by resorting to name calling and out-and-out lying.

And those tactics and strategies have been given succor by influential officials higher up the government food chain. A case in point is the string of emails below from 2011. In the emails, officials from the Puget Sound Partnership (PSP) are complaining about science being introduced by the Common Sense Alliance (CSA) during the CAO process. Specifically, state officials are reacting to a CSA newsletter about ocean science proposed for BAS by Dr. David Hyde, formerly of Scripps Institute of Oceanography. The emails between Bill Ruckelshaus, Martha Kongsgaard, and Gerry O'Keefe illustrate many things:

• First, they show that San Juan County is on the radar screen of some of the most influential people in the state. 
• Second, they show the casual contempt that state officials have for anyone outside of the Friends, the tribes, or insider scientists. 
• Third, they show no respect for the legitimate concerns of local people and display condescension at the premise that differences with the PSP might actually be authentic. Kongsgaard implies that CSA has somehow manufactured controversy and created dialogue that isn't "real." In fact, Kongsgaard shows off her political blinders by denigrating the "world view" politics of her opponents while she simultaneously displays nothing but her own "world view." 
• Fourth, the emails employ tactics that we've come to expect in the San Juans -- paint all CSA-like troublemakers with a broad politically-charged brush (e.g., Tea Partiers); lie about them (CSA "screamed" at Ruckelshaus); favor tourists over residents; and generally vilify anyone who encourages broad-based local public participation. 
• Lastly, the emails show the speed-dial first-name bonds that existed (and may still exist) between our local manipulative hardball world-view commissars and the state's manipulative hardball world-view commissars.

The email from Kongsgaard is sickening for its prejudice.

For reference and background, Martha Kongsgaard is the current head of the PSP Leadership Council. Ruckelshaus (formerly Head of the PSP Leadership Council) and O'Keefe (formerly Executive Director of the PSP) have moved on, but as most San Juan residents probably realize, Bill Ruckelshaus remains a hugely influential figure. And speaking of huge, he also owns one of the largest shoreline homes and docks in the county.

The email string kicks off with Ruckelshaus forwarding the CSA newsletter to O'Keefe and Kongsgaard with the ominous admonition, "Trouble brewing in the San Juans." However, Ruckelshaus is wrong. Any fair evaluator of the evidence would conclude that trouble has already been baked into our state, local, and tribal governments ... garnished with the scientists and non-profits that are in league with them.
_________
Errata: The initial wording of this post incorrectly identified Gerry O'Keefe as being the former Head of the Department of Ecology when in reality he served as the Executive Director of the PSP. Corrections have been made and my thanks to the reader who pointed out the error.

From: Gerry O'Keefe
Sent: Wednesday, October 12, 2011 1:10 PM
To: Jeanette Dorner
Subject: Fwd: Note from Ruckelshaus -FW: Ocean Science Missing in Best Available Science

FYI. 

Gerry O'Keefe

Executive Director

PUGET SOUND PARTNERSHIP

p: 360.464.1228 

c: 360.593.6620 

Via iPhone

Begin forwarded message:

From: martha kongsgaard <martha@kongsgaard-goldman.org>
Date: October 12, 2011 12:59:47 PM PDT
To: Bill Ruckelshaus <bill@madrona.com>
Cc: Gerry O'Keefe <gerry.okeefe@psp.wa.gov>
Subject: RE: Note from Ruckelshaus -FW: Ocean Science Missing in Best Available Science

Thanks for this Bill.  This is ongoing up there as you know. I think you have personally been screamed at there, no? The county has adopted the BAS already and this cannot be undone until the CAO is complete which will be sometime in June.  Then the law suits will be filed by both sides.  The best thing that can happen now is that  a thorough record is made by groups like Friends of the San Juans, UW scientists, and the tribes so that they can prevail in court.  It is a lousy system, but it’s the one we have.  IN the mean time, it is rough to be Lovell Pratt, for example, who is chair and is trying to hold the line.

