HomeMy WebLinkAbout022123 BoCC 2/21/23 follow-up: words left unsaid
jeffbocc
From:Stephen Schumacher <sol@solmaker.com>
Sent:Tuesday, February 21, 2023 4:23 PM
To:jeffbocc
Cc:Allison Berry
Subject:BoCC 2/21/23 follow-up: words left unsaid
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Dear Board of County Commissioners,
To quote Harriet Beecher Stowe, "The bitterest tears shed ... are for words left unsaid" - as well as for follow-up
comments not allowed per meeting rules! So here are three more from me today:
1) Re Partnering for Vaccine Equity funding for continued anti-racist literacy training, I wanted to say thanks, and that
your responses turned me around a bit about this subject. I had felt the agenda request used "equity" as a smoke
screen for directing propaganda at vulnerable populations, but you are right that I got things backwards and it is instead
using vaccine funds for more benign training... fair enough!
2) I've wondered about Health Officer Berry taking time at BoCC meetings to answer questions from KPTZ listeners,
when residents actually present at the board meeting are not allowed to ask her questions. Is that fair? At today's
meeting, her remarks promoting boosters left me chomping at the bit to ask her this short question:
"Dr. Berry, could you comment on last week's Lancet meta-analysis which concluded: 'For people who have been
infected with COVID-19 at least once before, natural immunity against severe disease (hospitalisation and death) was
strong and long-lasting for all variants (88% or greater at 10 months post-infection). ... Past
COVID-19 infection against re-infection, symptomatic disease, and severe disease for ancestral, alpha, delta, or
omicron BA.1 variants, appears to be at least as protective as two-dose vaccination with the mRNA vaccines for all
vaccines and outcomes.' Why should people be vaccinated when they already enjoy superior long-lasting natural
immunity against all variants, which is at least as protective as waning two-dose vaccinations that must be repeatedly
boosted?
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(22)02465-5/fulltext
3) Re today's hearing about courthouse security, I had spoken already before two staffers commented how glad they
were that the public must go through security checkpoints before reaching them, saying that makes their "customers
coming in to do business way more respectful to us", but things are different for "lots of employees going in and out of
the building all day ... having to go through security carrying trays of mail or ballots ... is a logistical impediment to
doing our jobs efficiently with I don't think much benefit."
I fully agree with the second part of this, that there's little benefit for employees continually having to go through
checkpoints to do take care of routine business, but the same is true for their customers, and both problems have the
same solution: move the courtroom security checkpoints back up to the second floor next to the courtrooms!
However I'm offended by these staffers' wanting their customers to go through security checks as an attitude adjuster
to make them more "respectful" to staff... who is the supposed "public servant"
here?!? Respect is important, but needs to cut both ways.
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Moreover, any desire by staff to intimidate their customers into being "more respectful" is irrelevant to the legal issue
at hand. RCW 9.41.300(1)(b) requires "The restricted areas do not include common areas of ingress and egress to the
building ... when it is possible to protect court areas without restricting ingress and access to the building." Since "it is
possible" to do so by returning the checkpoint to the second floor near the courtrooms where it was for decades, this is
an open-and-shut case.
Among other things, I look forward to walking through the big beautiful main courthouse doors again, instead of
keeping them locked down like in a police state. Please follow the letter of the law, don't attempt to skirt the law or get
distracted by legally-irrelevant side issues, and restore the public's courthouse to the public.
Yours truly and respectfully,
Stephen Schumacher
Port Townsend
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