A limited number of area citizens will have the opportunity to provide brief testimony by phone to the members of the Clark County Council
The efforts of dozens of volunteers and support of 11,505 Clark County citizens over the past few months will culminate Tuesday evening when members of the Clark County Council will preside over a public meeting to address a mini initiative petition to stop vaccine mandates in Clark County.
The meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m. Tuesday (Feb. 1). County officials have indicated that “due to public health concerns, the public will not be able to provide in-person public testimony at council hearings.’’ Citizens have been invited to provide testimony for the record by submitting them through the Clark County Council website.
Verbal public comments over the phone will be limited to two minutes each, with a total of two hours of public testimony, meaning a maximum of 60 people will be allowed to speak to the councilors about the issue.
Area resident Rob Anderson began the effort last fall. He and many other citizens believed the forced vaccination mandates, as well as other mandates that aren’t equally applied, ultimately discriminate and should be challenged. The summary statement on the petition reads as follows:
AN ORDINANCE prohibiting all mandates within Clark County that discriminate against citizens regarding their health status and or that violates existing rights to health information privacy.
Volunteers quickly picked up mini initiative petitions, placing them at area businesses and collecting signatures from friends and neighbors. Hundreds of supporters attended an anti-mandate rally on Oct. 30 in Vancouver.
On Nov. 30, Anderson and Vancouver attorney Angus Lee presented 11,505 signed petitions to Cathie Garber, Clark County Elections supervisor. The proponents needed 8,311 signatures for the mini initiative to be valid. After a 30-day window to validate the signatures, the County Council then had 60 days to hold a public meeting, after which the councilors will have a 30-day time limit to make a decision.
“We call on the Clark County Council to ban all mandates within Clark County that discriminate against citizens regarding their health status and or that violate existing rights to health information privacy,” Anderson said as he welcomed the crowd at the Nov. 30 rally. “Citizens in Clark County have united together and said no more mandates,” he said. “We aren’t anti vax, or anti COVID. We’re anti discrimination in tyranny.”
Rep. Vicki Kraft (Republican, 17th District) has been an outspoken supporter of the mini initiative.
“The Washington and US Constitution guarantee and protect individual rights and freedoms,” Kraft said at the Nov. 30 rally. “We have seen for way too long now, almost two years, the governor and the majority party’s abuse of the emergency powers to push their agenda and their mandate on people who are not interested in that agenda, and certainly not in putting vaccines into their body.”
Anderson shared with Clark County Today that the volunteers had gotten signatures from people of all political persuasions. They included vaccinated people, unvaccinated people, and people who had recovered from COVID.
Anderson is very disappointed in the decision by councilors to limit public testimony to two minutes as well as limit his own testimony to five minutes. He cited examples of other public meetings held by the council that did not have similar constraints.
“The councilors voted last week 3-1 with (Gary) Medvigy, (Karen) Bowerman and Temple (Lentz) voting in favor of it and Eileen (Quiring O’Brien) voting against it,” Anderson said.
“They will reduce public comment to two minutes and cut off the mic at that point and they will only allow me five minutes to give an argument for the petition. That is really telling me that they do not appreciate and do not value the historic nature and the importance for people to petition and be heard. They don’t want us to be heard.’’
Anderson is also enraged by public comments Councilor Lentz made in a recent social media post, which she supported with a more extensive rebuttal of the actual petition in a social media post Sunday. Lentz summarized her opposition to the petition with this conclusion:
“The costs for multiple lawsuits that would also result from the county council’s passage of an ordinance that violates state and federal law and overreaches its authority into cities will also be borne by taxpayers,’’ Lentz wrote. “Clark County residents have already paid the costs for multiple lawsuits based on bad policy decisions.
“Which gets to the final, and simplest, point which supersedes everything,’’ Lentz added. “Counties are subdivisions of and thus subordinate to the state. State government is subordinate to the federal government. If Clark County passes a law that violates state and/or federal laws or orders, it will be unenforceable and it will harm Clark County and its people.’’
Anderson said he is dismayed by the fact that Lentz and the other councilors are receiving legal advice from Clark County Prosecutor Tony Golik. Golik confirmed to Clark County Today that he has counseled the members of the County Council but that his instruction to them is privileged unless the privilege is waived by the councilors.
“Temple Lentz puts her followers on high alert and really misinforms the public about what the petition does,’’ Anderson said. “The most interesting part is that she reveals that in the midst of having an opportunity to end medical discrimination and to preserve individual medical freedoms that certain members of the council are taking their marching orders from Democratic lawyers to squash it. That’s who they are listening to. Does our government and elected leaders work for us or do they work for each other to keep us in check? That is what’s at stake here.’’
For more information on the mini initiative effort, including information about Tuesday’s public meeting, go to www.ClarkCountyGroup.com.