The CSalliance is certainly whipping up fear and introducing new science into the CAO discussion and are managing to fill town halls with 50 – 70 people.  At the end of the day, it has much more to do with philosophy than with science – see the Tea Party.  If the case could be made publicly that their science is not on point, that over 50% of the shoreline is already built out and that the parcels are by and large under ½ acre, and that the economy of the San Juans depends on the 1,000,000+ tourists who travel there to be sold “beauty and wildness” and on and on, they would still hate government and resist regulation in most any form.  They are jamming the planning department by encouraging land owners to go, one by one, to the planning department to ask what effect these regulations ‘could’ have on their land.  They are demanding that the council notify all land owners of the same, with individual maps, etc., all under the request for transparency and open government.  That plays well and is hard to combat.  But it is killing the dept. who otherwise would be working on the CAO etc. and so the worm turns…..

This e mail got me off my duff to call Lovell Pratt, the chair, and friends of the San Juans.  They need our support to do the hard thing.  We need to listen to the CSA, and the worries of the property owners and figure out how to get the hard work done.  There is not a lot of real communications getting done.  It is world view stuff that doesn’t allow for much dialogue in my experience.

Martha

M A R T H A   K O N G S G A A R D
  
4 4 0 8   B E A C H  D R I V E  S. W.   
S E A T T L E,   W A   9 8 1 1 6
W - 2 0 6 . 4 4 8 . 1 8 7 4  *  C  -  2 0 6 . 8 1 7 . 5 4 7 3
martha@kongsgaard-goldman.org

---

From: Bill Ruckelshaus [mailto:bill@madrona.com]
Sent: Wednesday, October 12, 2011 9:14 AM
To: Gerry O'Keefe; martha kongsgaard
Subject: Note from Ruckelshaus -FW: Ocean Science Missing in Best Available Science

Gerry and Martha,

Trouble brewing in the San Juans.

Bill

Diane L. Hodgson, Personal Manager

William D. and Jill Ruckelshaus
Madrona Venture Group and Evergreen Venture

1000 Second Avenue, Ste 3700

Seattle, WA  98104

206-674-3009 p

206-674-3013 f

From: Common Sense Alliance [mailto:info@commonsensealliance.net]
Sent: Tuesday, October 11, 2011 4:14 PM
To: Bill Ruckelshaus
Subject: Ocean Science Missing in Best Available Science

