Letter to the Editor: No Need for New CAO

Recently, Vivien Burnett of Friday Harbor complained that San Juan County has had the same critical areas ordinance since 1998. Wow! If that’s the case, we’d better get crackin’ and replace it. Immediately, right? I mean, after all, it’s old! “Nothing is new.”

But nobody’s found a single instance of pollution or damage to our beautiful islands since we adopted that old ordinance. And our “old” CAO actually meets nearly every requirement of the interim state law changes. So, do we have to replace it just because it’s old?

Wait a minute! That can’t be right; I’ll bet both Burnett and I are a lot older than that old ordinance. Does this mean that because we’re “old” both of us should be replaced? Gosh, I hope not!

Or, perhaps she meant we should replace the “old” ordinance because the proposed CAO will give the county a lot more control over our private property?

Burnett was right about one thing: the majority of the people of San Juan County oppose government spending and/or any regulations that infringe our “personal freedom” to do whatever we want on our own property.

On the other hand, Burnett’s wrong about nearly everything else. All the outstanding organizations she named seek to protect our rights—hers, mine, everyone’s. Those groups know that, while we have a right to do anything we want on our private property, we have a gigantic responsibility that goes along with our liberty.

We may not do anything that infringes anyone else’s property rights. For example, if our activity causes pollution on our private property, we may not allow that pollution to leave our property. Nor may we deliberately damage the overall environment on our or anyone else’s property.

Where do we find a statement of our private property rights? In the Declaration of Independence and both the United States and Washington Constitutions.

In other words, those outstanding groups Burnett criticized are protecting the same rights that are described and memorialized in our founding documents. We think much like James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and all the other American patriots 225 years ago did about personal liberties.

But, don’t feel bad, Ms Burnett, there are folks in history who think like you do, too. They also thought government should be able to either (a) dictate what may or may not be done on private property, or (b) control all land outright. Who were they? Well, let’s see; Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, …

J B McGuire
Olga