In 2021, a group of Camas and Washougal residents came together to discuss critical race theory — an academic movement that examines social, cultural and legal issues as they relate to race and racism — and to try to figure out why it had become a highlight of contentious school board meetings across the country.
“We just wanted to figure out what this whole flap was about,” said group member Melanie Wilson, a Washougal resident. “Over time, we became more and more focused on what was happening in the local school system — schools being where a lot of the political action is right now in this community and a lot of other communities around the country. And over time, the group became more focused on anti-extremism than anything else.”
The members of the group — which eventually swelled to about 90 people — approached their conversations with no established opinions and open minds. Eventually, the group formed the East County Citizens Alliance, a space where local residents could engage in reasonable conversations about the different types of issues affecting their daily lives and talk about how they might make a difference in their own communities.
Wilson is the de facto leader of the alliance. She said the group wants to support local public institutions by growing positive community relationships and fighting the “corrosive effects of extremism.”
“(We’ve seen a) continual erosion of trust in the local government, and government at all levels, really, and a lot of the division locally was being driven by our own homegrown extremism group, the Washougal Moms,” Wilson said of a group that launched a smear campaign against former Washougal School Board member Donna Sinclair during the November 2021 election and once held a “tribunal” to vote for a shadow school board in Washougal. “We didn’t want to be overly focused on them, but it’s hard to look away when they’re driving so much of the conversation.”
The alliance plans to launch a blog, “East County Voices,” in March to help spread its message.
Wilson said the blog will feature regular writers and guest contributors who represent a variety of local opinions.
“It is going to be a space for reasoned dialogue,” said Wilson, a social worker. “We have a set of principles. We are interested in facts, evidence, respect and civil behavior. We want to move beyond ideological debates, which I think are just destroying our ability to talk to one another, and actually address the real-life problems in our community.”
The blog, she said, will not include “intimidation or conspiracy theories or propaganda.”
“We’ve seen a lot of very exclusionary talk from our local extremism group about who the ‘people’ really are and who the ‘patriots’ really are. We want to get outside of that paradigm entirely and talk about real problems and thoughtful responses,” Wilson said. “We are interested in being fair and balanced, but we’re not neutral. Our point of view is that we want a space that’s free of the damaging and mindless rhetoric that we see throughout our community. All you have to do is look at NextDoor to see how unable we are to talk to one another right now. This would be the antidote to that.”
Wilson knows many of the alliance’s initial conversations might focus on the Washougal Moms group, but she said she hopes that, eventually, the discourse will include other topics.
“I feel like if we can bring issues … to the fore and talk about them, we’ll find a solution because we’re all adults and capable people, and these things are not beyond our ability to address,” she said.
‘Utterly alarming’ school board meetings
Wilson has been attending Washougal School Board meetings for the past six months and describes an “utterly alarming” situation involving members of the Proud Boys — a group the Canadian government has dubbed a “terrorist entity” — anti-maskers and others who seem willing to disrupt the public meetings.
“At the first meeting that I went to, a citizen stood up and said, ‘Civil war is almost here. I’m sharpening my bullets. Do you people on the board think you’re going to be the ones to win the war?’” Wilson said. “That was a blatant, fairly explicit threat, and a group of Washougal Moms were there, hooting and clapping.”
On Jan. 25, a group of anti-maskers who refused to follow state public health mandates meant to slow the spread of COVID-19 disrupted a Washougal School Board meeting and caused the board to end its in-person session and meet later in a remote setting.
The board reconvened remotely on Jan. 27 via Zoom to complete unfinished business. Now, the school board will consider how it meets — in-person or remotely — before every public meeting.