Images not displaying properly? Add info@commonsensealliance.net to your address book now. Tuesday, 11 October 2011 Vol. 73 Guest Editorial:  Why is Ocean Science Missing in the SJC's BAS? My wife and I came to San Juan Island in 2009 to enjoy the wonderful ambience of these Islands.   Like many friends and neighbors, we are environmentally oriented--I having retired from 40 years of ocean technology work, and she a long career in public relations.   We both are alarmed by San Juan County’s recent CAO developments and public disclosures--her from a public information perspective, and I from an ocean sciences point of view.  We are not directly affected, but I want to speak out as a county taxpayer and home owner in the cause of clarity and transparency.  Our fellow taxpayers and residents need the real facts to better judge the truth and value of this “environmentally necessitated” county initiative against the cost and economic risk to all our communities and their residents.  Here’s the main issue:   the current CAO is based on facts that do not apply to the San Juan Islands and missing the facts that do.  My comments are directed toward the centerpiece of the CAO plan--Imposing deep setbacks and buffer zones to protect and restore our marine environment. There’s a big problem with the County’s approach.   The County’s agencies have developed a long list of Puget Watershed and related reports, called “Best Available Science.”   This BAS forms their justification for the CAO, and the SMP to follow.   According to the State these ordinances must be based on some definition of best available science. With my long association with ocean institutes, including the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, CA, I tried to determine the basis of the “ocean truth” in this BAS.  I was appalled to find that, despite years of Salish Sea studies, no physical oceanographic studies describing our local marine waters exist in this BAS.   Without an ocean-reality baseline, how can this county legitimately proceed with a marine environmental remediation plan?  And, how costly will this plan be to enforce if their “science” is missing essential information? I found that, while unacknowledged in the BAS, the body of ocean literature on local waters is extensive, and represents 50 years of model development and measurements by leading institutes.   The circulation models we now have available are mature, detailed, and tested physical science.  The findings contained in this literature led me to clear conclusions that fundamentally counter SJC’s rationale for shoreline buffer actions: 1.            The San Juan Islands waters are not part of the Puget Sound at all – They are part of the Southern Straits of Georgia, almost 10 times larger in water volume, and in river outflows.  We may be politically connected to the Puget, but our local marine waters are Canadian, and incidentally contain the effluent of 80% of the economic output of BC. 2.            Mostly blocked from northerly exit, the massive outflows from BC’s Fraser and nearby rivers create a persistent southerly flow of their waters through our islands out into the Straits of Juan de Fuca.  These river flows exceed 100 cubic kilometers of river water annually--about ten times that of all Puget rivers. 3.            Because of seabed and tidal flow features just to the south of us, these northern waters don’t mix much with Puget waters during tidal cycles. This means there is little mixing of our Islands’ and Puget waters by our strong tidal cycles, further isolating us.  These tides also create massive upwelling of clean Pacific waters along our shorelines from the bottom counter-current, and constantly bring fresh ocean waters to our shorelines.  Our Islands’ shorelines have the best flushed marine waters of any coastline in the lower US, and no local marine water quality measurements can legitimately separate the origins of local and Canadian runoff. The ocean-truth for our Islands is that we are immersed in a huge BC system that mixes massive river outflows from the Fraser basin with Pacific Ocean waters.   BC governments have been addressing water quality issues for decades and are making progress—but, we are only a small part of their very large system.  We San Juan Islanders will be far better served by focusing on the few local area problems that we have and that we can do something about, rather than by incorrectly pursuing environmental actions that, to no avail impose laws based on incomplete information.  It is time for the County of San Juan to step back and get the Ocean reality for our Islands right--before proceeding further with these CAO and SMP initiatives. David Hyde, PhD  [Note:  David Hyde, PhD, has a professional background in ocean sciences from his association with the University of California, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and other institutes.  The information and opinions in this editorial are his own independent assessments of literature that is available for everyone to assess.  He has recently collaborated with Ed Kilduff, a Lopez Island hydrogeologist, to create a presentation entitled "San Juan Archipelago Water Quality & CAO."   Mr. Hyde has given permission for CSA to publish his editorial opinion.] Common Sense Alliance P.O. 1249 Friday Harbor, 98250 info@commonsensealliance.net www.www.commonsensealliance.net

Shireene Hale's Pattern Of Behavior

Yesterday, the Council selected Michael Thomas as the new County Manager.  Thomas is from King County and has a planning background. Mr. Thomas, you have your work cut out for you because our Planning Department functions like a rogue government within a government, with a functional head who openly despises public participation and dissent.

In the email below (from a year ago), Hale discusses her reaction to a CAO public meeting that was, from our perspective, one of the greatest meetings from a public participation standpoint. It was one of the worst from the standpoint of the reaction of public officials.

Once again, Shireene Hale thinks dissent is violence. Someone who regularly cannot tell the difference between dissent and violence may not be stable enough to deal with the public, and perhaps we should be concerned about her reactionary behavior or the irrational steps she might take.

Who is the threat here? It makes me wonder whether Hale will start coming to meetings armed and dangerous. In more ways than one, we need protection from Hale.

From: Shireene Hale [mailto:shireeneh@sanjuanco.com]
Sent: Tuesday, April 10, 2012 11:54 AM
To: Colin Maycock; Jon Cain; Lovel Pratt; Patty Miller; Pete Rose; Randall Gaylord; Rene Beliveau; Richard Fralick; Shireene Hale
Subject: Agenda for Monday CAO Implementation Team meeting?

Good morning,

What do you all have for agenda items for the Monday CAO/SMP Implementation team meeting? Colin will not be attending as he will be in Costa Rica.

At this point I have two items:

*         Conduct of public meetings on CAO and SMP.

