Wednesday, February 10, 2016

It's Only Stealing AKA City Light Slush Fund Follies

If you've followed the recent articles in the PDN about the investigation of the City's electric utility, well then, you already know that the State Patrol was, well, investigating the City's electric utility. It turns out that employees in that division have been engaging in unethical (and I would argue illegal) activities on the City's dime and time - for years. As in, many, many years.

There were a number of very interesting findings in the final report, such as that City employees have been taking home tools owned by the City for their own personal use. Such as that that City employees, on the clock, mind you, have been taking (and burning!) old power poles that were supposed to go to the landfill. (Anything to help the local air quality, right?)

Furthermore, said City employees also were taking and recycling spent fuses that were supposed to be thrown away. The proceeds from said sales were kept in a bank account - an account that the bank had listed as, I'm not kidding, the "City Light Slush Fund" - and were used to pay for things like "extravagant barbecue events" attended by upper management. You know, the people who are supposed to be watching over those working below them. But I guess in Port Angeles the only checks and balances were the checks written to pay for the catering.

Food just tastes better when it's paid for
with Other People's Money.

Again, this has been going on for a long, long time. (The "City Light Slush Fund" account dated to 1995!) And yet, no one said a thing, no one had any problem with all this pilfering and misuse of the City's time and materials, until Corey Delikat raised the issue in April of last year. Now, good for Corey for doing that, right? But he's worked for the City for 10 years. This has gone on for at least 20 years. No need to hurry, right?

This is the kind of lax, entitled atmosphere that permeates City Hall. This is the kind of do as we say not as we do attitude that manifests itself in things like the behavior of the Fluoride Four. (Critical public commenters are "rude"; Gavel Gertie interrupting them and gaveling them down is just "keeping order.") Slipshod, rule-averse thinking like this results in compromised ethics, public and private lies, mistrust, dysfunction and a whole host of pathological outcomes. How does a small city like Port Angeles end up in such bad shape, with so much debt, with so little to show for it? Because much of the decision-making and priority-setting has been, to be kind, a con. The guiding principle for a long, long time has been so long as a few well-placed people get their pockets lined, then everything is fine.

So really, the entire City has been a sort of Slush Fund. For Karen Rogers. For Glenn Cutler. For whoever came along and was selfish enough and ruthless enough to go there. And the whole semi-criminal enterprise has been very much aided and abetted by the compliant local (non) press.

But you know what? I think it's entirely possible that people have had enough of this. So keep the pressure on, and let's see how many rats flee from City Hall.

74 comments:

  1. How do you grow good food from toxic soil?

    How do staff members rise to new heights when the standards set by their superiors are so low?

    How do good priorities and policies come out of a City Council that has been so compromised by years of skewed staff reports and fact-free decisions?

    How do citizens trust city hall after decades of all the above and more?

    And yet the Fluoride Four seem puzzled by the anger and upset among the people they are supposedly there to serve.

    So the sick circle remains unbroken, at least for now.

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  2. Obstruction of Justice is a crime. Lying to a police officer is Obstruction of Justice. Mr. Bloor, grow some gonads and do your job--unlike you did when Karen Rogers was in the dock.

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    1. As you likely know, Mr. Bloor may look gonad-like, but does not, in fact, possess these courage-producing man parts. Thus, his utter lack of courage in the face of, well, pretty much everything.

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  3. I wonder if the report puts any sort of dollar amount for the total amount of time, labor, tool use, materials stolen and sold, etc.? That would be a very interesting number to contemplate.

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  4. Reading through the WSP report, I was struck be how many employees of the city, from the top down, were found to be so dishonest.

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    Replies
    1. ..but..but, but, buttt..they were honest about naming it the SLUSH FUND....they weren't hiding anything. Honest.

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    2. Can you share a link?

      Neither PDN article has a link to the report even though the first one mentions them "obtaining" it. Why is it so hard to access this information? Not being transparent like this is why the citizens are getting so upset at both government and media.

      I find the lack of any dollar amounts at all in the articles to be especially disturbing, along with the pollution of burning toxic treated wood. Not to mention the city continuing to raise utility rates while throwing away potential income in the form of recyclables.

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    3. check out the port o call website,he published the fourteen page report last week. well before pdn even mentioned it.

