Tuesday, January 26, 2016

Starve the Beast, Part II

So now the PDN is covering the movement to withhold utilities payments as a form of protest. Which is good!

However, the tenor of the coverage, at least the quotes from City staff members, is that this is no big deal. Which isn't so good.

Ah, but...If it's such a non-issue, then why is the PDN covering it? Maybe because, hmmm, it might have folks in City Hall a little more rattled that they're letting on? Cash flow, staff hassles, bad publicity - whatever you want to call it, it does exert some sort of pressure on the Fluoride Four.

In reading the article in the PDN, the thing that really jumped out at me came right at the end:

Byron Olsen said depending on how widespread the non-payment protest becomes, the cost of lost revenue could be spread out across all ratepayers regardless of their view of fluoridation.

When Peninsula Plywood went bankrupt in 2011, the hundreds of thousands of dollars its owners owed the City inutility costs were covered by City ratepayers forced to bear the brunt of the unpaid bills.

Now, RATHER OBVIOUSLY, the City is trying to scare people into A) Paying their bills, or B) Worrying that they'll have to pay someone else's bills - so as to put pressure back on the anti-fluoride folks.

But, you know what? All I really see is a desperate City Council that is so stupid as to use one of their own colossal and costly blunders as a cautionary tale. It was the City Council (minus Max Mania, who raised concerns early and often) that allowed Pen Ply to run up such a huge delinquent bill. It was the City Council (minus Max Mania, who voted against it) who chose to devote staff time and City resources to getting more grant money for Pen Ply without having them pay their bills as part of the deal. It was the City Council that created that situation. It was the City Council who decided to spread Pen Ply's debt out over the citizens of Port Angeles.

Just like it is the City Council who have created the furor over fluoride. It was the City Council who sent out the survey. It was the City Council that ignored the results. It was the City Council who brushed off compromises and alternative approaches. It was the City Council who ignored staff's recommendation to resolve the issue.

In other words, by bringing up Pen Ply, all the Council has done is reminded the people that, oh yeah, they have one more reason not to trust and to be pissed off. As strategy, it's pretty moronic.

But then again, let's look who we're talking about.



22 comments:

  1. Proving once again (as if that were necessary) that the city is most inept when trying to deny its own ineptness.

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  2. When you have a monopoly controlling peoples electricity and water you have the ability to be a bully and simply snub those who oppose you....after all, what are you going to do about it. Reminds me of Grant Munro's "go pound sand". Only in reverse.
    This attitude from the city is the same from the county and the state employees. They have the power and you have the right to stay in line or else.

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  3. Sure seems like this wouldn't even pop up on the PDN's radar unless the city said something to them. So one has to ask why the city would that. Fear would seem to be a logical answer.

    When will they stop fighting the people they are supposed to be serving?

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    1. Just like today's big "oh look at our major projects" the majority of which cited -- are city projects. And, I find it hard to believe that swapping the old liquor store to a vet clinic cost $500,000.

      Meanwhile, yeah, McD's re-build. Ohh, big "major project".

      When was the last time an office building or a new retail space, or a new hotel/motel was built here?

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    2. I saw that, and had the same reaction.

      We know that it is only these government money infusions that keep this place afloat.

      Another way to look at it might be: What would this place look like, using Nathan's Numbers, without the government money projects? If "the private sector can do it better", than how come there is virtually nothing going on here, except government money projects?

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  4. Yep, CK. Once again, you point out the truth and reality so obvious, but it goes unseen by the City.

    All this turmoil in the City is the result of those four council members.

    Businesses are fear-ful of "blow back". Residents are going to all kinds of efforts to open separate bank accounts and with hold payments. Hundreds are taking time to go to council meeting to express their discontent. The issues are in the local papers, and, if this keeps up, will soon be on the I-5 area media.

    Council meetings are now absorbed by hundreds attending, and hours and hours of public comment. At the last meeting, the council couldn't start with "regular city business" until well after 10 pm. The meeting started at 6.

    All this for what? So Cherie Kidd can go back on her word? So that the four can assert some kind of childish ego based "control" over the people they sought votes from?

    This isn't helping anyone. The four are so lost in their egos as to not see they are supposed to be thinking about the good of the city, not themselves.

    As CK says correctly, the people have lost confidence and trust in these four. That is abundantly clear. Things are getting worse by the day. The group wanting to change to whole way the city runs is out gathering signatures, now. Why? Because of these four council members.

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    1. People need to keep coming OUT to the council meetings. Next one is on GroundHog Day (Feb 2).