*         Alternatives for getting the wetland and fish and wildlife regulations through the approval process.

Conduct of Public Meetings

On the conduct of public meetings, I would like to discuss options for ensuring that our citizens, staff, consultants, Council and Planning Commissioners do not feel threatened or intimidated, and to ensure that comments are focused on the issues, and not on blaming or attacking individuals. Problem meetings in the past few months include the last three Planning Commission meetings (particularly the March 6 meeting), the San Juan town hall meetings, and the Orcas SMP meeting.

For those that have not heard, we are aware of two separate instances of people discussing the use of guns. One was a warning from someone that works at the Orcas fire station, the other was a conversation overhead on the ferry. Chances are nothing will happen, but given the way John Evans and others are stirring up fear, hatred and hostility, and given some of the testimony we heard on March 6, I don't think the possibility of violence should be dismissed. 

In addition, prior to the March 16 Planning Commission meeting, Gordy Peterson suggested to Janice  that she should consider calling in sick rather than attend the meeting, because "it was going to be ugly". This may constitute intimidation of a public servant under RCW 9A.76.180 and 9A.04.110. Given everything that is going on, it was intimidating to those of us charged with running the meeting. 

Alternatives to help with the public meetings include:

*         A clear statement from our leaders (Patty and/or the full Council ?) assuring people that we will get through this and that their comments are being considered. Other topics that could be touched on include reassuring people that if their house burns down, they will be able to replace it; that we are doing are best to keep costs down; that we are trying to find the least intrusive approach that will pass muster with the Growth Board; that what we are trying to develop is a moderate approach that is more fair and tied to the current science than the Ecology recommended regulations; that we are all friends and neighbors, and though we may disagree it is important to be civil and respectful of one another so that all points of view can be heard, and so that people don't feel intimidated; that we will try to find the resources to refine
the wetland map so that is does not show man made ponds that are not wetlands; and encourage people to read the proposals for themselves, rather than believing what others are telling them. 

*         Do what we can to get through the rest of the process in as efficient a manner as possible, to remove the anxiety associated with uncertainty.

*         Consider holding a joint PC/ CC hearing on the fish and wildlife amendments, to provide the staff and Planning Commission, and particularly the Planning Commission chair, with some additional support, and to help move the amendments along through the process. 

*         Hold all meetings in the Council chambers so that they can be live streamed. If F&W is a joint hearing with the Council, perhaps testimony could be taken from the Orcas and Lopez libraries (we don't have the capacity to do it without assistance and another staff person).

*         Consider having a deputy present for the hearings/ meetings. We have been trying to avoid this - but it may be time to give it serious consideration.

*         Consider developing clear expectations of conduct, enforced by the chair, and let everyone know what they are and what will happen if they are not followed. I suggest that clapping, jeering, cheering, and statements that are focused on individuals rather than issues not be tolerated. Options include asking individuals to leave, and if the Planning Commission/ Council are in deliberations (testimony is not being accepted), if necessary the room can be cleared so that deliberations can continue without the disruptions.

Adoption Process for Wetlands and Fish and Wildlife Amendments

Regarding the approach for getting through the remainder of the process, following is a schedule I sent to Patty yesterday.

Wetland Amendments

April 23 - Signed PC draft of wetland amendments and staff report submitted to Council.

May 1 - First touch to review PC recommended draft, findings and recommendations (including the  recommendation for a conference call between the Council, Dr. Adamus and Dr. Mayer, to discuss whether we are properly applying Mayer et al. 2007, and to consider using a paper by Xuyang Zhang et al. (2010) as a guide to buffer width, rather than Mayer
et al.)

May 7 - field trip (may be just wetlands - if we can get the F&W draft out prior to then, could be both wetlands and F&W).

May 9 - publish hearing notice

May 21 or 22 - CC hearing on wetlands (half day?)

??? - deliberations (probably need a full day)

F&W Amendments

Prior to June 20 - release hearing draft and publish notice.

