9/6/11 MEETINGS IN REVIEW

MARATHON TUESDAY

Submitted to Shelton Blog by Tom Davis Mason County Progressive

It’s not often you get to attend a County, Port and City meeting all in the same day and live to write about it, but that’s exactly what happened. Due to the long holiday weekend, all three commissioner meetings aligned with Jupiter and Mars and fell on a Tuesday. If I could have arranged to have a root canal between meetings, my day would have been perfectamente.

So you’d think I’d have a lot to report, but the most exciting thing that happened was watching John Dobson crawl out of his skin while attempting to answer a particularly pithy question about the Port’s “contractual obligations", but I’m getting ahead of myself, so let’s start from the beginning.

9:00 AM, BOCC Meeting: The empty seat once occupied by Commissioner Lingle stands as a silent memorial to a truly independent thinker, and I fear it will be a very long time before anyone comes close to filling his shoes -- certainly not from the current crop of candidates.

On the agenda were 17 action items and two of three scheduled hearings, all of which are unworthy of reporting, so let’s just jump to the final hearing: Adoption of "Findings of Facts Justifying a Moratorium on Collective Gardens".

For the official version you need to read the minutes; for a brief summary go to the Mason County Daily News website; and for a longer, yet more lifeless version of the story, you can just stand by your mailbox and wait for the Journal to be delivered. But if you want to get a real “sense” of the proceedings, an accurate, insightful, professional perspective, then read on.

So the hearing was about a couple of capitalistic potheads who opened a medical marijuana dispensary and now want to grow their own weed, as prescribed under RCW: 36.70A.390. Several months ago, Commissioner Lingle and Ring-Erickson were in favor of licensed marijuana dispensaries (with reasonable caveats), and outvoted Tim Sheldon, who apparently prefers his dope on the rocks.

But where, oh where, does someone with arthritis find a little legal reefer to quench their flaming joints? Enter the “Collective Gardens” where several pot-peddlers can grow up to 45 plants under state and local supervision. Not to be outmaneuvered by mere legality, the County quickly placed a moratorium on “Collective Gardens” so they could pretend to study the where, when and hows of the proposal. And now that the moratorium was getting ready to expire something had to be done; something MUST be done.

Cut to the short-story: Both Tim and Lynda voted to extend the moratorium till November 20, in order to allow Barbara Atkins from Community Development more time to study the issue. Toward that end, a Citizen Advisory Committee will meet outside Dunkin’ Doughnuts every Friday night at 12:00 AM (BYOP).

2:00PM, Port of Shelton Commission Meeting (one of my favorite of all pastimes): Few people showed up at the meeting and for good reason, nothing of any importance was on the agenda. I try to sit as close to Executive Director, John Dobson as possible, not to be annoying (though that seems to be the result), but it allows me to read him like a summer novella.

Be that as it may, I felt compelled to dispel another of the annoying myths being promulgated by the Port regarding the Shelton Hills development: Jay and John have stated that the Port is “contractually obligated to the FAA” to protect current and future airport operations from, well, just about anything that might jeopardize airport functions.

What I wanted to know was if the stated threat – possible complaints about noise coming from future residents who might ban together and limit airport operations – had to be real, or could the threat simply be perceived to be real? As suspected, there is more ambiguity and subjective interpretation to this issue than the Port had led the public to believe, as a quick call to the FAA confirmed.

Truth be known, I already knew the answer, but wanted to see how far Port management was willing to obfuscate the facts. Bottom line: the Port is just blowing smoke; Dobson dodged the question, then referred me to the 600 page FAA Airport Compliance Manual, document 5190.6B, which I will endeavor to read in its entirety as soon as hell doth freeze over.

But small pleasures come to those disciplined by patience and blessed with insight, and mine arrived in the form of watching John Dobson dance around the truth while contempt seeped from his every pore. I tell you folks, you could feel the love.

6:00PM; City of Shelton: Zip, Nada, Nyet, Nothing; I should have stayed home and curled up with my good wife. The meeting lasted 20 minutes, fifteen of which was taken up by reading the agenda. I counted four people in the audience, including me and a homeless guy who may have been Gary Cronce. I actually like attending city commission meetings, but this one wasn’t worth the gas; even the Mayor looked bored. He kept asking if anyone wanted to make a public comment. I wanted to give testimony but the podium looked so far away and I was so very, very tired. And tomorrow is another day...