It is important to drill down to find facts and truth, transparency transparency transparency! Thank you Jeff. Now we all know why it has been asked over and over “Why did the tribe breech the dike earlier than planned”? WE’VE BEEN TOLD NOTHING & HEARD ONLY CRICKETS for answers. Sounds like the breech was planned before hand, the devastation, loss of life, helicopters, news reports…..why would a corporation create such a crisis & not be required to have a clear project plan in place along with appropriate emergency contingency measures when dealing with a river dike and possible flooding issues? A partnership of we scratch your back and you scratch our back and screw the public and taxpayers that’s who would be allowed to do that. Another new land grab with USF&W is another non-transparent tax-payer funded tribe controlled partnership which the public has no say what-so-ever. A contract that looks and sounds like it does little to maintain the Spit & more like improve and change the Spit? The contract was handed to JST with no opportunity from other concessionaires to bid on management of the Dungeness Spit. The bidding process is very important. Direct awarding a concession and bypassing bidding is unfair to the very people paying taxes to pay for parks & recreation. It is un American. The tribe pays no taxes to support the wages of the people making these decisions or the parks and public lands.
It's called Problem, Reaction, Solution...Hegelian dialectic... Create chaos, get people stressed and anxious...then provide a solution...it's an actual PLAN, not random incompetence...be aware and call it out when you see it. For those who have eyes to see and ears to hear.😎
"The County, Tribe, and the Corps would be embroiled in wrongful death suits for years or decades".
An 'untruth' coming from a tribal employee, imagine that. The County and Corps would be the only ones embroiled in wrongful death suits because you can't sue the tribe.
Sovereign nation. I did a quick search and found a lawsuit where a tribe defaulted on a promissory note and the tribe won - the explanation starts with the next paragraph. If I remember right when Jamestown connected to the city of Sequim's wastewater system the city had them sign a waiver of immunity. I don't remember what it covered but they'd be completely out of luck without it if something went wrong.
"The U.S. Supreme Court decided the case in favor of the tribe. The Court held that even where the tribe had defaulted on the note and breached the contract, a tribe cannot be sued for such breach of contract in either state or federal court. The court concluded:
“Indian tribes enjoy sovereign immunity from civil suits on contracts, whether those contracts involve governmental or commercial activities and whether they were made on or off the reservation. As a matter of federal law, a tribe is subject to suit only where Congress has authorized the suit or the tribe has waived its immunity.”
In commenting on the wisdom of this blanket tribal civil immunity, the Supreme Court also stated: “Tribal immunity extends beyond what is needed to safeguard tribal self-governance.” In the modern economic context, “immunity can harm those who are unaware that they are dealing with a tribe, who do not know of tribal immunity, or who have no choice in the matter, as in the case of tort victims.” The Court concluded by strongly suggesting that tribal civil immunity be eliminated but properly deferred to Congress to perform this legislative task. Whether Congress will ultimately end tribal immunity is another question entirely.
Thanks. I especially loved what was said in the last paragraph but know it will never happen. The article wasn't dated so no idea when the Supreme Court made this comment.
Right. How fair is it you or I would go to jail (or at the very least have to pay the money back) and deservedly so, but they go scot free. Why even bother wasting the court's time when you already know the outcome?
Keep digging Jeff! The more we learn, the more I'm at a loss for words. The Tribes actions are abhorrent, and there should be some form of retribution for there actions and cost to the tax payers...
Your killing them Smalls. This means Lear from team County called them on it. Higher up the pay scaled chain is responsible. Higher up where they can take a contribution and listen to the ancestral rights line coming from Jamestown.
Lear pushed back. The buck stops at the Commissioners. The state has already committed to flooding through the filling in of ditches, Dungeness water rule, and WDFW planning to flood the Dungeness. That is what they have been working on for a decade. They just needed the dough.
The Dungeness River area for the most part is part of the Point No Point Treaty of 1855. Now, the Jamestown tribe through the Clallam County Commissioners, have been allowed to take over and mold land covered by a treaty. This project breaks that treaty.
The Clallam County Commissioners will not pull the plug because its a wonderful tool for build back better. Gone will be the rich pesky, water overusing, not worth the infrastructure costs, land owner along the Dungeness to be replaced by climate migrants in Carlsborg. Served by ship and truck from as far as 8000 miles away through a minimum of 6 30 mph roundabouts.
