Practically the very last thing the citizens of San Juan County need is for the Freedom Foundation, from Olympia, WA, and its media affiliate Citizens Action Network, to expose the evils of the county’s Community Development & Planning Department and Friends of the San Juans. Just possibly, without their help, the Dalton case on Orcas would have been resolved a year ago at a much lower financial and emotional cost to the landowners and to our community
Do San Juan Islanders really need organizations like the Freedom Foundation and its wealthy supporters, including, according to SourceWatch, organizations and individuals associated with the Koch Brothers, the Mellon Scaife family, the Walton family, and the Heritage Foundation, to intrude into our community, police our public and private institutions, and help us protect our environment from environmentalists?
Do the citizens of Orcas Island really want an organization like the Freedom Foundation hijacking its community meetings, as it tried to do on February 22 at a public meeting organized by Friends of the San Juans to provide citizens of Orcas on both sides of the issue with an opportunity to exchange views on the Dalton case in an intelligent and respectful manner? But before the meeting even started, a representative of the Freedom Foundation tried to take over the meeting, even suggesting that the traditional guidelines for conducting public meetings on Orcas be ignored. Fortunately, the volunteer community facilitator leading the discussion was able to regain control, although the boorish and uncivil behavior of the Freedom Foundation’s supporters continue unabated.
Most citizens of San Juan County are unaware that the Freedom Foundation and its supporters have much bigger fish to fry. They are normally busy protecting our entire state from teachers, labor unions, gay rights legislation and so forth. When they aren’t working on state issues, their network of supporters is protecting the entire country from anyone not signing the Grover Norquist anti-tax pledge, and vigorously opposing campaign finance reform, women’s health and reproductive rights, increased regulation of Wall Street, and Hilary Clinton. So it is interesting to note that they are prepared to devote some of their unlimited financial resources to reforming our county, one of the smallest in the state.
And it is also worth pondering just why the local supporters of the Orcas Eagle Forum, Citizens Alliance for Property Rights, and the Common Sense Alliance would align themselves with such an outfit as the Freedom Foundation.
Jon Christoffersen
Shaw Island
Hmmm, sounds like one special interest group protesting the presence of other special interest groups. Maybe all special interest groups, the local ones included, should go away and let the people themselves discuss and decide the issues.
Thank you for such an informative letter Jon. I came away from the February 22nd meeting wondering just who are these people from the Freedom Foundation. I had a hunch but I needed to do some research before I was satisfied. You were able to fill in the gaps for me. These people are very well funded with a very right wing agenda. They would like nothing better than to see all government shrink to nothing (except for unabated military spending of course) and get it out of our lives. There is a reason for government and the citizens of the San Juan County need to embrace that and reject the intrusion by such a group. We can solve the many problems we have without their agenda or help. I view the relationship between the groups you mention in the last paragraph above and the Freedom Foundation as being very strange bed fellows. It would be healthier for all of us if the local organizations rejected the support they get from this group. They are using us as a tool to advance their cause.
Jon is a former member of the Friends Board.
He objects to the Freedom Foundation being there, but neglects to say FREINDS invited them/everyone in the video.
No one “hijacked” the meeting. People including Friends supporters spoke their minds with passion. Democracy can be messy.
RE “policing”: Friends does this. On their website it says they “enforce” regs.
Jon objects to outside orgs intruding into our community. Would Friends be willing to remove the outside money they bring in to influence our local issues? To let SJC citizens solve our own issues?
Friends doesn’t get most of their money locally. It comes from all over: wealthy family foundations; State agencies inc. Dept of Ecology; corporate money from Patagonia in Reno, who are all hoping to forward their agendas in our County.
The public is being overwhelmed by Friends and their outside money re the CAO. The public has lost its standing with the Council because of it. I hope we can regain our voice…
This my friends is politics. PACs and the political foundations are putting their oars in as the government principles are touching all parts f our lives. What I liked about the editorial was the almost identity exposed of the Freedom Foundation. Friends of The San Juans has to file an annual report as does the Freedom Fdn. Worth a peek if you really care.
Linda
First off, thank you, Jon Christofferson, for writing part of the letter I’ve been wanting to write – the part about the Freedom Foundation. The boorish, disrespectful, disruptive, and ugly behavior and comments, the interruptions of Kyle Loring, the jeers and taunts and inappropriate laughter at “jokes” about getting their shotguns out – the swaggering, smug self-satisfied and ignorant rhetoric – still has me reeling.
Freedom Foundation and Eagle Forum used Charles Dalton’s story to push their own dishonest agenda. What’s even sadder is how many people believe their spin and outright lies without question. I’m old enough to remember the McCarthy era. This group is chillingly similar in their shameless and bullying tactics.
Kudos to Gretchen Krampf for holding things together. I invite everyone who has questions about wetlands to come to Emmanuel Church tomorrow at 11:30 a.m. and begin educating yourselves.
The Friends invited the two Freedom Foundation people to the meeting, apparently in an effort to “blame” them for the community reaction to the Dalton situation. The Freedom Foundation people spoke very little. There were 6 or 7 Friends’ board members/officers, most of whom spoke. The other 50? 60? people were Orcas/Lopez/San Juan residents. What transpired was–with the exception of the New Age “facilitation”–a pretty standard island community meeting. The overwhelming majority of the people speaking complained about the Friends’ bullying tactics. One cannot raise questions about the Friends, it seems, without being accused of “disrespectful” behavior. What was disrespectful was announcing a meeting to discuss the Dalton situation, but telling people after they arrived that the Dalton case could not be discussed.