— by Margie Doyle —

William Wright, retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel and software engineer for Boeing Defense Programs, spoke to about 28 people at the June 20th Eagle Forum organized to address the repeal of the Washington State Growth Management Act.

This year, the state legislature passed and Governor Jay Inslee signed into law GMA repeal legislation stipulating that counties with less than 20,000 residents in one of the past five years can opt out of the GMA.

With the passage of the Engrossed House Bill 1224, regarding GMA Planning obligations, on March 31, 2014 with the law going into effect on June 12, 2014, there is now “a process for county legislative authorities to withdraw from voluntary planning under the GMA,” says Wright

Wright’s slides and speech presented a history of the passage of the Growth Management Act dating from the state Growth Strategies Commission’s recommendations in 1989 to the passage of the law in 1991.

Wright challenged San Juan County Commissioners’ decision to opt into the GMA, saying that their decision on the basis that it was “arbitrary and capricious” and that it “ignored substantive due process.” Wright noted that the GMA legislation was not signed into law until seven months later, in July 1991.

Wright further recommended that San Juan County comply with the partial planning “rural” elements of GMA, instead of all eight elements of full GMA planning:
1) land use
2) housing
3) capital facilities
4) utilities
5) rural
6) transportation
7) economic
8) park and recreation

His rationale for opting out of full GMA compliance includes:

  • Returning local control: the County’s decision to comply with the GMA “didn’t fix the problems addressing rural counties;”
  • Removal of the Growth Management Hearings Board (GMHB);
  • Only “Rural” or partial planning is required

Wright noted that the Town of Friday Harbor will also only do partial planning.

Wright made plain his vantage point on government’s environmental restrictions and protection, calling eel grass “the sacred cow of the environmentalists,” and stating “The goal of FutureWise and Friends of San Juans is to get all population into high rises in urban areas.”

Wright, who filed a lawsuit against GMAHB in 1992,  said, “In my opinion [ESB]1224 makes GMA ripe for judicial action.”

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