The people will have to intervene and force Jamestown and the Elwha tribes to explain how their rivers get to mitigate sediment, specifically to keep from raising the level of the river to create uncontrollable meandering and create hazards for their developments. The tribes will also have to explain how the treaty did not pay for the use of the land on the Dungeness as it sits now for irrigation and farming. Ancestral rights cannot be conflated as treaty rights. Senator Hargrove knew that before he retired. He was always afraid of any federal court actions.
The Commissioner's are never going to make them do that. Its building back too better...Its going to take a court.
Bravo, exhibits for a case in U.S. Western District of Washington in Tacoma.
Temporary injunction to stop the project.
Declaratory judgment that Dungeness and Sequim, (they have shown they can flood Sequim at will), are not being given equal protection for river management policy.
Drag Clallam County and the State of Washington (Conservation District), into court and ask the court to enjoin Washington State and Clallam County from unequal river management and force them to manage the sediment from the Dungeness river the same as Jimmycomelately and the Elwha. That means re-open the irrigation ditches, and reduce tributaries like they did on Jimmycomelately and the Elwha. The attorneys for Mr. Allen are going to have a hard time explaining why their river and another tribes river accomplishes salmon/floodplain/watershed/saltwater marsh restoration mitigating sediment, reducing tributaries and developing on saltwater marshes.
Tip of the bloody iceberg...as above so below...as within so without. Lack of internal, personal integrity shows up in the world. The only thing we can do is clean out, clean up our own self,,,eventually when enough of us do that, the world will change and reflect that new reality.
The Tribe should have been forced to repair the dike that they prematurely breeched at THEIR expense. Why didn't this happen? Why did Clallam County roll over and play dead. Why wasn't the Tribe sued to force them to repair the dike at their own expense? Why? Why? Why? (I know the answer, but it pisses me off.) I hope Ozias' political career comes to an abrupt end. We must permanently re-instate consequences to breeching the ethics requirements in our laws and hold the Commissioners accountable.
The water will drop about 10 vertical feet in a distance of about 100’ into Meadowbrook Creek. The erosive action of this flow could quickly head cut through the road, causing a blowout. Then the 50-acre lake suddenly drains.
If it drains in 4 minutes, the flow raging through Dungeness and hitting 3 Crabs Road would be approximately 18,000 cfs. A Dungeness River 1,000-year flood is 13,528 cfs.
News helicopters would circle the devastation and speculate on the number of dead.
Class action lawsuits re are great for the lawyers and lead plaintiff but not so much for all the other plaintiffs. A lot of people seem to misunderstand how class action lawsuits work and when they apply.
This case, is why Hargrove was concerned. The Dungeness water rule constituted a taking of water rights. This case authorized the end run around the state court system under 1983 actions.
On June 21, 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that property owners who have had their property taken by state or local governments without compensation may file a Fifth Amendment takings claim in federal court without first having to exhaust remedies in state court. The decision, Knick v Township of Scott, Pennsylvania, No. 17-647, overruled Williamson County Regional Planning Commission v Hamilton Bank of Johnson City, 473 U.S. 172, an oft-criticized precedent that required takings claims to first be heard in state court.
Under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, a property owner has a “takings” claim against the government when government action (such as a regulation) goes too far in restricting the owner’s use. Williamson County created two procedural prerequisites to bringing a takings claims in federal court: (1) the “final decision” requirement, holding that the government had to have made a final decision on what uses were allowed to the owner under the government regulation; and (2) the owner must have been denied compensation by the government, and sued the government in state court first (the “state litigation” requirement).
The Catch-22 was that, under other Supreme Court precedent, if a landowner lost in state court, the owner’s claim was barred in federal court. It is this Catch-22 that the Supreme Court addressed, and resolved, in Knick.
Knick owned 90 acres of rural residential land with a small burial site. She was fined by the Township of Scott, Pennsylvania, for allegedly violating a township ordinance that all cemeteries must be kept open to the public during the day. Knick claimed that the regulation deprived her of the full use of her property without compensation and sued in federal court under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments—without previously obtaining a final determination on compensation from a state court. Relying on Williamson County, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals found that Knick’s federal claim was barred because Knick had not been finally denied compensation by a state court.
The Supreme Court reversed and overruled Williamson County’s state litigation requirement. The court held that because a takings claim under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments is a constitutional claim, 42 U.S.C. § 1983 provides a federal cause of action in federal court, without the need to exhaust state remedies: “A property owner has an actionable Fifth Amendment takings claim when the government takes his property without paying for it.”