July 9 or 10 - Joint PC/CC hearing, with PC deliberations in July, followed by CC deliberations. If necessary CC can hold another hearing on another draft prior to consistency review. (Note: I am out of town on vacation June 18 through July 4).

Note: Having a joint hearing does a couple of things. This is likely to be a difficult hearing and it provides the Planning Commission and CD&P staff some support that they don't normally have. It also helps us get through the steps in a more efficient manner. 

Please let me know if you have additional items for discussion.

Shireene

Taking Stock

The election results should be certified this week. The final count is later today. With just a handful of ballots remaining, the totals as of May 1 are:

• Pratt - 3,359 to Jarman - 3,421
• Byers - 3,356 to Hughes - 3,485
• McClerren - 2,783 to Stephens - 3,701

Combining these figures with the PDC totals, fundraising-per-vote amounted to the following (with Trust Islanders fundraising spread evenly across Jarman, Hughes, and McClerren).

• Byers - $9.12 per vote
• Jarman - $7.74 per vote ($5.41 per vote without Trust Islanders)
• Pratt - $6.96 per vote
• Hughes - $5.87 per vote ($3.58 per vote without Trust Islanders)
• McClerren - $5.51 per vote ($2.68 per vote without Trust Islanders)
• Stephens - $5.24 per vote

The elections may be over, but there is still plenty of controversy in our islands. Many of our fellow citizens continue to push for greater regulation, even if they don't follow the rules themselves. Also, the Pictometry mess is raising important questions about privacy, and the Friends and their friends (e.g., Futurewise) are gearing up for battle about the Shoreline Management Plan (SMP) update.

More to come in future posts on all that ... and more.

The better approach would be to prevent construction of new homes where they will ever need armoring and then prohibit the construction of armoring for that home. Once shoreline erosion reaches the home, it must either be removed from the shore, or rebuilt further upland.

And in response to the argument that preservation of aesthetically stunning landscapes is elitist, I would argue that transferring the benefits of natural views of the shoreline from the public to wealthy, shoreline property owners is rather elitist.

For those passing by water, all the homes may be considered visual blight.
-- Stephanie Buffum (8/13/09) Executive Director, Friends of the San Juans

The Wait Is Over

The election results are in.

• Jarman 3,372 votes (50.52%) to Pratt 3,302 votes (49.58%)
• Hughes 3,440 votes (51.1%) to Byers 3,292 votes (48.9%)
• Stephens 3,640 votes (57.08%) to McClerren 2,737 votes (42.92%)

San Juan County is no stranger to recounts. If there is a recount, then the challenging party must pay $0.25 per ballot (depending on the closeness of the outcome). According to the election website, there are approximately 60 votes left to tally.

The Lopez School Bond measure, which needed 60% to pass, lost badly.

• Approved - 619 votes (42.19%)
• Rejected - 848 votes (57.81%)

And for some strange reason, Sharon Kivisto felt the urge to predict the outcome of the election just hours before the official results were in. Kivisto predicted that Pratt would defeat Jarman.

Kivisto reprised the Chicago Daily Tribune (Dewey Defeats Truman)  by predicting a win for Pratt just hours before the official results were announced.

While We're Waiting ...

The only election result that seems safe to call at this moment is the one between incumbent Jamie Stephens and Brian McClerren in the Lopez race. Looks like Stephens has won that contest.

As for the other races, Jarman leads Pratt; and Hughes leads Byers, but it's too close to make a final call. While you wait for the next count of ballots at 5pm on Wednesday, have a look at a video of the Council discussion regarding aerial photos that took place on Tuesday.

If you listen to the video, you will hear that the resolution of the proposed photos is no better than that of Google Earth? Then why doesn't the County just pay $400 for a Google Earth Pro license?

Also, other Counties aren't making the aerial photos public, even though the photos are paid for with taxpayer money? Is that revelation supposed to be a comfort ... that our County government will have aerial photos that will be kept secret from the taxpayers who paid for it? The photos are public records. How can they be kept from the public?

The more the Council talks about the aerial photos, the stranger it seems. The County is getting some of the money for the photos from Roche Harbor Resort and a realtor on Lopez ... a realtor on Lopez? What?!?

