PORT TOWNSEND — While a Chimacum dairy farmer frustrated with bureaucracy has pulled out of a proposed organic cheese-making operation, his former partner on Monday said he will carry the proposal forward.
In a long prepared statement, Roger Short on Monday complained to Jefferson County commissioners, meeting in Port Townsend, that “junk science” and “science by politics” has ruined his Valley View Dairy.
“If I could sell one or two building sites, I could get through the bureaucratic quagmire. . . .
“Am I upset? You bet I am,” Short tersely told the commissioners.
At the Oct. 11 commissioners meeting, Short and his former business partner in the creamery proposal, Will O’Donnell, were joined by about 40 other supporters in their bid to establish the county’s first organic cheese-processing business.
Short then criticized county Environmental Health Director Dan Bruce, who he said was stalling the creamery proposal’s progress with regulatory roadblocks.
“Why doesn’t staff help instead of hinder?” Short asked Monday after telling the commissioners he was pulling out of the creamery he would have built adjoining his milking barn.