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    4. The 14 page "summary" of the WSP report has been on the Port O Call website for a few days now.

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    5. Buried on the 2nd page of a slow website: http://portocallpublishing.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/WSP-Port-Angeles-City-Lights-Investigation.pdf

      Thanks Dale, it is well worth the time to read.

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  5. This may be fairly small potatoes, but...How many more stories like this will be coming out of city hall? How much clearer could it be that things are totally rotten there? Getting rid of the Fluoride Four won't solve everything, but it sure would be a good start on some much needed housecleaning.

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  6. The poles that were taken would have cost the city $180 a ton to dispose of. Same with the fuses. The poles were transported in private vehicles and the fuses recycled on private time. Questionable behavior? Yes. But not illegal according to two separate law enforcement agencies. How much more city time and money needs to be wasted on this?

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    1. If you really are a "former city worker," and if you really think that it's a "waste of time and money" to properly manage your employees, and have them behave in an honest and ethical fashion, well...What more can I say? You may have some biases that are preventing you from seeing how bad this looks.

      On a related note...Those phone poles were taken and burned by City employees, right? So let's ponder this, courtesy of Wikipedia:

      "Some chemicals used to preserve wood poles including creosote and pentachlorophenol are toxic and are classified as likely human carcinogens."

      So maybe there was a good reason to take them to the dump, eh? Maybe it wasn't such hot (ha ha) material to burn for your family's warmth, eh?

      In other words, taking them was just plain wrong; burning them was just plain stupid.

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    2. and they burned the old power poles? YUCK. Wood treated with creosote is extremely toxic when burned. Probably lowers IQ, too.

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    3. Former City Worker: inhaling the smoke from these old poles can increase your cancer rate (lung, scrotal, prostrate, and other), cause skin problems in children, and the coal tar lingers for a long long time.
      This is a real, live case of "penny wise, pound foolish". $180 a ton is cheap compared to the long term effects burning them.
      How dumb are you guys? Have your scrotal sack checked lately? YOU SHOULD.

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    4. Telephone poles transported in personal vehicles?!? Really?!? Do city utility employees moonlight as freelance log truck drivers for Grant Munro or Hermann Brothers?
      Or, maybe they just used city chain saws to cut the poles to manageable size on site, and then threw the firewood into their pickup trucks?

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    5. Those poles are worth up to $100 apiece to contractors, landscapers, pole barn builders and so on. No one burned them. They would create a creosote fire in the chimney if they burned even one whole pole. The report said they took home "equipment" this could be anything from a screwdriver to a backhoe. The investigator was not trying to create a problem but tried to smooth things over as best they could. They keep saying they found no "criminal activity." Lying to a law enforcement officer is called "Obstruction of Justice." That is a crime in Washington. This is just the tip of the iceberg. More and more stories will tumble out of this investigation. Notice how Bloor passed this off to his assistant. He doesn't want to be on the jacket when the fit hits the shan.

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    6. Thank you Mr. Cutler.

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    7. If the fuses had a recycled metal or scrap value, why is it the City's policy to simply throw them away? Clearly the used fuses are worth something, otherwise no "slush fund" could have been created.
      How unfortunate that the Public Works Department failed to realize that they had a duty to return the residual value of the spent fuses to the city to offset the budget line-item for buying new fuses.
      It also occurs to me that maybe the Public Works Department was replacing more utility poles and "used" fuses than necessary. It would be interesting to investigate the rate of fuse and pole replacement in Port Angeles compared to the rate for other public or private utilities.

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    8. Comparing rates of these things would be interesting, but labor intensive. Still, it would be interesting...You get a hankering for some BBQ, and maybe a few more fuses start looking bad to you...

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  7. In the city's response they make no mention of the many man-hours lost within this maze of deception and indiscretion. People we are paying exorbitant amounts of money are spending their work-time recycling fuses. Do you know how long it takes to separate a fuse and collect the copper? That 85 cents he may have made cost the taxpayers $85. And that is just one fuse. Fuse is the operable word. This ignominious insult upon the taxpayers lit another fuse. This one tied to civic ordinance that will rock the roots of this town off its equilibrium. When this type culture encapsulates an organization there is only one things to do--remove the the snake.

