Teri Nigretto and Leith Templin illegally interfere with people’s right to hear
||| FROM CAROL ANN ANDERSON |||
EWUA Director Carol Anderson and a hundred others are seeking the recall of Jim Nelson, Teri Nigretto, Mike Cleveland, and Leith Templin. Anderson and the Recall team set up a booth at the Farmers Market to help answer EWUA members’ questions about this week’s recall.
EWUA President Teri Nigretto intercepts people and blocks access to the RecallWater.com booth at the Farmer’s Market. Fred Klein and Michael Riordan are seated. EWUA Director Carol takes the picture.
Carol Anderson reports, “Leith Templin and her dog were our first visitors. She quickly called Teri Nigretto. They complained to the market manager that the Recall booth was a political group and should not be allowed at the market. Later in the afternoon, most of the recalled board members and the general manager returned to be sure the team was not sharing information. Harassment and bullying were the theme of the day.
Templin and Nigretto demanded that the market shut down the Recall booth. First, we were asked to take our documents off the table. Teri and Leith stood by the table and stopped people from talking to us.” Nigretto stood before the booth and prominent sign and intercepted or interrupted conversations regarding the recall.
Eventually, a Farmer’s Market board member asked the Recall team to leave. The Recall team took down all signs and remained in the booth. We talked to people and provided free water to the public.
Nigretto and Templin are wrong about the Farmer’s Market policy on who can exhibit. It was clearly disclosed to the Farmer’s Market manager that this was an educational booth there for the purpose of sharing about the recall effort mounted against some of the EWUA directors. You can see the Farmer’s Market policy
here. https://orcasislandfarmersmarket.org/howtovend/
The RecallWater booth was not a political booth. In fact, the Farmer’s Market board member indicated that he would ask their bylaws to be revised to preclude this type of booth in the future.
How unfortunate to preclude us citizens from providing information to inform and educate the public. The Market
succumbed to the lies told by Nigretto and Templin and has made clear that free speech is unacceptable in Eastsound. Where else can a person provide their free speech opinion, certainly not on the streets of Eastsound or any public property or venues open to the public?
EWUA is a member-owned association and is not involved in any government politics. The information was meant to inform and educate the local water users. The Concerned Water Users of Eastsound communicating as Recallwater.com followed the policy and was permitted to have a booth. Templin and Nigretto, who are both targets of the recall, did not want people to interact with those seeking their removal. Templin and Nigretto illegally interfered with the people’s right to freely express their opinions without being harassed and bullied.
Free speech denied.
Same thing happened in 2023 when the fire department and the fire union wanted to take part on the market for the levy education. The market denied them space.
Appears that the market is not for public education.
It’s a FARMERS market.
But they’ve allowed the sale of cosmetics, art, pens, all manner of non-farm goods for many years.
What Dan said. The Farmer’s Market should be a place of welcome and inclusion, not dirty politics.
As Orcasonian readers can see from the photograph, I had a ringside seat on Round 1 of the Main Event on Saturday morning. It proved to be a microcosm of what’s going on with the dysfunctional EWUA Board of Directors, which has been acting like this for a few months now. And I hear it resembles what often happened at the OIFR Commissioners meetings until recently. Interested readers (and water users) are encouraged to inform themselves more deeply by reading documents and reports at the RecallWater.com website: https://recallwater.com
To be fair to the Farmers Market board and staff, they understandably want to avoid controversy. It’s after all primarily a place where islanders can buy and sell things to and from one another. Exchanges of ideas take a back seat to local commerce.
Is anyone writing a script as these events unfold? You can’t make this up.
