Sequim Gazette Editorial and Letters to the Editor
2009's dubious achievements, questionable accomplishments
Published on Wed, Dec 30, 2009 by Jim CaseyRead More Editorial
Somebody once asked me what I do for a living. I said I sit by the side of the road and wait for someone to come along and do something stupid. Seldom am I disappointed.
What follows isn't necessarily a catalog of stupid stunts, but they mostly give cause for pause.
Enjoy these memorable - and forgettable, not to mention regrettable - events. Dates refer to when the reports were published.
Jan. 7: Sequim Mayor Laura Dubois assigns Councilor Walt Schubert to the city finance committee and as liaison to the planning council and park advisory board. Schubert demurs, saying, "I'm not going to do it anymore." Little does he know.
Jan. 21: Sequim police receive no increase in the department's budget. Instead, officers find 10 tires slashed on their cruisers.
Feb. 18: A Sequim man posing as a drug dealer robs another man, a bad choice of a target. The victim is a confidential police informant who has the robber arrested.
March 4: The "blue hole" slams shut as 2 feet of snow
falls on Sequim and surrounding areas. Look at Frosty go.
Unintended consequence
March 11: Foes of the Border Patrol's actions on the peninsula demonstrate in Sequim - and inspire three times as many people to rally in support of the patrol.
March 18: City employees escape discipline for appropriating surplus city property because the items were worthless. They included a 17-year-old car with four flat tires, a faulty transmission and wiring that had been chewed through by rats. It's a real steal.
March 25: A house on Anderson Road north of Sequim gains regional notoriety when neighbors object to its purple and lavender paint scheme. Meanwhile, a Sequim woman returns from vacation to find tons of her quarry rocks have been stolen.
Also: Sequim city councilor Ken Hays' investigation of city capital projects director Frank Needham finds nothing wrong, although the probe costs $11,249 of city money. Resident Patricia Allen in turn calls for an investigation of Hays. No one, however, calls for an investigation of Allen. This breaks the chain and brings the city bad luck, which will appear in the guise of Vernon Stoner.
An April fool
April 1: A man is arrested for breaking into Jean's Deli - for a juice drink - after he is discovered leaving by the restroom window. No fooling.
April 8: Clallam Transit closes the restrooms at its
Sequim station during certain hours each day after vandals smear feces on its walls. No sh--.
April 15: Four hundred people are captured in a community photograph at Sequim Avenue and Washington Streets, showing just how long it takes for that light to change.
April 22: Sequim police are told not to smoke in their cruisers. The same week, Fire District 3 personnel burn down a house on Third Avenue on purpose.
May 13: A glitch in the Sequim Safeway gas station lists the price of unleaded fuel at $8.43/gallon. Also: A Sequim man gets word that he'll receive $150,000 from the Canadian lottery if he'll just pay $3,750 in fees - to a con artist.
He went thataway
June 3: A driver loses control of an SUV at East Fir Street and North Brown Road, drives over a fence and a planter, through a stop sign, over a brick-encased mailbox and across two front yards before stopping. He isn't injured.
June 17: The Olympic Game Farm announces it no longer will permit visitors to feed white bread to its animals, apparently concluding that Wonder Bread really doesn't build strong bodies 12 different ways.
July 8: Tom Pitre finds that his pullover shirts don't fit everyone to a T. The message they carry: Sequim - The Final Destination.
July 22: Susan Rhein dyes purple the paws, ears, topknot and tail of her Labrador retriever/poodle to help celebrate Sequim's midsummer festival. The dog's new pedigree? Lavradoodle.
Aug. 19: A resident calls 9-1-1 to report a "mean cat" in the 100 block of Springwater Lane. What the caller expects police to do about it remains a mystery.
Make that to go
Sept. 2: A Port Ludlow man lands his helicopter in the field next to Costco. Observers fear it's a forced landing, but the pilot says he just dropped in for coffee. Honest.
Sept. 9: Sequim city councilors are united - and rarely so - in their unconcern that their choice for city manager, Vernon Stoner, was fired from his previous job with the state insurance commissioner. What, we worry?
Also: Seven people are arrested for heisting more than $110,000 in cash and collectable coins from a Sequim-area home. Why? One suspect says she needed the money to bail her boyfriend out of jail.
