By Dawn Keith-Madeiros

I am sharing with you directly the post that I placed online regarding the article that focused on Vivian Decker and Spin Cafe, not the trespassing and safety meeting that was presented. Vivian was 10 minutes of a two-hour conversation. It seemed extremely biased.

I am beyond disappointed with this article. I feel it was misconstrued and the reporter could not of been at the same meeting that I attended based on her skewed representation; it was not the Vivian ranting off topic show. She called it a homeless meeting; it wasn’t it’s a transient and safety issue. It’s a public safety issue why isn’t that being represented?

It was a chamber special meeting about trespassing and public safety with at least 10 people sharing about these exponentially increasing problems in our community.

Police Chief Kevin Dresker shared a significant amount of information that really is what the public should’ve known about. There was not a mention of the photo compilation of pictures of the encampments in our community that was heart-wrenching.

Community members spoke on the topic of these concerns. They were misrepresented in the article and tried to be explained away with inaccurate information from the Spin director. At no point did she address issues of the complaints and concerns of the public. No acknowledgment of the truth of the problems at hand. She tried to throw statistics and then criticized everyone there because we don’t follow her personal agenda.

The reporter lumps Spin Cafe and Garage of Blessings into the same group with Island Thrift and Help House that have done a responsible, amazing job for decades in our community. We never had this level of drugs, filth and encampments until the unchecked handouts.

I beseech you to stop giving your donations to Spin Cafe and Garage of Blessings. We have great services in the community that we can donate to that have responsible methods of doing business. Stop giving to panhandlers. Please talk to the grocery store clerks and they will share their experiences. Spend time and energy helping with positive changes.

If you need ideas I’d be glad to give you some. Maybe help clean up the encampments on private property and give those landowners a break.

• Dawn Keith-Madeiros is the owner of Bayshore Chiropractic and Bayshore Property. She has been a resident of Oak Harbor for 21 years.