||| FROM REX & LISA GUARD |||
We are local, both born in Friday Harbor. We have known Stephanie O’ Day both professionally and personally for over 20 years. Stephanie’s commitment to the local people of San Juan County is undeniable. She has been a full-time resident in San Juan County for 33 years. Stephanie is informed of the county’s issues on all the main islands. She understands we have different top issues and priorities. Her door is open, Stephanie wants to know what’s on your heart and mind, how do we grow? She will stay committed to helping islanders while providing balance within our environment.
Stephanie will protect our way of life. As farmers and business people we have seen her commitment to local agriculture and to our local residents who work so hard just to be here. She wants to make it easier for us to make a living here. San Juan County is
Stephanies home. Taking care of it and its residents are her focus.
Please join us in casting your vote for Stephanie O’Day County Council District 1. You will be glad you did.
Stephanie O’Day’s history in San Juan County has been decidedly pro-development which does not protect farmers or our quality of life. Maybe it helps some businesses like real estate but not tourism which depends on us maintaining a beautiful environment. She has not supported environmental protection regulations or regulations to limit growth. She has historically been anti-Land Bank and I know of no efforts on her part to direct development towards improving our serious affordable housing crises. I hear she is claiming to want to “reach across the aisle” yet when has this ever happened in her years here? I’ve lived here as long as Stephanie and she has been oppositional and obstructionist fighting environmental protections at every turn. Don’t be duped by her current claims. Glad she’s your good friend Rex and Lisa but that’s not a solid basis for voting her to council.
Thanks, Amanda, for this important disclosure about Stephanie O’Day’s pro-development history and anti-Land Bank and anti-environmental biases. Given that we have an excellent alternative in Kari McVeigh, a candidate with a proven record of accomplishment in education and administration, this choice is a no-brainer. Vote for Kari McVeigh.
Stephanie is a land use attorney, so naturally she represents clients who are developing property and, as stated in my response to Amanda, she is not anti-Land Bank or anti-environmental.
Amanda, you obviously do not know Stephanie and have grossly mischaracterized her, facts, and issues the county faces.
Development done right, and within the regulations, won’t harm farming or quality of life. There is also a no-net-loss regulation that pertains to farming; protecting agricultural resource lands in perpetuity.
Tourism depends on more than maintaining a beautiful environment. It also depends on goods and services, and for those businesses that provide goods and services, to employ people to deliver them, and those employees require housing, which in turn requires development; and, as Stephanie has promoted, carefully planned development within the comprehensive plan.
I, too, have lived here as long as Stephanie, and I know that she is not anti-environmental. She has tried to do the best for her clients, while staying within the regulations. And there are many environmental protection regulations currently in the San Juan County Code – so many, that some are overlapping and contradictory, and also taxing on staff to interpret, maintain, and regulate. As Office Manager of DCD from 2010 – 2021, I can personally attest to this.
As far as the Land Bank, I have often wondered why they have amassed so much property, and want to continue to. I asked Stephanie about this and she said the Land Bank does have good aspects and cautioned me not to be so quick to dismiss it.
Regarding the housing crisis, Stephanie has assisted land use clients with building permitting for many, many years and has personally built 5 tiny homes to help address this issue on the island.
Stephanie sees the need for unity and cooperation and has always strived for balance – in the law and in the way it is interpreted. She has learned over the years that in order to move things forward, people must work together. Settlement discussions are paramount – nobody wins in a lawsuit. If you sit down to discuss this with her you will come to understand her philosophy.
Duped? This is a gratuitous insult issued in the spirit of extremism and condescension, regrettable debate methods that have no place in a serious and respectful discussion of who would be the best person to serve in this county position. What Stephanie brings to the table is a sincere determination to find the middle ground and the best solutions for everyone.
Stephanie, as a lawyer with a thorough understanding of local government and the legislative process, is the only candidate qualified for this position, and she has my vote.
