News
Auditor
Pet Palooza
lying. Kelley paid an undisclosed amount to
settle the suit.
As part of another lawsuit, in which Kel-
ley sued for wrongful termination and
defamation, his former employer accused
him of stealing a painting from the office.
the auditor’s office hasn’t even done that
many.
Watkins said the performance audits he’s
done go by different names and procedures
in the private sector. But he said the work as
a business consultant focuses on ways to
improve per-
formance and
efficiencies.
He declined
to
provide
names of his
clients, citing
non-disclosure
agreements and
fears that Kel-
ley
would
attack the firms.
Both Kelley
and Watkins have a range of experience in
the private and public sectors. Watkins
unsuccessfully ran for Congress in 2010.
Kelley was first elected to the state Legisla-
ture in 2006.
Watkins won the August primary with 46
percent of the vote. The remaining votes
were split among three Democrats, with
Kelley narrowly beating state Sen. Craig
Pridemore.
Kelley, meanwhile, has tried to turn the
tables on Watkins, who has claimed in
the voter’s guide that he has done
more than 150 performance audits.
Kelley noted that the auditor’s office
hasn’t even done that many
Kelley was never charged, denied the theft
and said he was paid in a settlement.
In his voter’s guide, Kelley lists himself
as a past president of a Fortune 500 compa-
ny. He later said he was not president of the
entire First American company but served
as president of two of its divisions.
Kelley, meanwhile, has tried to turn the
tables on Watkins, who has claimed in the
voter’s guide that he has done more than
150 performance audits. Kelley noted that
Hemp
Musician Whitney
Monge’
performs at the
Pet Treat Pantry
Palooza, a
celebration of a
program that
helps supply pet
food to the
Rainier Valley
Food Bank. The
event, which was
held Oct. 6 at
Genesee Park,
was sponsored
by Blue Dog
Bakery which will
donate a box of
dog treats for
every specially
marked box
purchased
through
December
2012. The
celebration
featured free hot
dogs, live music,
complimentary
dog nail clipping
and caricatures
by artist Vincent
Yee.
PHOTO BY SUSAN FRIED
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continued from page 1
Vermont and West Virginia — have passed
laws allowing hemp cultivation or research,
and supporters of the latest measures say
they would be another shot across the feder-
al government’s bow.
Oregon’s earlier law, passed in 2009,
allows the state to regulate hemp produc-
tion; the initiative on the ballot next month,
Measure 80, would allow unregulated hemp
production.
While medical marijuana patients and
those who grow for recreational use have
been willing to risk federal prosecution, a
viable hemp crop would be much larger
than many of those grow operations, putting
farmers at risk of severe mandatory mini-
mum sentences in federal court.
Hemp and marijuana are the same
species, cannabis sativa, but are genetically
distinct. Hemp has a negligible content of
THC, the psychoactive compound that
gives marijuana users a high. It’s also
grown differently, in tightly packed plots to
maximize stalk height rather than widely
spaced to maximize branching and flower-
ing.
Marijuana growers generally don’t want
their plants anywhere near hemp fields
because cross-pollination would create less
potent marijuana, so the notion of farmers
hiding marijuana plants among their hemp
crop isn’t much of a concern.
But Steve Freng, prevention treatment
manager for the Northwest High Intensity
Drug Trafficking Area, a federally funded
antidrug effort, said having legalized hemp
would nevertheless make marijuana
enforcement trickier.
``What comes to mind immediately is
how difficult it would be to regulate and
oversee an industry like that,’’ he said. ``At
this point in states that have medical mari-
juana, a good amount of mar-
ijuana is overproduced. It’s
not unusual for growers to
sell out of state.’’
Freng questioned whether
there’s a serious market for
hemp in the U.S.
A Colorado corn farmer
who serves in the state Legis-
lature, Republican state Sen.
Greg Brophy, suggested
hemp’s commercial potential could be ham-
pered by high prices for corn, wheat and
soybeans. Growing corn right now is ``like
owning your own ATM,’’ he said.
For most of U.S. history, hemp was an
important agricultural product used for
rope, fabric and even the paper Thomas Jef-
ferson used to draft the Declaration of Inde-
pendence.
But competition arose, first from the cot-
ton gin, which made cotton easier to
process, and then from synthetic fibers in
the early 20th century. Americans became
more concerned about the availability of
marijuana, and the federal government
imposed severe restrictions on hemp.
There was a brief resurgence during
World War II, when the U.S. Department of
Agriculture launched a ``Hemp for Victo-
ry’’ campaign to replace Southeast Asian
fiber sources cut off by the Japanese, but
there has been no commercial hemp pro-
duction in the U.S. since the 1950s, accord-
David Bronner, chief executive of Dr. Bron-
ner’s Magic Soap based in Escondido,
Calif. His company uses 20 tons of
hempseed oil in soaps every year and has
contributed $50,000 to Washington’s cam-
paign and $50,000 to Colorado’s.
``The Canadian farmers are laughing at us
all the way to the bank,’’ Bronner said. ``We
give $100,000 a year to the
Canadians. If American farmers
could grow industrial hemp
here, we’d recognize 25 percent
savings, for sure.’’
That kind of talk intrigues
farmers like Ted Durfey, who
has a seed press at his Sunny-
side, Wash., farm to help turn
the canola and flax he grows
into biofuel.
``If it’s sanctioned, it would lend itself
pretty well to enhancing our local econo-
my,’’ Durfey said. ``But I’m definitely not
going to grow a commodity that’s illegal
under federal law.’’
Another central Washington farmer, Tom
Stahl, said that if the initiative passes, he’d
likely grow it until federal authorities
caught on and warned him not to.
The passage of the measures would
create the familiar clash with federal
law, which prohibits growing the plant
for industrial, recreational or medicinal
purposes
ing to a January report from the
Congressional Research Service. Technical-
ly, the DEA is authorized to grant farmers
special permits to grow hemp. It just never
does.
At least 30 countries produce hemp com-
mercially, and most of the hemp imported
into the U.S. is grown in China, Canada and
Europe.
Rough industry estimates suggest that a
few hundred million dollars’ worth of hemp
products, such as soaps, body lotions and
hemp granola, are sold in the U.S. every
year.
All of it is imported, which maddens
Schools
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rates of $10 to $20 an hour for extra help,
the requests have cost the district $4,000 to
$8,000.
The deferred action program allows
immigrants age 30 and younger to request a
two-year reprieve from deportation risk.
Applicants must have moved to the country
before age 16; graduated from high school,
enrolled in college or served in the military;
kept a clean criminal record; and lived in
the United States since 2007.
School records, both high school tran-
scripts and cumulative elementary school
School districts in the Yakima valley have waiting
lists of as long as a month to keep up with the
crush of records requests
enrollment data, help prove some of those
requirements.
The Obama administration announced the
program in June and began accepting appli-
cations Aug. 15.
Nationwide, more than 82,000 people had
applied as of Sept. 13, according to the most
recent statistics from the Department of
Homeland Security. Only 29 had been
approved, but officials warned that paper-
work and background checks could take
months.
School districts in the Yakima valley have
waiting lists of as long as a month to keep
up with the crush of records requests.
In Grandview, Romero calls the surge of
requests exciting, exhausting and touching.
For example, she had to tell one 24-year-
old graduate anxious to continue his college
education that he would not receive his data
in time for an upcoming meeting with his
attorneys.
``He was almost in tears,’’ she said. ``It’s
quite heartbreaking. As excited as I am for
him, it’s really draining us.’’
October 10, 2012 The Seattle Skanner Page 3