County Gone Wild - A Recap

A recent New York Times article discussed why our great nation sometimes seems to be coming apart at the seams, and I think it aptly pinpoints the state of affairs in San Juan County too:

I heard a more satisfying if somewhat depressing explanation for the seemingly random eruptions of political idiosyncrasy from Samuel Abrams, who teaches politics at Sarah Lawrence and Stanford. Abrams, who has spent the last decade or so researching our political habits, begins with the evidence that most Americans are simply not engaged in local politics, except perhaps on pocketbook issues. In the absence of public attention, motivated, well-financed and sometimes extreme elites have captured the lawmaking process in many state capitals. Legislatures are vulnerable to (and often populated by) the most ardent believers in a cause, the ones who care enough to take the time, raise the money, turn out on Election Day and lobby relentlessly.

“People who participate in state and local government tend not to be representative of the masses at all,” Abrams told me. “They tend to be highly engaged political elites — 15 percent of the population who think they’re fighting this culture war. They’ll see an opening. They’ll see a judge, they’ll see a legislature that looks amenable to something, and they’ll try to push it through and build a groundswell around that.”

This County has been run by a power clique for so long that residents have become accustomed to it as normal. It's not normal (or shouldn't be). It's not representative. It's the wrong way to live.

By Trojan Heron estimates, about 160 influential people run this County. They sit on committees; they interview candidates for office and support/endorse the ones that pass their muster; they get grants; they work inside the County and control who gets hired; they manage the non-profits; they write the letters that get published in our newspapers. In short, they run our lives while the rest of us are trying to just live our lives. If no one else in the County except these 160 people existed, you wouldn't even notice by only looking at the way our public governance and media conduct themselves.

The traditional power clique is losing its grip on the control levers here (thanks to all of you), and they are very upset about it. They are unraveling. The letters and emails they send out are often ad hominem attacks, not based on issues. Even their attempts at issues-based homilies, like Judge Darrah's opinion piece, are so turgid and bereft of relevant facts as to be meaningless (like the CAOs themselves). Elaborately worded ignorance is still just ignorance, and Judge Darrah can't seem to wrap his elevated mind around something very simple: the CAOs cannot remedy something that does not exist to begin with. These islands have not been shown to be contributing to environmental decline, so efforts to justify restrictions on the premise of protection are specious. The only environmental threats the CAOs address are the ones fabricated on paper by the tables and assertions developed by Shireene Hale and concurred by Dr. Adamus. A CAO scofflaw would be in violation of one of these tables/assertions only, not violating actual environmental protections.

The new CAOs are so confusing, anti-people, environmentally pointless, and rambling that it is nearly impossible to support them without also being a hypocrite regarding some aspect of their implementation ... because somewhere, somehow nearly everyone will be in violation of their unbridled discretion. The CAOs were designed to catch everyone. If you support them, you are undermining yourself, not just your neighbors.

The ballots are out. Already, some of you may have voted. We hope you re-read the posts on this blog and look at the links on this post before you hand in your ballot. You can help to stop the madness if you continue to participate, vote, and speak out.

Here are the latest fundraising tallies (and links to posts/videos of the candidates). It's quite clear who is independent and who is supported by the Machine. It is also gratifying to see that some candidates have noticeably changed their message during this campaign in response to citizen feedback. That just shows that we can have an effect if we all stay engaged.

• Byers - $28,871
• Pratt - $22,516
• Stephens - $19,299
• Jarman - $14,173
• Hughes - $10,468
• McClerren - $5,900

(Note: Trust Islanders has raised $14,125 and has unilaterally endorsed Jarman, Hughes, and McClerren.  However, there is no coordination with their campaigns.)