      Be there or be square.

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  5. There's an old expression: "The more you struggle, the worse it will be."

    Maybe someone ought to pass that along to the Fluoride Four? Because it sure seems like they are wasting a whole lot of time and money to struggle against their own survey results, their own staff recommendation, and their own citizens. I have to wonder why. Why such a struggle over this issue?

    I've never been one to see a conspiracy behind every political battle. But this one has got me wondering. Is there some source of funds or pressure that the Fluoride Four are responding to? Would that explain their unwillingness to bend, or even to listen?

    The people have spoken. As our elected representatives, they're supposed to respond. Instead, they're telling us no, and to sit down and shut up. It's bizarre. Pat Downie insisting that he won't discuss this issue until the other side stops talking about it. Well, if they do that, Mister Mayor, then it's not a discussion, is it?

    Yet another embarrassment to add to the many we have suffered through here in Port Angeles.

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    1. You never heard the term "Foller the Dollar"?????

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  6. Let's not forget in all of this that the bright, shiny, new waterline to the Nippon plant that the city put in (and paid for) doesn't carry fluoridated water. Let's remember those who have predicted that Nippon is planning to close the mill and sell their water rights. Let's not forget Cutler's Turd Tank. When it comes to water, the city is either crooked, stupid, or both. They can't get anything right, and spend lots of our tax dollars in doing so.

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    1. If they are closing the plant, why is there a meeting at 5:30pm tonight in the Comissioners meeting room to raise their pollution permit limits?

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    2. The plan is to wait until they can get the $11 million plus dollars that the National Park Service set aside for them, then mothball what is clearly an outdated, out of time mill, and either A) Try to continue as just a power plant, which seems unlikely, or B) Sell their transferable water rights, which are HUGELY valuable, and transition the mill to a water bottling plant (and possibly power plant). That's the shorthand version.

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    3. My bet is that the tribe will buy the water rights with federal funds for salmon restoration-if the economy hasn't crashed again.

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  7. somehow I think that the CFO, Mr. Olsen, knows that by mentioning PenPly he is rattling the hornets nest.
    He's a smart man. And, I must assume, he is appalled by the "fiscal" garbage that has taken place, historically, in this incestuous cesspool of a town.

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  8. Now that Hallett has stepped down as Port Commissioner, will Cherie try for that position?
    And,then if she leaves the council, who will replace her?

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  9. At last meeting Cherie blabs about how she cares about community. Then doesn't even know homeless center has been closed for four months as she "educates" homeless speaker. Homeless in chambers inform her that center has been closed for months: (video) https://youtu.be/1E79sVpYnrQ?t=5918

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    1. Yes, the center from Salvation Army that (according to Cherie's liberally sprinkled with bullshit city bio) she is on the board of. How can one be on the board of the Salvation Army and have no clue what is or is not open?
      Between that bit of nonsense on the bio and the "fact" that the UBI for her hubby's business is ONLY in his name, and that there has never been any indication of a UBI for her "successful speakers" (and no remnant of it online, anywhere, nor of any "national speaking" events). I'd say, she must either live in a very, very rich fantasy world, or she makes this shit up.
      Plus, her working for a "fortune 500 company" was not at an executive level, but at a clerical one.

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  10. Signs will be going up in public places by the end of the week.

    No going back.

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  11. Oh please, no. Watch the council try and appoint Orville Campbell, or worse,Karen Rogers.

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    1. You really think Lee, Sissi and Mike Merideth would appoint Rogers or Campbell?

      That after months of the uproar that is going on, ANY council member thinks they could revert to exactly what the people just threw out???

      Really? What planet are you on? The "Let's keep everything just as it is" cesspool?

      Sorry, we're not going back.

      You and the others need to really get this: There is no choice. We're not settling for the status quo. You and Downie can try and frame the issues to scare people into accepting their arrogance and bullying, but the momentum for change has been set in motion by "The Four".

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    2. Contrary to what the advocates of this precautionary principle movement claim, this principle does not provide a particularly useful, let alone prudent, guide to developing or implementing environmental and public health measures. Taken literally, it does not even provide much guidance at all. Harvard law professor Cass Sunstein, who currently serves as administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Obama administration, is particularly harsh in assessing the precautionary principle. According to Sunstein, “The precautionary principle, for all its rhetorical appeal, is deeply incoherent. It is of course true that we should take precautions against some speculative dangers. But there are always risks on both sides of a decision; inaction can bring danger, but so can action. Precautions, in other words, themselves create risks—and hence the principle bans what it simultaneously requires.”5

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