||| FROM RICK HUGHES |||
Orcas friends, please join me in supporting and voting for my friend, Leith Templin. She is an amazing, community minded person who has served Eastsound and Orcas island for decades.
She is a hard working, fair and honest person who steps up when called to serve this community.
From the Cemetery Board tor EPRC to stepping up to fill a vacant position in the Fire Commission.
I have heard some people make some comment that four our five fire commissioners were appointed, not sure why this is a bad, it is part of the process if an elected official resigns, then a replacement is appointed until the next election.
Leith has stepped up to serve and she has done a good job since appointment, I want to give her a chance to keep serving.
I know my voice will be heard and listened to and she will serve with integrity.
Please join me in supporting Leith templin for San Juan County Fire Protection District No. 2!
Rick, you are correct that change and fill happens, one thing I know is Leith is Passionate.. I would like to know more about her stance on the current Levy. I believe if she had better counterparts she would shine.
Leith’s opinions on the levy can be found in the recent Board of Fire Commissioner meeting packet. She clearly states that she recommends putting the exact same levy proposal on the ballot should the current request fail. You can request the materials from bofc@orcasfire.org.
Until someone has been in the hot seat of serving on an Orcas public board it is impossible to fully appreciate how important it was to have a credible person like Leith willing to step up and serve on the Fire Department board when things were at their worst. Leith is intelligent, even handed, well informed and understands how we seem destined to work things out around here. Tough decisions had to be made, and past fiscal and personnel mistakes faced when, in all fairness, the “right” decisions were not only painful , but murky and uncertain. It is time to let this beleaguered Fire Department and board continue to get on with fixing things AS BEST THEY CAN.
Elect tough, intelligent, well informed , financially capable, Orcas people savvy, decision makers to serve on this board. Demand that they work well together. The past issues and political “sides” have had their day. As near as I can tell, no one won and they have been at each others throats for well over a year now. I’m done trying to sort it out. Time to stabilize and move on.
I trust Leith to continue to shepard us out of these “troubled” times. She came on when things appeared hopeless.. Things have stabilized now. Yes, I will also vote for the levy. It is a heavy price to pay for what may have been years of inadequate planning, management and perhaps lack of board fiscal oversight that brought us to this point, but, I don’t see viable alternatives. The equipment must be good. I will vote for Leith and vote for the Levy.
I can’t help but wonder if some of the commenters here were at the same Candidates’ Forum that I was. The forum galvanized my decisions on both the levy and the candidates, because I listened closely and carefully to what each candidate said.
I didn’t, and don’t, appreciate anyone who scolds and shames citizens for daring to ask pertinent (not “political’) questions of past and current commissioners in taxing districts. Some of those questions still are unanswered for years – while a mass exodus of EMTs and firefighters happened. Yes, we hit bottom. I don’t think that sweeping this all under the rug, pretending there was “nothing to see here” in all of the questions, will help us learn or grow. Letting bygones be bygones, without inspecting why the dirt built up in the first place, seems an unwise path – to be metaphoric.
We don’t want the same mistakes made again; we all agree on that. Citizen involvement is one of the ways to assure that they don’t happen again.
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” – Alcoholics Anonymous
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
― Buckminster Fuller
I’m going for the new model. This one is obsolete.
I find it a fascinating study in human behavior that the powerful, that whenever people ask questions they’ve a right to ask, shame them for putting public officials in positions of power in the “hot seat” (but isn’t that what Democracy is built on?) This tactic delegitimizes the questions entirely. That’s not OK.
Clyde
You have your answer on Leith and the levy. Tonight she voted in favor of the same levy for the November ballot. That is two for two. Obvious answer