The Lakewood Examiner

Susanna Keilman is a Republican, and she is standing for State Representative, Position 2, in the 28th Legislative District.

The Tacoma News Tribune was not particulary impressed by Susanna Keilman, on account of her declining to be interviewed:

Unfortunately, while voters and the TNT’s Editorial Board would have benefitted from a spirited conversation amongst all three candidates in this race, Keilman declined an invitation to participate in the endorsement process. If Keilman moves on to the general election this fall, we hope she’ll rethink her strategy and realize the importance of the public exchange of ideas and the responsibility to reach beyond one’s base.

You would have thought that Susanna Keilman would have welcomed the opportunity to get some extra coverage, especially as she has raised close to $100,000 for her election campaign, including $50 from Paul Wagemann, a Clover Park School District Board member.

In June Paul Wagemann was censured by the Board, for “harassing, intimidating and bullying the district’s superintendent“.

The superintendant, Ron Banner, was quoted as follows by The Tacoma News Tribune:

Paul Wagemann is part of a community group with an overtly racist agenda, and I am being subjected to heightened scrutiny by him due to my race, and due to my leadership and support of equity and inclusion for our students and staff in the school district…

On June 13 Susanna Keilman attended a meeting of the board of Clover Park School District. Paul Wagemann was the main subject of public comments, and this was a chance for the budding politician to make her point. She could have made a spirited defence of her $50  supporter. Or perhaps she could have made an eloquent critique of critical race theory.

And guess what she said? Wait for it…

I’d like to yield my time to J… Healy, please.

That was it, Susanna? Is this the kind of response we want from someone who is standing for political office? Who has raised around $100,000 for her campaign? She yields her time to someone else?  Who is she going to yield her time to if she gets elected?

But perhaps it didn’t matter what she said. Susanna Keilman attended a highly charged meeting, and was making it clear to her supporters which side of the fence she stands on.

Lakewood’s de-annexation from the Pierce County Library System is moving onto the agenda. This would be the process by which Lakewood stops contributing it tax dollars to the Library System, and becomes responsible for its own libraries. However, we mustn’t get too excited – right now council members are lukewarm about the idea. 

At the Council’s study session on Monday, July 25 2022, the issue of de-annexation was raised by the City Manager, John Caulfield. He wanted to know what action the City should take.

Council member Anderson said he would like good “back of the envelope” numbers before making a decision, though he suspected that he it would be too expensive. Indeed, he indicted that he would not be supporting de-annexation:

I would like to make an informed decision when I vote no…

This raises the issue of what Donald Anderson will be voting against. The most likely route to de-annexation would be the City voting for a resolution, which would be put to the people of Lakewood at a general election (RCW 27.12.380).

So is Donald Anderson saying that he doesn’t want to give voters the choice? Or is he referring to the alternative route to de-annexation (RCW 27.12.355), where there is no popular vote, and both the City Council and the library system’s trustees agree to an amicable divorce? Or am I over-interpreting his use of the word “when”?

However, I don’t want to be too critical of Donald Anderson. He is clearly unhappy with the way Pierce County Library System has been treating the City of Lakewood. And because of his influence on the Council, he is in a position to make de-annexation happen.

Council Member Michael Brandstetter seemed to be supportive of Donald Anderson’s view, as was Paul Bocchi.

Linda Farmer appeared unsympathetic to de-annexation, saying

I don’t know that we [the City] want to be in the library business…

Of course there are many ways of running a City’s libraries, and one needs to look at how other cites run their libraries. There could be a Lakewood Library System, acting as a municipal body. There could also be the Puyallup model, where Puyallup Public Library is run by a board, appointed by the City Manager.

In spite of council members’ doubts, the Council is going to get more information about the viability of de-annexation, and they are not dismissing the idea out of hand.

That’s progress.

The Panthers – the Panther Party of Washington and the Black Panther Party of Washington – are some of Lakewood’s unsung heroes. They are heavily involved in volunteering and charity work, and they campaign against injustice – whether it is homelessness, racism or environmental destruction.

