||| FROM ROBERT AUSTIN |||
My wife and I bought our home here in 1998, and we’ve long come to enjoy the charms of living in a small community, with all the unexpected but welcome conversations at the market, post office, etc. It sure feels good to have so many friends, even those we’re not especially close to, but with whom we’ve shared this splendid community with for so many years. Our granddaughter is just heading off to college, after coming up through the public and Salmonberry schools.
Though it can seem that we’ve all managed to move to Utopia, at times conflicts do in fact arise here, disagreements about how things should be organized, how they should be managed. We’ve seen this happen the past year over funding and management of our Orcas Fire and Rescue system, for example, as well as Eastsound Water Users Association’s Board.
As I’ve been somewhat involved in the latter kerfuffle, I would like to make some observations about the social context within which this particular conflict has taken place. In a nutshell, the conflict has in part come down to who one’s friends are, rather than the positions they’ve taken, or the issues they’ve had, that perhaps a previous board tried to bury and pretend didn’t exist.
Maybe a board member or manager have been occasional drinking buddies with you at the local tavern, or maybe they gave you a raise and some unexpected goodies in your current employment position. Maybe even their family has a name on the island due to decades of residence here, and feel entitled to extra creds for that reason.
So it might be natural for you to want to defend their position, whatever it is, because you’re friends with them. I get that, we’re all rather tribal creatures at root, but the fact of the matter is, sometimes our friends are mistaken, however sincere their opinions might seem. We probably all have things that we’ve done in the past that we’d like to explain away: maybe someone told me it was OK to do it; perhaps a longtime board member told me it was forgiven and forgotten, before someone else blew the whistle and the conflict arose. Sometimes those who know they committed such errors are the most indignant with their denials and alternative explanations of what the documented facts have demonstrated.
The current fiasco at Eastsound Water Users Association does seem to fit this explanatory template, and the current recall campaign, originally just for four current Board members who promulgate alternative, often indignant explanations of what the actual documented facts mean, may end up preserving a status quo that allowed and forgave a general manager who felt entitled to manipulate our finances in his favor because, well, he deserved it… and some former (and one present) Board member who were accustomed to calling all the shots without issues like this ever entering public discussion. They likely considered most of what has emerged into the light as “confidential” information, and never intended for much of it to be published. We would never know about these issues if whistle-blowers had not come forward with their information.
So which is more important to you: justice in the larger sense, adherence to written rules and legal norms, or defending your friend, no matter what? Would you apply a similarly lenient standard to those who are not your friends, or indeed, those whom you dislike?
**If you are reading theOrcasonian for free, thank your fellow islanders. If you would like to support theOrcasonian CLICK HERE to set your modestly-priced, voluntary subscription. Otherwise, no worries; we’re happy to share with you.**
There is no doubt we are all “tribal creatures” and with good reason; it has worked for the last half million years. Representative democracy is about trust; we trust elected representatives to make decisions on our collective behalf. But how do we know WHOM to trust? Long acquaintance and friendship seem like a good basis for extending trust to me. When Jim, Mike, Teri and Leith, all of whom I have known personally and done business with for many decades, are being castigated by newcomers, I think it is completely understandable that I am inclined to believe the people that I know and have good cause to trust. Meanwhile, Steve Smith and Tenar Hall, neither of whom I know personally, but who I hear about in the news far too often, appear to cause conflict and chaos wherever they go…
There is lots of talk about “community” on this island, mostly by people who did not grow up here, did not raise their families here and did not make a living here. They, mostly, retired here and of course that’s fine but it’s not possible to be an instant member of a real community; it takes time; time for people to get to know each other in the many interconnecting ways that island life offers, time to see our neighbors and ourselves grow, make mistakes, and learn from each other, time enough to learn to trust each other. Or not.
Ken…I agree with many of the points you make but after being here for 35 years (full time until last year) and having hosted three grandchildren all the way though OISD, I no longer consider myself a newcomer. One of my mantras w/ regard to EWUA is “Build trust first, keeping the water flowing is the easy part”.