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  8. I love the natural environment on the Peninsula, but this city is a backwater sh**hole. An adversarial city council and you can legally brand your child here. Put that on the "Welcome to Port Angeles" stump.

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  9. First of all, let's not forget that wonderful, ever so enlightening video of the Infamous City Council Meeting (Gavel Gertie Rides Again!), which can be found at:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKOKjLqhBsM

    It's up to over 600 views now. What were the margins of victory in any of the last City Council elections? Not over 600 votes, I daresay.

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  10. Secondly, let's not forget that comments are still coming in on the latest earlier topics, so you may want to check those for the duration. Obviously, this is a busy, active time in Port Angeles, and people are sharing a lot of ideas and information that is relevant, and it's impossible to keep it all collected on just one topic.

    Related to that, never forget that no detail is too small to share, and this is a forum for exchanging information and viewpoints, so feel free to participate with whatever you've got.

    And related to that, make no mistake about it: This blog is read by people inside City Hall.

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  11. I have the original Was. State Patrol report, and cannot figure out how to make it available for people here to read.

    Look folks. This is not simply about burning telephone poles, or taking city equipment home. This is about city employees getting caught lying straight faced to the detectives. About top management being in on the scams, and doing what they could to cover up the wrong doings. About city employees complaining about the ongoing, years of a culture of dishonesty and dysfunction within the City.

    All the cover ups are unraveling. Well, maybe not all.

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    Replies
    1. You can view the 14 page original report on portocallpublishing.com
      It was posted on Feb 2nd under the title article

      Washington State Patrol Investigative Report

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    2. Is it possible to add a document upload feature for the site? Do you have the terabytes? LOL

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    3. Is anyone else having difficulty finding the report on the Port of Call site? I've tried everything but can only pull up a summary article, not the report.
      I'd sure like to read the report!

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    4. I also could only see the summary report, not a link to the actual report. If it's there, it sure isn't obvious or easy to spot.

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    5. EVERY time I try to go to the POC website, it takes FOREVER for it to load. I mean, really slow. What's the deal?

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    6. Here is the link to the report itself:


      http://portocallpublishing.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/WSP-Port-Angeles-City-Lights-Investigation.pdf

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    7. In response to an earlier comment about a document upload feature...Uh, no. But I share your chuckle over how many documents that would entail. Lots of evidence, enough to document almost anything...Or to obscure pretty much everything.

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    8. Port O Call apologizes for the slow loading speeds. The site has been swamped of late as we are getting quite a number of visitors. We're working on it. Evenso, it's worth the wait.

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  12. The PA Public Works Dept. budget has been a slush source for years. Yes, it takes time to research whether all of the purchases for "small tools" or "supplies" made from local businesses during employee work hours were for legitimate city needs. But the examination of even a few bi-weekly expense report line items (approved by the Council as part of its "Consent Calendar") will raise eyebrows.
    Where is Yvonne Ziomkowski these days? I suspect that she could tell the public a lot about questionable expenditures and the suspiciously corrupt culture perpetuated by a certain former Department Head.

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    1. The last I heard was that Yvonne's case was finally supposed to come to trial...Only then it didn't. I don't know the status currently, but yes, she could tell us many things, I am sure. That's why she had to be tarred, fired, and charged with doing exactly the same thing that, say, the City Manager did. The. Exact. Same. Thing. So now she has to give us a court imposed silent treatment - until after her case is settled.

      Go back to start, and repeat as necessary...

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    2. I have tried to find her. You'd THINK with such an unusual name she would be a snap to find on the internet. Does she have a different married name, or something?

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  13. I've heard Pat Downie has been hospitalized. Has any one heard anything about that?

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    Replies
    1. can we pin it on Kidd?

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    2. Anyone??? It's easy enough to believe, but is it actually true?

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    3. Preparations are being made for him to lie in state at the city hall.

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    4. A sick, dying old man "leading" a sick, dying old town. Perfect, isn't it?

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    5. Ah, but there's already been so much LYING in City Hall. Still, I guess a little more won't make a difference...

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    6. I haven't been to PA in many, many months, so I was surprised to see the construction going on at the McDonald's site - especially some large, below ground structure.

