Island Guardian

Wednesday, August 31st

It's Time To Allow Guest Houses

By Commissioner Kevin Ranker

I believe that it is time to stop litigating and start working cooperatively to find a solution that allows guest houses to be constructed, while maintaining our rural quality.

Like a majority of our community, I feel very strongly that guest houses should be allowed. Over 70% of San Juan County residents voted to support guest houses for single family residences subject to restrictions including size, location and proximity to the main residence.

On July 21, 2005 the Western Washington Growth Management Hearings Board (GMHB) ruled that around 30 homeowners in the county would be prohibited from building their main house after building a guesthouse first. This was San Juan County's fourth consecutive loss on the "guest house issue."
Last year the Board of County Commissioners chose once again to appeal the case, this time to the State Court of Appeals. We are now awaiting that decision. There can be absolutely no assurance that we will not lose again. We have, at best, a 40-50 percent chance of winning this last appeal.

If we lose this next round, we will lose the opportunity to build any new guest houses without meeting the density required for a second home.. While some would say it is wise to wait to see what the court decides, I believe this is too great a risk to take. If we settle this matter now, before the court decision, we can move forward, as a community, with guest houses.

This is a timely issue. With the Court of Appeals decision due any week now; we can not wait to settle this matter. While I would rather we have our District 3 representative in place during this first round of discussions, waiting, even a few weeks, could be devastating if a negative court decision comes down during that time. Further, settlement is only the first step and does not finalize the issue. Any settlement requires the Board to hold public hearings. Everyone in San Juan County will have a chance to weigh in on this important decision. Following the hearings and adoption of changes, the changes will be presented to the GMHB for approval. Our new District 3 commissioner will be a full participant in the consideration and adoption of any changes.

A settlement will also help those people affected by the most recent GMHB decision. As it stands now, that decision closed the door for persons who had built a guest house first and planned to build a main house later. A settlement now could allow them to qualify for a guest house next year, therefore opening the door for their new construction.

Last year, during my campaign I pledged to "work with the individuals involved in this case and the Friends of the San Juans to negotiate a settlement that will allow our citizens to build guest houses and that will be found compliant by the Growth Management Hearings Board." This is still my goal.

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Monday, August 15th

Mistake To Buy Land For New Dump.

(Editor's note: The following Guest Editorial pertains to the BOCC's plan to purchase 27 acres for a new public works yard and a re-cycling center. The land is flanked on three sides by existing residential homes.)

By Piet Visser

There are too many ways that this project could fail - and the seller has a first right of refusal to buy the site back (with a high probability of a substantial loss to the county) Who is going to buy a single 27 acre parcel? And why does McCauley not have to compete with them? If the price is too high, as everyone suspects, the county could lose $600,000 or more on the land purchase alone. McCauley does not have to bid, but gets shown the highest price and he gets to match it if he chooses.

The Trash to treasures design for the Transfer station used about 1/3 of the total lot - around 2 acres. So why now do we need 27 acres? At that time the SWAC found it to be the best site, it is adjacent to the current transfer station, what possible reason could there be to abandon the current site? Talks stopped because the Trash to Treasures site was purchased (without taking steps to see if it would work). Consignment Treasures now fulfills the function of the thrift store, and for a good cause. So we don't really need the thrift store portion of the transfer station anymore.

Shannon told us at our first meeting that the current site has (only) 7 usable acres. That sure sounds like plenty after looking at the amount of land Public Works uses now. The clean up cost for that site wont go away even if you buy the new site. The current location is big enough for all the Public Works buildings - if construction is done in phases.

The NEW site is on top of a ridge and the sound of operations will carry in all directions for miles into both Beaverton and San Juan Valleys. About half the population of San Juan Island will hear those trucks backing up in the morning, and moving things around and whatever else. Whatever anyone says about runoff, it will happen. It flows into the water supply for the entire island.

It is being rushed through with out public input.(Related story: "So Who Needs A Committee Anyway?" ) Trash to treasures was rushed through too, but had more public input than this transaction - result - failure. Not because of the actions of the public, but because BOCC and Public Works decided not to follow the law.

