— by Spirit Eagle —
Last Friday, I went to the meeting about the opportunity that SJC has to “Opt Out of the Growth Management Act” and I was thrilled that we have this opportunity now!
If one doesn’t have to live in an Urban Growth Area because of size restrictions on acreage/house ratios, Orcas is lovely. However. if you are scrunched together in an Urban Growth Area with street light pollution, noise, and fumes from cars, people always around, it is another story. It effectively keeps the workers in “their place” (in Eastsound.) Unless you have time to “toodle” around the Island for the fun of it, one doesn’t enjoy the pleasures of Island life.
Acreage would be nice, but not at the inflated prices and the 5 or more acres per dwelling that effectively segregates people, one from the other and most especially, from the Natural World!
When I came here, thirty years ago, Orcas was a True Island Community. People mingled with each other. Newcomers blended and adopted the “Island Way”, which included socializing together and helping each other out as neighbors should. Island dances were quite popular. I remember when multimillionaires and farmers, office workers, gardeners, artists, business owners, house cleaners, writers and a couple of homeless individuals mingled and danced together, human to human. It is what Island living truly is!
Along with new wealth came the separation of people and the GMA which effectively cemented that separation. The workers live in town and the rest of the island is for those lured here by land ads in the Wall Street Journal in the 1990’s They came here with the means to afford to live in the “country” for which land prices shot up to the sky. Many old Island families had to sell their land because the taxes were raised too high to keep large parcels of land. Now, the workers actually need all of the wonderful non-profits to help them out. Independent Island life is a thing of the past.
The Growth Management Act is a tool to acclimate people to Agenda 21, which is slowly being implemented worldwide, under the guise of Environmental Protection and it has nothing to do with protecting our Dear Mother Earth and all of our sisters and brothers in the plant and animal Kingdoms. This is a betrayal of the people and of the Earth Herself. Do some in depth research on it. You may see that “paradise” no longer exists for many of the people on Orcas Island.
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From what I have seen, Orcas Island has done a much better job of keeping an intact community than many “vacation” areas. More growth would probably not help the island community retain its character; wouldn’t it just increase prices further and drive out more long-term islanders?
Agenda 21 is a non-binding, voluntarily implemented action plan of the United Nations with regard to sustainable development. I’m sure it includes ideas like managing growth. For the most part all you hear about it these days is from conspiracy theorists.
The first folks to be “lured”to Orcas were not in the 1990s, but likely in the 1850s, enticed by ads such as an early one by Northern Pacific Railroad around 1857, an ad in the back of McClure’s Magazine stating that one’s California vacation could not be complete until they visited the San Juans! Because of regular infusions of folks for more than 150 years new, we’ve been functioning well as a community of independent folks who are particularly good at absorbing all intelligent comers!
We had had the option to “opt out” of the GMA – and the UGA model – all the way THROUGH November, 2011 – while the former Council and CD&P were working on the CAO – Only, nobody from the greater public knew. At least nobody who could, or wanted to, stop it.
Unfortunately, by the time I found that information (early 2012), the deadline had already passed. I found out through doing hundreds of hours of research and combing through local and state law, while trying to enlighten planners and permitters about the illegal and egregious development in Eastsound Swale, and repeated violations of the Eastsound Subarea Plan and Comprehensive Plan. No one listened, then or now. Why this information wasn’t on the County website, and made common Public knowledge so the people COULD decide, I don’t know.
Dorothy Austin was one of the few people who understood the irony and the real tragedy of implementing the Eastsound UGA – putting mostly poor and moderate income people in the Eastsound UGA – over 50% of our population at buildout. One impact of that (there are many!) is that, monetarily, it’s a disaster for the UGA residents. Why? Because UGA residents are forced to pay for sewer, water, and mandatory all-electric heating and hot water, garbage collection, and soon, stormwater cleanup fees (Look for the formation of a Utility District – That’s next! Guess who will pay for it!) Then we’ll also be paying to pipe all the stormwater roaring downhill that is drowning Eastsound Swale and that has all but killed it, thanks to a woefully inadequate stormwater plan, and easy- to-obtain clearing and grading permits.) Presently, the stormwater is being dumped into Fishing Bay – which is non-flushing, and therefore easily polluted. So, the people least able to afford it, are paying top $$$$$ for these “services,” and become even more impoverished, while those in the rural districts can have alternative everything, and not pay for water, sewer, or stormwater management – which will present stormwater problems for them too, eventually.)
The trade-off for all this “service” we Eastsound UGA residents get? Destruction of Eastsound Swale and the seasonal stream, Fishing Bay, nearshore environments, and the once bio-diverse woods that surrounded Eastsound, as the wetland in the entire Eastsound Basin Watershed kept trying to rebuild itself after each onslaught. (and yes – the onslaughts to Eastsound Watershed have been relentless since the settlers of the 1850s clear-cut and made orchards in Eastsound.)
People who support the UGA, fail to understand the geologic, environmental, and economic implications, and will continue to blindly defend it, while we lose one of the most bio-diverse watersheds in the area, and the poor get poorer, and we sit waiting for an earthquake or tsunami to wipe us off the map.
I don’t know if that is Agenda 21 – because I see nothing but environmental destruction! This agenda, whatever it is, doesn’t consider the duress it puts on the common working people, the lands and life-giving waters, and beneficial wildlife. How can we continue to support such short-sighted and greedy concepts – and still call ourselves a cohesive and caring community?