And: A man who found an airplane builder's plate while remodeling a house sells it on eBay for $255. Only after the sale is sealed does the Smithsonian Institution tell him the plane was flown by Charles Lindbergh.
Don't play, just pay
Oct. 14: Some homeowners in the SunLand subdivision object to a proposal that they pay $300 per property to save the SunLand golf course - on which they are not permitted to walk.
Oct. 28: A city council candidate cancels his campaign
advertising in the Gazette after it publishes an advertisement that ridicules him. The candidate says he'll take his business to another publication - which promptly publishes the same advertisement.
Nov. 26: City Councilor Erik "Ebeneezer" Erichsen casts the sole no vote against the city granting $60,000 to the Boys & Girls Club, proclaiming, "They're (children) not taxpayers," apparently not counting how much sales tax on youngsters' toys, clothes, food and furnishings flow into city coffers.
Dec. 2: After three months as Sequim public works director, Ben Rankin resigns to return to his hometown of Clemson, S.C. "There's a big difference between Clemson and Sequim," observes city manager Steve Burkett. Precisely, 2,257 miles to where everybody eats grits but nobody eats lutefisk.
Follow that truck
Dec. 9: The Dungeness Valley Creamery is cited as a source of E. coli infections in three Washington residents, but word of the finding is trumpeted by a Seattle law firm that boasts it has "represented victims of every major foodborne illness outbreak since 1993." What, now lawyers chase milk trucks?
Dec. 16: Mayor Pro Tem Ken Hays presents retiring city councilors Walt Schubert and Paul McHugh with plaques of appreciation for their service to Sequim. Schubert and McHugh get a round of applause, but Hays disappoints the audience by choosing not to perform his Ozzie Smith-style back flip of elation.
Dec. 23: The committee planning Sequim's centennial celebration extends its deadline for theme suggestions to Jan. 15, having received no ideas by the original Dec. 11 cutoff. That gives residents just three weeks to pick a motif for an observance that's only three years away.
Dec. 30: This column appears and you're still able to read it, proving that the year could have been a whole lot lousier.
That's it, folks, except for my wish that you all have a happy, healthy new year - and that nothing worse than what's listed above befalls us in 2010.
See you by the side of the road.
Jim Casey is the editor of the Sequim Gazette. Don't say we didn't warn you.
Look for the Gazette's review of 2009's top stories in the Jan. 6 issue.
What follows isn't necessarily a catalog of stupid stunts, but they mostly give cause for pause.
Enjoy these memorable - and forgettable, not to mention regrettable - events. Dates refer to when the reports were published.
Jan. 7: Sequim Mayor Laura Dubois assigns Councilor Walt Schubert to the city finance committee and as liaison to the planning council and park advisory board. Schubert demurs, saying, "I'm not going to do it anymore." Little does he know.
Jan. 21: Sequim police receive no increase in the department's budget. Instead, officers find 10 tires slashed on their cruisers.
Feb. 18: A Sequim man posing as a drug dealer robs another man, a bad choice of a target. The victim is a confidential police informant who has the robber arrested.
March 4: The "blue hole" slams shut as 2 feet of snow
falls on Sequim and surrounding areas. Look at Frosty go.
Unintended consequence
March 11: Foes of the Border Patrol's actions on the peninsula demonstrate in Sequim - and inspire three times as many people to rally in support of the patrol.
March 18: City employees escape discipline for appropriating surplus city property because the items were worthless. They included a 17-year-old car with four flat tires, a faulty transmission and wiring that had been chewed through by rats. It's a real steal.
March 25: A house on Anderson Road north of Sequim gains regional notoriety when neighbors object to its purple and lavender paint scheme. Meanwhile, a Sequim woman returns from vacation to find tons of her quarry rocks have been stolen.
Also: Sequim city councilor Ken Hays' investigation of city capital projects director Frank Needham finds nothing wrong, although the probe costs $11,249 of city money. Resident Patricia Allen in turn calls for an investigation of Hays. No one, however, calls for an investigation of Allen. This breaks the chain and brings the city bad luck, which will appear in the guise of Vernon Stoner.
An April fool
April 1: A man is arrested for breaking into Jean's Deli - for a juice drink - after he is discovered leaving by the restroom window. No fooling.
April 8: Clallam Transit closes the restrooms at its
Sequim station during certain hours each day after vandals smear feces on its walls. No sh--.