      I'm guessing this is to be Pat Downie's underground tomb.

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    7. The manager said to me that McDonald's franchise contracts mandate a tear-down & rebuild of the stores at least every 40 years, and this was an old building. Nothing more. No underground crypt either. LOL

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  14. And the video keeps chugging along, with over 650 views now...

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKOKjLqhBsM

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  15. Did Commissioner Jim McEntire secretly work against schools for kids? See the proof here http://sequimbondfacts.org/2016/02/12/was-jim-mcintire-involved-in-the-anti-bond-truthers-conspiracy/

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  16. Speaking of "Slush Funds", it is interesting to see how the low level employees get investigated for recycling stuff and using the money for city/employee snacks, but the real corruption at City Hall goes unreported or investigated.

    Power poles that should have gone to landfill? How about the major taxpayer funded scam that has involved the landfill itself? The tens of millions spent.

    We remember the City dragging it's feet about doing anything about the garbage that was falling into the Strait, and littering the beaches for hundreds of yards. Contamination? Who cares.

    Until the Dept of Ecology forced the City to clean up the mess. Oh so green be Port Angeles. ( Remember, the City did exactly the same thing about the raw sewage being dumped into the Strait every time it rained, too: fight against doing anything.)

    The City hires a consultant, who builds a retaining wall without required permits in areas it isn't supposed to, and gets busted doing so by the Feds. City, overseeing the project, just shrugs. Laws? We just apply them as we want to. Selective enforcement.

    In building the first "Landfill fix", the City accepted the bid from the company that moved the garbage back 30 feet from the waters edge for $1 million. They had to excavate the stuff back, in order to have room to build the retaining wall. And, they graded the new slope to accepted standards.

    All fine and good, except the brain trust at the City (or, maybe not so dumb?) wouldn't acknowledge the waves would continue to eat away at the slopes on either side of the new retaining wall. (They were told this would happen). And they did. And the garbage started falling into the Strait again only a few years after the first project was finished.

    The City jumps right on spending more taxpayer money on this same problem. But this time, it is different. They seemed to learn how to turn a "problem" into an "opportunity"! The CSO project, which the City originally fought against, showed them there was a LOT of money to be made on these projects.

    The first consultant and construction company was able to excavate and remove the 600 foot long 100 foot (?) high wall of garbage for $1 million. The second project, only a few years later, in the same location, handling the same materials cost tens of millions.

    Oh! They found asbestos. Unexpectedly, we're told. And that raised the project costs by millions more. Where did the asbestos come from? From when the former Rayonier mill was dismantled in 1997. You know, way back when, before anybody knew asbestos was a hazardous material ?? You know, when Rayonier was just doing what ever it wanted, because, what? Nobody was watching what was going on?

    So, all this asbestos was allowed to be dumped at the city landfill, instead of being trucked to an approved hazardous materials facility. And nobody knew?

    Power poles and fuses? The public has been screwed over by the culture of deceit and deception that the WSP investigation only touched upon. And those many, many millions of taxpayer's money? You know it wasn't put in a pile and burned at the landfill!

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    1. And have we discussed the other pipeline (not the Nippon water line) and the other dump? The one that's a site where Nippon used to haul and dump their chemical wastes? The one that's now leaking and leeching toxic wastes? Have we discussed that one?

      Sorry...Anyway, you comments are great, and right on target. One could almost be tempted to think of these mini-scandals as being sort of like a magician's sleight of hand tricks and misdirection. Get people focused on them, while missing the larger and more outrageous scandal...just...over...here.

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    2. That is to say, "your comments." Sorry!

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    3. Oh, the list is long, if one wants to examine what goes on in our little piece of hell.

      Selective enforcement. If someone really looked into what the city selectively enforces, and what it doesn't, that would also be a long list.

      Or, the ways in which the City gets scammed by the contractors it hires to do these multi-million dollar projects.

      Or, how these projects become multi-million dollar, in the first place.

      It is no wonder that low level employees engage in petty "crimes", when they see the scale of what is going on around them.

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  17. There was a lovely, hateful letter to the editor today from one of the potential members of the ethics review board, Bill Yucha: http://imgur.com/6O2aHf1

    I'm taking the time to retype it here because this kind of shit cannot be tolerated in our community:

    "Transgender kids"
    I sometimes wonder about the common sense of America.

