Earlier today an email discussion was widely posted on several listservs featuring comments exchanged between Olympia Mayor Mark Foutch and a citizen of Olympia in which the Mayor attributed certain comments to me which were grossly inaccurate. In a subsequent letter to him I allowed for the possibility that he may not have actually written that message. But at tonight's City Council meeting he verified that he did make this reference and apologized for misrepresenting me. The following is the letter I sent to the Mayor shortly before tonight's meeting:

Dear Mayor Foutch,

I am very concerned about a forwarded message I just received in which you apparently reference a supposed email from me. If indeed you wrote this, your paraphrasing of this alleged email greatly concerns me since it does not accurately represent anything I have or would ever intend to say on the subject.

The message attributed to you includes this statement:

I saw an Email from Sandy Mayes saying that the older members of OPMR [OlyPMR] had advocated not actively blocking the streets or otherwise breaking the law but they were outvoted by the younger more militant members.

My response:

I did initially articulate the position that opposing shipments coming back from the war might present a challenging message for those of us resisting that war. At an OlyPMR meeting on Sun 11/4, there was a vote to oppose and resist the shipment coming back to Ft. Lewis through the Port of Olympia by attempting to contain the military equipment on the port quay. Although I voted against that proposal, within less than 24 hours I had completely come around to wholeheartedly embrace the idea.

I am glad the vote went the way it did; it was absolutely the right call. As I have since stated very publicly and repeatedly, in the press and elsewhere:

The combat vehicles being shipped through our town were used to invade and destroy a sovereign nation, devastating the lives of millions of Iraqis and thousands of Americans. The reason we are blocking them now is because we do not want these war machines to ever be used for this purpose again.

At NO POINT have I spoken against blocking streets or "breaking laws" as a tactic. Nor would I make a statement to that effect about “older” members of OlyPMR in general. Quite the opposite in fact since many of us have engaged in civil disobedience on multiple occasions. As you may know, I was arrested on May 24, 2006 for blocking a convoy of Strykers on Marine Drive in Olympia. As well, I was arrested on March 11 of this year for climbing over a police barricade in an attempt to stop another shipment of Strykers headed for Iraq through the Port of Tacoma.

Earlier this year, prior to the protests at the Port of Tacoma, when it was thought that the 4th Stryker Brigade might instead come through Olympia, I wrote an article published in the Feb issue of Works In Progress entitled, “Next time, we'll be ready for them: Port Militarization Resistance returns to defend the Port of Olympia.” In this article, I put out a call-to-action advocating human blockades as the primary tactic in opposing and resisting the use of our port in executing war and occupation. (This article can be found on the Works In Progress website at http://www.olywip.org/site/page/article/2007/02/01.html .)

The language of that article may be familiar to you since I used it in public testimony at Olympia City Council meetings and Port Commission meetings advising public officials of what was likely to happen if further war shipments were to come through Olympia. Here are a few excerpts from that article:

“I believe that the Olympia peace movement is now ripe for mass actions of civil disobedience. Many people who, for years, have protested the war and the use of our port in its execution -- through vigils, marches, letters, op-eds, teach-ins, public testimony and forums -- are fed up. And people who have never engaged in any form of protest are now ready to act.

People are tired of being ignored by politicians and the media and are ready to take their actions to a higher level. For many, military convoys returning to Olympia would provide the perfect opportunity for CD and at a comparatively low personal cost. [This statement obviously preceded the violent OPD tactics which have resulted in much higher costs to protesters in the recent campaign.]

... the weapons shipments through the Port of Olympia, and the use of our public property to prolong and supply the war in Iraq have made Thurston County and its citizens complicit in these crimes. We must refuse to be complicit any longer. Just as soldiers have a responsibility to disobey unlawful orders, civilians also have a duty to refuse to cooperate.

... The ripple effects of ordinary people in a community coming together in a coordinated act of shared liberation and empowerment, facing down the US corporate military state, would be immeasurable. Solutions to the many deep structural problems facing our world today begin with acts like this.”

As for the rest of the statement attributed to you, the phrase “more militant” is not language I recall ever using in writing or in conversation in reference to any members of the peace movement. I really don't break things down that way. Furthermore, when I was asked by an Olympian reporter if the decision to oppose the shipment coming in from Iraq was largely due to the votes of newer and younger people present at the Nov. 4 meeting, I answered, “Yes, I would say that's true. And I'm very glad they did.”

If indeed you did make the statement attributed to you in the message forwarded here, it reflects one of 2 possible problems:

1) Either you have grossly misrepresented an email message I actually sent, or
2) Someone managed to send an email making it look like it came from me.

In either case, I would appreciate it if you would forward that email to me so I can see where this problem originated. And since the statement seriously misrepresents, in fact, libels me, I am going to ask you to please retract it. Again, this is assuming it actually came from you, which obviously it may not have. If an email message can be falsely attributed to me, then the same can happen to you.

Since the email exchange forwarded here has been distributed far and wide on many listservs I would like to clear up the misstatements contained within as quickly as possible.

I look forward to a swift reply.

Sincerely,

Sandy Mayes