Not long ago a topic of a meeting of BOCC was emergency appropriations. Cause - not enough money. Is there an endless supply of money for expensive projects and fines for breaking the law?

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Saturday, August 13th

Wagner Commends Ranker For His Support

ig_Stan_Wanger-3 (15k image) Stan Wagner

I want to commend Commissioner Ranker for supporting the Democratic Party choice to fill the vacant District 3 chair. That choice was made after a rigorous process by a group of people deeply concerned about the welfare of the islands. Because the candidates had to come from Lopez, the PCO's from other Islands did not know them, and the process was designed to acquaint us with their views, their personalities and their seriousness about filling the position. All candidates submitted résumé's, completed an extensive questionnaire concerning island issues and were then interviewed on July 14th. On July 23, each candidate made a presentation to a Democratic Central Committee meeting on Lopez and answered written questions from the group. We also received many letters of recommendation from supporters, many outlining their experience in working with the candidates and we made our own inquiries to people who knew the candidates and had worked with them.

This process gave us a chance to gauge their commitment to the job, how well they were prepared, their positions on issues of interest to all Islanders, and their public presence and their commitment to a campaign and their commitment to Democratic values. We certainly went much deeper than an examination of a resume, because we know that a resume is not the measure of a Commissioner, but is only a starting point. What does count is an ability to take on hard issues, complete them successfully in the political context by building consensus and seeing the larger picture.

The Precinct Committee officers, a majority of them elected, but all concerned with the best interests of the islands included working people making a living on the Islands to professionals with advanced degrees, people who had hired professionals as well as folks who recognized the qualifications of a good boss. These are folks concerned about the environment and retaining the sense of community that we all cherish. They work hard on many community projects and individually were responsible for holding the presidential caucuses that many of you attended last year.

After completing the process it was clear to a wide majority of us that Jamie Stephens met the qualifications that we wanted in a county commissioner. Those qualifications indeed exceed the criteria set by Commissioners Lichter and Ranker in their sessions. Commissioner Ranker, while making his own decision, publicly did give substantial weight to a hard working group of fellow Democrats who brought much insight to their selection and did their job well. I believe he should be given a vote of thanks for his work.

Stan Wagner
Chariman, Democratic Party
San Juan County
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Friday, August 12th

On Need For New PW Yard

By Piet Visser

I was at the first meeting between local residents and Kevin Ranker
with Jon Shannon. After listening to Jon Shannon talking about how
the old site could not possibly work because only 7 acres of land are
available on the existing site. I called Carlos at Herrera Inc of
Seattle. An engineering company that specializes in all aspects of
waste management planning, design and such (herrerainc.com). When I
asked him what size of facility would be needed for a community of
8,000 people, he said "an acre or two". So the old transfer station
could be built with tons of space left for offices and such for
public works. That does not appear to be what Mr. Shannon has in
mind. He is doing backflips to spend an additional $1.2 million for a
site that does not have a conditional use permit (and may never get
one).

The current office is set on just under one acre. The present
transfer station is set on a site almost 30 acres, but the area in
use for the transfer station is not much more than an acre. The other
Public works building in town is set on less than an acre. Why is it
suddenly so important to have this 27 acres? That is 10 times more
land than the space that they USE now - and for 3 times the cost of
the almost 30 acre site that they use now! Shannon claims that if
they buy the existing site that the use will revert to one that would
make it unusable. This is false too. The land is zoned by the town.
By transfer to the county, the site would have to be rezoned, since
it is not designated on the master plan (except as "Town of Friday
Harbor"

This is a huge waste of money! With all the budget constraints that
we have, somehow we can come up with $8million for this project, and
there seems to be and endless supply of money to pay judgments for
improper acts by Public Works and the BOCC. With good legal advice
much of this would be avoided by such simple acts as following the law.

These actions are also in direct violation of the BOCC Mission
Statement. Where managing public programs at the lowest cost is
listed (as the 3rd item) and conducting the public's business in a
responsive, accessible and open manner is top of the guiding
principals. Since this page is being ignored by the BOCC, maybe they
could use it to post pending litigation against the County instead.

