Open letter by residents to Port Orchard’s mayor and Chevron:

Our rights were unconstitutionally violated by our city in a permit process for building a gas station in our residential neighborhood that negatively impacts us all on our dead-end street and especially one house facing the entrance and exit that’s less than 50 feet from the front door!

We have the solution: Move this gas station to the exact-sized and shaped parcel that the city owns just across the street in a commercial area.

We are still acting in good faith, despite our city misrepresenting our efforts to appeal this permit in the media and our public records request, which shows the misdirection and lies that excluded us from the process. We have sent our appeals to the city, attorney general and our governor showing how our city violated the doctrine of substantive due process. We are asking for the recognition that the social compact upon which our government is founded that gives us the protections beyond those that are expressly stated in the U.S. Constitution against the flagrant abuse of government power as was established in Calder v Bull, 3 U.S. 386 (1798).

We find this fraudulent permit process “null and void.” We are petitioning the people of Port Orchard to call for our city to start this permit process over again to allow our concerns to be taken into account, and then we believe that the obvious solution will be taken by both our mayor and Chevron.

G. Vance Vaught

Port Orchard