I’ve been reading lately about a group called the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) that is claiming to help local citizens, but they are really just a group of east coast attorneys pushing an extreme agenda.

This is just a new way to create confusion instead of solving problems. Local citizens in Jefferson and Kitsap Counties have worked with their legislators to develop a work group but the CELDF says that our state representatives won’t help us, we have to adopt their agenda. The CELDF cannot even point to a problem and are simply trying to scare people.

The land owners who are here in Jefferson County live with the concerns every day for keeping our growing forests healthy, managing noxious weeds, and keeping pests under control. The aftermath of the kind of policies CELDF wants our community to adopt would never be experienced by their leaders. No, this is just fearmongering from a group funded with out-of-state money who would like to replace our voices with theirs.

Sandy Mitchrell
Olympia