The headline, appropriately enough, from the local fish wrapper:
Port Angeles City Council slams cut in fishing; says limited season hurts economy
When you can't win, whine. It is one thing the Port Angeles City Council is good at. "Oh! Poor pitiful us! Darn you, (insert other governing body here)!"
Can you believe that the Port Angeles City Council voted unanimously to whine to the state about the limits put on the halibut fishing season? Can you believe that even they are that shameless? That clueless? That stoopid?
Let me explain the whole conservation thing to you, okay Council members? I'm sorry that this will have to include numbers, because I know they make your widdle bitty heads hurt, but...Anyway, here goes.
Imagine that you have a savings account at the bank that has $1,000 in it. Wow! You're rich! Life is good! So, living the good life, every single week day you go to the bank and withdraw $25 to spend at...Well, someplace in Sequim or Poulsbo, okay? Okay.
Now, that means that every week, you're withdrawing $125 from the bank. Right? Still with me? Life is good, because you've got cash to spend every blessed week day. Glory, glory hallelujah!
Okay, now let's say that you're also working and making fairly typical Port Angeles wages, so every week you deposit $100 in this savings account. Jeepers, I mean, you're really socking it away, right?
Except that...Uh oh! The reality is that, over time, you're taking more money out than you're putting in. Which means that, unless some sort of drastic steps are taken, unless some sort of change is made, some day your savings account will click over into the negative column. As in, red ink. No more money, honey.
Now, and this is the hard part, I need you to do two things: Replace the word "bank" with "big water place," and replace the word "money" with the word "fish," and you'll see why there have to be limits - very strict, limited limits - on the number of fish people take out of the big water place. Because, if you don't limit it, then, soon enough, there will be no more fish at all to take. Sorry to shout, but, IS THAT REALLY SO HARD FOR YOU MORONS TO UNDERSTAND?
Like I said, even by Port Angeles standards, this is clueless, stupid and pathetic. Which is to say, fairly typical.
Heck of a job, Sissi!
You left out my favorite part, which is that the limited season is (somehow) dangerous. Huh? They actually raise the "threat" that someone could DIE because they...Well, it's not clear why actually. Could the council look any more foolish? Whoever gets that letter is going to laugh their ass off.
ReplyDeleteIncredible!!!
ReplyDeleteI don't patronize the PDN, so I had not heard this latest embarrassment. Do these people have ANY brains at all? Do they care about things like "extinction"? How about our children's very survival? Do they think that that people can survive on this planet without the interconnected web of other life?
Obviously, these pathetic council members think immediate financial gain is more important than planning ahead.
Do we need to see what has happened in situations like this, before? How about looking to the communities on the east coast that relied on the cod fishery. They were warned for decades about overfishing, but they too argued against conservation efforts, and that fishery collapsed.
Too far away? How about the west coast, and all the canneries that once provided jobs up and down the coast, only a few decades ago. Where are they now? All closed, because people were more concerned about making money "today", than having a job in the future.
As some may have noticed, the US Secretary of Commerce declared "fisheries disasters" a few weeks ago, for the states of California, Washington and Alaska.
I guess the local buffoons didn't notice that, either.
NO WONDER the city budget is so saddled with debt, these cretins clearly don't understand even basic economics, whether you're using dollars or fish.
ReplyDeleteThey are so effing embarrassing.
Welcome back, CK, and aren't you glad you got out?
Oh yeah. I am SO glad I got out. My local elected officials aren't perfect by any stretch, but they don't do things that are so HEAD-SPLITINGLY STUPID anywhere near as often as Mayor Downie's Dowagers do. "We want the governor to mandate that there be MORE FISH IN THE OCEANS! Now!!!"
DeleteThe mind, pardon the expression, reels...
ReplyDelete"Tuesday’s vote was spearheaded by Deputy Mayor Cherie Kidd and Councilman Lee Whetham, who were part of an ad hoc community group that provided input on the resolution."
And this gem:
“A three-day season is unsafe as lives and property have been and may be lost when someone makes a wrong decision to go out in bad weather because that is the only time they can legally fish during the year.” So, no limits should be in place, because some moron is going to kill themselves trying to catch a fish during bad weather?
Another :
"The current season “is undermining an important part of our tourism here in Port Angeles,” Kidd said at Tuesday’s meeting."
“We need to let our legislators and Fish and Wildlife know that just three days is an economic disaster and is unacceptable,” she said Wednesday."
Sigh.
Can't you just see it on the death certificate? Cause of death: Went fishin'.
DeleteApply this example of how the leadership of Port Angeles is dealing with managing resources for the future, and you see clearly why Port Angeles is in the trouble it is in, and why it can't do anything right.
ReplyDeleteTaxing it's residents to the limits? Fish the oceans to extinction? What's the difference.
And Sissi? Following in that long tradition, go along to get along.
ReplyDeleteIt shows that just electing "good people" isn't enough.
As has been said before: "Is there something in the water around here?"
What ever that is, we know it isn't fish!
The stupidity on display is quite stunning, even for our city council. Short-sighted, cowardly, counterproductive, embarrassing...How many descriptors like this can one council bear? So stupid! Sissi Bruch voted for it, but seems to think she wasn't. Lee Whetham not only voted for it, it was his idea. Michael Meredith went along to get along. Max Mania would certainly have stood up and called stupid on this, but no one else on the council since he left seems to be able to clearly and plainly state that THE EMPEROR HAS NO CLOTHES consistently. I used to mostly support people like Sissi, Lee, and Michael. Now I mostly just wish they'd go away. It is so incredibly depressing.