The Panthers regularly make comments at Lakewood council meetings, either in person or through Zoom.

The July 18, 2022 meeting was a particular challenge. Those wanting to make public comments had to sit through 90 minutes of presentations.

These presentations covered topics such as tiny homes for the homeless and the provision of pro bono legal services for people in rental accommodation.

Yet 90 minutes was way too long, and I suspect that few people at the meeting had the attention span to fully follow the seemingly endless presentations.

Council member Patti Belle started eating during the presentations, and at one stage council member Linda Farmer shifted herself from a sitting to a standing position.

Yet another reason why Linda might want to shift from being a Lakewood council member to being Pierce County Auditor.

Fortunately Docere Pharmakis, Minister of Information of the Panther Party of Washington, was paying attention. On Zoom, all the way from Pullman, on the other side of the State.

He reminded us of Jonathan Swift’s 1729 essay, “A modest proposal”. It is a piece of satire, which suggested that one could cure poverty in Ireland by eating the poor, or at least their offspring:

Supposing that one thousand families in this city, would be constant customers for infants flesh, besides others who might have it at merry meetings, particularly at weddings and christenings, I compute that Dublin would take off annually about twenty thousand carcasses; and the rest of the kingdom (where probably they will be sold somewhat cheaper) the remaining eighty thousand.

Docere Pharmakis didn’t advocate the eating of children. Just the homeless. This would kill two birds with one stone – you would get rid of the homeless and also provide a local source of meat, at a time of sky-rocketing prices. As he put it:

…we can simply slaughter them [the homeless] and put them on the shelves for consumption and feed the people in our communities…

However, if you’re worried about food prices, there is an alternative. French revolutionary Pierre-Gaspard Chaumette, in 1793, stated

Quand le peuple n’aura plus rien à manger, il mangera le riche.

In English,

When the people shall have no more to eat, they will eat the rich.

Bon appétit.

There are three candidates for Pierce County Auditor: Daryl McCarty, Damon Townsend, and Linda Farmer. Looking at the voters’ pamphlet, Daryl McCarty and Damon Townsend have considerable experience in running elections. Linda Farmer doesn’t have their experience, and appears not to be qualified for the job. If you are a progressive or neutral, vote for Damon Townsend. If you are a conservative, vote for Deryl McCarty.

Thank you Amelia Escobedo, for pointing out that Lakewood’s Republican mayor Jason Whalen has just endorsed Linda Farmer for Pierce County Auditor.

He kind of had to, given that in 2020 Slippery Linda, a supposed Democrat, endorsed him in his failed bid to get onto Pierce County Council.

Slippery Linda’s endorsement of Jason Whalen was a betrayal of the Democrat doorbellers who worked so hard to get her elected to Lakewood City Council in 2019.

And now Slippery Linda is demonstrating that she is a self-seeking user of the people of Lakewood. They elected her, and even though her term has over a year to run she is moving on to other things. Is she planning on doing a Sarah Palin, who resigned as Governor of Alaska before her term was over?

Slippery Linda has gotten what she wanted from Lakewood, including an endorsement from its mayor. Now she wants to move onwards and upwards, to a job that pays $145,650.82 a year.

If by some misfortune Slippery Linda does get elected, one would hope that she takes her job more seriously than her current elected role, as Lakewood council member. She wrote on her Linkedin profile that

In my spare time, I serve on the Lakewood City Council.

Yes, it is a part-time job, but something she does in her spare time? Along with gardening, basket-weaving and supporting Seahawks? Is it such a minor role that it can be trivialized as a spare time activity?

Maybe if Slippery Linda had take the job more seriously, and less of a spare time activity, she would have questioned why Michael Wiley, Michael Zaro, and  Brian Markert weren’t fired from the Lakewood Police Department after the Leonard Thomas killing?

Maybe Slippery Linda would have noticed that hundreds of Garry oaks were under threat in Springbrook, Woodbrook, and Sylvan Park at the former Oakwood school property?

