Political comment and discussion about Island County, Whidbey Island, Camano Island and Washington State
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If you are planning on visiting one of our local Indian Casinos anytime in the near future I would certainly be aware of the class action lawsuit filed by the Swinomish Tribe and consider visiting one of the many other casino’s in our area.
The local Swinomish Casino is owned and operated by the Swinomish Tribe, the entity that is suing Oak Harbor for a reported 9 million dollars.
VIEW LAWSUIT HERE (5 mb .pdf)
As we have recently seen with the news of the NSA monitoring e mail and phone traffic in the US we really have no idea how this information may be used so we all should be concerned. As we have seen with the IRS/Tea Party issue where conservative groups have been targeted by extra scrutiny and harassment by the government and the supposedly secure files at the IRS being released to liberal groups we obviously need to be able to protect ourselves from snooping by unauthorized government agencies and other groups that may be using similar methods to target conservatives and their causes. Remember this incident?
Sarah Palin’s E-Mail Hacked
http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1842097,00.html
Island County Commissioner Helen Price Johnson and Coupeville Mayor Nancy Conard are holding a Community Forum to discuss the “Distress” and the “Level of Impact” caused by the Naval Outlying Field in Coupeville.
Therse 2 local politicians are holding a community meeting at the Coupeville Rec Hall, Wednesday June 19, 5:30 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.
They state: “By increasing the dialogue we can come together to reduce the negative impacts of base operations on our community.”
At the City Council meeting on May 21st the City Council had 2 agenda items that were tabled until the next meeting following the November election. Both of these Agenda items were brought by the Mayor and Administration in response to the “Fiscal Emergency” declared by the City Council.
One of the items was Resolution 13-12 which would have eliminated health care benefits for part time elected officials including the Mayor and the City Council.
The other was an Agenda Bill that asked the Council to make a decision on the method of reviewing and possibly reducing the salaries of Oak Harbor elected officials. Read the rest of this entry »
Filing date for political office is over and with the number of offices filed for this is going to be an interesting election. 2 of our authors here at Island Politics have filed to run for political office and we could not be more proud of them. It is one thing to whine and complain about the way the system works as we often do here at Island Politics but it is another thing entirely to take the time and the effort that it takes to run for political office.
Hat’s off to our 2 authors that have registered as candidates. Here are the 2 candidates and the offices they have filed for:
Interesting City Council meeting last Tuesday night. On the agenda there was an item that was recommended by the city Attorney Grant Weed to be placed on the agenda and brought before the council. This item was included to ensure the city was following the most recent court decisions and was placed on the agenda as a policy change to protect the city from a possible future lawsuit. We are not going to get into the details of the proposed city policy but instead the process that was unfair to the citizens that attended the meetings and also the interesting comments to the council and citizens that occurred during the meeting.
The wide majority of the crowd at the meeting was there for this one issue. It was on the agenda and information was included in the agenda package that was available to the council and the citizens on the previous Friday. The issue was never heard by the council and the citizens that attended never got a chance to participate. The council had adequate time to prepare themselves to hear this issue but instead they short circuited the process by removing this item from the agenda leaving the citizens that came to speak without an issue to speak to.
“Growler Joe” was kind enough to share the documents he received from Island Transit from his recent PDR request.
The documents do show that Rick Kiser’s A Citizens Comments- article on Island Politics is substantially correct. That article can be found here:
http://www.islandpolitics.org/?p=10029
Here are the links to the documents:
After the city council refused to change the makeup of the Marina Advisory board at the insistence of the Chair of the Marina Advisory Board Christon Skinner the Mayor removed Christon Skinner from the board.
The Mayor wanted to expand the board by 2 members and allow 2 non marina user onto the board and to include a live aboard from the marina on the committee. This was fought by the chair who wanted to keep the status quo on the board.
This is a good move for Oak Harbor, the marina belongs to all of the citizens of Oak Harbor not just the users of the marina. By having a couple of members on the board that are not marina users is an attempt to get the marina more integrated with the citizens and working with the city and it’s residents and to encourage activities that help Oak Harbor and not just the Marina and it’s users.