DeleteI agree, Anon 6:25 It is just so incredibly depressing.
DeleteYes, there were a dozen or so fishermen in the audience. That is what we know as "Special Interest Group". But I just can't believe that these council members think they know more than the professionals that are recommending these fishing limits.. these professionals who study these issues recommended the "drastic limits" FOR A REASON!
We people can make these types of decisions because we have claimed "ownership" of the habitats of every living creature on the planet. Life on earth existed in a much more rich and diverse range until only a few thousand years ago, when we humans started our dominance, and simultaneous rapacious use of it's "resources". Not like any other life form had a say-so.
It is a bit like parenting. If we are going to take the role of "Masters of all living things on Earth", then we take on the responsibility for their care.
But, we have a long history of not managing what we have claimed, very well. As we heard only a few months ago, global wildlife populations have fallen by 58% since 1970. Populations that have being stable for millions of years.
This halibut conservation effort is part of an effort to try to save them from extinction. We have hunted and fished so many other species to extinction, already. This is not rhetoric.
But what do our "leaders" do?
How does extinction happen? How do community's lose their economic base?
We witness all that, right here, right now.
Yeah, Max doubtlessly would have voted no on this, probably loudly. But I like to think that even his predecessor, Larry Williams, might have objected to the whiny, groveling tone of this. Our city council has devolved into being nothing other than a bunch of elderly elected panhandlers, shaking their tin cup at the state, the feds, and anyone else who might toss a few coins their way.
DeleteSo much for the rugged individualism of the West. Now it's just poor, poor pitiful me and alms for the poor. Pretty ironic that Cherie Kidd would help spearhead such a thing, given her well know dislike of panhandlers.
Look in the mirror, Cherie. You are the very thing you despise.
Exactly why I can't bear to sit in on those clusterf&^% meetings anymore.
DeleteHey the deadline to register as a council candidate is only 3 months away! YAY!
Just for the record, Sissi abstained from voting but under the city council rules of procedure an abstention can be counted as a "yes" vote. That makes sense when you consider Cherie Kidd announced that all those folks staying home for the fluoride vote were "yes" votes.
ReplyDeleteSissi knows damn well that not voting is voting "Yes." She has no excuse for supporting - yes, supporting - this idiotic tantrum.
DeleteA very well written and presented piece, CK. Thanks again.
ReplyDeleteOnce again we see how clueless the local leadership is. Even if we don't look at the issue itself, the conservation of a natural resource important to the lifestyle of the area, we see how disconnected the council members are from their own reasons for taking such a stupid position. And, once again, making the town look bad from so many different perspectives.
ReplyDeleteThe tourism that they say is so important to the area, is generated by the "natural beauty". Like with the log yards and oil tankers in the harbor, tourists who think enough about "natural beauty" to drive hours to get out here are not coming here for the rape, pillage and plunder of that very same "natural beauty".
Those tourists are not going to patronize Port Angeles because it's leadership is lobbying government officials to allow further rape, pillage and plunder.
But, as we see, the council is just clueless.
Have met and spoken to a couple new residents recently. All are very frustrated with the lack of opportunities, and are stunned as they learn about the way things work around here. I feel sorry for them.
Have you seen today's PoC? Should be fascinating...wonder what the PDN will make of it. PoC scooped them BIG TIME on this one!
ReplyDeletehttp://portocallpublishing.com/2017/02/treasurers-report-be-on-the-lookout-tuesday-6-pm-on-channel-21/
I'm not surprised.
DeleteAnd, are we going to look at the parade of women that preceded her, that documented how the Good Ole Boys of Clallam County harassed and abused them?
Think the PDN is going to explore and expose that?
(Sorry, I didn't mean to suggest the PDN can actually do anything worthwhile)
Let's all think about that for a moment: a town that's all-in for logging, versus, a respect for natural beauty which fosters tourism.
ReplyDeleteTell us again how that can co-exist?
Can a small remote Washington State region be known as "Washington's Playground"? Where tourists flock all throughout the year to enjoy the area's natural beauty?
DeleteYes, it can.
www.visitchelancounty.com/
Yes, the truth can hurt. Don't cry PA, go play with your lincoln logs!
DeleteIt is interesting to see they don't have any down time, there. All four seasons, they have lots going on to draw in tourists, and that keeps them coming back.
DeleteIn sharp contrast to Port Angeles, where it chooses to destroy almost all the reasons visitors come to the area.
We see they are planning on logging Lincoln Park. Why? We are told it is because they hamper or endanger airplanes landing at the Fairchild International Airport. Except, there is no commercial air flights out of the airport, anymore.
Lots of stacks of logs at the airport.
What has all those hundreds of thousands and millions of taxpayer dollars spent on "economic development" resulted in?
Besides institutionalized cronyism exemplified by the $500,000 log handling machines the Port bought for fellow Good Ole Boy Grant Munro's "Logs for China" operation. With taxpayer's money.
That's how you build a year round economy in Clallam County!
Contemporary issues with fishing and logging industries.
ReplyDeleteYet more good reasons to DIVERSIFY the local economy, not ass-kiss a handful of dimwits (Duh, hey, there's still trees in Lincoln Park, let's cut 'em & ship 'em, seein az how they're right here anyhoos!)
You're right. But you see how our current city leaders responded when faced with the topic. Screw limits on fishing, and lets cut those trees down.
DeleteA bunch of progressive-minded individuals meet every Friday at 3 pm seeking to find replacements for the dim bulbs now in offices throughout the county.
ReplyDelete