I am a 26-plus year resident of Federal Way, a homeowner and a taxpayer. I have donated my time, efforts, energy and expertise to the Vote Yes on Prop 1 campaign. I have manned the Vote Yes on Prop 1 booth at the Federal Way Farmers Market (we will be there again on Oct. 26, please drop by).

I have spoken to many residents about the benefits of having legal cannabis retail stores in Federal Way, I have handed out and written about literature/information/research in support, written letters to this very newspaper and on various websites as well as planting quite a few signs. I am not the only Federal Way resident doing so.

The lie that residents are not actively, indeed intimately, involved in supporting Prop 1 is just another con job by the con committee.

I appreciate that Mr. Gehrett (whom I’ve met once) is willing and able to use his legally earned money to fund the campaign. He has shown that he is willing to invest in Federal Way to both his, the city coffers and the residents benefit. So he doesn’t reside here, do the Waltons, or owners of Best Buy or Applebee’s? Yet their stores are in Federal Way. What a juvenile response from the cons. My time, efforts and energy and those of my fellow Federal Way residents are as important if not more so than the money Mr Gehrett is spending. The diatribe written by Jack Walsh of the con committee just goes to show the spurious nature of their argument, intimating what exactly with bringing up legal reported donations. Is he now following in Sharry Edwards footsteps; look where that got her.

Just because I and other Federal Way residents, committed supporters of Prop 1, don’t have the financial means to donate $35,000 to a worthy cause does not mean we don’t exist, that our time, efforts and energies are “outside interests with zero community concern and selfish motivations.” Shame on you con committee. Vote yes on Prop 1.

Orla Poole

Federal Way