Friday, July 17, 2015

Nursing a Grudge?

This one's a mystery to me...

Peninsula College has hired a new nursing faculty following the abrupt retirement of three of its instructors and one faculty member's resignation. Motives for the departures, which took effect following the college's spring graduation June 20, were not immediately clear.

The former instructors did not answer Peninsula Daily News' requests for explanation, and the college said their letters of retirement or resignation stated no reasons. Kathy Craven, former director of the program, and instructors Bonnie Rathod and Cheryl McCurdy retired, said college spokeswoman Kari Desser. Instructor Bonnie Bulach resigned.

Now, I know that the County has trouble a-plenty with their nurses, and the bully in charge of them. A mass exodus like this from the employ of Clallam County wouldn't surprise me at all. But this? What gives? What's going on up on the hill? Anyone have any inside information on this sudden rush for the exit?

28 comments:

  1. I liked the PDN's headline, "College has new nursing faculty." Instead of " Nursing Faculty Walks Out En Mass"
    There is an old saying, "A fish rots from the head down"
    Since Luke Robins came to Peninsula College there has been a huge cultural shift from a collaborative effort, as education should be, to a top down authoritarian style of leadership. Luke is here to further the state's imperative. For this walk-out to occur on the cusp of ground breaking on a new nursing school building is suspect from the outset. I hope someone in the know will spill the beans on this disruptive episode.

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  2. I don't know anything about this.

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  3. They sure had their replacement on hand in a hurry. Maybe that is what made the others walk out. Any one of them may have had thoughts of being promoted. When she was not, and the others knew they had little chance of promotion, they walked. Just a guess. At any rate the underlying condition is poor leadership at the top. Will someone notify Gov. Inslee, Luke Robbins is a bad fit for this area.

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    1. Considering the rot that passes for leadership in Port Angeles, I think he fits this shithole perfectly.

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  4. Speaking about nursing something along, I wanted to respond to Bryan Frazier. who I noticed selectively posts here. Unlike him, who seems to think posting on threads that are a week or two past is an effective way of communicating, I thought I'd address one of his comments here, in a currently active thread.

    If folks want to search past threads, they will find he has been posting to them over the last day or so. Selectively.

    In a few, he asks that people accept him as their candidate, to which someone reminds him of his stance supporting Dan's Fantasy Tram. As was previously said here, his support for the Fantasy Tram is unsettling, and puts in to serious question his understanding of what is possible, and his ability to research proposals before endorsing them.

    Let's review a PDN article from January of this year.

    “We are looking for the welcomeness of the community to get behind this,” he said.

    But Olympic National Park Superintendent Sarah Creachbaum, who has spoken with Williams about the proposal, said last week it faces a giant hurdle.

    “We have [National Park Service] policy that prohibits those kinds of transportation systems in wilderness,” she said.

    The federal Wilderness Act, which governs activities within the park, does not allow a “commercial enterprise” or “mechanical transport” in such areas.

    “Any action that's proposed in a national park has to be analyzed in the environmental impact statement,” Creachbaum said. “We would be concerned with any impacts on park resources.”

    And: " But the state Department of Natural Resources said in 2013 it had strong reservations about Williams' zip-line project, which he dropped in 2013."

    Followed by: " The gondolas, carrying 2,300 to 12,000 people a day 340 days a year, would begin somewhere downtown near Port Angeles Harbor at a still-unspecified location, he said.

    The tram would go to state DNR property in the foothills of the Olympics at the site where Williams had planned his aborted zip line.

    Amenities such as a restaurant could be at the DNR site, he said."

    And: “The Elwha tribe has given its full support and endorsement of the aerial tram,” he said.

    But Elwha Tribal Chairwoman Frances Charles said Friday that while tribal officials have discussed the project with Williams, they have not taken a stand.

    “We just find his proposal to be interesting, so we are just waiting as well and really have no position at this time on it,” she said.

    And: "City planner West also reserved judgment on the tram proposal until the city receives a permit application.

    If the tram's downtown terminus is built within 200 feet of the shoreline, the project would require extensive environmental review through the city and possibly the state Department of Ecology, West said Friday."

    Fantasy? Misrepresenting the situation? Why, yes. No responsible person is taking this proposal, or Dan Williams seriously.

    Except Bryan Frazier. And that is reason for concern.


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    1. EXCELLENT post, and excellent points. Either Frazier is so out of touch as to not "get" that he should post on current topics, not ones from weeks ago, or, he IS aware of that, and wants to be able to say he is "responsive" without actually responding in a way (or in a place) that more people will see. I'm not sure if he's naïve or paranoid, but either way, I find him unsettling.

      I'm voting for Mark Ozias in the primary.

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    2. I bet you are not even in that district and cannot vote for him...

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    3. Strangely, Frazier is supported by the "rebels" over at Port O Call.

