PORT TOWNSEND — Owen Rowe, who had been on the Port Townsend Food Co-op board since 2015, has resigned as its president and said others should step down following comments from members about the treatment of staff.
Rowe, who also serves as an elected Port Townsend City Council member, spent about half his time on the co-op board as president. He resigned Dec. 31.
His third elected term with the co-op board would have been up this July, he said.
“In a lot of ways, it’s a great organization,” Rowe said. “The co-op still does great things for food and farms in the community. I want to be clear that it’s not staff that’s a problem. Well, not all staff, not all board members, certainly not the shoppers and the member-owners. There are just a few sticking points that really became an issue over the past year or two.”
Rowe said he believes Kenna Eaton, the co-op’s general manager, should step down too. Also, he said Lisa Barclay, board member emeritus, should step down.
Last April, the board received comments from member-owners about the treatment of staff, Rowe said.
Among the commenters was former employee Scout Anderson, who spoke at a meeting regarding his negative experiences as a trans employee at the co-op, former board member Cameron Jones said.
In a Facebook post, Anderson said a fellow employee had written a news story in a Port Townsend newspaper which contained dangerous language for trans people. Anderson wrote he was accused of putting his co-worker on the spot and wasting the co-op’s time.
“Initially, the board was receptive and wanted to find out more,” Rowe said.
It soon became clear that Eaton and some other board members were not really interested in looking into the issues, Rowe said.
Eaton declined via email to be interviewed.
In a late April executive meeting, Jones, then a board member, tried to convince the board to consider the complaints.
“During that board meeting, I brought up some concerns of member-owners and employees,” Jones said. “We went into that executive session and it was a little intense, I guess.”
Jones said he didn’t feel it was outside of the norm for a conversation discussing the difficult issues facing the co-op.
“Cameron was very emotional about the issues that had been brought up by members and did speak with anger and tone of voice,” Rowe said. “It was shocking and uncomfortable in the room. I can agree with that. However, it was not something that was going to be resolved by removing him from the board.”
Jones said he met Eaton after the meeting and they agreed that while the conversation was difficult, it was also beneficial.
That heated meeting incited a move to have Jones voted from the board, Rowe said. He said he was pressured to remove Jones but added that no one made the direct request.
“They didn’t suggest that I should remove Cameron to solve the problem,” Rowe said. “They just made it clear that there was an unresolved problem and it was mine to deal with. They were not going to change.”
Reflecting on the situation, Rowe said he would not make the same decisions if faced with the choice a second time. Jones just wanted to hear some more information and perspectives, he added.
“His questions were denied and delayed and deferred and batted aside,” Rowe said. “That was frustrating.”
A special meeting was set for July 29.
Jones said the notice of the special meeting for his removal did not include any description about its agenda. Initially, he responded that he couldn’t come because of a conflict with work.
On the morning of the meeting, Rowe shared that the meeting was about his removal, Jones said.
Jones said new board members were not invited to the meeting and, to his knowledge, appropriate investigations and documentation required by the board’s policy were not produced.
Previous board member Juri Jennings resigned in protest of Jones’ removal.
Before his removal, Jones and Jennings had been tasked by the board to find a facilitator to work with the board around issues raised at the early April meeting.
Jones said he had reached out to a number of facilitators and was looking forward to digging into hard but necessary conversations at the board’s next regular meeting, in early August.
After the board’s decision to remove Jones became public, community members started approaching Rowe to understand the decision.
“I started talking to those community members and I learned more,” Rowe said. “I learned things that essentially people were afraid to tell the board because they knew the board would also help deflect or squash the issue down. Principally about treatment of staff; unfair promotion decisions, unfair hiring and firing decisions, potentially unsafe treatment of workplace incidents. This was shocking to me.”
On Aug. 8, Black Lives Matter Jefferson County, Well Organized and Usawa Consulting sent a letter to the co-op board. The letter requested that Eaton and Rowe be removed and replaced and that the board publicly apologize to all harmed employees, board members and member-owners. Several other equity-based requests were included.
The letter outlined acceptable time frames and stated that the partner organizations would launch a boycott campaign if their requests were not met.
In September, lacking a response from the board, a boycott began.
The boycott has been a mixed bag in terms of success, Jones said. It has succeeded in its main goal of generating conversations around wanted change, he added.
Jones said since then, he’s had quite a few conversations with previous employees who were fired by Eaton. He said some were unsuccessful in finding legal remedies and others settled with the co-op out of court.
Jones said he’s heard a number of concerns around racial equity from people of color.
“It’s the culture of dismissing the concerns of the employees when they express it and minimizing it,” Jones said. “Then threatening folks, if they go to the board that there’s going to be repercussions. That’s the kind of trend.”
At a public board meeting in December, public comment lasted for an hour and a half, Rowe said.
“It felt for once like member comments had been heard; members were relieved,” Rowe said. “It was a good meeting and we were chatting and hugging afterwards.”
Following the meeting, Rowe said Eaton and other board members said the meeting was intensely uncomfortable and that he should never do that again.
In his resignation to the board, Rowe apologized to Jones and board members for contributing to a difficult year. Also, he suggested it is time for Eaton and board members Lisa Barclay and Diana Grunow to resign.
“The core of it is the notion that, as a cooperative and as a board, we serve the community,” Rowe said. “The board represents all co-op member-owners, not just the ones who voted for us or the ones who spend the most in the store.”
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Reporter Elijah Sussman can be reached by email at elijah.sussman@sequimgazette.com.