Doing Things In Secret Sure Is Productive

Most of you probably know that the County is being sued by the Citizens Alliance for Property Rights (CAPR) over violations of the Open Public Meetings Act (OPMA), specifically as it relates to the Critical Areas Ordinances (CAOs). At issue is whether three Council members are permitted to meet in private. At first, the Council was advised by our Prosecuting Attorney (PA) that it was okay for three Councillors to meet because it did not represent a quorum (it takes 4 votes to pass legislation in our system). But after the issue was pressed by the Charter Review Commission (CRC), the PA reversed his decision, explaining that a quorum can be construed as either the number of Council members needed to take positive (4 Councillors) or negative (3 Councillors) action.

In the depositions related to the lawsuit regarding the OPMA, many of the participants in the CAO Committee meetings have a poor recollection of what happened during their illegal secret get-togethers (see previous posting). However, in January 2012 the same people spent a considerable period of time in one of the non-secret Council meetings talking about all the great stuff they got done in secret. Stephens even refers to the CAOs directly. Pratt says that she can hardly remember any Council votes where subcommittees didn't get their way.

How can Pratt remember that detail but not details related to her deposition (67 denials)?

The video strongly suggests that the OPMA was violated, not just for the CAOs, but for nearly everything the previous Council did.

Watch the first half hour to 40 minutes of the linked video. It is full of "Holy Crap!" moments.

A Short Post About A Big Lie

In Pratt's papers, we find a note stating that the CAOs are "site specific" and therefore allow for variable buffers. Over and over again, we have heard that our CAOs are complex because they are "site specific."

Let's explain the County's site-specific approach.

Suppose we had a buffer table in the CAOs that "protected" critical areas on your property based upon your eye color. The table might show that blue-eyed people get buffers of 50 feet, brown-eyed people have to make do with 100-foot buffers, and if you have green eyes, you are eligible for the Green Option and don't have to follow the same rules as everyone else.

Now suppose you constructed a separate table for another land-use restriction, this time based on your shoe size.  We could formulate a system where the interplay between your eye color and your shoe size would determine your final land use controls. Besides eye color and shoe size, other specific factors might be brought into play, such as height or weight.

Now, that sort of CAO would be entirely specific to you, but it would be irrelevant for the purpose of "protecting" the critical area.

Similarly, our CAOs are based on site-specific factors that have no relevance to any problem and no relevance to protections of critical areas. Without a site-specific assessment of the source of a problem on a parcel, a site-specific remedy is meaningless.

Pratt Notes Involved In Deposition

Commenters have asked to see the notes related to Lovel Pratt's deposition in the secret-meeting CAO-Committee OPMA lawsuit. They are provided as images below (click any of the images below to enlarge). They'll be the subject of a future post, but for now, have a look and judge for yourself if Pratt and the rest of the Committee discussed only non-substantive scheduling matters.

Oh, and by the way, the BLM lands are now a National Monument too (another link here).
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Mirror Mirror ... Who Remembers The Least Of All

In one of the recent pleadings regarding the Open Public Meetings Act (OPMA) lawsuit, there is a declaration from a paralegal who has gone to the effort of quantifying the level of non-responsiveness of our public servants.

Before we get to the tally, for the sake of background, remember that the OPMA states the following:

The legislature finds and declares that all public commissions, boards, councils, committees, subcommittees, departments, divisions, offices, and all other public agencies of this state and subdivisions thereof exist to aid in the conduct of the people's business. It is the intent of this chapter that their actions be taken openly and that their deliberations be conducted openly.

"Governing body" is "the multimember board, commission, committee, council, or other policy or rule-making body of a public agency, or any committee thereof when the committee acts on behalf of the governing body, conducts hearings, or
takes testimony or public comment."

"Action" is "the transaction of the official business of a public agency by a governing body including but not limited to receipt of public testimony, deliberations, discussions, considerations, reviews, evaluations, and final actions. "Final action" means a collective positive or negative decision, or an actual vote by a majority of the members of a governing body when sitting as a body or entity, upon a motion, proposal, resolution, order, or ordinance."

"Meeting" means "meetings at which action is taken."

Remember, too, that there is no dispute about whether the CAO Committee meetings took place in secret. They did. The dispute concerns the content of the meetings. The position of the participants is that they only discussed scheduling and not more substantive matters, despite documentary evidence (notes and emails) to the contrary.

