Telford withdraws endorsement

The following is an e mail I received Tuesday from Paul Telford, the outgoing Olympia Port Commission member.  Here it is, just as I received it.

I made a mistake. This is to announce that I have rescinded my endorsement of Jeff Davis for the Port of Olympia Commission.

From the beginning I was uncomfortable with how independent Jeff could be as an active member of the Longshoremen’s Union. He tried to provide assurance by promising to excuse himself from Port decisions that affected Longshoremen. But it turns out that the bulk of his extraordinary collections of campaign donations are large contributions from outsiders and Longshore Unions. The final straw was his pompous response to this issue in a recent forum when he said, “If you were to go to the state PDC website and look up my contributors, they all have stevedore and ILWU names behind them and quite frankly, I’m fantastically proud of that. We stick together, we work together and we live and die together, .”.

This tells me that he is both emotionally and financially beholden to his Union colleagues. It tells me that he will not be able to critically and objectively assess decisions affecting the port’s marine terminal. His response is a reminder of the belligerence of some Union dockworkers, which is not the norm at the Port of Olympia. It is clear that he will put their interests ahead of the citizens of Thurston County who he may be elected to serve.

Maybe I’m too idealistic but I strongly believe that it is not in our best interests to elect anyone who is both financially and emotionally beholden to outsiders or a particular special interest group. You can forget any altruism or notion of public service.

In fairness to Jeff , I have not demanded that he remove my name from his campaign materials as most have already been printed.

Given recent wake-up calls concerning stormwater management at the port, Dave Peeler’s background can be an asset to the port. Both other Commissioners are fans of spending whatever it takes to keep the marine terminal going and largely indifferent to port taxes and spending, the port needs some balance.

I’m now asking my friends to vote for Dave Peeler.

Paul Telford, (outgoing) Commissioner Port of Olympia