I have sat quietly as David Rodgers and Howard Jones have accused me of doing nothing to address their problem with the trucks, quarry and water problems on Yacolt mountain. This is far from the truth. Both have been before the Board of Commissioners many times accusing me of not helping and spewing numbers regarding the impacts the rock quarry and trucks have made. We assigned County staff from the Commissioners office to head up the investigation of the alleged charges in March of 2010. When it started with too much truck traffic, we reached an agreement with the trucking company to travel to the quarry by way of Gabriel Rd and exit by Kelly Rd., thus reducing truck traffic by 50 percent. The proposed improvements to the Gabriel Rd. intersection were delayed because of an estate settlement, but didn’t affect safety. Then they complained the trucks were going too fast and their wells went dry because of the quarry. We had County road engineers review the speed limit and added Deputy Sheriffs’ patrols and had no violators. We contacted the State agencies regulating the blasting in the quarry, the County Health Department to look for cause, the Department of Environmental Services to review storm water violations and could find no fault of the operation. That not satisfying them, the County contacted the Washington State DOE, the Clean Air Agency and had no less than 10 employees involved.
Today, and over the past two years, the County has documented hundreds of hours in behalf of David Rodgers and Howard Jones to make sure that regulations were being followed and in place. Now all this is fine and dandy except for one small fact that David Rodgers and Howard Jones failed to mention, that they have been both supporting and working on Joe Tanner’s campaign against me in my bid to be re-elected as your County Commissioner.
Once again, I never cease to be amazed by underhanded campaign tactics. Shame on you two! This has all been done at the expense of their neighbors and Clark County taxpayers. The facts are documented and are of public record. If you want to hear the rest of the story, contact me on my personal phone.
Tom Mielke
Clark County Commissioner
Battle Ground
