The highlight of our meeting was a visit from Senator Mona Das and former senator Kevin Ranker to tell us about a new political action committee whose goal is to elect more Black women to the Washington state legislature. Their thesis is that Black women have been the most consistently progressive Democrats, and this year with eight of them running for the legislature, we should do everything we can to elect them.
The name of this new organization is Opportunity PAC, and their website is opportunity-pac.com. The idea for this organization was the brainchild of Senator Mona Das, herself an east Indian-American state senator who found it tough going running for office and once being in office. To help others have an easier time, she got the idea of raising money to help elect more women of color and to set up a support structure for these new legislators. Her goal was to raise $12,000-$14,000, but so far Opportunity PAC has raised $350,000 in hard cash, and has about another $350,000 in pledges. However, more money is sorely needed, as the opponents of the eight Black women are getting money from rightwing groups that don’t want to see more integration in the legislature.
If you want to help the organization set up to recruit more female candidates of color and to prepare these candidates to serve, and make a 501©(3) donation at the same time, you can contribute to the Opportunity Leadership Network, also founded by Senator Das. You can find them at https://connect.clickandpledge.com/w/Form/738b442a-c975-4623-93a6-c570b5b7eaa7. They operate under the auspices of the Seattle Foundation. See http://www.seattlefoundation.org/oln.
Here are the seven candidates for the House and the one candidate for the Senate:
Tanisha Harris, 17th Legislative District (House) https://hdcc.org/our-candidates-2/tanisha-harris-profile/
Joy Pratt Stanford, 26th Legislative District (House) https://www.joyforwashington.com/
T’wina Nobles, 28th Legislative District (Senate) https://twinanobles.com/
Rep. Melanie Morgan, 29th Legislative District (Re-Elect for House) https://hdcc.org/our-candidates-2/melanie-morgan-2/
Jamila Taylor, 30th Legislative District (House) https://hdcc.org/our-candidates-2/jamila-taylors-profile/
Kirsten Harris-Talley, 37th Legislative District (House) https://www.electkht.org/
April Berg, 44th Legislative District (House) https://www.aprilberg.com/meet-april
Rep. Debra Entenman, 47th Legislative District (Re-Elect for House) https://hdcc.org/our-candidates-2/debra-entenman/
If you can afford it, it would be great if you could make a donation to Opportunity PAC, which will spread money to all eight candidates. However, you are welcome to donate to individual candidates if that works better for you. For that reason, I have provided websites for their campaigns. If you want to simply focus on the races that could most use support, according to Kevin Ranker, these are the three:
T’wina Nobles http://twinanobles.com against Steve O’ban (R). Steve is the Republican who has fought against LBBTQ rights and equality in the Senate and privately as an attorney. Getting Steve out of the Senate and winning here will do more for advancing equity and justice in Washington State than nearly any other race. And, the Senate Republicans are spending thousands of dollars on negative attacks (https://www.kiro7.com/home/south-sound-political-flyer-decried-racist/NRKVWCJIJBE53HO7PARRCKVN5E/).
Tanisha Harris https://www.electtanisha.com/ against Vicky Kraft (R) – Tanisha is great on every progressive issue from climate, to choice to justice to equality and Vicky is the one who put 100 amendments of the Sex Ed bill trying to kill it.
Joy Stanford http://joyforwashington.com running against Michelle Cauldier (R) – Joy is a powerful champion for education, equality and affordable housing and she will bring a strong voice and diversity to Olympia. She is running in Gig Harbor where our Democratic Senator only won the election by 101 votes! This is a major battle and one that will require significant resources. You can donate individually, or donate to all three through Opportunity PAC at https://secure.anedot.com/opportunity-pac/kr.
Kevin Ranker will be working full time with OpportunityPAC until the election. He is totally committed to the organization and the candidates. If you have any questions about this, he welcomes your calls or emails. You can reach Kevin at kevin@kevinranker.com, or at either 360-376-4031 or 360-472-1850.
There will be a concert to benefit Opportunity Leadership Network on Oct. 14. As soon as I have details, I will get them to you.
Here are some other comments from Kevin Ranker on other important races you may want to consider in your political donations:
Another absolutely critical race is just south of us on Whidbey Island with Helen Price Johnson (https://helenpricejohnson.org/). This is a very close race but one that we can, AND MUST, win. Helen is great. She was wonderful and an Island County Commissioner and will be a powerful Democratic voice for the environment, housing and education in the Senate who will also stand up for ferries!
Two other very important seats in the State House where we can have a real chance of flipping the seat from Republican to Democratic are: Angie Homola – also Whidbey Island and Alicia Rule in Bellingham.
