By Janet Alderton
The Adopted CAO is Complex and Expensive by Design.
I have been a close observer of the Critical Areas Ordinance Update process. I agree with many others that the CAO recently adopted by our County Council is far too complicated. There are also misconceptions about the origins of this expensive and complex set of regulations.
The Department of Ecology did not micromanage the CAO Update process. Under the Growth Management Act each county in our state writes its own regulations. Under the leadership of County Councilor Richard Fralick a majority of the Council was persuaded that a CAO using site-specific buffers was the way to go. A unique site-specific buffer plan for San Juan County was projected to cost around $185,000. But the inherent complexity of the site-specific approach resulted in protracted Planning Commission and County Council meetings. Additional rounds of meetings added to the mounting costs and distracted from other important County business. Since our county was among the last in Washington State to update the CAO, we could have saved money using the work of other counties. Unfortunately, we spent substantial funds during a period of shrinking county revenues to create a set of regulations that will cost more taxpayer money to support a larger Planning Department and cost landowners more money to comply with the regulations. Ironically, all this time and effort have only produced costly regulations that are much less protective for fish and wildlife.
Our CAO update was due in 2006 but only recently completed at the end of 2012. This lengthy process has polarized our community. Even before 2006, citizens were supporting simple regulations that would have been less confusing, less expensive, and more protective of our Critical Areas than the CAO recently adopted by our council. The fulfillment of Public Records requests for the CAO Update process has cost taxpayers close to $100,000. Most of these requests have come from one person connected to the Common Sense Alliance. The production of a CAO Update that pleases almost no one has led to legal challenges that will cost additional taxpayer money. Had we adopted portions of other counties’ CAO Updates that had already withstood legal challenges, we could have saved ourselves both grief and taxpayer money.
I am writing to correct a glaring factual error in Ms. Alderton’s letter. I was puzzled by her claim that the “fulfillment of Public Records requests for the CAO Update process has cost taxpayers close to $100,000.” Given the fact that the County has an obligation to maintain the CAO files in an organized manner pursuant to the GMA, this number seemed highly unlikely. I contacted Ms. Alderton to ask for the source of her estimate, but she has not replied. I also contacted Stan Matthews, who has been in charge of public records requests at the County, and asked whether the County kept such figures, either on the CAO or generally. He said no. I recognize that, as a Friends of the San Juans Board member, Ms. Alderton seems to have access to information not otherwise available to mere citizens. In this case, however, she seems to have been misinformed.
As for the notion that the CAO process was not micromanaged by ecology, I suggest that Ms. Alderton take the opportunity to review the public records that show the constant communication between the County, CDPD and Ecology from the very beginning of the CAO process, with CDPD and its consultants repeatedly asking Ecology what to do.
Finally, I am not sure why Ms. Alderton thinks that our unique County could simply have taken another County’s CAO and used it. Whatcom County? King County? It makes no sense. No other county has the pristine resources or the voluntary and taxpayer-supported protections of so much land that we do. What would have made sense, however, is reviewing the existing CAO, determining where it was inadequate, if at all, and making the minor changes required. That certainly would not have required several County planner FTEs and hundreds of thousands of dollars for consultants.