ADAGE Support Imported

This morning I sat in on the public hearing before the Port Commissioners. You know how I am about numbers. So here's my take on the meeting.

Of the 36 who spoke today at the Port public hearing, 16 spoke in favor of ADAGE. Of these 16 only four, as best I could tell, actually resided in Mason County. There were 12 people speaking who said they were from Olympia, Tukwilla, Puyallup, Pierce County, and Montesano. One who spoke tried to be cagey and not tell us that he's from Lewis County but we know he's not a resident of Mason County. The message from the 16 was basically about the jobs that ADAGE would be bringing to the area. None of them were speaking directly to the proposed lease as had been previously given as a condition of this public hearing. One speaker got Mason County mixed up with Kitsap County. That's what happens when support for a cause is imported.

Then there were 20 Mason County residents, mostly Port of Shelton voters, who cited specific language in the proposed contract and offered specific recommendations to make it more balanced, Basically the message to the Port Commissioners and their attorney was: "Hold up. You don't need to sell our souls to have ADAGE at the Port. How about some balance in this lease?"

Here's another impression that I will share with you. As I sat there waiting for the meeting to begin, I tried to make a bit of idle conversation with a man sitting to my left. Within seconds of beginning to talk to him, he told me to, "Shut up." By the way, he gave testimony and I now have his name. He's not from Mason County. This should help you really get a good impression of the fear, anger and open hostility coursing through this room.

What a bio-mess, Mason County.

Premeditated Permitting

One day as I was out door belling I met an 86 year old woman who wanted to talk about smokestacks in Shelton. Here's what she shared with me. She said when she was younger Shelton smokestacks polluted the air. She stated with such passion that she didn't want to see Shelton go back to that period. Clean Shelton air was a precious gift in her opinion.

Our county and port commissioners say they are powerless and just can't do anything to stop ADAGE from coming to Mason County. They tell us they don't want to show a judgement for any one company out of fear of a lawsuit. We hear our elected officials telling us that their hands are tied and that we should trust the "process". The "process" will take care of us. We hear them tell us how they work so hard to learn more about this topic but that they must remain neutral.

What some of them aren't telling us is that bringing this large multinational corporation to Mason County was planned - for years. For example lifting the height restriction was planned to allow for this facility. As some of our elected officials celebrated this ordinance change, which I'm calling premeditated permitting, the citizens of Mason County were unaware of what this would ultimately mean to their lives.

Too bad the elderly woman that I mentioned above was not consulted, she could have told our elected officials what it was like to live in a town with smokestacks. Had we known what the impact would be, many citizens would have probably shown up for the public hearing to change the height restriction that will now allow ADAGE to build their facility.

The take away lesson for me is that citizens to the best of their ability must pay attention to what's happening with their government. My mom always told us, "Even the King had to check to make sure his horses were fed." This was the reason she used to give me when she'd inspect the dishes that I washed. Knowing that she might be coming to check made me a lot more careful when I did the dishes.