2016/06/29 Council Agenda Packet

Wednesday, June 28 Mayor Stephanson, Council President Murphy and Members of the City Council: As always, I thank you for this opportunity to speak. I wore my "Break Free from Fossil Fuels" t-shirt today to show that I have not forgotten the need to "Keep It In the Ground." What I mean by "Keep It In the Ground," is that we humans have an obligation to leave most of the coal, oil and natural gas where it is, so as to leave a livable.planet for future generations. But that is not what I came to talk about today. I have an article from the Herald and News of Klamath County OR, entitled "County to Bolster Terrorist Response Ability." To be clear, that means they intend to bolster their ability to respond to terrorist attacks The title refers to an agreement between Klamath County;. BNSF and Pacificorp. (For thosewho may not know, Pacificorp is an energy utility operating in six western states, including Washington. The agreement was initiated by Klamath County Sheriff Frank Skrah, who cited the Malheur occupation as indicating the need for collaboration against terrorists. One of the three Commissioners voted no, by the way, because he felt "the agreements were redundant." Setting aside the debate as to need vs redundancy, I thought Sheriff Skrah seemed to match the profile of what I have come to know as a "Constitutional Sheriff." These are Sheriffs who sincerely believe that they are the Law of the Land in their counties. They go so far as to assert that they are the last line of defense against the overreach of the Federal Government. Sure-enough, I found him, along with almost 500 others, on the Constitutional Sheriffs& Police Officers Association (CSPOA) website_ Twelve of those constitutional Sheriffs can be found, according to the CSPOA, in Asotin., Chelan, Cowlitz, Douglas, Grant, Klickitat, Lincoln, Pacific, Pend Oreille, Skamania, Whitman and Yakima Counties. Constitutional Sheriffs & Police Officers Association http://www.heraldandnews.com/news/county-to-bolster-terrorist-response- ability/article f67c8270-8c58-5fab-9aee- f30f90db8830.html?utm medium=social&utm source=twitter&utm campaign=user- share (CSPOA Facebook https://www.facebook.com/cspoa.org/ &website https://web.archive.orq/web/20150805191132/http://cspoa.orq/ )