    "We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it..." (thinking of what U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi said regarding Obamacare).

    Here's another one that makes me wonder: Under the state's antidiscrimination law, sexual orientation is a protected class, like race, which includes "gender expression" or identity.

    Now I ask myself just: What is gender expression or identity?

    This is the answer I found: "Gender identity is a person's deeply felt internal sense of being male or female, regardless of their sex assigned at birth."

    You find that on Page 28 of "Prohibiting Discrimination in Washington Public Schools: Guidelines for School Districts to Implement Chapters 28A.640 and 28A.642 RCW and Chapter 392-190 WAC."

    So am I understanding this right?

    We made a "protected class" based on how a person feels?

    So that a biological boy who feels like a girl gets to destroy all the girls' privacy and threaten their safety by showering with them?

    Would a biological girl who feels like a boy even be safe in the boys' locker room and shower, considering teenage hormones?

    I understand race as a protected class.

    You really have no control over that.

    But a protected class based on feeling?

    Now that's crazy.

    One more thing that is: crazy: If you don't speak out against it, your children suffer, and your silence is taken agreement.

    Bill Yucha, Port Angeles

    ---

    Bill is absolutely right: if you don't speak out against his kind of hate then your silence is taken as agreement.

    PS - Check out the other letter from the retired LA cop John Malone supporting the sign ban because people will turn them into weapons.

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    1. Wow! Thanks for sharing Mr. Yucca's "ethical" point of view with us! So nice to see that someone who might be set up to sit in judgment over a City Council member is, indeed, so very judgmental. (Or is it just mental?)

      But you know...Somehow, I'm FEELING that Mr. Yucca wouldn't have any problems with another generally protected class/status that is based entirely on FEELING. Because, if someone says they are FEELING like Jesus Christ is their savior, then I'm guessing Mr. Yucca would agree that they should be protected from having that FEELING used as a basis for discriminating against them.

      Unless they are going to turn their Bible into a weapon, apparently...Wacky!

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    2. Just saw Mr. Yucha's old 2013 ethics pool application, it's part of the agenda package for next Tuesday's meeting.
      He said: "I feel I'm an unbiased person with a strong moral compass."

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    3. Unbiased, but not without a sense of irony.

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    4. That's funny, there's not been a hint of violence at the council meetings. Words are the only weapons being flashed about and they have been lethal (and pretty funny.)

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    5. Yes, but the truth and reality of what is actually going on hasn't stopped the council, their supporters and the PDN from trying to stop legitimate protest of what they're doing.

      The whole thing has been twisted all over the place. Cherie and Downie said they were being insulted and treated rudely. The video of the meeting shows the only people being insulted and treated rudely are the public!

      So, who are they trying to silence?

      Of course.

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  18. It's just too late for the F4. Nothing they can do at this point can redeem themselves, either with the fluoride crap, or the theft of public tax dollars.
    They don't know (or ignore) the purposes of government, and don't have the moral compass to step down.

    CK, it may be premature, but how about opening a new thread at some future point, allowing those who are even thinking of running for council, to tell us all what they would do if they were on the council? That'd be a "step" in the right direction, eh?

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    Replies
    1. I would open such a thread if people here - in this very discussion - simply chime in that they would (in either an anonymous or otherwise fashion) avail themselves of such a thing.

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    2. How about a thread where knowledgable readers could list fraud, waste and corruption involving taxpayer money. Real stuff and not just the usual gripes. Tell about people stealing from the taxpayers. Give undeniable proof. This is an ideal spot because they can report anonymously and maybe, just maybe someone will follow up and press the issues. The climate is right to stop the insanity that passes for governance.

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    3. I'll contribute. Busy for the next say or so, but I'll write up a few examples.