It’s clear to me that the evidence at hand suggests some of my trust in fellow long-time islanders has been misplaced. Hopefully, when the dust settles, trust can be restored and community thrive.
Ken, thanks for your comments supporting my thesis. I have observed that it has been fairly common for newcomers to Orcas who are civic minded and wishing to integrate into our community to join local Boards. Even our highest-powered, full-on retired executive board, OPALCO, has “new to the San Juans” members.
So yes, new members are often recent arrivals, and they often bring new perspectives. This is often a good thing, and should be celebrated as a general rule. The idea that we should defer to the “old timers” risks the sort of “good old boys” back-room deals that can emerge when the same people keep running the same boards. The EWUA situation is unusual in that the public has become privvy to the sort of information that normally organizations can hold private. Should there be legal issues with an employee… well, my goodness, that’s confidential information, no one outside the inner circle need know! The fact that such issues arose around the same time with both OIFR and EWUA is interesting, and I hope will lead to greater public transparency regarding the finances of our local services. OIFR has made great strides in this direction, with inadequate resources, and it appears that this year’s current slate of Commissioners is taking strides towards fixing the problems that last year’s slate left them with.
Perhaps EWUA needs a Board reboot, though my concern all along has been: where will we find another slate to replace those recalled who both have the skills to serve, and the willingness to put up with the sorts of conflict that has been the case over the past year or so?
Take a look at the arguments each side in the water debate is presenting. On one side you have a presentation of evidence. On the other side we have a defense based on tribalism. This person is a part of my tribe. They are my friend. I have known them for a long time. I have worked with them. They could not and would not do anything wrong. Damned be any evidence that says otherwise. Damned be anyone who challenges my tribe.
As Fred points out, time on island is not a good measure of what is true. There are old islanders on each side of the debate. One side is evidence based. One side is tribe based.
When we defend our tribe regardless of the evidence, we do so to the detriment of the larger community that we are a part of.
Most evidence is neither black nor white but usually falls somewhere in between, needing interpretation. But there is also what is called “smoking-gun” evidence, which exists aplenty in the EWUA case — two checks for thousands of dollars that the general manager issued himself and quickly cashed. There is no denying that this occurred, but once-trustworthy members of the EWUA board have attempted to rationalize it, as has the general manager himself.
Robert, Fred and I had initially tried to overlook this evidence. We hoped that the solution to this troublesome problem would occur by electing trustworthy women to the board, but one of them has been a big disappointment. When the new board manipulated a subsequent appointment to favor a long-time islander over a relative newcomer with far more experience in finance and water systems, our choice became obvious.
Majority board members have forfeited the trust we formerly had in them. This is the principal reason we joined two former and three current board members plus others — now including a former EWUA Board President and the former County Prosecuting Attorney — to advocate their recall.
As Fred likes to say, “Build trust first — supplying water is the easy part.” But Teri, Jim, Mike and Leith have lost our trust. We therefore urge EWUA members to vote for their recall this Friday. Eastsound Water sorely needs a new beginning, but it cannot begin without us casting out the old.
I found it encouraging when Robert, Michael and Fred were offering a third voice to this situation. And while I continue to respect their opinions and reasoning, I’m also disappointed they’ve chosen one of the Kool-Aid stands rather than remaining sideline commentators. To bluntly and inaccurately paraphrase a deplorable – there are bad actors on both sides of this. It is troubling that it has gone so far for so long. There is no clean slate option without losing essential governing continuity. I think we can cleave to our tribalistic inclinations without denying some of the lesser traits of our friends. Blinders are optional.
Mia…Robert, Michael and I have simply brought forward evidence which shows both mismanagement and a failure of oversight by the dominant faction of the present board…hardly a “Kool-Aid stand”…resolution will come when the proxies offered by the EWUA membership are counted.