Dungeness water rights have been taken without compensation.
City of Sherrill v. Oneida Indian Nation of New York (2005)
Author: Ruth Bader Ginsburg
When a tribe had relinquished governmental reins over an area long before, it could not regain them through open-market purchases from current titleholders.
Loretto v. Teleprompter Manhattan CATV Corp. (1982)
Author: Thurgood Marshall
When the character of a governmental action is a permanent physical occupation of property, there is a taking to the extent of the occupation regardless of whether the action achieves an important public benefit or has only a minimal economic impact on the owner.
Arkansas Game & Fish Commission v. U.S. (2012)
Author: Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Government-induced flooding temporary in duration gains no automatic exemption from Takings Clause inspection.
First English Evangelical Lutheran Church v. Los Angeles County (1987)
Author: William Rehnquist
When the government has taken property by a land use regulation, the property owner may recover damages for the time before it is finally determined that the regulation constitutes a taking.
When was that flood photograph taken? Its really a big one.At my grandparents home when I was growing up,we watched slides from our slide projector of photos taken by my grandpa.There was a terrible flood from Morse creek at Four Seasons once.Some of the slides showed a very large barn that was literally torn in half, and was being washed..out to the sea.It was a very powerful image, and I still remember it.Floods happen fast, and are very scary.
It is important to drill down to find facts and truth, transparency transparency transparency! Thank you Jeff. Now we all know why it has been asked over and over “Why did the tribe breech the dike earlier than planned”? WE’VE BEEN TOLD NOTHING & HEARD ONLY CRICKETS for answers. Sounds like the breech was planned before hand, the devastation, loss of life, helicopters, news reports…..why would a corporation create such a crisis & not be required to have a clear project plan in place along with appropriate emergency contingency measures when dealing with a river dike and possible flooding issues? A partnership of we scratch your back and you scratch our back and screw the public and taxpayers that’s who would be allowed to do that. Another new land grab with USF&W is another non-transparent tax-payer funded tribe controlled partnership which the public has no say what-so-ever. A contract that looks and sounds like it does little to maintain the Spit & more like improve and change the Spit? The contract was handed to JST with no opportunity from other concessionaires to bid on management of the Dungeness Spit. The bidding process is very important. Direct awarding a concession and bypassing bidding is unfair to the very people paying taxes to pay for parks & recreation. It is un American. The tribe pays no taxes to support the wages of the people making these decisions or the parks and public lands.
You're welcome, Pepai. It might be time to read your definition of "corrupt" at the next public comment :)
It's called Problem, Reaction, Solution...Hegelian dialectic... Create chaos, get people stressed and anxious...then provide a solution...it's an actual PLAN, not random incompetence...be aware and call it out when you see it. For those who have eyes to see and ears to hear.😎
Wow, that's it in a nutshell.
I wonder what the Tribal word for "Malicious bullshit" is.
This has to get out somehow….
I agree, but the media won't touch it (at least not when I present it).
"The County, Tribe, and the Corps would be embroiled in wrongful death suits for years or decades".
An 'untruth' coming from a tribal employee, imagine that. The County and Corps would be the only ones embroiled in wrongful death suits because you can't sue the tribe.
Sometimes there are more effective ways to brand miscreants !
I agree, I guess I was in a generous mood this morning :)
Why can't the Tribe be sued? We sue other countries and vice versa....
Sovereign nation. I did a quick search and found a lawsuit where a tribe defaulted on a promissory note and the tribe won - the explanation starts with the next paragraph. If I remember right when Jamestown connected to the city of Sequim's wastewater system the city had them sign a waiver of immunity. I don't remember what it covered but they'd be completely out of luck without it if something went wrong.
"The U.S. Supreme Court decided the case in favor of the tribe. The Court held that even where the tribe had defaulted on the note and breached the contract, a tribe cannot be sued for such breach of contract in either state or federal court. The court concluded:
“Indian tribes enjoy sovereign immunity from civil suits on contracts, whether those contracts involve governmental or commercial activities and whether they were made on or off the reservation. As a matter of federal law, a tribe is subject to suit only where Congress has authorized the suit or the tribe has waived its immunity.”