April 15: Four hundred people are captured in a community photograph at Sequim Avenue and Washington Streets, showing just how long it takes for that light to change.
April 22: Sequim police are told not to smoke in their cruisers. The same week, Fire District 3 personnel burn down a house on Third Avenue on purpose.
May 13: A glitch in the Sequim Safeway gas station lists the price of unleaded fuel at $8.43/gallon. Also: A Sequim man gets word that he'll receive $150,000 from the Canadian lottery if he'll just pay $3,750 in fees - to a con artist.
He went thataway
June 3: A driver loses control of an SUV at East Fir Street and North Brown Road, drives over a fence and a planter, through a stop sign, over a brick-encased mailbox and across two front yards before stopping. He isn't injured.
June 17: The Olympic Game Farm announces it no longer will permit visitors to feed white bread to its animals, apparently concluding that Wonder Bread really doesn't build strong bodies 12 different ways.
July 8: Tom Pitre finds that his pullover shirts don't fit everyone to a T. The message they carry: Sequim - The Final Destination.
July 22: Susan Rhein dyes purple the paws, ears, topknot and tail of her Labrador retriever/poodle to help celebrate Sequim's midsummer festival. The dog's new pedigree? Lavradoodle.
Aug. 19: A resident calls 9-1-1 to report a "mean cat" in the 100 block of Springwater Lane. What the caller expects police to do about it remains a mystery.
Make that to go
Sept. 2: A Port Ludlow man lands his helicopter in the field next to Costco. Observers fear it's a forced landing, but the pilot says he just dropped in for coffee. Honest.
Sept. 9: Sequim city councilors are united - and rarely so - in their unconcern that their choice for city manager, Vernon Stoner, was fired from his previous job with the state insurance commissioner. What, we worry?
Also: Seven people are arrested for heisting more than $110,000 in cash and collectable coins from a Sequim-area home. Why? One suspect says she needed the money to bail her boyfriend out of jail.
And: A man who found an airplane builder's plate while remodeling a house sells it on eBay for $255. Only after the sale is sealed does the Smithsonian Institution tell him the plane was flown by Charles Lindbergh.
Don't play, just pay
Oct. 14: Some homeowners in the SunLand subdivision object to a proposal that they pay $300 per property to save the SunLand golf course - on which they are not permitted to walk.
Oct. 28: A city council candidate cancels his campaign
advertising in the Gazette after it publishes an advertisement that ridicules him. The candidate says he'll take his business to another publication - which promptly publishes the same advertisement.
Nov. 26: City Councilor Erik "Ebeneezer" Erichsen casts the sole no vote against the city granting $60,000 to the Boys & Girls Club, proclaiming, "They're (children) not taxpayers," apparently not counting how much sales tax on youngsters' toys, clothes, food and furnishings flow into city coffers.
Dec. 2: After three months as Sequim public works director, Ben Rankin resigns to return to his hometown of Clemson, S.C. "There's a big difference between Clemson and Sequim," observes city manager Steve Burkett. Precisely, 2,257 miles to where everybody eats grits but nobody eats lutefisk.
Follow that truck
Dec. 9: The Dungeness Valley Creamery is cited as a source of E. coli infections in three Washington residents, but word of the finding is trumpeted by a Seattle law firm that boasts it has "represented victims of every major foodborne illness outbreak since 1993." What, now lawyers chase milk trucks?
Dec. 16: Mayor Pro Tem Ken Hays presents retiring city councilors Walt Schubert and Paul McHugh with plaques of appreciation for their service to Sequim. Schubert and McHugh get a round of applause, but Hays disappoints the audience by choosing not to perform his Ozzie Smith-style back flip of elation.
Dec. 23: The committee planning Sequim's centennial celebration extends its deadline for theme suggestions to Jan. 15, having received no ideas by the original Dec. 11 cutoff. That gives residents just three weeks to pick a motif for an observance that's only three years away.
Dec. 30: This column appears and you're still able to read it, proving that the year could have been a whole lot lousier.
That's it, folks, except for my wish that you all have a happy, healthy new year - and that nothing worse than what's listed above befalls us in 2010.
See you by the side of the road.
Jim Casey is the editor of the Sequim Gazette. Don't say we didn't warn you.
Look for the Gazette's review of 2009's top stories in the Jan. 6 issue.
Send a letter to the editor, click here.
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