Maybe she would have thought for herself, rather than meekly deferring to current mayor Jason Whalen and former mayor Donald Anderson?

We saw this when council member Michael Brandstetter suggested that the Garry oak becomes Lakewood’s City’s tree. Slippery Linda turned her back on Lakewood’s environmental heritage, by saying

I would like a little bit more information about what it would mean to designate a city tree, to Council member Anderson’s point. What would happen if we needed to cut one down…?

What guarantee do the voters of Pierce County have that Slippery Linda won’t also trivialize the job of Pierce County Auditor? Is it going to be another spare time activity?

What guarantee do the voters of Pierce County have that Slippery Linda won’t use them – like she used the people of Lakewood?

It should also be pointed out that if Slippery Linda is elected Pierce County Auditor, and if she does a Sarah Palin and vacates her seat on Lakewood City Council, Jason Whalen and the council will get to choose her replacement.

The last time they chose a replacement, they went for Patti Belle, who has shown herself to be far and away Lakewood’s most ineffective council member. We certainly don’t want them choosing another Patti Belle.

The voters of Pierce County will hopefully see through Slippery Linda, and not make the mistake that Lakewood voters made in 2019 when they elected her.

Keep Slippery Linda in Lakewood, let her sit out her term on the city council. Then the City of Lakewood can be the final resting place of her ill-starred and self-seeking political career.

Columbia Lily, Roy, WA

Twice a week I have been pulling Scotch broom in Roy, Washington. You can’t cut it, because it just grows back, and poisoning isn’t eco. So you have to pull it out, either by hand or with a lever.

For this year, we’ve done all we can do. The Scotch broom has already flowered, so now one has to contend with the seed pods. One plant can produce 10,000 seeds, which survive 60-80 years in the soil. In other words, you should pull in the spring, before it starts flowering.

And now a new batch of plants are flowering. Daisies and dandelions, and also some orange flowers, which look like hanging pumpkins. They are very attractive, and are part of the lily family. Specifically, Lilium columbianum, or the Columbia Lily, or tiger lily.

The Columbia Lily is native to the Western United States and Canada. Perhaps we can see more of them, if and when the Scotch broom ever gets cleared.

On Tuesday (July 5) I went to Lakewood Town Hall, to make a public comment at the Council meeting. I suggested that the City of Lakewood leave the Pierce County Library System (PCLS). In the jargon, this is known as “de-annexation”. I expected my idea to be shot down by the City Council, assuming they bothered listening to me.

I nonetheless believe that Lakewood needs to deannexe from the PCLS. As I wrote in a previous article, the PCLS is a monstrous and unaccountable organization, which has taken Lakewood for granted and disrespected both its residents and elected representatives.

It is also a matter of civic pride. In 1991, when Lakewood became part of the PCLS, it was not a city. Now that it is a city, with a large and growing population, it should have its own library system. The Lakewood Library System.

Yet de-anexation is not easy. Looking at the Revised Code of Washington, the matter would have to be put to the ballot, at the same time as a general election (RCW 27.12.380). This would probably mean that the ballot couldn’t happen until November 2023. And there could be no ballot without the support of the City Council.

A ballot could be avoided if both the PCLS and Lakewood City Council supported de-annexation (RCW 27.12.355), if certain conditions are met. However, one must assume that PCLS will fight tooth and claw to keep Lakewood in its grasp.

As far as precedents are concerned, in 2013 Renton considered de-annexing from the King County Library System. The Library System wanted to close the Cedar River Library, and it was thought that the threat of de-annexation would act as leverage. Renton City Council did not support de-annexation and that was the end of the matter.

There is also a dark side to de-annexing, which we have to be careful to avoid. Lake Stevens City Council considered de-annexing from the Sno-Isles Library District. The motive appeared to be financial, and there was a proposal to replace Sno-Isles with a privatized library service. This is the City Council that became notorious for  allowing 1000s of trees to be cut down to make way for a new Costco.

It therefore needs to be clear that de-annexation means Lakewood getting its own library system, not the library services being contracted out.