When questioned about the meetings, this is how the deponents remembered (or did not remember) events.

• Lovel Pratt was deposed on January 3, 2013, and she expressed 67 denials of knowledge (63 "I don't recall", 4 "I don't know")
• Richard Fralick was deposed on January 3, 2013, and he expressed 22 denials (21 "I don't recall", 1 "I don't know")
• Patty Miller was deposed on January 4, 2013, and she expressed 63 denials (51 "I don't recall", 12 "I don't know")
• Shireene Hale was deposed on January 17, 2013, and she expressed 100 denials (52 "I don't recall", 31 "I don't know", 17 "I just don't have a specific recollection")

Mirror, mirror on the wall ... who remembers the least of all? Looks like it's Hale, followed by Pratt, Miller, and then Fralick.

I Don't Recall

The San Juan County Chapter of the Citizens Alliance for Property Rights (CAPR) just issued a press release (see below) containing information about the depositions in their lawsuit regarding Open Public Meeting Act (OPMA) violations. We'll be delving into this more in coming days since some of the information is in the public record now.

Pratt cites her experience as one of the key reasons to support her election. Her website says:

San Juan County needs leaders with experience, good judgment and expertise; leaders who are dedicated, accessible, and responsive; leaders who will make decisions in the best interests of our entire community.

This is what Lovel Pratt will bring to the new County Council.

But the OPMA lawsuit suggests she can't remember key portions of her experience. She doesn't seem all that responsive either. Was she making decisions in the best interest of our entire community? Irrespective of her campaign statements, she probably can't recall.

Have a look at the press release, which is presented in its entirety.
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County Council Rejects Settlement Offer

Citizens Alliance for Property Rights (CAPR), recently submitted an offer to settle the lawsuit with San Juan County alleging violations of the Open Public Meetings Act (OPMA). The County Council rejected the offer.

The CAPR case is about open and transparent government. This is a priority to more than 85% of the people who voted in the November election. Our Prosecutor states, “The policy reasons for open government are very strong.”  CAPR agrees wholeheartedly with Mr. Gaylord here.

However, the actions of San Juan County in this matter seem to be contrary to the words of the Prosecutor and the policies of the Council. Section 2.4 of the Council Rules of Procedure requires that, “all meetings of the Council shall be open to the public.” This rule was not followed in this case where secret meetings of 3 council persons and staff occurred more than 20 times before coming to light and being stopped.

In fact, the County has taken steps to further conceal and block attempts to gather information. This is not a commitment to open government. On 2/20/13 the County filed a protective order in an attempt to block the deposition of Deputy Prosecutor Jon Cain. The County has further attempted to limit our discovery. In depositions of Council and staff members the terms “I don’t recall,” “I don’t remember,” “I don’t know,” were used more than 250 times. What is the County trying to hide?

In the deposition of former subcommittee member Lovel Pratt, which lasted less than 4 hours, she stated that she didn’t know or couldn’t recall answers to simple questions more than 74 times. When presented with her own notes taken at the meetings she did not recall what the notes referred to:

“Q. Do you recall in the February 3rd, 2012, meeting anyone from staff asking what were the views of the Council members as to wetland buffers, stormwater, site specific and variable buffers and/or medium risk approaches? Do you recall staff requesting any guidance from the County Council members in attendance on any of those topics?

Pratt. I don't recall.

Q. So you don't -- why were they discussed?  Do you have any idea?

Pratt. I don't recall.

Q. Ma'am, this meeting is only less than a year old, and you just don't recall?

Pratt. I just -- I don't recall the specifics of this particular meeting.  I'm sorry.

Q. There's no need to apologize.  You just don't recall?

Pratt. I don't.

Q. And these notes don't refresh your memory?

Pratt. Sorry.”

If you believe that open and transparent government should be a priority of San Juan County and if you believe that all meetings of the Council should be open and transparent, then we need your support. Send any donations to CAPR San Juan P.O. Box 1866 Friday Harbor WA 98250.