Sunday, July 24, 2016

Port Angeles: A No-Account Town

Let's start with a headline from today, and work backwards from that, shall we? (After all, Port Angeles is so good at working backwards.)

Attorney general declines to file perjury charge against Port Angeles deputy mayor

Yes, once again, Gavel Gertie has skated out from under a threat, however minor. Despite there being video evidence of the fact that the meeting she was chairing was, in fact, not dangerous or out of control, she has been given a free pass because she shouldn't be penalized for "expressing" her "opinion" about what happened. That's quite a free pass. To tie it in to a number of national stories, I guess it's no different than police officers being given a free pass for shooting, unarmed and/or handcuffed black men, because they felt "their lives were in danger."

Obviously for Cherie Kidd, the danger threshold is much, much lower - to match her IQ, I suppose.

In any case, once again, we have a situation in Port Angeles that clearly demonstrates that it is a community without real law and order, without consequences, without accountability.

Which brings us back to another story from the last few days. You may have seen this one under the headline: Port Angeles police investigating assault as hate crime.

To sum up: A week ago, a young black man was jumped and assaulted by a group of young white morons. The victim got a photograph of the license plate of one of the cars these cowards were in. The police have talked to the owner of the car. No arrests have been made.

Sound familiar? It should, because it has more than faint echoes of the recent fatal hit and run accident in which the car in question has been identified, found, and...Nothing has happened. No arrests have been made. And someone died in that case.

Just like someone died the first time Amber Steim hit and killed a pedestrian while (presumably) driving drunk. But she was protected by the fact that she was, at the time, sleeping with a local police officer.

No such excuse was offered when the PDN's own Paul Gottlieb also hit a pedestrian and didn't even have to take a sobriety test. (Neither did Amber Steim after her first accident.)


This is the culture that comes from the top in Clallam County. Sexist harassment and violent behavior in the County Courthouse? No accountability. Across the street in City Hall, when Yvonne Ziomkowski was subjected to sexist harassment (among other things) she was fired for simply standing up for herself. A jury of her peers later found her version of events to be more than credible. But were any of those who had insulted, bullied and belittled her ever held accountable?

Glenn Cutler spent years being a hateful, spiteful bully, making enemies, burning bridges and wasting the City's money on crackpot projects like the Turd Tank. But he was allowed to retire on his own schedule, with no scandal or accountability.

Kent Myers was such a lousy City Manager that he got spit out by the City Council. (One of the many reasons being that he passed on the State's investigative report on Karen Rogers to...Karen Rogers, thereby doubling-down on the no accountability factor, for both him and her.) But he still had plenty of hands greasing the rails running him out of town. He was allowed to leave, rather than being fired. He got a sweetheart deal on the short sale of his house. Again, no scandal, no accountability.

Like Grant Munro, who essentially stole valuable equipment from the corpse of Pen Ply - equipment that could have covered the bills the dead company owed the City, for instance. Instead, the City's utility customers had to pay for hundreds of thousands of dollars of unpaid Pen Ply bills. All Munro had to say in response was the now legendary "pound sand." No accountability.

Who has ever - ever - been held accountable for the millions fritted away in Clallam County? Did anyone's head roll over Harbor-Works? The EDC? The dead on arrival "seawall" under the Garbage Bluff? Who's ever been held accountable for allowing the Garbage Bluff to be born in the first place?

 
And on and on and on. Hundreds of people wasting their time on public comments and going to meetings. Thousands of people disappointed in their elected (non) representatives. Millions and millions of dollars wasted, gone, vanished, with not a single positive or concrete thing to show for them.

I am cutting this short now, because there are so many more examples I could reference, but you get the picture - and doubtlessly know many of the other instances yourself. The hard to dispute fact that the upper levels of government in Port Angeles and Clallam County are too often held by out and out criminals, has created a culture and community that is in many respects lawless. No oversight, no accountability, and no hope.

To say this is unsustainable is a massive understatement. To say that it is unhealthy for both individuals and the community is just a starting point. It is poisonous to hope and health and trust and success. There is a direct connection between the sexist, racist morons in City Hall and the County Courthouse and the morons who commit criminal acts on the street. The only differences are order of magnitude, and the amount of cover or deniability they have.

