By Janet Alderton
Confusing and often conflicting development codes and other county regulations have serious impacts on the lives and livelihoods of our fellow islanders. The on-going struggles of the Jones family of Lopez Island are the latest consequence of the muddled state of our county government. Confused permitting lasting over several years for the “Craftsman Corner” development on Orcas Island years prompted me to send the following email to County Councilor Rich Peterson on March 2, 2011:
“San Juan County should adopt an efficient, consistent and transparent system for planning and development similar to the City of Boise’s Online Planning and Development Services. A builder friend has worked with both systems. He praises Boise’s system, but is highly critical of the San Juan County system. I have heard similar complaints from other people developing land or just adding a garage in San Juan County. For a given question or issue, different answers are received from different CDPD employees and even from the same employee at different times. In Boise, all the CDPD employees are in the same room. They all work from the same computer file for a given project. Conflicting instructions can be resolved quickly. The permits, project progress, and approvals are available to anyone via the city website. See the attached example:”
pdsonline.cityofboise.org/pdsonline
The status of any ongoing project is available at the following link:
pdsonline.cityofboise.org/pdsonline/Reports
Our community depends on builders, farmers, and other hard working people who are trying to do the right thing, but are often stymied by inconsistent or confusing regulations. Please urge your County Councilor to reform our current system so that it is efficient, consistent, transparent, and fair. I very much hope that the Jones’ family farm stand will not need to close.
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What a great suggestion, if the people of Boise, ID can have a workable system that has demonstrated fairness and delivers workable results we should vote to adopt the same exact system verbatim and anyone who objects should really have their term in office cut short by a vote of no confidence, I have NO confidence in the present way our county does business, I am continually disgusted by the arbitrary and haphazard results of our officials over-site. We should really consider the ‘Boise’ methodology, and the Jones’ really deserve our support and an official apology from the present government officials for lack of competency and failure to do their duty,which is to support the local populace in their endeavors. I also think the Jones’ should be compensated for all their lost income and the time they have had to waste defending their right to maintain their operation. This is not something the rest of us can just ignore, it effects the quality of life of each and everyone of us whether you realize it or not!
This is an excellent suggestion, and I can only hope that he County Council will take swift action to implement these very important changes.
The present situation should not be allowed to continue, and with the Boise example of the correct approach, changes could be quickly implemented.
Let us hope that there will be a new start in 2012, making life easier for our struggling fellow citizens. Surely the county employees would rather have more pleasant interactions as well!