Dear County Council, Administrator and Planning Staff,
You are required to adopt Best Available Science (BAS) that is factual, substantive, local and relevant. We appreciate the actions Council and Staff are taking to avoid personal liability and County liability. However, it is evident that the obligation to give a proper amount of time for the public to review and vet the information being considered as BAS is being mishandled. The time frame is too short. The intent of the law is simply not being met. The voluminous information cannot even be reasonably reviewed by trained Staff persons in the time that is being allowed, not to mention the obligation for continuous and robust interaction with the community, which is clearly impossible under the schedule that has been established.
It is not unreasonable that the Staff, Council, and interested constituents have the time to study, understand and agree that the information that is adopted and will be used in the future for guiding the actions of the planners and legislators of this county be local, relevant and satisfy the guidelines established by the WAC for best available science. There is a moral as well as legal obligation to allow sufficient time for all parties to be educated and involved.
Recently, inappropriate comments have been made by some of the Council and Staff regarding questions and concerns raised by citizens and organizations. These criticisms indicate a lack of interest in taking the time necessary to address the concerns brought up. These individuals need to revisit their comments and thoughts and adopt an approach that rejects bias and prejudice and indicates a willingness to consider the legitimate concerns of their neighbors and constituents. You will recall that, in the beginning of this process, many citizens were disparaged for disagreeing with Staff on Critical Areas Ordinance (CAO) issues. Remember the accusations and comments toward those questioning the Staff information: they were passing “rumors” and “misinformation”. How about the comments from Staff? “It’s all about the bugs” and “We have no choice”. Fortunately, enough time was available for citizens to prove to Council and Staff that they were either misinformed or uneducated about many presumed “facts”. Time has allowed us to identify some of the myths and some of the realities about the requirements of the CAO and the process involved We now know it is not just about the bugs, and that we do have many choices.
We would encourage the Council, Administrator and County Staff to revisit the schedule that they have set up for the BAS process, and to spend time discussing issues with those they currently view as adversarial. As citizens are reviewing the submitted BAS synthesis, they are coming forth with questions and facts that should be used to inform the decision making process. A reasonable amount of time for discovery and discussion of the voluminous information is essential.
Remember, down-Sound the Department of Ecology has not challenged waterfront shoreline buffers of 25 feet, and allowed non conforming restrictions to be relaxed, while other areas have done the opposite. The reason for this is mostly due to “politics”. If we follow that path our community will become divided, and we will eventually end up in court, which will waste valuable time and resources. The County, its employees and contractors should all be seeking truth, local and relevant, and applying it to San Juan County, and using the Coordination process as a means to the resolution of conflict on the CAO issues. A Coordination process does not just have to be between government entities. It can be used between citizens and local government as a tool to reach a consensus on facts and resolutions to issues in a proper, “bottom-up” process, as is required by the GMA.
We respectfully request that you: 1.) Extend your time line for the adoption of best available science. 2) Have Staff publish the discovered “problems” that indicate that there is a need to change our current CAO language. 3.) Have Staff share with the public their consideration and weighing of the 13 competing goals of the GMA in any areas of the current Sensitive Areas Ordinance that they recommend for change. They should also indicate how a decision to change our County’s ordinance might be mitigated to lessen the impact on landowners and the other GMA mandated Goals. 4.) That Staff meet with interested citizens and organizations (in a bottom-up process) to find mutual areas of agreement, as well as areas of disagreement. This would save a lot of time and allow all to focus on meaningful conservation measures.
We should all want to have rules and regulations that address real problems and that are fair and economically feasible. There are no penalties for taking more time. There are numerous problems and unintended consequences in moving ahead in the current manner. We will be better stewards if we take the time to carefully craft a CAO that meets our local San Juan County’s needs, and that balances all of the GMA goals.
Thank you in advance for your consideration.
The Citizens Alliance for Property Rights San Juan Board
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Well done in spirit and delivery of a thoughtful set of comments. I am personally not competent to judge the BAS process (nor to evaluate its many conflicting objectives). But I do so appreciate the tone of Citizen’s Alliance. It is respectful and reasonable in it’s request for a most deliberate approach.
I know also that much time and energy is being committed by our elected representatives (Richard Fralick and Patty Miller on Orcas) – and I am also much appreciative of their deliberate efforts to arrive at a reasoned and rational balance of the many constituencies.
So I urge that we ‘pay attention to’ the voices of concerned citizens and groups such as CAPR. It is far better to take the time to arrive at very well thought out solutions (vetted and argued) than to adopt something that will yield conflict for decades.
Thank you !!!
Somewhere in the middle of two extremes lies the truth. Here in the UGA our critical areas are unprotected – in an area only one mile wide, at sea level, dumping stormwater into non-flushing Fishing Bay, taking the brunt of development and stormwater runoff, forced to have sewers and chlorinated water, and the biggest regulated wetlands on the island here in the UGA and losing trees and functionality as filtering systems.
Potentially polluting businesses are allowed to remove trees IN Eastsound Swale – there are no buffers left – with no enforcement and nothing more than a hand slap – if a concerned citizen brings it up to the county and catches them in the act. By the time we do catch them, permits have been granted and the damage has been done.
Yet homeowners way inland face another scenario, and are held to way more restrictive measures while we in the UGA watch our town becoming the toilet and dumping ground for the rest of the island who wants its “open space”.
What recourse do we have? Please tell me. Unless the citizens come together, learn to listen to each others’ concerns with respect, and come up with some win-win situations, Eastsound is ruined. It’s not going to happen unless we create it. We the county have been dragging our feet on this CAO for years and years and years, losing any and all grant monies we would have been entitled to. Now that the fed and states are bankrupt, it’s up to we the citizens to locally solve our problems.
I’d be willing to sit down and talk with anyone, anytime, to try to solve the complex ecological, environmental, and land use problems facing our county today – but we need all sides and stances and classes represented.
One thing’s for sure: our shoreline is more critical to save than downsound, and we have the opportunity to do so and assure that we are not killing the life in the sea that nourishes this area and its beneficial wildlife. We can’t afford any more “wild west” mentality. Working together is our only option now. I believe we can all agree that we WANT to do the right thing so that everyone wins; now let’s figure out how to go about doing that and giving people incentives to protect the islands we all love, while using our (borrowed) lands responsibly.