EDMONDS – The relationship of the Washington Tea Party – the citizen organization fighting the location of the proposed Brightwater sewage treatment plant in Edmonds – and several candidates running for office was questioned by a couple of citizens at two public meetings recently.
Three Tea Party board members, vice president Peggy Pritchard Olson and board members Jim Orvis and D.J. Wilson, have filed to run for office this fall. Another Tea Party member, Marianne Burkhart, is also running.
Olson is running for City Council against incumbent Lora Petso; Orvis is running for the Port of Edmonds Commission against incumbent Dean Nichols; Wilson is running as a Democrat for Snohomish County Council against incumbent Republican Gary Nelson; and Burkhart is running for the Port of Edmonds Commission against incumbent Ken Reid.
Tea Party member Laurie Dressler wrote a letter in April to another newspaper – negative to Petso and promotional of Tea Party member Olson – and signed it as a member of the Tea Party. Resident Ray Martin pointed out this fact at a City Council meeting in July.
“To me that is a political statement of fact,” Martin said.
Dressler could not be reached for comment.
Earlier at the same meeting, after the subject had been raised two weeks before, Tea Party president Jerry Janacek took the mike to explain that the Tea Party is not running a slate of candidates or as a party endorsing the members who have chosen to run.
A couple of times, including in July, the 15-member Tea Party board of directors discussed the matter and “just reaffirmed that we don’t endorse any candidates,” Janacek later told The Enterprise.
The Tea Party has about 5,000 members “and many of them are very concerned about their community” and decide as a result to run for office, Janacek said.
Olson echoed that point.
“I think people tend to run for office when they become involved in issues and the community,” she said. She noted that she and numerous other candidates for office this year, including Petso, are also members of the Friends of the Library citizen group.
“The Washington Tea Party’s trying to stay really focused on the sewage treatment plant and keeping it out of Edmonds,” Olson said.
Olson’s candidacy for City Council and Wilson’s for County Council are somewhat different from those of the port candidates in that Brightwater is not a central issue in their campaign. Burkhart and Orvis both acknowledge that the Port Commission’s decision not to take a stand against the siting of Brightwater in Edmonds is the primary motivation behind their decisions to run. But both stress that they entered the race as individuals, not with backing or encouragement from the Tea Party.
Burkhart said Brightwater was the “initial issue” that inspired her to run but that “there are a lot more now.” She sees the port’s neutral stance on Brightwater as “indicative of the kind of decisions they could be making in the future.
The Tea Party is “a whole bunch of people who have a lot of opinions,” Orvis said. “It’s kind of like herding cats.”
He said the Tea Party had a discussion last year regarding state legislative candidates and decided against making any endorsements. Because of the range of opinions and political perspectives within the membership, “we could never agree on a candidate,” he said.
The Tea Party is a narrowly focused special interest group, Orvis said.
“If Brightwater went away tomorrow, (the Tea Party) would fall apart like a sand castle.”
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