Finally, the top defends in Washington State are:
Dave Paul (Whidbey) House
Dean Takko (Grays Harbor / Pacific County) Senate
Sharon Shewmake (Bellingham) House
All three of these are serious fights to keep those seats blue!
Thank you for all you continue to do for Washington State and San Juan County.
All the best, Kevin
You may remember the policing resolution that we sent to the state party. It turns out that a lot of local party organizations sent similar resolutions. The resolutions committee used all of them to craft a resolution that takes the best from each, and you can find the new resolution at https://drive.google.com/file/d/17MaJ9RXFtfh5BL4RtN-4RNfALSWR3q7M/view
A lot of the language looks similar to what Bob O’Connell had put in ours.
If you are concerned about the Growlers, the next meeting of the Sound Defense Alliance is Wednesday, Sept. 30, at 6:00 PM, link to be provided. I am providing their latest email so you can read it, as it provides some helpful actions:
MEETING: Sound Defense Alliance and Quiet Skies
Speakers from Whidbey Island, Olympic Peninsula and San Juan County
There will be time for questions and comments
Meeting details will be emailed the week before
Action
Olympic sound defenders,
This afternoon (it’s Friday, so a fine time to issue a controversial decision), the Navy sent out its final decision on their Northwest Training and Testing plans.
The link is https://nwtteis.com/?utm_source=Northwest+Training+and+Testing+Supplemental+EIS%2FOEIS
NPCA is doing some quick reactions to media outlets and then we’ll take a closer look at all the details. However, for a place to start, look at Appendix J/Airspace Noise Analysis. In short, the Navy does a pretty good job of highlighting the pervasive noise from their Growler jet training over and around
the Olympics. Jet noise is compared to a garbage disposal flying overhead when the natural background sounds are close to a whisper or even quieter at places like the Hoh Rain Forest.
The Navy admits that while they fly out to their training area on the West End on a narrow route, they return from all across the west side, flying over most of the park. And they say their noise can travel 11-16 miles on either side of the aircraft. Their key strategy for obscuring the full impact of the jet noise is averaging the noise over time and space to even out the highs of the intrusions and the lows of background quiet. Even then, it’s a lot louder than nature; but only for a few minutes out of every average day. But Olympic National Park is not an average place, nor do people have average experiences there.
One fun read was to look at their analysis of the dilemma of loud jets descending while returning to their Whidbey base while crossing over a quickly elevating landscape. While it might get loud on top of Mount Olympus, they acknowledge, there aren’t many people up there and it’s only for a few minutes. No problem – on average. Then you might turn to Volume 2/Description of Proposed Action and Alternatives. This is where they make their case that going elsewhere or flying less just doesn’t work for them. But I especially liked the passage (thanks to avid reader Donna Osseward for noting this) on page 2-23 where they toss the hot potato to the FAA for creating a military airspace in an “isolated, rural area”. This despite Olympic being the Northwest’s most visited national park, seeing more than 3 million visitors annually throughout the year.
TO DO: take a look for yourself at the Navy’s document, then drop a letter to your newspaper, social network and elected official asking the Navy to protect America’s people and parks by flying elsewhere.
IT IS NOT GETTING BETTER!
The map below shows where the reports are coming from. For the full report in PDF format click https://f4be68e4-2f42-4ce8-b4c0-6fb1e95c8ac6.filesusr.com/ugd/f9226a_ca0d815d5b384dfc9e176611b7b59ecb.pdf
Report Jet Noise at https://gis.sanjuanco.com/aircraft-noise-reporting. If you need help there are hints at https://www.quietskies.info/access-the-county-report-site. You can also send an email to ask for help at QuietSkiesSanJuan@gmail.com.
Also consider sending comments to the Navy at (360) 257-6665, or via e-mail: COMMENTS.NASWI@navy.mil.
Our endorsements for the general election will soon be up on our website, and as usual, we are having a postcard printed and mailed to help you with your ballot decisions. Ballots are slated to be mailed out Oct. 13, and our postcard should arrive at your mailbox a few days before that. I strongly encourage you to vote promptly and get your ballot in as soon as you can, either by mail or by depositing in the drop box on your island.
It’s not too early to start thinking about our reorganization this coming January. Every two years we elect officers, and we are always looking for new people to join us. We are especially in need of a new treasurer, as our current treasurer served first as treasurer, then three years as chair, and now four more years as treasurer again. While he will remain a PCO, he would like to step down from the treasurer duties. It is not a difficult job to learn, and the only way we can accept donations, which we use to fund our voter postcards and other important uses, is if we have a treasurer who reports donations to the Public Disclosure Commission. Whether you have experience or not, it would be a huge help to have a new person take over as treasurer and enable us to continue to receive donations. Please contact me if you would consider this request.