Pat Vandehey speaking at 3/15 Port of Shelton Commissioners' MeetingNOTHING SHOULD BE GOING ON UNDER THE RADAR
Submitted to Shelton Blog by Pat Vandehey Mason County Progessive
The 900 pound gorilla is off our back, but the underlying scenario that allowed it to happen is still with us.
It is becoming more and more apparent that the agencies that have been created to protect the public, are being methodologically stripped of their powers to perform their functions.
On the federal, state and local government levels, special interests have taken over to dictate what and how the agencies may be run. The EPA is being attacked by huge companies through lobbying, to take away their ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. If possible, they would have the EPA shut down.
On our state level, Ecology and ORCAA are being pressured to grant permits on questionable projects. Our legislature has a bill (the toe-in-the-door-bill) being touted to create jobs. It entails redefining biomass fuel so these companies can burn whatever they want. As of now it only pertains to companies built before1989, but you can be sure if it passes, all the other plants built thereafter will fight to get the same privilege.
Locally, the rules and regulations, such as building height, zoning, air, water and earth protection are being gutted. Special permits are given, violations of the protection, health, and well being of the citizenry are ignored. The rights of the residents are brushed aside to facilitate the demands of these businesses with very deep pockets.
We are being led like lambs to the slaughter. We don't notice that the same small group of people rotate from one agency and committee to another, and who are on boards making decisions and giving permits to the very projects they are promoting. If this is not a conflict of interest, it certainly gives the appearance of such.
We all need to become more involved. Read the ordinances, rules, laws and regulations to really know what is going on, and object to violations or watering down of our rights and protection. This is both our obligation and our means of controlling what is happening in our community.
We need to demand that any project similar to the ADAGE one, be made known at the beginning of consideration. We need public hearings with all the facts, and not find out by chance what is being proposed for our community. Nothing should be going on "under the radar".
Being informed gives our community the power to have a say in what will or will not happen. All governmental agencies work for us. We are the employers and have a right to not only know what is going on, but also to have a voice in the decisions.
Photo by Christine
Very well put. As Pat states above:
ReplyDelete"We don't notice that the same small group of people rotate from one agency and committee to another, and who are on boards making decisions and giving permits to the very projects they are promoting. If this is not a conflict of interest, it certainly gives the appearance of such."
For the information of the folks who have been running this community, and it's boards and its commissions, and who for decades have been putting up and electing and re-electing their friends and family, there's a new sheriff in town. That sheriff's name is: "Informed Citizens."
Informed Citizens, representing citizens rather than corporate interests, is here to stay.
CCMC and IFMC and GAAP and a host of other groups, small and large, are coming together to be sure that things don't happen under the radar any more.
We may have come late to the party, but the 3,200 signatures we collected in our efforts to oppose Adage show that we have numbers and we mean business.
We especially mean business when the industry supported by our local elected officials (except for Port of Sheltom Commissioner Miles) would mean poisoning the Johns Prairie aquifer, Oakland Bay, children playing on our ball fields, the entire community of Hiawatha, and every community in the path of the prevailing winds.
Informed Citizens will be carefully watching our elected officials from this day forward, and we will be seeking strong candidates to become our new elected officials.
Never does the current political power structure seek the opinion of ordinary citizens to find out what kind of a community they want for themselves and their children.
ReplyDeleteWhat we have experienced over the past year is a stubborn refusal to move away from that which keeps our community in cycles of poverty; I find such attitudes irresponsible and contemptuous.
Pat Vandehey’s post is succinct and accurate in its assessment of our current situation, and we should heed both her warning and advice.
Those of us who care about such matters will consider the recent Adage debacle as a shot over the bow against personal liberty and citizen rights. The outrageous decision by our leaders to refuse a citizen vote on a project so potentially dangerous to public health and welfare is strong indication of an industry bias ideology bordering on sociopathic behavior.
The residents of our county have been granted a second chance to redirect their destiny. Toward that end, every capable, informed citizen needs to get involved in the political decision making process.