Towards the end of the July 5 council meeting, there was council members’ comments. Council member Paul Bocchi was clearly not happy with the way PCLS has treated Lakewood, but he made it clear that it was “not our library”.

Donald Anderson, the former mayor, was more forthright:

I think that consideration [of de-annexation], not necessarily action, should be sooner rather than later, because we know that the library moves at a snail’s pace or slower.

He also did some calculations:

And my back of the envelope calculation is that we contribute about $4 million… to the Pierce County Library System. And if you look at Puyallup, who has their own library system, it would probably cost us 5 or 6 million dollars to run a robust library system in the City of Lakewood.

Donald Anderson was a teenage president of the Puyallup School Board in the early 1970s, so he knows Puyallup well. He seems to believe it possible that Lakewood can emulate Puyallup, and have a successful and functioning library system.

Yet Donald Anderson was treating de-annexation as a threat rather than a promise, as a way of getting the PCLS to be more sensitive to Lakewood’s needs.

It’s not enough. We need to recognize that Lakewood is the victim of an abusive relationship with Pierce County Library System, and the chains of abuse must be broken as soon as possible.

The year kicked off with a new mayor – Donald Anderson stepped down, to be replaced by his deputy, Jason Whalen. Mary Moss became the deputy mayor.

Mayor Jason Whalen is less abrasive than his predecessor. He certainly wouldn’t do what Donald Anderson did, and describe public attendees at council meetings as “the peanut gallery”.

It’s also true that Jason Whalen likes to give the impression that he is a believer in compromise and consensus. Or as new deputy mayor Mary Moss put it, “Jason doesn’t have a partisan agenda; he works on behalf of the people – not of special interests or Party ideology”.

In reality Jason Whalen represents a section of Lakewood, and he doesn’t seem too bothered by the destruction wrought on other sections of the community by the development of warehouses. Indeed from his comments at Council meetings, he actually seems proud that warehouse developers are locating in Lakewood.

Mary Moss, the deputy mayor, has contributed little of value to council meetings, and her communications often take the form of anodyne pleasantries.

Furthermore, she often follows the lead of Jason Whalen and former mayor Donald Anderson. To my knowledge the last time she contradicted them was in 2018, when she voted against Ordinance 683, which prohibited marijuana businesses in Lakewood.

Nonetheless, one should give Mary Moss the benefit of the doubt. From her reports, she attends a lot of events, and much of her work seems to happen behind the scenes.

It should also be noted that on June 21 Mary Moss, as deputy mayor, chaired her first council meeting. This was because the mayor was in Hawaii. It was a high-risk meeting, because there is a lot of anger in the community about the closure of Lakewood’s library.

As far as I could see, Mary Moss’s chairing of the meeting was competent, and she passed her first test. She did take a risk by directly responding to one public commentator, who implied that the City was responsible for preparing cost estimates for the library. However, nothing bad happened.

Donald Anderson might no longer be mayor, but that doesn’t mean he has gone away. He exercises control and influence, and we saw this when Michael Brandstetter suggested that the Garry oak becomes the City tree. Straight away Donald Anderson opposed the suggestion, and the other council members meekly followed suit.

Donald Anderson’s authority comes not just from his personality, but from the fact that he has been in this game a long time. He knows everything about Pierce County, he has contacts all over the place, including with the military on JBLM. And when he comments on the local transport system, or City funding, or a host of other topics, there always seems to be the sub-text: “I know this stuff backwards, I understand the limits of council-manager government, and you can’t do a better job than me”.

If there is one council member who genuinely and selflessly serves his community it is Michael Brandstetter. He is a hard-working council member, who is prepared to wade through bureaucratic detail and ask questions. Further, he is accessible, and is prepared to discuss at length issues that are worrying Lakewood residents.

Michael Brandstetter is capable of acting independently, for example his attempt to make the Garry oak the City tree. And like the other Republican council members, Donald Anderson and Jason Whalen, he is not afraid of expressing his opinions. Yet Michael Brandstetter appears to be a fatalist, in the sense of believing that once something has been decided, there is little you can do it stop it.