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  19. Readers of this blog and taxpayers who care about public expenditures should make it a habit to go to the City of PA web site before every council meeting and review the many pages of itemized expenditures made by the city in the previous two weeks. It can be found in the pre-meeting packet posted here: https://wa-portangeles.civicplus.com/583/Meetings-Agendas
    A quick review of the 2/16/2016 meeting's expenditure list raised my eyebrows, for sure. Not surprisingly, many questionable expenditures where made by various divisions of the Dept. of Public Works. A few:
    Cascadia Law Group: $57,338 (total of several bills)
    Vanir Consulting: $70,200 (a long-time recipient of lots of taxpayer $$$$, dating from the Cutler days)
    Herrera Environmental Consulting: Many invoices spread across several sub-accounts. Aren't these the same consultants who recommended the first land-fill fix fiasco?
    Sunset Do-It Best Hardware: Dozens of smaller invoices from various sub-accounts. Can't the Department plan ahead and bulk order the small tools, small fittings, small plumbing pieces, etc. that should be reasonably anticipated ahead of time instead of paying retail and wasting employee time going to the hardware store?
    Do individual council members ever pause to read this stuff and ask questions? Otherwise these questionably wasteful expenditures simply get approved on the "consent calendar" with no discussion.

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    1. The Devil is in the details, and, as this commenter has rightfully pointed out, these expenditure reports clearly show the outline of one scam in City Hall. As I said earlier, the materials are there to prove pretty much anything, but there are SO MANY materials and details, that they can be used to pretty much obscure everything.

      And it's especially easy to obscure things so that lazy City Council members aren't bothered by uncomfortable details.

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  20. Revitalize PA is making a B-I-G D-E-A-L out of the signs on Oak and Front Streets being in Both English and in Klallam.

    A B-I-G D-E-A-L.

    Personally, I think its a waste of money. Obviously I'm a racist.

    Your thoughts?

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    Replies
    1. Revitalize Port Angeles still exists?

      Why?

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  21. I think it's about time..how much does it cost to show a little respect to the people who were here first? In Europe, towns, cities and entire countries pay homage to those who first settled an area--and tourists travel by the millions to learn about those ancient civilizations and cultures. Why is it so different in America? We need to get off our lily white asses and have a look around.

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    1. Personally I don't like the spending of precious tax dollars to rename streets, esp. with expensive bronze signs made by someone's relative (ala Federal Way & others), but "Tse-whit-zen Way" instead of Marine Drive sure sounds appealing.

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  22. Random question for a real scientist-what is the difference between the OLYMPEX weather satellite calibration project's electromagnetic radiation and aviation noise from their 3 types of aircraft that has taken place in Olympic National Park and the EMR and plane noise proposed by the Navy in the vicinity of ONP?

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    1. Are you serious? You really are trying to equate weapons systems testing with civilian aircraft flying at 30,000 feet?

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    2. No, that's not what I am pondering or equating. I want to know why the electromagnetic radiation of the OLYMPEX project was of no environmental concern and why the aviation noise of the OLYMPEX project(from a modified military plane, a DC10 and a Citation flying grid and vertical spirals) inside the park are exempt from public scrutiny and alarm.

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    3. For the rest of us to get up to speed about what we are supposed to be concerned about, here is the link to the NASA site: http://pmm.nasa.gov/OLYMPEX

      The program to help calibrate precipitation measuring devices started in Nov (2015), and is ending this month (Feb 2016).

      Now, the OP does raise an issue of concern, in as much the precipitation measuring devices send the latest rainfall data to satellites, and the information is relayed to scientists for evaluation. People don't seem to understand the amount and scale to which we have been bombarded by " man made radiation" for decades. And it is only getting worse, with the advent of wireless devices broadcasting information by the billions, every day, all around us.

      Hundreds (if not thousands) of satellites now circle the earth, relaying information, and probing the surface in all manner of ways. Turn the dial on your radio from one side to the other to see all the stations emitting signals, all at the same time, across their spectrum. Hundreds of TV channels are now beamed up to Dish, Direct TV, etc, and beamed back down to cover virtually every surface of the occupied planet.

      Governments of various countries, and particularly the US, have spy satellites to monitor other countries activities with such detail, they say they can read your cars' licence plate from space. Monitor your every phone call, tweet and email.

      So, what are we going to be alarmed about, here, now?

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    4. For the record, I am very much in agreement in being concerned about the amount of radiation, radio waves, etc. we are bombarded with from numerous sources 24/7.

      But, this is so far off-topic...I am asking that this be the end of this sidebar conversation here. I'm sure there are more appropriate forums. Or there should be, anyway.

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