Jason Serinus’ Jan. 8 letter misquotes my Jan. 1 epistle to attack a straw man for claiming the dismissed Food Co-op board member’s alleged abuse of staff happened “repeatedly” (his quotes and also in the letter’s headline).

In fact, the word “repeatedly” appears nowhere in my letter, which instead provided a source reproducing police records of previous incidents prior to the Co-op. But even if threatening behavior only occurred once while at the Co-op, isn’t that sufficient grounds for removal? The rest of the board thought so, and it was their job to decide. This is the core issue that has been obscured.

Serinus attacked me for failing to disclose my “status as a former Co-op ‘officer’ and co-editor of the Port Townsend Free Press.” For the record, I was Co-op President for a couple years in the early ‘90s, with no role since then except as a very satisfied shopper. Speaking of which, there are 7,800 current member-shoppers at the Co-op, and only a tiny sliver of them are BLM activists pressing trumped-up and absurd charges that the woke Co-op “invoked the trauma of thousands upon thousands of heinous murders and lynching” (Serinus’ words).

The Food Co-op’s mission is “working together to nourish our community” as a source for natural, whole, heathy foods. The BLM group has a different ideological agenda that it is pushing to displace the Co-op’s actual food-oriented mission, much to the detriment of the Co-op at large.

Finally, I was sorry to see resigned President Owen Rowe throw the Co-op and its staff under the bus in his Jan. 8 apology for alienating “an important part of our community” (i.e. BLM activists), but it’s understandable given the continuing harassment his board endured from these puritanical ideologues.

Stephen Schumacher

Port Townsend