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Monday, August 8th

Mr. Meyer's Response Needed A Response.

I read Mr. Meyer's response ( Meyer's Guest Editorial ) to Mr. Weissinger's column and felt that it needed a response.

I guess it's a sure sign that it's a connected world when the GOP talking points make it into the Island Guardian. And it's a sad intrusion of GOP tactics into our island when the name calling starts. Why is it that the self-appointed "adults" of government are the first to resort to the most childish of tactics when discussing their opponents?

I take exception with most of what Mr. Meyer claims to be fact. Facts taken out of context can be misleading, and we have some fine examples of that in Mr. Meyer's writing.

While I'm sure that Mr. Meyer knows a great deal about the CIA, he seems to have willfully ignored much that is in the public record. I was disappointed that Mr. Meyer toed the GOP line in trying to claim that Plame was not a covert officer. There seems to be little doubt, at least if you believe what the CIA says, and by that I mean pretty much all the public CIA sources other than Mr. Meyer. If the CIA didn't believe that she was a covert officer, then they wouldn't have referred the case to the Justice Department. Several former CIA officers have also come forward to say that Plame was a covert agent and that "outing" her put her contacts in jeopardy. Sounds pretty covert to me.

Mr. Meyers attempts to fabricate some kind of political definition of "covert" by insulting the agent's spouse (again with the name calling and slander!) and by citing the fine points of a specific piece of legislation. That might work for the GOP faithful, but hopefully thinking people will see right through it. This was political retribution against a covert CIA agent for political comments made by her spouse. We don't know all of the details yet, but something is seriously amiss.

I was further disgusted by Mr. Meyer's attempt to downplay the importance of the Yellow Cake issue and how it ties into how our President sold the public a war over WMDs. The Yellow Cake incident that President Bush cited during the prime-time State of the Union speech was used to scare the population into invading Iraq to save ourselves from Iraq's WMDs. That it was a false claim seems important to me. Generally speaking, I expect my President to present valid arguments to the public, containing information that has been scrutinized and vetted at the highest levels. The fact that President Bush decided to include the false information about the Yellow Cake incident says a lot about the "grownups" in our White House and how they work.

Granted, this is just one piece of the giant WMD deception pie, but it was a big public relations effort. And it worked. Big time.

Mr. Meyer mentions the Niger trip report, but he fails to give you the entire picture. This claim that Iraq sought Yellow Cake is far from fact. Even the CIA didn't put much faith in the Yellow Cake story. Wilson did report some contact between Niger and Iraq, but the CIA felt that the contact was not significant, and they could not verify the authenticity of some of the documents, some of which turned out to be forged. The CIA, had they been consulted, would have removed the reference to the Yellow Cake from the State of the Union speech.

And finally, about Karl Rove. While it's true that grand jury testimony is secret until released, it is also true that the witnesses are free to discuss their testimony outside of the court – there is no gag rule. What we have heard from many of these witnesses and what we have gathered from the public record indicates that this administration leaked Plame's name. Granted, some details are yet to be revealed, but it's only the GOP faithful who are able to maintain the notion that somehow, Karl Rove did not act dishonorably (if not illegally) in all of this. Reality based folk see Rove's actions for what they were: underhanded and traitorous.

Mike Harrington
Friday Harbor

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On The Karl Rove-Plame-Wilson-Bush Lied, People Died matter

May I impose upon your patience for a further comment on this running controversy about the Karl Rove-Plame-Wilson-Bush Lied, People Died matter?