There are certain similarities between Michael Brandstetter and Paul Bocchi. Paul Bocchi wants to serve his community, and he has a good grasp of detail. I also get the impression that he is not comfortable with some of the things going on in Lakewood. He was certainly taken aback by the Pierce County Library System’s decision to close Lakewood’s library. And while he might have some views about tree preservation, being a Democrat he keeps a low profile.

Maybe Linda Farmer would actually just rather be somewhere else – I assume that if she is elected as Pierce County Auditor in November she will leave the City Council. And she hasn’t even completed her first four-year term!

Overall, Linda Farmer occupies a similar position to Mary Moss, in the sense that she tends to follow Jason Whalen’s and Donald Anderson’s lead. We saw this most clearly when she agreed with Donald Anderson’s opposition to making the Garry oak the City tree, saying

I would like a little bit more information about what it would mean to designate a city tree, to Council member Anderson’s point. What would happen if we needed to cut one down…?

Yet we shouldn’t forget that Linda Farmer, along with Paul Bocchi and Donald Anderson, was responsible for selecting members of the Ad Hoc Tree Committee.

Many people were suspicious of this selection process, and thought the committee would be stacked, so that the status quo would be maintained. Yet as it happened the committee supported increased protections for Lakewood’s trees, helped by the fact that representatives from real estate interests stopped turning up. So maybe Linda Farmer managed to work some magic after all?

Then there’s Patti Belle. I have already discussed the flawed process by which she was appointed, and her performance has been unimpressive. She has not shown any real leadership, and she often echoes the words of other council members. Matters aren’t helped by her body language – she often slouches to one side, sipping from a large drink occasionally, while holding up her head with one hand, as if she is bored, tired or both.

I understand that Patti Belle might be worn out after a hard day’s work, but City Councilors are not just volunteers – they are paid for their time. Patti Belle earns a six-figure salary at the City of Kent, and maybe she should ask herself whether she needs really the extra aggravation of being a Lakewood City councilor.

And here are the grades. They reflect council members’ performance, and the extent to which they serve their constituents’ interests. They are not a comment on their politics and ideology.

Myth: Pierce County Library System is a wonderful, caring organization, which always put the community first.

Fact: Pierce County Library System is an unaccountable monster.

In April it came out of the blue. A sudden announcement from Pierce County Library System that Lakewood’s main library was an “Aging building in critical condition”, that $10 to $15 million was required for repairs, and that

the Library System will need to remove all books, materials, and furniture from the building for a roof replacement, which may equal the cost of the entire property’s value.

And

Repairs far outweigh the value of the building.

It seems clear that the Pierce County Library System was done with the building, in spite of the fact that in 1964 it had won the First Honor award from the American Institute of Architects and the American Library Association. The other two winners were the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, at Yale University and the Charles Patterson Van Pelt Library, at the University of Pennsylvania.

This means that the Pierce County Library System has failed to properly maintain a precious building that was entrusted to them by the Friends of the Lake District Library in 1991. And Library System dares to dismiss it as “Aging”, when it is an essential part of Lakewood’s heritage — and only 59 years old.

The Pierce County Library System made their intention clear in April, when they wrote

The City Council for Lakewood has also noted a new library for Lakewood as a priority in its strategic plan…

That’s kind of implicating Lakewood in the plan to close the library. Though the statement about the Council and the strategic plan was news to me. I looked for corroboration…

The 2021-2024 City of Lakewood City Council Goals had a single and rather vague reference to libraries:

Expand and improve utilities and community assets, such as sewers, libraries, parks, public spaces, etc.

There was a draft strategic plan, 2021-2022, which had the same, single reference to libraries.

Further evidence that Lakewood City Council was not thinking in terms of a new library was provided by their reaction to the news of the closure.

At a Council meeting on May 16, many of the council members seemed surprised that the library was closing, with two saying that they felt “blind-sided”. Another council member, Paul Bocchi, said he didn’t know that the building was in such bad shape – in spite of him being a Senior Warden at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, which is right next door to the library.