I thought I would re-post the first article ever posted to jokeharbor.org/islandpolitics.org. It was posted on 10-1-2010 and here is what it said:
(See the original post with images below, don’t miss the images!)
“Oak Harbor has recently decided that Pioneer Way, the historic downtown of our city, is to be turned into a one way street. This is being done against the will of the residents and businesses in the downtown area. There have been many accusations of conflicts of interest and of illegal votes by City Council members.”
The re-posting of this is rather fitting because the the issue that this article was about was just the start of a long drawn out saga that is not over yet some 3 years later.
Last week Ken and Kelly Emerson received a certified letter from Island County stating that the issue of the of fines for their alleged wetland violations is being moved forward. This is after the county sat on this issue for the last 2+ years so that 2 of our Commissioners would have a political issue to use against Commissioner Emerson.
The Island County Planning Department failed in it’s attempt last June to have the Island County Prosecutor move forward on this issue. Island County Prosecutor Greg Banks certainly did not want to touch this politicized issue at any cost. It was handed over to the Prosecutors office in Snohomish County to be moved forward.
Our Island County Commissioners and their underlings are releasing selective bit’s of information surrounding Bob Pedersons resignation. In an article published online today in the South Whidbey Record Elaine Marlow released information that Bob Pederson WAS attempting to sue the county. There was no reason given for why he would be suing the county but the article did go on to state the following:
“Given the unique situation concerning Commissioner Kelly Emerson and the planning department, I thought it would be best to limit any potential future risk on the county’s part,” said Marlow, in an interview this week.”
On March 21st 2013 Sandi Peterson announced that she is running for Oak Harbor City Council position 5 which is currently held by Joel Servatius.
In speaking with Sandi she states that her reason for running is that she has had enough!
Enough of the culture of disrespect; enough of the lack of civility; enough of the council, with rare exception, acting without concern for those they serve, the citizens of Oak Harbor. Enough of their over reaching and micro management. She believes that the people who live, work and do business here deserve better.
Again we see our obstructive Oak Harbor City Council in action.
Recently Mayor Dudley appointed a new city attorney as a full time city employee to replace the interim attorney. The City Council has refused to confirm this appointment. This is 3 or 4 to zero in confirming the Mayors appointments without obstruction. (Correction: The City Council approved ONE appointee without obstruction, Larry Cort.)
Let’s go back a bit in recent time to when the City Council approved a new rule that allows the City Council to confirm the Mayors appointments. Since inception Oak Harbor has allowed it’s Mayor the sole ability to hire and fire administrative personel under his control until this new rule by the council. This new rule was adopted with some controversy as this allows the council to control who works under the Mayor’s control and for the citizens of Oak Harbor. Remember the City Attorney and management personnel works for the Mayor and the citizens in this city not the council. The Mayor is elected as our executive officer and all city management personnel work directly under his control. The council has thrown a wrench into this process by voting in themselves the ability to confirm those appointees. Now the Mayor is faced with hiring an employee under his direct control but having to go through our obstructive City Council to actually hire that employee. There has not been one appointee for a position chosen by our Mayor that has not been rejected or obstructed by this council with the exception of Larry Cort.
News media is reporting the crash of an EA-6B Prowler in Lincoln County at approximately 9 AM this morning.
http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2013/mar/11/naval-plane-crashes-harrington/
We in Island County are facing the same problems that are being seen country wide. Loss of local funding from the Federal and State governments is going to be hitting us even harder in the future than they are today so what are we here in Island County going to do? Loss of sales tax revenue, loss of Federal and State funding is all apparently going to fall on the shoulders of property owners here in the county with a new property tax levy request unless something else is done.
We have a sheriffs department that is understaffed and under funded, we have a prosecutors office that is also facing severe shortages in funding necessary to function as needed. We will no doubt see another ballot measure in the near future designed to take care of these shortfalls but is this the true answer to our problems? Is more taxpayer dollars always the answer?
An event calendar of upcoming conservative events on the Islands. To add an item to this calendar please use the comment form below or contact one of our authors directly.
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