Locally Owned & Operated
- islandguardian.com -
(360) 378-8243 - 305 Blair Avenue, Friday Harbor, WA 98250
The Island Guardian is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists
[Previous entry: "Letters On Grange Controversy"] [Next entry: "Letters On Referendum & Stormwater"]
08/03/2007: "Macdonald & Rose Dialogue Continues"
To the Editor:
Editor,
Administrator Rose was non-responsive to my demand that he correct his libels.Rose claimed I made “factual errors and misperceptions” by quoting a state expert that four new wetlands were found on the Beaverton Valley property.
I told two council members wetlands maps were in error last year. I toured the site twice with county officials.
On May 1, 2007, county planner FitzGerald and DOE wetlands specialist Anderson met on the property. I showed them the wetlands. They checked their documents. Anderson ran soils tests.
The DOE report, given the county 6/15/07, added four wetlands not previously mapped in these exact words by Anderson. “Four wetlands were delineated on the subject property during site visits on May 1, 2007 and May 16, 2007.” That is clear, unambiguous language.
I stake my reputation for accuracy and fair reporting that the above is true, just as Rose has staked his reputation that it is false.
I met Rose on July 6, took him to a new wetlands, explained the delineation, and asserted that Public Work’s development would have violated federal and state law if I hadn’t challenged it. I also told him I was a journalist.
Unless the council produces a prior Public Works’ map including the new wetlands that refutes the state expert’s report, Rose is in error. If secret wetlands maps exist, why don’t other county departments and the Department of Ecology have them?
Rose wrote, “We did nothing to conceal that a small private airport exists southwest of the Beaverton Valley site.”
To disprove my assertion of negligence, the council must produce a document that considers the effect an adjacent trash site would have on this specific airport.
In clear and unambiguous language, BOCC 40-2003 says such proximity “presented unavoidable adverse impacts to air traffic safety,” and implicitly prohibits placing a trash facility on the Beaverton Valley site. Rose said I erred in quoting that, and wrote “their (2003 BOCC) action did not prohibit us from reassessing the situation in light of changing circumstances, including more recent FAA statements and practices.”
Where are the documents that refute the BOCC resolution on property bought for $1.8 million? Where is the evidence of proper disclosure by Shannon and Gaylord or proper due diligence by Lichter and Ranker? County officials refuse to answer; hoping public scrutiny of their actions can continue to be evaded. Rose’s change of subject to federal regulations is a spurious attempt to draw attention away from the performance of his staff and elected county officials. The public will be outraged if the staff and commission have repeated their errors and purchased another piece of property where a trash site cannot be located.
There was a meeting between planning and public works concerning my challenges to the development permit. One group favored openness and honesty in response. Apparently Rose sided with those who wanted less than full disclosure. He answered a carefully presented list of evidence presented by others and myself with vague, non-specific opinion.
In response to exact quotes of pertinent documents by state experts and the ruling county legislative body, Rose libelously claimed that I made “factual errors and misperceptions” in such quotes.
The paucity of Rose’s argument is best revealed by his retreat to the NIMBY defense when confronted with evidence. An ad hominem attack, appealing to prejudice or special interest rather than reason, has been recognized as a legal and logical error since before Plato. Defenders of questionable projects use it because it is false but effective.
On the national scene the most infamous practitioner of ad hominem attacks and dirty tricks, Karl Rove, has been brought to bay via subpoena. His lies and dodges of the truth have wasted all our time and cost us treasure and lives because few members of the press would call him on logical errors that would get him laughed out of a high school debate.
This county trash process is a mess. Public work’s development of the Beaverton Valley site has been crippled with errors and false statements, even in the permit application filed with the planning department. The evidence of this is easy to check and is the subject of a long running debate between planning and public works adjudicated by Rose. The process is now stalled because PW cannot answer fundamental question posed by others and myself. The more we learn, the worse it appears. The county is wasting our time and our money.
This photo was taken on site in January. The sign was erected by a PW manager on public property and shown by him to Councilman Rosenfeld and myself.
Threatening death under color of authority is a crime. Two grinning PW fools thought it was a joke. It was an act of stunning civic stupidity, meant to intimidate Shannon’s critics who dared asked if the public works department was telling the truth or doing their jobs properly.
County offices are now running with blood from self-inflicted wounds. We citizens deserve better governance.
Many concerned people say slow down and change course before you run onto the rocks. Will the county council stand by their story, or will they recant and apologize? There is a point in every cover-up when the stonewall collapses to reveal shabby banality and people ask what were they thinking?
I believe we’ve reached that point.
