Gateway Poplar Alliance Communications Question

 Gateway Poplar Alliance Communications Question

Dear All,

I've been drafting many of the emails sent to the City, PUD, and Port, which are then edited by others who either belong to the Olympic Environmental Council, or Gateway Poplar Alliance.

We have collectively worked to prepare the 50 page analysis, which is downloadable on our website.  We sent this analysis to each agency to be transparent, honest, and to engage in communication, at the end of December.  We have not received a substantive reply from any agency to date.

After all this effort, Julie Jaman and I, who have been the most visible members of these groups, received this email from City Manager John Mauro:

Hi Andrea, Julie

 

I’ve been confused and disappointed by some of the unnecessary accusations and misinformation that I’ve been hearing and reading from you since I last suggested that we connect directly and talk through some of your concerns around the Sims Gateway project.  I think you may be confusing or misinterpreting some of the information and events.  I fear that this may be fueling your frustrations and an assumption of malintent on the City’s (or my) part.  . . .  I’m sure we haven’t gotten it perfectly, but we are trying hard.  I’d like to clear the air so we can stay focused on progress.

 

For those reasons, I’m again making the offer for me or a staff member of mine to meet with you in good faith to learn what your intent is, to share what we currently know about the project and to aim for a more productive and collaborative space.  I believe your current approach – . . . may simply lead to more frustration on your end and may prevent us from ever discovering solutions that we might all generally support.  I understand that you care considerably about our community, the Gateway and the poplars.  There’s lots of energy there and it’s great common ground to start with.  It’s my hope we can channel that productively and work better together.

 

Please let me know if you’re up for a brief call or visit.  Meanwhile, and if you still choose not to engage directly with me or the City team, for the sake of upholding and modeling respectful and productive civic dialogue, I request and would appreciate your commitment to positive intent and honesty in your communications.

 

Sincerely,

 

John

Our members responded to the email above, again asking for a transparent and inclusive process, and have invited 4 council members to meet us on site; only 1 has indicated what appears to be a genuine interest.

The purpose of this email is to ask you if we could include your email address as a "cc" in future communications with these agencies, to illustrate to them that this proposed project...fraught with documented misinformation...is not just concerning to Julie Jaman and Andrea Hegland.

If you would be interested in following these exchanges as a "bc", please let me know your preference either way.

This is a time consuming and uncompensated endeavor.

Thank you

Andrea Fontenot Hegland

Gateway Poplar Alliance

https://poplaralliance.wixsite.com/website