The Weissinger column ( Stranger in a Strange Land) and Meyer's response ( Meyer's Guest Editorial ) seemed to me to set out the matter quite clearly. Weissinger in a well-written argument nevertheless assumed certain things that are not (or at least not yet) in evidence: namely, that there was no attempt by Iraq to buy yellow cake from Niiger, that President Bush knew this, and yet President Bush deliberately used false information in order to push our country into war. We do not know that there was no such attempt by Iraq; British intelligence believed that there was, and still believes that there was. President Bush said simply that British intelligence believed that there was such an attempt. Ambassador Wilson, after his brief visit to Niger, reported orally that he could find no evidence of such an attempt. President Bush apparently chose to believe British intelligence. There the matter stood, or should have stood. Then the Plame "outing." Mr. Wilson (whose service in Teheran in 1979 was admirable) went very public in media accusations and in his book, charging that his wife had been victimized by Karl Rove and her life put in danger because of White House dissatisfaction with Wilson's mission to Niger, a mission for which he had apparently been recommended by his wife, Valerie Plame, who worked for the CIA. In other words, Wilson argued that an act of simple Washington revenge broke a law which criminalized revealing the names of US intelligence personnel operating "under cover." A great deal of ink and breath has been wasted in trying to determine whether Valerie Plame was in fact an "undercover agent." It appears simply that she had been, was not now, and had not been so for six years But all these matters are under investigation in a grand jury probe--we do not at this moment know for certain that Mrs. Wilson was currently an undercover agent or had been recently enough to be covered by the law; we do not know whether Karl Rove or some other White House staffer leaked her name, or whether her name came from an entirely different source. What witnesses choose to say outside the grand jury room is not sworn evidence--there is considerable contradiction in these reports. Mr. Fitzgerald after a stringent investigation will undoubtedly clear these matters up.

In all the above, nothing really decisive as to fact. All is in the interpretation. Those who believe that "Bush Lied, People Died" will apparently continue to believe whether the evidence supports this or not. Mr. Meyer carefully answers Mr. Weissinger's argument point-by-point in a letter which is deliberately couched in irony, is humorous in tone, and, pace. Mr. Harrington, (Harrington Letter) does not in fact "call names" at all; the "creep" referred to is not Mr. Weissinger per se, but the presumed filcher of Mr. Weissinger's identity in Meyer's rhetorical device.. Mr. Meyer is saying simply "Bill, you can do better than this." Mr. Harrington, in his objection to Mr. Meyer's "name-calling," must be referring to the description of Mr. Wilson as a "party animal"--perhaps a little over the top, but since Mr. Wilson's own report narrated a nearly endless round of parties in Niger, not entirely unjustified.

What is remarkable in both Mr. Weissinger's and Mr. Harrington's arguments is the ASSUMPTION of fact and guilt. It is rather like Howard Dean's demand that Tom Delay go back to Texas and "serve his term," skipping further indictment, trial, and conviction. Mr. Harrington dismisses Mr. Meyer's arguments as "GOP talking-points." Do not the arguments of Mr. Weissinger and Mr. Harrington parallel more or less exactly the "talking points" of the Democratic National Committee and Moveon.org ? One should not be surprised. And yet, I have sufficient respect for both their letters that I am quite willing to believe that the positions set forth are those arrived at independently by intelligent people, and are not simply mindless parroting of party talking points. Could not Mr. Harrington extend the same courtesy to Mr. Meyer?

And I am bemused by Mr. Harrington's fear that the San Juans have been invaded by GOP talking points. I am aware that the San Juan are famously a "nuclear-free zone," but isn't it a bit much to expect that they should also be a zone free of political opinion with which one disagrees?

As a conservative, I was, during the Clinton years, frequently embarrassed by the stridency and fervor of some of my fellow conservatives in their determination to "get" President Clinton. I believed that this was not only harmful to our country but also to conservative causes. Not without reason a commentator labeled this passion the CDS, or "Clinton Derangement Syndrome." In more recent years, left-and-liberal Americans have succumbed to another version of this psychosis, which might be called BDS. I hope that my fellow islanders are not among the victims.

Donald C. Baker
Friday Harbor

(Mr. Baker is a retired professor
of English & linguistics
from the University of Colorado)

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Monday, August 1st

An Open Letter to Bill Weissinger

by Herb Meyer

Hi, Bill:

I'm writing to alert you that someone has stolen your by-line for a column entitled Stranger in a Strange Land that's so loaded with errors you couldn't possibly be its real author.

