— from Spirit Eagle —
Dear County Councilors, Rick Hughes, Bob Jarman, and Jamie Stephens:
I want you to know that there are people who are extremely disappointed by your rush to approve both the Shoreline Master Plan (SMP) as rewritten and the Eastsound Sub Area Plan (ESAP) as rewritten. Your choice to hold critical hearings on these changes during the summer months and during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays when few could review the changes because of work commitments during the summer months and family preparations and gatherings during the holidays has virtually ensured a meager response to both the Revised Plans. Why is that?
What is the agenda here? Allowing oil pipelines in our waters? More private docks? No buoys? We, the people would like to know exactly who you serve! Apparently not the majority of the people. The natural environment? What is “natural” about unlimited private docks dotting the shoreline with toxins? Armoring of bluffs? Since the proposed SMP allows private airstrips on the shoreline, I ask, who do you serve? Surely not the people and the people’s interests, not our natural world (birds, fish, trees, inter-tidal life, the grasses).
You need to postpone the final decision on the Shoreline Master Plan And the Eastsound Subarea Plan! If you really want residents to be informed about these changes a series of very clear articles in our newspapers and the online paper explaining the differences, additions and deletions in the old SMP and the old ESAP and the new SMP and ESAP would be very helpful to the public.
We are the caretakers of our Earth Mother. That means that we leave her better than we found her to the seven generations to come. Does anyone care?
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About the Author: Lin McNulty
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Yes, one wonders, Spirit Eagle: Who does Council serve? Many of us feel tired out, disillusioned and betrayed. Seeing how these projects are dovetailing into someone’s idea of Development and Real Estate Mecca and Theme Park, I feel heartsick. I feel sick to my stomach almost all the time, for I know what is to come. The worst part is, most of the people don’t even know what’s about to hit them, or our shorelines, wetlands, tree buffers, and critical areas. Are we so out of touch with the sanctity of what makes this place a haven, of our dependence on its remaining clean and at least somewhat intact – especially along our shorelines?
Thank you for your letter. Thank you for caring and seeing the interconnectedness of all life that our officials refuse to recognize or protect.
It is telling that the Friends of the San Juans prefer the existing SMP to the proposed revised one.
How much time and energy and money was devoted to this long, painful process?
Certainly hundreds of thousands of dollars. And the result is mind-numbing in its complexity. Perhaps someone could have asked the question, what exactly needs to be changed, before launching into this?