Mike Macdonald
San Juan Island
To the Editor:
Mike Macdonald has asked me to retract and apologize for writing a reply to his guest column concerning efforts to select a site for an upgraded trash transfer station on San Juan Island. I, along with members of the County staff, have reviewed the column and Mr. Macdonald’s comments and concluded that the statements made in my editorial response were correct.
We did not dispute that there are four wetlands on the Beaverton Valley property, I only noted that two of them were already on the County’s maps and that the total wetland area is only a small percentage of the total property (in fact it’s 2.5 per cent).
We did not suggest that the previous County Government did consider three locations unsuitable because of air traffic safety. I did say that their action did not prohibit us from reassessing the situation in light of changing circumstances, including more recent FAA statements and practices.
We did nothing to conceal that a small private airstrip exists southwest of the Beaverton Valley site. I did note that the private airstrip mentioned in the document Mr. Macdonald quoted no longer exists. In fact that air strip now is the Beaverton Valley site.
Work has to be done to deal with environmental issues on virtually every piece of land that is used for anything just about anywhere. The fact that there are wetland or air safety issues to be dealt with means only that planners must take those issues into account in their designs. The County is dedicated to setting the standard for environmental responsibility and safety in its new projects, even more so on something as vital and high profile as a trash transfer station.
I am sorry that Mr. Macdonald took my response to his editorial personally. We understand his concern about having land adjacent to his property considered as a potential site for a trash transfer station.
It is my hope that as we move forward, all parties will treat each other with respect, listen to each other and allow each other to speak, so that we can work together toward the best resolution possible.
Pete Rose
SJC Administrator
To the Editor:
Mr. Rose’s response in The Island Guardian to my editorial published in the same paper contained falsehoods that displayed a reckless disregard for the truth on his part.
These false facts and his false contention that my piece “contained some factual errors and misperceptions” holds me up to public ridicule and scorn; and will continue to damage my reputation until he retract and apologize in the same forum in which I have been libeled.
He falsely disputed my statement that a Department of Ecology wetlands delineation found four additional wetlands on the Beaverton Valley site.
The following quote is the first paragraph of a memorandum sent by DOE’s Paul Anderson to the San Juan County Planning and Public Works Departments on June 15, 2007.
(continued from front
“This memorandum summarizes the results of my recent wetlands investigation at the San Juan County Public Works (Public Works) property at 1609 Beaverton Valley Road (Tax Parcel No. 351044001000). Four wetlands were delineated on the subject property during site visits on May 1, 2007, and May 16, 2007.”
Since it appears that he did not read Anderson’s report before publishing his false statement, it will be sent to him under separate cover.
To quote his July 31 editorial, “He (Macdonald) also wrote that the resolution “implicitly prohibits” the construction of a trash transfer station on certain properties. There was, in fact, no prohibition implicit or otherwise.”
Here is the pertinent finding of the 2003 Board of County Commissioners’ resolution quoted in its entirety.
“The site evaluation criteria were applied to each site, including consideration of consistency with the applicable land use designations and regulations. The evaluation was augmented with environmental review which identified probable significant adverse impacts at three locations that could not be reasonably mitigated through site design or operations. Any solid waste facility attracts birds, which can create significant safety hazards for aircraft operation and therefore hazards to public safety. For two of those sites (Durhack, Williams) the proximity to the Friday Harbor airport presented unavoidable adverse impacts to air traffic safety and thus were found to be incompatible with existing and planned use. The same situation exists at a third site (Olerin LLC) which abuts a private airfield.”
For Mr. Rose to claim the cited passage does not constitute a prohibition is disingenuous. For him to write that I made a factual error in that conclusion is libelous.
Mr. Rose wrote, “That private airfield no longer exists.” What he neglected to disclose is that there is a second adjacent private operational airfield less than a golf shot away, with only one property between the runway and the county property.
The Beaverton Valley site presents “unavoidable adverse impacts to air traffic safety” to two airports.
Mr. Rose compounds his libel of claiming that I made “factual errors and misperceptions” by his negligence and concealment of the second airstrip that meets the 2003 BOCC standard of proximity to a trash site.
A simple search of county assessor’s photo records will locate the adjacent airstrip.
I welcome an open and spirited public discussion of the trash site selection process, which has been conducted in secrecy for far too long. However, I draw the line at libel.
Mr. Rose rushed into print without checking his facts, resulting in the errors and libels detailed here. I plan a detailed response to his editorial as quickly as responsible journalism allows.
Unless Mr. Rose corrects and retracts his false statements detailed here, I will seek the protection offered by law.
I caution Mr. Rose not to expand and compound his existing libel by replying in a similar fashion to the shorter editorial written by me on the same subject and printed in The Journal on August 1, 2007.
Mike Macdonald
Friday Harbor, WA