In commenting on the wisdom of this blanket tribal civil immunity, the Supreme Court also stated: “Tribal immunity extends beyond what is needed to safeguard tribal self-governance.” In the modern economic context, “immunity can harm those who are unaware that they are dealing with a tribe, who do not know of tribal immunity, or who have no choice in the matter, as in the case of tort victims.” The Court concluded by strongly suggesting that tribal civil immunity be eliminated but properly deferred to Congress to perform this legislative task. Whether Congress will ultimately end tribal immunity is another question entirely.
Great research, Kathy.
Thanks. I especially loved what was said in the last paragraph but know it will never happen. The article wasn't dated so no idea when the Supreme Court made this comment.
Incredible! So they can WTF they want with impunity, it seems. WOW! There is not one iota of fairness in that!
So, if we cannot stop their injustices legally, what's left? Firearms????
Right. How fair is it you or I would go to jail (or at the very least have to pay the money back) and deservedly so, but they go scot free. Why even bother wasting the court's time when you already know the outcome?
Keep digging Jeff! The more we learn, the more I'm at a loss for words. The Tribes actions are abhorrent, and there should be some form of retribution for there actions and cost to the tax payers...
It really is incredible what is considered "acceptable."
A set up then a bribe…. Curse word curse word curse word!!!! Then the sissified commissioners ate the bait!!! Good Sunday morning Sequim
Your killing them Smalls. This means Lear from team County called them on it. Higher up the pay scaled chain is responsible. Higher up where they can take a contribution and listen to the ancestral rights line coming from Jamestown.
Lear pushed back. The buck stops at the Commissioners. The state has already committed to flooding through the filling in of ditches, Dungeness water rule, and WDFW planning to flood the Dungeness. That is what they have been working on for a decade. They just needed the dough.
The Dungeness River area for the most part is part of the Point No Point Treaty of 1855. Now, the Jamestown tribe through the Clallam County Commissioners, have been allowed to take over and mold land covered by a treaty. This project breaks that treaty.
The Clallam County Commissioners will not pull the plug because its a wonderful tool for build back better. Gone will be the rich pesky, water overusing, not worth the infrastructure costs, land owner along the Dungeness to be replaced by climate migrants in Carlsborg. Served by ship and truck from as far as 8000 miles away through a minimum of 6 30 mph roundabouts.
The people will have to intervene and force Jamestown and the Elwha tribes to explain how their rivers get to mitigate sediment, specifically to keep from raising the level of the river to create uncontrollable meandering and create hazards for their developments. The tribes will also have to explain how the treaty did not pay for the use of the land on the Dungeness as it sits now for irrigation and farming. Ancestral rights cannot be conflated as treaty rights. Senator Hargrove knew that before he retired. He was always afraid of any federal court actions.
The Commissioner's are never going to make them do that. Its building back too better...Its going to take a court.
Bravo, exhibits for a case in U.S. Western District of Washington in Tacoma.
Temporary injunction to stop the project.
Declaratory judgment that Dungeness and Sequim, (they have shown they can flood Sequim at will), are not being given equal protection for river management policy.
Drag Clallam County and the State of Washington (Conservation District), into court and ask the court to enjoin Washington State and Clallam County from unequal river management and force them to manage the sediment from the Dungeness river the same as Jimmycomelately and the Elwha. That means re-open the irrigation ditches, and reduce tributaries like they did on Jimmycomelately and the Elwha. The attorneys for Mr. Allen are going to have a hard time explaining why their river and another tribes river accomplishes salmon/floodplain/watershed/saltwater marsh restoration mitigating sediment, reducing tributaries and developing on saltwater marshes.
Tip of the bloody iceberg...as above so below...as within so without. Lack of internal, personal integrity shows up in the world. The only thing we can do is clean out, clean up our own self,,,eventually when enough of us do that, the world will change and reflect that new reality.
It's a lotta work!
The Tribe should have been forced to repair the dike that they prematurely breeched at THEIR expense. Why didn't this happen? Why did Clallam County roll over and play dead. Why wasn't the Tribe sued to force them to repair the dike at their own expense? Why? Why? Why? (I know the answer, but it pisses me off.) I hope Ozias' political career comes to an abrupt end. We must permanently re-instate consequences to breeching the ethics requirements in our laws and hold the Commissioners accountable.
The water will drop about 10 vertical feet in a distance of about 100’ into Meadowbrook Creek. The erosive action of this flow could quickly head cut through the road, causing a blowout. Then the 50-acre lake suddenly drains.
If it drains in 4 minutes, the flow raging through Dungeness and hitting 3 Crabs Road would be approximately 18,000 cfs. A Dungeness River 1,000-year flood is 13,528 cfs.