Lakewood’s City Council is supposed to be the community’s eyes and ears. The fact that Pierce County Library System didn’t keep Lakewood City Council properly informed is evidence that they can’t be trusted.

Matters are made worse by an October 2021 assessment report for the main library system, commissioned by Pierce County Library System. Suggested renovations included $270,000 for parking lot improvements, $245,000 for landscaping, and a massive $1,750,000 to fix the elevator. And this is all before a 15% budget contingency – which would put the elevator over the $2 million mark.

This set the stage for Pierce County Library System’s propaganda campaign, to convince Lakewood residents that they have have no choice but to close the library. They even produced a leaflet titled “Lakewood Pierce County Library Building Condition: Myths and Facts”.

The propaganda has shown some signs of success. Many people in the City are very trusting, and they took what the Library System said at face value, rather than as the manipulations of a corporate monster, with an agenda that isn’t necessarily in the best interests of Lakewood and its residents.

As a corporate monster, Pierce County Library System would presumably regard Lakewood’s main purpose as being to contribute to its approximately $40,000,000 of annual revenue. The contributions come from property taxes, with 3.4% going to the Library System.

Not only does the Monster take Lakewood residents for granted, but it also takes them for idiots. Here’s an example from one of their propaganda leaflets:

I think we all know that the Monster wouldn’t personally tear down the building to build apartments. No, it would sell the building to developers, and they’d be the ones doing the tearing down.

But maybe the developers wouldn’t build apartments. Maybe they’d build yet another drive-thru, peddling junk food – convenient for students of Clover Park High School, which is just across Gravelly Lake Drive.

Having said all this, the Monster has to be careful how it sells the building. Its 1991 contract with the Friends of the Lake District Library states

If the property is sold by the Grantee, the proceedings of the sale shall be used to provide and/or enhance  library service for the Lakewood area.

In other words, the sale proceeds can’t just be absorbed into the Monster’s bank account. They have to go to Lakewood.

And at this stage, we might be wondering why Lakewood needs the Monster. Lakewood is one of the largest cities in Washington State, and it shouldn’t be at the mercy of an unaccountable creature, which doesn’t respect the City and its heritage.

This would mean that the 3.4% of Lakewood’s property taxes that now go to the Monster can stay in Lakewood. And we can have real accountability, with Lakewood libraries being run for Lakewood.

The City of Lakewood needs to stop feeding the Monster.

Joni Mitchell wrote “Big Yellow Tax” in 1970. It should be Lakewood’s City anthem.

Joni Mitchell described the inspiration for the song in a 1996 interview with Robert Hilburn:

I wrote Big Yellow Taxi on my first trip to Hawaii. I took a taxi to the hotel and when I woke up the next morning, I threw back the curtains and saw these beautiful green mountains in the distance. Then, I looked down and there was a parking lot as far as the eye could see, and it broke my heart…this blight on paradise. That’s when I sat down and wrote the song. When it first came out, it was a regional hit in Hawaii because people there realised their paradise was being chewed up.

Lakewood used to be paradise, it is now being chewed up by developers. Garry oaks are being torn down to make way for warehouses and their parking lots. Woodbrook has been destroyed, and 114 Garry oaks are about to be cut down in Springbrook. As the song goes:

They paved paradise and put up a parking lot
With a pink hotel, a boutique, and a swinging hot spot
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you got ’til it’s gone
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot

If you complain to the City about the loss of Garry oaks, you’ll be directed to Fort Steilacoom Park, where there are plenty of them. Or perhaps to one acre of young oaks behind St. Clare’s hospital.

However, what the City in effect seems to be doing is creating reservations, or tree museums – and outside the tree museums it is a free-fire zone. At the moment you don’t have to pay to visit the trees, but it could happen. As Joni Mitchell put it

They took all the trees, and put em in a tree museum
And they charged the people a dollar and a half to see them
No, no, no
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you got ’til it’s gone
They paved paradise, and put up a parking lot