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    4. Yes, I do support Brian Frazier. Mainly because he is not attached at the hip to either of the dominant parties. This is the new way forward. Forget about party affiliation and think about our future. If you are thinking about the future of the party you are not thinking about the future of the community. This ancient party tribalism is a recipe for things to remain the same for another few decades. Unaffiliated leadership has a clear path to do what is needed instead of what the party expects.

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    5. I totally agree with the party stuff, Dale. No question about that. But Bryan's support of that tram idea?

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    6. In the end, Dale, you'll be Ready For Hillary!

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    7. Party affiliation - especially in Clallam County - isn't very meaningful. But honesty and intelligence and integrity still count for a lot. That's why I'm supporting Mark Ozias over Bryan Frazier.

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    8. Ronald Reagan said something to the effect of "I'd rather vote for someone I agreed with 90% of the time than someone I disagreed with 100% of the time." Mark Ozias got y vote!

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  5. I hear they hired their own replacements.

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  6. I think we can assume that something substantial happened that would cause these instructors to leave en masse. Lets form a committee to investigate this situation along with the departure of First Fed's CEO LaVonne from several years ago (I think he was dating Cherie Kidd when Sheila Roark Miller got wind of it and threatened to blow his cover). There could be something in the water that explains all the strange and incompetent behavior in our community.

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  7. Port Angeles a ghost town again today.

    Sure, there were a few people walking around down town waiting for the ferry to Victoria. And even though they had an old car show out by the new sports bar (long distance from downtown), the place was soo quiet. Even the car show was pathetic. People driving by slowed down, but few stopped.

    On the way into Port Angeles from the eastside, I looked in parking lots and stores. It was striking. Really. No BS. It was so quiet.

    Plenty of traffic on 101, but by the time the road got to Peabody, hardly any cars, and again, most turned up Lincoln. That was around 2 pm.

    Maybe I'll go downtown tomorrow with my camera.

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    1. I've been actively avoiding downtown since they started their bi-annual "let's tear up all the streets and make life hell for traffic and stores downtown!" project, so I don't know what traffic was like downtown this weekend.

      But I was in both Safeway and Haggens this weekend and both stores were pretty busy. Starbucks had huge lines, a few folks were talking about the hikes they just did.

      But that just proves the point. There are a lot of people coming here from other areas. They stop for gas and food, then go on to their destinations. After spending the day in the wilderness they might go to PA for dinner, or they might just go home. But they're not exactly shopping downtown PA. And who can blame them? There's so much to do and see around PA. It's beautiful out there. PA isn't so much.

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  8. Sorry for the delay in getting comments posted during the last 24 hours. I just got back from an overnight in Portland, and am getting caught up...

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    1. And, it was a ghost town, too? Right?

      Because, as we're told by Revitalize groupies, all of America, including Port Angeles, continues to suffer from the Great Recession, And that the empty streets, sidewalks and storefronts are NOT because of anything the City or PADA did. It has nothing to do with the City and PADA supporting bad policies and making bad decisions. It is because of the Great Recession that is going to take a lot of work to crawl back out of. Right.

      So, CK, did you have Portland all to yourself? Was it as quiet as it was, here all weekend. And all week day.

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    2. Name dropper...

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    3. Portland was hopping. I went to see Roky Erickson, who was playing as part of some huge Pabst-sponsored, multi-day, multi-venue music festival. It was a crazy mixed crowd, young and old, with the Pabst flowing like...cheap beer. (I saw one old, old guy drinking his can of beer with a straw...)

      There was also a Timbers game last night, so there were tons of people walking around in their green jerseys. Oh, and there was also a food cart festival in the Rose Garden, across the river from where we were. I bet that was packed and great. Powell's was busier than I've ever seen it, too.

      When the show was over, we walked back to our hotel room, and stopped and got a blue corn taco from a - wait for it - food cart. It was 1:30 AM. Our room was quiet and cool, and I slept like the proverbial baby.

      Viva PDX!

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    4. A few years ago I had the good fortune to be at the 4th of July Blues Festival in Portland,on the riverfront, at the same time the food cart festival/competition was going on just outside the venue. Another world...

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    5. Oh, man...We also saw a poster for an upcoming event there. I think it's called "Pie Hard." It's all pies (dessert variety) and (pizza) pies. If it weren't on a weeknight, I'd make another trip up for that.

      And yes, food carts are great. Remember how much hassle the City of PA gave the guy who Paul Cronauer let put his ice cream cart outside the Landing Mall?

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    6. I wonder what it will take to get the local people to honestly look at how bad things really are in Port Angeles? I'm not being snarky or anything. Really. With all the traffic, hot summer weather, and every one avoiding Port Angeles like it is the "center of all known plagues", who is going to stand up and recognize it is a disaster here? Honestly, what is it going to take? More of the same is not what we need!

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    7. The city is really shooting itself in the foot with food carts. Does anyone know what happened to the Dawg Cart? Did she retire or was she forced out?

      Same with busking, only a little more surreal. For awhile busking was illegal and buskers were driven out. Now, suddenly, busing is perfectly legal and it's a complete myth that buskers were driven out. Really?

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