News helicopters would circle the devastation and speculate on the number of dead.
And they are involved in building a reservoir many times that size in an above grade lake off River rd.
All because the Tribe prematurely breeched the dike. This is at the core of the problem. THEY caused it, ergo they should pay for it and repair it.
Great job, Jeff! If it is brought, I will contribute $$$ toward a class action lawsuit to stop the Tribal bullshit.
Thanks, N.O.I. You are the third person to say that today.
Class action lawsuits re are great for the lawyers and lead plaintiff but not so much for all the other plaintiffs. A lot of people seem to misunderstand how class action lawsuits work and when they apply.
I resemble that remark.
Jeff have you ever tried ‘Freedom of the Press Foundation’?
I havent', but looked them up just now. I see they don't take news tips, do you think they could help us in some capacity?
Jeff I sent them a note
Idk… it wouldn’t hurt to ask… maybe they would have more inside… I’m going to ask… what should I not give away😶
Dang Jeff….
Just wanted to make sure your blood pressure wasn't too low this morning :)
This case, is why Hargrove was concerned. The Dungeness water rule constituted a taking of water rights. This case authorized the end run around the state court system under 1983 actions.
On June 21, 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that property owners who have had their property taken by state or local governments without compensation may file a Fifth Amendment takings claim in federal court without first having to exhaust remedies in state court. The decision, Knick v Township of Scott, Pennsylvania, No. 17-647, overruled Williamson County Regional Planning Commission v Hamilton Bank of Johnson City, 473 U.S. 172, an oft-criticized precedent that required takings claims to first be heard in state court.
Under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, a property owner has a “takings” claim against the government when government action (such as a regulation) goes too far in restricting the owner’s use. Williamson County created two procedural prerequisites to bringing a takings claims in federal court: (1) the “final decision” requirement, holding that the government had to have made a final decision on what uses were allowed to the owner under the government regulation; and (2) the owner must have been denied compensation by the government, and sued the government in state court first (the “state litigation” requirement).
The Catch-22 was that, under other Supreme Court precedent, if a landowner lost in state court, the owner’s claim was barred in federal court. It is this Catch-22 that the Supreme Court addressed, and resolved, in Knick.
Knick owned 90 acres of rural residential land with a small burial site. She was fined by the Township of Scott, Pennsylvania, for allegedly violating a township ordinance that all cemeteries must be kept open to the public during the day. Knick claimed that the regulation deprived her of the full use of her property without compensation and sued in federal court under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments—without previously obtaining a final determination on compensation from a state court. Relying on Williamson County, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals found that Knick’s federal claim was barred because Knick had not been finally denied compensation by a state court.
The Supreme Court reversed and overruled Williamson County’s state litigation requirement. The court held that because a takings claim under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments is a constitutional claim, 42 U.S.C. § 1983 provides a federal cause of action in federal court, without the need to exhaust state remedies: “A property owner has an actionable Fifth Amendment takings claim when the government takes his property without paying for it.”
Dungeness water rights have been taken without compensation.
City of Sherrill v. Oneida Indian Nation of New York (2005)
Author: Ruth Bader Ginsburg
When a tribe had relinquished governmental reins over an area long before, it could not regain them through open-market purchases from current titleholders.
Loretto v. Teleprompter Manhattan CATV Corp. (1982)
Author: Thurgood Marshall
When the character of a governmental action is a permanent physical occupation of property, there is a taking to the extent of the occupation regardless of whether the action achieves an important public benefit or has only a minimal economic impact on the owner.
Arkansas Game & Fish Commission v. U.S. (2012)
Author: Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Government-induced flooding temporary in duration gains no automatic exemption from Takings Clause inspection.
First English Evangelical Lutheran Church v. Los Angeles County (1987)
Author: William Rehnquist
When the government has taken property by a land use regulation, the property owner may recover damages for the time before it is finally determined that the regulation constitutes a taking.
When was that flood photograph taken? Its really a big one.At my grandparents home when I was growing up,we watched slides from our slide projector of photos taken by my grandpa.There was a terrible flood from Morse creek at Four Seasons once.Some of the slides showed a very large barn that was literally torn in half, and was being washed..out to the sea.It was a very powerful image, and I still remember it.Floods happen fast, and are very scary.
I stole that flood photo from an Australian news channel... I just photoshopped the kangaroos and koalas out of it.