— from Dwight Guss —
As someone who has been attending public Port meetings for the last 20 years, I still find it amazing how few of our islanders attend
these informative meetings. This venue is where your questions can be answered regarding airport issues, plans, and operations. The Port’s responses may not always be the answers you want to hear or what you think they should be, but the information the airport shares with the community is always honest and straightforward.
Unfortunately, there has been a lot of false information that has been recently posted on the internet about the airport and the Commissioners. These misinformed comments make it harder for the general public to discern what statements are factually true or inaccurate. The truth matters.
I encourage you to please come to the monthly meetings and become informed and get involved with the Port of Orcas. The Commissioners are there for you.
Our current board of Commissioners is by far the most experienced, informed, and dedicated group of airport stewards the island has ever had. Please join me in voting for Poke Haffner, Bea von Tobel and Clyde Duke. They have the experience and dedication to help guide the Eastsound Airport into the future for the benefit of all islanders.
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Viewing twenty years of this as ‘normal’ raises the question of complicity.
These abuses are not a one-off, but a long-standing pattern requiring the permission of those witnessing it and the silence of those affected by it.
Now that it has hit the fan is not the time to tell us that we are “misinformed”..
THAT started long, long time ago, and we are playing catch-up. The sad part of it is that our ignorance is in part self-inflicted..
BUT it is in part from our representatives pandering to that ignorance while knowledgeable insiders twiddled their thumbs..
Cronies.
(at least the doggies have a new dog-park)
Dwight, you seem like a really nice guy & your woodworking is beautiful — but as I agree with you that “the truth matters” I’m compelled to respond to your letter here.
First off, talking vaguely about “false information” and “misinformed comments” by citizens is a questionable version of the “fake news” narrative. Please do be specific!?!
It’s been arduous to become informed about the Port’s actions, from a website that included few relevant docs (it’s a wee bit better now)to seeking public records to attending Port commission meetings focused on approving vouchers for payment, parking overload, etc. — and seldom if ever a word about the Master Plan, or any discussion about it with public witnesses present. FYI, suggesting that anyone interested in the Port should attend meetings, where public input is allowed but not recorded and seldom acknowledged let alone discussed, is an unreasonable requirement for citizens who fund the tax district. The Port spends big bucks of our money (witness $300,000+ now to mitigate the mess the Port made of our wetlands, $600,000+ to the consultant DOWL, etc.etc.) yet plays poor about budgeting for basic professional web communications.
C’mon Dwight, this is a kind of puff piece, extolling the virtues of those who sign your paycheck. As an involved member of the public I have not experienced that “the commissioners are there for you” AT ALL.
We need a new and improved Port Commission, and I hope we get it.
Yeah, these comments sum up the situation well. Cronyism is not representative democracy. OK. Refusal to postpone the Master Plan approval tells us all we need to know, I’m afraid.
I beg to disagree. Interested islanders have been stonewalled, ignored, and insulted, and downright gaslighted when expressing concerns about the grandiose new plans drawn by DOWL.
Dwight; I’m disappointed in your opinion piece for all the reasons that Susan Malins gave so factually and eloquently.
The current chair has been willing to dialogue with us; a big improvement noted and appreciated often by us. That said, your vague accusations of misinformation don’t answer or address any of the concerns we’ve voiced to the commissioners and DOWL repeatedly for the past 1.5 years that we’ve consistently attended Port meetings during this extreme Master Plan process.
I was shocked into involvement in 2017, when the trees in Eastsound Swale were cut down and the trail closed with no notice to anyone, and still needing tons of “mitigation” for MORE loss of wetland function in Eastsound Swale contiguous (de)Forested wetland. I was treated rudely and with derision, even rage, at my extreme upset and grief at seeing the wetland violated in this way. It’s true that nobody pays enough attention to Ports – and that is a grave mistake for which we are now paying!
Ports have more power than the County or God or Anyone, can afford super-lawyers to get whatever they want, backed by FAA and DOT monies galore. Our civic right and duty is to question absolute power when it harms the majority of us, and we will not be “fake-news’d” out of pursuing the interests of the greater community and the ecosystems that have had no voice, especially in this age of increasing climate change disasters. Time for a sea-change.