We choose freedom.
We live here so we can enjoy the peace, freedom, and natural beauty of our rural island paradise. Like many of us, we came here to escape the tyranny of “civilization” – the rules, regulations, oversight, and restrictions that are such an oppressive part of daily life on the mainland.
But two of our candidates have built their careers around such rules and regulations. Lovel Pratt and Jamie Stevens seem to revel in making regulations and creating a new bureaucracy, dictating how we should live our lives and use our property. Ms. Pratt and Mr. Stevens seem confident that they know better than we on how our money should be spent, how we should treat each other, and how we should enjoy our surroundings. In the rare event of any doubt, they are quick to import hand-picked outside “experts” to tell us how we should live. Ms. Pratt and Mr. Stevens seem to believe more rules and regulations will improve our lives, but, thankfully, most of us know better.
Ms. Pratt was ousted by voters in November. Why? One reason was the furor surrounding the Critical Areas Ordinance and her obvious indifference to the concerns of her constituents about the oppressive legislation and its profound negative impacts. What did she do after losing the election? In the final lame-duck days of her term, she signed the very CAO that her constituents opposed. This is not leadership.
If you are concerned as well, join in reelecting Bob Jarman, reelecting Rick Hughes, and electing Brian McClerren so that we can preserve our precious freedoms and live in peace.
Fred and Carolyn Bowen
Bill and Maria Wertz
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Along with peace and freedom, when living in any community you have an obligation to your neighbors and to the community at large to protect the very things which drew you to this place. To imply that either Lovel Pratt or Jamie Stephens do not have a sense of responsibility to their constituents, or to the community at large, much less to their own families for preserving the place they so clearly love, is beyond reason.
Our CAO was vastly out of date and compliance when the review process started. You cannot think that the previous council of which Lovel was a member, gleefully embraced the arduous contentious process they faced, hoping to make people’s lives more difficult. They live here too. They have to face the very people whose homes and properties were affected by the CAO. They made the rules more flexible, and not one-size-fits-all. That resulted in something a bit more complex to use, but wasn’t flexibility what so many people wanted? The CAO may need some tweaking, but that can be an ongoing job of our County Council.
As a resident of this county, I resent people slinging mud at those whose major fault is that they are willing to serve in a thankless position. They put in their time, their intelligence and their effort doing the work that precious few people will expend themselves to do. How many people have read the CAO? How many people went to the hearings? How many people talked to our Council Members, or showed up at the Council meetings? It is so easy to slam our public servants. What will you do when no one is willing to run? Will you run for office, put yourself out there and subject yourself to the harsh words of people who do not know you? I wonder.
well said, Sarah Crosby! Mud slinging and pre-supposition based on (inaccurate) rumor, hearsay, and misinformation harms the fiber of our communities and whichever candidates we choose to support. There is no place for it here.. I am very sure that the candidates themselves that the above-mentioned letter purports to support, would not support this kind of behavior either.
One more thing that must be said: in my 32 years of residency on Orcas, I have seen a concerted effort by a few to stop any progress on the CAO, while countless violations and harms of the environment went unenforced; destroying the natural wetlands we did have, and eroding our hillsides with unadressed stormwater runoff due to tree clearing, clogging and soiling our aquifers and marine ecosystems with silt and pollutants. We are just beginning to really see and feel the ramifications of this in the Lowlands.
The people claiming they want freedom from “rules” didn’t like the old ordinance with its “big dumb buffers” either – even though the Army Corps and DOE use these very reasonable and easy to understand guidelines still. No- this wasn’t good enough for the rule naysayers.
This current CAO was watered down so much because of the hue and cry and misinformation circulated by this same wild-west crazed mind-set. I find it ironic that those crying “foul” fail to realize that you yourselves helped shape the CAO into what it is today! So before you blame the County, at least own up to this fact so that real dialogue can begin.
How do you think it’s going to work out if there are no rules or guidelines at all? Lousy for the most of us who want to do the right thing, and great for the few who are greedy and unconscionable. It fares even worse for the very creatures and ecosystems on which, whether we *know* it or not, our enjoyable and rich quality of life depends.