It would be difficult to imagine a worse candidate for San Juan County Council than Stephanie O’day. Putting herself out there as a defender of the down-trodden, when she has a solid track record of representing the worst of the worst in terms of right wing loggers, realtors, land speculators, and property rights advocates for over 30 years.
She’s known as a bull-dog attorney who uses all the underhanded, dirty tricks in the book in defense of her pro-property rights clients.
For example, in looking online just now in an effort to find out who the “Committee to Elect Stephanie O’Day for San Juan Council District 1” is, I found only the following on her, (see below), with this being representative of the type of clientele that she has catered to all of her career–
Submitted by the Washington State Department of Ecology
“In April, the Washington State Supreme Court denied a request to review an October 2017 decision by the state Court of Appeals that affirmed a $55,000 fine and environmental restoration order issued by the Department of Ecology in July 2014 to Dave and Nancy Honeywell, owners of the Orca Dreams property located above False Bay on San Juan Island.”
“Ecology issued the penalty and order after the property owners illegally cut down 80 trees from 1.25 acres of marine shoreline and cleared the area down to bare earth at the Orca Dreams site that slopes to Puget Sound.”
“The property owners had earlier appealed Ecology’s fine and order to the state Shorelines Hearings Board and San Juan County superior court. These legal authorities also upheld Ecology’s actions. Now, all legal appeals are exhausted.”
“Ecology Shorelands and Environmental Assistance Program Manager Gordon White said, “Our state courts are clear: It is unacceptable for anyone to cut down trees and clear the fragile soil along our Puget Sound shorelines in this manner. These actions harm the people, salmon and orcas that rely on having clean, healthy marine shorelines. Our fines and orders are designed to deter future violators and protect the ecosystems we all enjoy.”
I don’t believe I know you, Michael. I would urge you to get a handle on all the facts before you pass judgment on people..
Mr. Johnson,
I seldom take people to task for rudimentary misunderstandings of our system of laws and government, but in this case I’ll make an exception. The following statement you posted “she has a solid track record of representing the worst of the worst in terms of right wing loggers, realtors, land speculators, and property rights advocates” indicates just such a fundamental misunderstanding of this nation’s jurisprudential system, and I, as an attorney, take offense. One of the key elements of American Jurisprudence is the right of everyone to a robust defense in a criminal case, and the right to prosecute one’s interests in a civil case. For that, the wise hire a lawyer, preferably with expertise in that area of law. We do not, as a people or a republic, pass judgment on the lawyer becvause we don’t like the client. We do NOT judge the merits of a case by accepting or condemning the lawyer or lawyers whose professional task it is to provide counsel or defense. While there have been infamous examples of lawyers representing (for instance) organized criminals or using unethical methods to press the interests of those we find repugnant, the vast, vast majority of attorneys struggle to follow the laws as they balance providing an appropriately robust representation to their client. That is precisely what Stephanie O’Day, an honored member of the Washington Bar, has done her entire career. Not only am I unaware of any formal structure of censure of lawyers who ethically and aggressively represent clients who other members of the society consider unworthy (or politically contrary), there, in fact, isn’t such a mechanism, and for good reason. What I take great offense at on behalf of all hardworking lawyers is the concept that an attorney takes on whatever negative societal onus someone like yourself would hang around a client’s neck. The fact that Stephanie, or any other attorney, would be considered for office based only on her clientele is foundationally wrong. I would invite you to apologize for the impression you left.
Perhaps you could be more specific on the record then, Stephanie, because many voters know and will.
I support Stephanie. One reason it appears that private counsel only represent developers ( they don’t) is that the government has the prosecuting attorney to handle their side of enforcment. Everybody deserves to have their side heard and to exhaust all administrative remedies, no matter what the dispute may be. So to say that one lawyer only represents the worst is to mischaracterize the system. Many issues never make it to court and are solved just by explaining the facts and the law to the parties, and the public is just not part of that process.