Also read:
- Opinion: Why Bob Ferguson is wrong and what SMF is doing about it
Silent Majority Foundation challenges Bob Ferguson over alleged rights violations in federal lawsuit. - Silent Majority Foundation files lawsuit on behalf of former state employees who were terminated under policy requiring a COVID-19 vaccineSilent Majority Foundation files a lawsuit on behalf of former state employees alleging constitutional violations over a COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
- Letter: New movie on COVID vaccine victims deserves a watchRichard Beamish discusses the documentary on COVID vaccine victims, urging viewers to watch.
- Vancouver screening scheduled of ‘Vaxxed III: Authorized to Kill’Vancouver screening of ‘Vaxxed III: Authorized to Kill’ scheduled for Sept. 18 at Vancouver Mall 23.
- Study: Risk for getting COVID rises with each shot
A new report from the Epoch Times warns that the more COVID shots an individual has taken, the higher the risk of getting COVID.
Once a public meeting occurs, the Council will have 30 days to pass, reject or amend the petition. Hopefully the Council will take the time to duly consider the petition, and not reject it outright, before hearing from residents. Bidens’ mandates are being taken to court.
Biden federal worker vaccine mandate blocked in courtA federal district court judge in Texas granted a preliminary injunction against President Joe Biden’s executive order requiring all federal workers to be vaccinated against COVID-19 or be subject to getting fired.
Judge Jeffrey Vincent Brown in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District ruled for the plaintiffs in the case Feds for Medical Freedom v. Biden, writing that the order would be a “bridge too far” and pose a substantial threat to irreparable harm over the “liberty interests of employees.”
“No legal remedy adequately protects the liberty interests of employees who must choose between violating a mandate of doubtful validity or consenting to an unwanted medical procedure that cannot be undone,” Brown wrote in the order. “
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The CC Prosecutor’s legal opinion is not the only legal perspective.
We The Governed reported on how some elderly residents have been impacted by programs founded by Prosecutor Golik:
The Wall Street Journal wrote an article (linked here), which discussed how elder justice centers are creating opportunities for abuse. The first example in the report was the elder justice center founded by Clark County Prosecutor Golik in 2011. However, according to the Wall Street Journal, there are some serious problems with oversight and elder abuse from the very elder abuse justice center system created in Clark County to stop this abuse in the first place. The article details how people appointed by the Clark County Courts through the Elder Justice Center to help the elderly are often appointed as “guardians” of the elderly, drain their assets, and provide no benefit to the elderly. Here are some quotes from that article:
“One day in March 2012, 71-year-old Linda McDowell received a knock at the door of her small Vancouver, Wash., home. Ms. McDowell needed court-appointed help, the visitor told her.”
“The visit marked the start of a 30-month stretch in Washington’s guardianship system that upended her life and drained much of her $700,000 in assets. People involved in her case still disagree about whether Ms. McDowell ever needed a guardian. But by the time a judge decided that one wasn’t necessary, the value of her assets had dropped by about $470,000, much of which was spent on several guardians and related expenses, court and bank records show.
“My savings are gone,” says Ms. McDowell…”
(Wall Street Journal – “Abuse Plagues System of Legal Guardians for Adults” – By Arian Campo-Flores and Ashby Jones October 30, 2015)
Supreme Court blocks Biden OSHA vaccine mandate, allows rule for health care workersThe Supreme Court on Thursday issued mixed rulings in a pair of cases challenging Biden administration COVID-19 vaccine mandates, allowing the requirement for certain health care workers to go into effect while blocking enforcement of a mandate for businesses with 100 or more employees.
The latter, an Occupational Safety and Health Administration rule that took effect on Monday, said that businesses with at least 100 employees needed to require workers to get vaccinated, or get tested weekly and wear a mask.
The Court ruled that OSHA lacked the authority to impose such a mandate because the law that created OSHA “empowers the Secretary to set workplace safety standards, not broad public health measures.”
Biden Administration Withdraws Emergency Covid-19 Vaccine Mandate After Supreme Court Blocks RuleOSHA said it would continue to seek the private-sector mandate via the regular rule-making process
“County officials have indicated that “due to public health concerns, the public will not be able to provide in-person public testimony at council hearings.”
This pathetic excuse is getting really old!
It looks like the poll here is not a very good representation of those in Clark county. It is easy to pack a small online poll and seriously skew the results. BEWARE OF POLLS.
This poll represents those that truly care about this subject. apparently those that represent yout point of view are not that concerned!
1000 people voting on a poll in a small county is a huge number in terms of statistical relevance. There are national polls that get quoted that only have 1000 poll results across the entire US population. This poll has more than enough participants to deduce the will of people within Clark County.