Maggie's Farm

Totally off topic, but, Ladies and Gentlemen, these people are ass holes, and need to be exposed--

Your reporter here in Idaho keeping you informed about the goings on concerning our new proposed nuclear power plant here--I note that radical irrational elements from outside the state have tried to use nazi like tactics here--

Dear editor,

As you may recall, anti-nuclear activists recently sought to disrupt an
informational meeting about the Idaho Energy Complex. One of the people
in attendance recently sent this letter to CEO Don Gillispie. Dr. Cooper
grew up in Idaho and has worked in Idaho for 15 years and holds a
doctorate and a masters degree from Oxford University.

Thank you for your time,

Martin Johncox
Idaho Energy Complex spokesman
208-658-9100
www.idahoenergycomplex.com

Dear Mr. Gillispie,
I attended the informational meeting you hosted in Glenns Ferry
regarding the proposed nuclear power plant for Elmore County. Idahoans
value the freedom to voice our opinions, and your meeting let supporters
and opponents voice theirs in an open forum.

However, I particularly found the actions committed by what I believe to
be several members of the Snake River Alliance (SRA), who were with Ms.
Andrea Shipley (SRA Director), and former Owyhee County P&Z member Mr.
Joe Weatherby so disturbing that I felt compelled to write you. In fact,
if you know of an official or agency that I can contact about what
transpired, I would be happy to do so and lodge a complaint. You are
also free to share this letter with whomever you deem appropriate.

Personally, the arrest of Dr. Rickards is a non-issue. Several of us
heard him insist on being arrested, and there was talk among his friends
after the meeting that he had planned on getting arrested. But the
disruption caused by the SRA and Weatherby during Dr. Rickards’ arrest
was very alarming.

As if on cue, the moment Rickards stood and announced that he was being
arrested, the SRA and Weatherby simultaneously jumped up and started
shouting a mix of profanity, threats and insults. While the woman in a
red top who stood by Shipley screamed the largest number of obscenities,
including the F-word at least 6 times, I was more concerned with
Weatherby shaking his fist and yelling, ‘someone should take out Don
Gillispie!’ Weatherby turned red, yelled other personal attacks
against you and made small punching and kicking motions directly at you.
The violence and profanity from the group was so intense that the two
children in front of them cowered, and several people started to move in
their chairs and voice concern. A local elderly woman yelled for them to
be quiet, and one of the SRA women next to Andrea Shipley replied,
‘these locals are too stupid to know what’s good for them.’ The
SRA and Weatherby only settled down once the MC Mr. Jim Tibbs and the
Glenns Ferry Mayor JoAnn Lanham demanded the audience come to order;
I’m sure that the appearance of more police officers didn’t hurt,
either. I know that I was not the only one offended by their actions; I
overheard the Mayor apologize to you and say that the disruptive crowd
was not local when I went to ask you a question after the meeting.

I am also concerned that Weatherby has misused his former position as an
official of the Owyhee County P&Z committee for his personal benefit,
much to the detriment of local citizens, without disclosure. He has been
conveying that he is unbiased and has attained some level of bona fide
expertise on energy generation and environmental issues based on his P&Z
experience and his own research. However, Weatherby has alluded to his
own personal involvement with a very large wind farm business venture
(of over 5,000 windmills) on at least two occasions in public
gatherings. Furthermore, I have heard complaints from several in Owyhee
County about how Weatherby managed to have his personal property
approved for subdivision while he served on the P&Z committee, but
nobody else could get approval or his support. Indeed, it appears that
he served on the Owyhee P&Z while conflicted, for his personal gain.

And to make matters worse, I now hear that he has been very active in
Elmore County, purportedly consulting and advising quite actively
against your project. Why is it that Weatherby, who has no formal
training or experience and who is using personal research that has not
been vetted by experts, is attempting to advise a different county about
your project? Since he remains evasive in answering whether or not he
has a potential business conflict with your project and has no credible
experience, it seems that he is pursuing his own agenda at the expense
of the rest of us.

Yet the depth to which Weatherby seems to have fallen almost pales in
comparison to the SRA and its associates. I wasn’t surprised to find
out that they had people from California and Oregon come to your
meeting, and that members of the SRA handed out factually incorrect
material at your meeting. Nor was I surprised how they continuously
interrupted your talk with snide remarks—my favorite being from the
woman next to me who quipped, ‘We don’t need more jobs! What’s up
with that?’ But their apparent fabrication of a news story is
unconscionable and Blair Koch and Claudio Beagarie should be reported.

I entered the meeting behind the SRA group and Blair Koch. Andrea
Shipley and Ms. Koch were quite congenial, and when Shipley asked if
Koch needed any information, Koch responded that she had everything she
needed. Koch sat by the woman from California, and before the meeting
began I was walking around deciding where to sit. When I realized that
she was a journalist, I told her that I had heard that Mr. Gillispie was
happy to be interviewed and that he was standing at the next table. She
replied that she didn’t need to interview him. I left to find a seat
at the back corner of the room. Koch later sat behind me, and made a
show of getting her materials ready. As if this was rehearsed, she stood
up suddenly and managed to be on the scene exactly when the police
officer confronted Dr. Rickards.

Claudio Beagarie seems to have been working in collusion. I saw him
arrive with Andrea Shipley and the SRA—in fact, I think he drove them.
He then spent quite some time out front with Dr. Rickards, took photos
and asked him a few questions. I later saw Beagarie inside, in the row
in front of me. He told someone that he was with the Arbiter. Dr.
Rickards came up to him at the beginning of the meeting and talked to
him for a moment and then laughed together at something Rickards
said—they made it hard for me to hear you talking. Rickards then sat
in the row in front of Beagarie. When Rickards got up again and went to
sit several rows closer to the front, Rickards smiled and waved at
Beagarie again. Shortly after that, Beagarie pulled out a lens and
prepared his camera. Almost immediately after that, a police officer
entered the room. Beagarie jumped up and managed to position himself for
a photo of Rickards before the officer had stopped moving.

The subsequent article in the Time-News by Blair Koch clearly shows an
agenda to anyone who attended that meeting, and included the photograph
taken by Claudio Beagarie. I was surprised to see his photo with her
article, since they represented different papers. I since have
discovered that Beagarie was not representing the Arbiter at the
meeting.

The disregard that the SRA, Weatherby, and Rickards showed to the local
populace was arrogant and puerile, but their lack of honesty and
integrity is utterly unacceptable and should not be allowed to continue.
Indeed, the deceptions, misinformation and blatant lies that they have
used subvert our ability as Idahoans to make informed decisions.

Sincerely,

James E Cooper, DPhil., MPhil.

P2

Wed Jun 25, 06:09:00 PM EDT