I tried to apply for a space a few years ago, 2014-ish, to share my growing collection …more like a mini library of gardening, chickens, farming, sustainable gardens/off grid living, and was hoping to answer questions about backyard chickens as pets and egglayers, in my attempt to encourage everyone to try it back home, share the love and knowledge so to speak, to the public FOR FREE, in the Aloha way, for anyone interested in learning about raising chickens and keeping backyard chickens. I had invested in this large collection of 30+ new books from a roadtrip to Co-Ops across Western & Eastern Washington on cool coop ideas, sustainable farms, etc, and thought it would be a fun and educational way to introduce visitors and kids to chickens and provide them with ideas of raising a couple hens if they lived in the city. I had planned to loan out books on an honor basis to help promote and share the concept with their HOAs, spouses, or neighbors then send them back, and bring a pen with materials needed to build coops, show them how to use the staple guns, use of welded wire vs flimsy chicken wire, tricks to outsmart predators, and bring some of my favorite roosters hens that loved being cuddled, and also to help people overcome their fear of roosters, and the fertilized eggs to candle in various stages, and a hen with her chicks for kids to interact. It was going to be so cool and I was so excited to do it. Why would they say no? I was asked to draft a letter explaining all of the details and emailed back to the market manager. My application was DENIED flat out with some lame excuse about how this wasn’t within the guidelines and purpose of farm market vendors. This after I’ve held others farm animals in those petting pens and been coming to farmers market since the days of Brenda’s Farmstead and Dennis’s Rainwater Flower stand days of 1990. I was crushed and deflated. Couldn’t understand why my idea wouldn’t be embraced. Then a neighbor familiar with the whole picture, and friends of the then market manager who denied my application, informed me it wasn’t anything to do with the intent of my idea, it was totally personal and that I had been “blackballed” by a group of the self-proclaimed female powers of OI ruling class. In other words, and to my shock, I wasn’t well liked in the social hierarchy of the who’s who of women of Orcas elites. The decision was essentially based on nothing to do with bylaws of the Market, nor agricultural and I had served on the Agricultural Resources Committee and taught farm classes at Four Winds Camp developed their program in fact, but just good old fashioned woman to woman jealousy and new islander popularity cliques and just mean girls mentality, which BTW runs deep on OI. Ask any women whose moved here how long it takes to be included in social gatherings if you’re not a mom, or you are a mom, and if not immediately embraced by those OI women centric groups who choose to LIKE or NOT LIKE you based on the same behavior from high school. Y’all know exactly who you are…both those women on the fringes feeling lonely and un-included, vs popular or accepted by the “IN cliques” and those who leave eventually never able to make any strong ties to other women, and those who ostracize out of contempt, jealousy and insecurity. Those who post flowery memes all day long about how we need to lift others up and be kind and reach out, are often those who are the most guilty, who do not practice a word of what they preach. I refer to it as a sub-culture of The Great Hypocrisy of OI Liberals. I’ve lived here for 26 yrs of the 35 yrs when I first began coming to visit my family in 1990 and could not make a woman friend for the first 10 yrs on OI to save my life, and I’ve been an outgoing, extrovert, more the merrier dinner party hosting, all womens college graduate, super girlfriend since day one, and never had this problem anywhere else in my life. It’s the dark under belly of OI society that pervades all of the womens groups and islands female culture. Women on OI fall into 3 categories: you’re a woman who’s very active with other women’s cliques dismissively shaking your head in disbelief shocked by my comment OR nodding with tears in your eyes bc you’ve felt unloved and unwelcome for so long you spend much time contemplating leaving and wondering what’s wrong with you? (nothing, its not YOU, its THEM), OR you’re oblivious and content with blinders on bc lucky you, you’ve been included and well liked. I decided to comment bc it is a fact that no one ever addresses or wants to admit and it damages the psyche and spirit of the island. Sorry you were unable to vocalize your opinions and answer questions about the EWAU situation.
Kudos to you Julie! Some things do need to be said. Mean girls abound. And I would have loved to see your booth at the market.
Out of all the booths at the Farmer’s Market there are only 3 farms participating. Maybe a name change is warranted.
I don’t go anymore
“Can’t we all just get along.”
Perception is reality. The EWUA board majority is losing the perception battle. Preventing discussion is being perceived as guilt in the community. Being able to defend against false accusations (if they are indeed false) is a much better approach than not allowing it to be discussed. These two board members are not helping themselves or their fellow board members with these bullying tactics. Regardless of how this situation ends they both need to resign. They are an embarrassment to the community.