For example, the sneaky little creep who stole your by-line describes Karl Rove as the senior U.S. Government official "who revealed the identity of an undercover CIA agent." Of course, we don't know who "outed" Valerie Plame because the special prosecutor investigating this leak hasn't yet completed his report. So at this point, the leaker's identity is pure speculation. As I'm sure you recall, it was the Democrats and their media allies who demanded that the President appoint a special prosecutor – which the President immediately did by naming a very tough Democratic lawyer from Chicago. Now, these same people who demanded the special prosecutor won't let the poor guy do his job and instead have declared Karl Rove guilty even before the prosecutor's report has been filed. This shows a disrespect for the legal process which, obviously, a distinguished member of the Bar like yourself would never share.

Further down in the column, its author writes that Ambassador Joseph Wilson "had refuted claims by the Bush administration about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq." This isn't even close to the truth.

What the President actually said in his State of the Union speech is that British intelligence believes that Saddam Hussein had tried to purchase uranium ore in Niger. In fact, British intelligence really did come to that conclusion, so what the President said was accurate. It was to confirm or discredit this British claim that the CIA sent Joe Wilson to Niger. After his return Wilson reported his findings orally to CIA officials – he never troubled to actually write a report – and whatever he said seems to have convinced the CIA that Saddam Hussein really had tried to purchase uranium ore in Niger. You needn't take my word for this; Wilson's findings and the CIA's subsequent conclusions are all in a public report issued by the Senate Intelligence Committee. Moreover, to this day British intelligence continues to back its claim.

It's quite true that much of what the Bush administration has said about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq has turned out to be false – it's an appalling intelligence failure, and I've written extensively about it – but whoever really wrote this column picked up on the one claim that seems to have been accurate.

Finally, whoever really authored the column writes that "Rove's explanation to the grand jury of how he learned of Plame's identity as a CIA agent differs sharply from explanations journalists have given." Since grand jury testimony is secret, this is something the author cannot possibly know. A careful attorney like you – who would never allow his political leanings to color his legal judgments – couldn't possibly have made such an elementary mistake.

Since this whole business about "outing" Valerie Plame as a secret agent has blown up into a full-fledged Washington scandal – and since the CIA is something I happen to know about – allow me to point out a few things that seem to have eluded everyone's attention.

First, the legislation making it a crime to "out" an undercover agent was written explicitly to prevent a second instance of something that happened years ago, when an ex-CIA agent published the names of his former colleagues in a foreign newspaper and literally got some of them killed. It's a carefully written law that limits the definition of "undercover agent" to someone who has worked overseas within the past five years. Since Valerie Plame had been working in Washington DC for six years before her "outing," it's obvious that the legislation doesn't even apply to her situation.

Moreover, while the CIA admittedly does some stupid things, it isn't so stupid that it allows its undercover agents to show up for work each morning at the agency's headquarters in McLean, Virginia. The entrance is off Route 123, and as you approach there are always one or two cars parked along the verge, sometimes with the hood open as though the engine had overheated. In fact, inside these cars are foreign intelligence agents who are busily photographing those of us turning into the CIA's main gate. The police always chase these cars away, but of course when one leaves another takes its place. Valerie Plame came to work at agency headquarters every morning – which means she wasn't an undercover agent.

Finally, undercover agents don't marry loudmouth party-animals like Joe Wilson. If you think the level of gossip is high here in Friday Harbor, you should try living in Georgetown. I've lived in both places, and compared to Georgetown our little Friday Harbor is a model of discretion. I can guarantee that half the population of Washington – including every reporter, every foreign diplomat and every Georgetown hostess – knew precisely who Valerie Plame was and where she worked. In short, this whole thing is a manufactured scandal that has nothing to do with the law and everything to do with politics.

Rest assured, Bill, that not for one moment do I believe that you really wrote this column. But in the interests of your excellent reputation for accuracy and fairness, you might want to demand that The Island Guardian publish a retraction – and launch an investigation to "out" the byline-thief among us.

All best,

Herb

Herb Meyer served during the Reagan Administration as Special Assistant to the Director of Central Intelligence and Vice Chairman of the CIA's National Intelligence Council. His DVD on The Siege of Western Civilization has become an international best-seller.

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