9 comments:

  1. Tsk, tsk. You STILL don't understand what perjury is. And I can see from Dale's diatribe today that he is still clueless too.

    Ask any judge, any lawyer, any prosecutor, any cop what eyewitness testimony is worth, and they will tell you, "Crap." Get three eyewitnesses, and you will get four stories. At least. After the fact, people can only say what they believe they saw. "Seeing is believing" is a statement of fact, not just an aphorism.

    And a statement of opinion based on an eyewitness observation is still an opinion. Opinions are not subject to perjury charges.

    You only prove perjury by the accused's own words and actions, proving that he factually knew different at the time of the event and lied about it. The jails would be overflowing with perfectly honest eyewitnesses otherwise.

    Dale hasn't related his tale of Friday's Lange hearing yet. Or, as promised, posted a copy of the AG's letter on the perjury allegation. I was hoping he'd started to get embarrassed about his track record with the local courts, and resolved to educate himself about how all this shite works. But no. I rather suspect his appeal was tossed because he didn't serve the Auditor timely notice. But if not, I am sure the judge instructed him on the limits of the court's jurisdiction.

    You guys are still in over your heads.

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    Replies
    1. Thank you Butch, say hello to Edna for me.

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    2. Right. The entire audience, the city attorney, the city manager, the city clerk, the head of public works, the head of the fire department, etc, etc , etc ALL saw what Cherie Kidd did.

      This isn't like it happened, and only a handful of people caught it out of the corner of their eyes. Cherie Kidd was the primary focus of every person in the room, speaking into a microphone. Virtually everyone in the large room was totally focused upon what she did, and said.

      Anon 9:50 embarrasses themselves, once again, in their sad attempts to support and justify the Un-American, unethical, dishonest and immoral actions taken deliberately by Cherie Kidd.

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  2. Well said, CK! You are absolutely right.

    I came to the site to comment on the EDC story. The State saying the Clallam County EDC is doing a bang-up great job, according to them.

    All year long, we've heard how they have done nothing. Now, just before the EDC is to be funded hundreds of thousands of dollars by the County, we see the press announcement proclaiming what an excellent job the EDC has done. (Did you see any ACTUAL names, or ANY specifics in that article?)

    And, the same propping up of the failed EDC in the same paper propping up Cherie Kidd, on the same day.

    Not only is there no accountability, but there is a very concerted effort to twist the facts around, by the powers-that-be. Their goal is to create the public justifications for their actions, and continuation of their policies.

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  3. The EDC adulation came in the form of an email from someone at the department of Commerce in Olympia sent to Bill Greenwood, director of the EDC. The man from Olympia was commenting ONLY on the data sent to him by the EDC. There was no independent accounting nor was there any independent audit. What he said, in flowery language is, the EDC sent out its two pretty office staff members and visited a few businesses. They did not hail any new jobs and specifically said there were no new businesses recruited to move their jobs here. In other words the EDC's only claim to fame is the Dept of Commerce received the EDC's self-promotion literature. See how easy to measure success in Port Angeles.

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  4. There is another factor at play. The people of this town are not demanding accountability. The people of this town are not involved, and seem to not believe there is any real hope. They don't bother to attend, or write, or even follow what is going on.

    We hear it often: "I don't watch the news". "It's depressing, and there is nothing I can do about any of it".

    The media has a lot of responsibility for this. The media could investigate and empower, but instead, they emphasize how nothing will be done to right wrongs, even when they are exposed. As we see with the issues CK raises in this post, there can be video evidence of the crime, with requests from the public the AG to prosecute, and nothing is done.

    The public's reaction? "See? Why bother?"

    Knowing nothing will happen, that there will be no accountability, we see people with responsibilities to the public, behaving badly.

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    Replies
    1. +1, it really is up to the people. No one else can possibly demand accountability.

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  5. Bingo! We have a winner today! Now that the piece above is up, and name-checks one sleazebag named Grant Munro, it seems that someone landed here today after searching for "grant munro port angeles." I hope they enjoyed the reading.

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  6. Here's the Wanted poster:

    http://www.clallam.org/edc-officers.html

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