— from Eric Gourley —
With the November election coming up in the next few weeks, I would like to endorse Bea vonTobel for Port Commissioner. Bea has served as the Airport Manager for 13 years and has invaluable experience much needed on the Commission.
Some of the candidates running for a Commissioner position are running for all the wrong reasons, most of all their opposition to the Airport Master Plan. Whether we like it or not, to receive a substantial amount of funding from the FAA, a Master Plan is required.
There have been public meetings regarding the plan. I have attended most of them. Funny how these candidates only recently became engaged, because they were not there early on. It is unlikely any of the far-reaching proposals will ever come to fruition. Attending Port meetings and the public presentations would have made this readily apparent.
If anyone has a perspective on managing a much needed, well run, and small necessary airport, it is Bea. Please give her your vote.
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I agree with Mr. Gourley. Ms. von Tobel has the experience and skill and she is the best choice for the job. I experinced her consummate professionalism and competence when she was the Airport Manager. We didn’t always agree but she was pleasant to work with and had a great depth of knowledge.
And it’s for exactly the above reasons that I won’t be voting for Bea vonTobel.
We need new commissioners across the board, period.
That may be true, but I feel that only a clean sweep of the old guard will suffice. The Port must change its attitudes about public participation and access to information.
Ms Von Tobel’s 2018 opinions about what should be done at the port give insight into the direction she sees fit for the port, including further land purchases and expansion. Read the orcas issues letter here:
https://theorcasonian.com/guest-opinion-what-is-needed-at-the-port-of-orcas/.
We need Mia! Vote Mia!! That’s my 2-cents.
I’m very glad you posted that link; Thank you, Norris Carlson. The last short paragraph is telling as well. Even Bea VonTobel thought, or at least acted like she thought, that DOWL’s Alternative 1 was a real alternative! For that reason alone, the Master Plan should be null and void, as its “choices” posed deceived the people. It should be scrapped for a restart, even if it does cost the Port more money. That’s one expenditure I would support, given the right commissioners and manager to do the job fairly and equitably.
Bea’s alternatives attached to Alternative 1, seem far more conservative than what DOWL concocted in the “preferred plan,” but in reading more closely, they leave loopholes for maximum footprint expansion and are still contingent on more land acquisition. In other words, Bea’s suggestions leave room for the “developable land,” either the SE corner with the community garden, or the Eastsound Swale Contiguous Wetland part just north of the (illegally built, but now grandfatered-in) Saw Shop, which was offered as a 50-something vehicle parking lot – I guess that would go next to the wetland “mitigation” for the deforestation all along the seasonal creek.
For these reasons and for the very clear reasons when I read each candidate’s answers to the two questions posed by Orcas Issues, I will be voting for a clean sweep in the Port Commission.
https://theorcasonian.com/port-candidates-answer-just-two-orcas-issues-questions/
I hope Mia will weigh in in the comment section.