Friday, August 6, 2010

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.

5 comments:

  1. We're learning, Brenda, but unfortunately for we citizens some of our learning is coming too late for us to effect change in what's already been 'sneaked by us'! Basically, one puts one's Trust in the people we elect to represent us; it is a sorry commentary, indeed, when we begin to learn over-and-over-again how very Wrong we were to give our Trust so freely and Trustingly. We have to move forward -- act together -- together, United, we will have a solid voice, a solid stance, and we can and will be able to impose OUR Will on our elected officials. We have begun that Force: 3,000 signatures turned in to allow us the opportunity to vote, and the Physicians have United as One Voice for us and have taken their and our cause upward to the Washington State AMA, and onward if needed.

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  2. I dont remember any public hearing to change the height restrictions for adage. Are you sure? When was it?

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  3. How long ago was the area rezoned as heavy industrial? I am wondering if it was also premeditated for Adage. If it was zoned heavy it can be changed back and that is just one more way our commissioners could stop the whole process!

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  4. You probably already know this but I'm wondering why Senator Tim Sheldon would sponsor Senate Bill 5989-which passed-and which concerns greenhouse gas emissions performance standards under chapter 80.80 RCW..and has a companion Bill-#2129-both bills are about financial commitments between electric companies and generation facilities that use renewable resources to produce electricity:
    "For the purpose of this subsection only, the term "long term financial commitment" also includes an electric company's ownership or power purchase agreement with a term of five or more years associated with an eligible renewable resource as defined in RCW 19.285.030-biomass is mentioned as a renewable resource in that RCW.
    I think this is a huge conflict of interest for Senator Tim Sheldon to be sponsoring these bills when he's also advocating for the biomass plant as a county commissioner. I was wondering if this could possibly be something we could use to fight against ADAGE.
    I'm a little late in getting to the research..but I didn't know if you knew about these bills.
    Thank you,
    Tracey

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  5. This is exactly the opposite of what is going on with all of our commissioners:

    RCW 42.30.010
    Legislative declaration.

    The legislature finds and declares that all public commissions, boards, councils, committees, subcommittees, departments, divisions, offices, and all other public agencies of this state and subdivisions thereof exist to aid in the conduct of the people's business. It is the intent of this chapter that their actions be taken openly and that their deliberations be conducted openly.

    The people of this state do not yield their sovereignty to the agencies which serve them. The people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know. The people insist on remaining informed so that they may retain control over the instruments they have created.

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