Thinking Globally, Regionally and Acting Locally!

December 7, 2006
Editor: South Whidbey Record and Whidbey News Times
Island County’s Taxes to be Wasted Again!
There should be some formula you could figure out from Island County Commissioners not doing due diligence to protect Wetlands, Salmon Streams and Critical Areas from past experience that would allow us taxpayers to figure out how much the newest avoidance action is going to cost. The first time the County hired Keith Dearborn, former head of the Developers Association, to write the Growth Management Act and Critical Areas Ordnance for a few hundred thousand dollars it cost the County over $2,000,000.00 – two million to defend his inability to follow the law up through several courts to the Court of Appeals that found the County in the wrong.
ISLAND COUNTY BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS December 11, 2006. 9:30 a.m. Regular Meeting Board of County Commissioners.
Public Comment period per person is ten minuets. Please attend, e-mail and phone your disapproval of the Commissioners repeating a bad mistake again.
….c) Agreement with Dearborn & Moss PLLC for legal and consultingservices for GMA Critical Areas policies and regulations including wetlandsand fish and wildlife habitat conservation. 2-year contract beginningJanuary 1, 2007. Contract amount: $297,380.00 (RM-PLAN-06-133)
3 years ago WEAN submitted proposed changes to the Island County Critical Areas Ordinance, along with an $800.00 fee. The Commissioners, the Planning Commission, and Planning staff took our money but ignored our proposal.
Two years ago we came back and asked what they had to show for WEAN’s money. They acknowledged error and invited us to resubmit our proposal. We did that.
Last year WEAN asked what they had to show for their money and they told us they were busy, they were working on it, we should be patient.
This summer WEAN sent a certified letter to planning director Phil Bakke asking what the county had done with our proposed revisions. He did not give us the courtesy of a reply.
Now, as you can see by the agenda item above, our patience is being rewarded by a new $300k contract with Keith Dearborn. We do wonder why the county would hire an anti-GMA attorney to re-write the Critical Areas ordinance, and why, 3 years after submitting a workable proposal and the $800.00 fee, WEAN still hasn't heard when they intend to address it.
This is how the Commissioners squander your tax dollars. Please attend by person or communications. To see the history of how a few thousand dollars to Dearborn added up to over $2 million see my blog where the history is it posted.
Looking for fiduciary responsibility, tmgandhi

HerStory of Critical Areas GMA and
Whidbey Enviornmental Action Network.
In 1990 the GMA-Growth Management Act (Chapter 36.70A RCW) became law because unplanned growth posed a threat to the environment, sustainable economic development, and the quality of life in Washington. GMA established state goals, offered direction on how to prepare local comprehensive plans and regulations and set forth requirements for early and continuous public participation so that GMA could become a Land Use Constitution unique to local areas.
In 1992 the Hearing Boards were established to make informed decisions on appeals arising from the implementation or non-implementation of the Growth Management Act in a clear, consistent, timely and impartial manner that recognizes the diversity of local regions.
Whidbey Environmental Action Network – WEAN, in reading the law knew from experience that Island County was out of compliance with the GMA law. Experience had shown that the County Commissioners had no intention of stopping uncoordinated and unplanned growth that posed a threat to our common resources so necessary for quality of life. Resources like clean water in our wells, healthy wetlands that maintain our aquifers, rare and endangered native species of plants, fish and sustainable habitats for these species.
WEAN worked through the decade of the 1990's to get a GMA compliant comprehensive plan for Island County. The County Commissioners’ response was to hire a former Executive Director of Building Contractors of Washington State for $60,000 in 1997 to write a Land Developer’s version of a comprehensive plan. The amount paid by County taxpayers grew to $1.5 million dollars paid to Attorney Keith Dearborn. Dearborn used a 1984 Wetland Ordinance because if any changes were made it would have to meet the new Best Available Science standard. In 1998 WEAN stipulated that the County could meet their Critical Area protection obligations in using the AG-BMP in the Commercial AG and Rural AG zones. WEAN went to the Hearings Board when the County claimed that the AG-BMP was good enough to apply in all zones. The Hearings Board upheld WEAN’s claim that AG-BMP plan did not replace a Critical Areas Plan.
Then the Commissioners found a sympathetic Judge in Whatcom County that did not bother to read the record, gave no findings of fact and ruled on a topic not even a part of the court case. This judge’s rulings were overturned by the Court of Appeals. The three judges upheld legal arguments submitted by WEAN. The County then took the Court of Appeals proceedings to the Supreme Court and was refused a hearing of the case, making the Court of Appeals action finding Island County out of compliance with the GMA law, the last legal recourse.
The Farms Plans came into contention when the County Commissioners claimed that the very existence of a Farm Plan demonstrated that Critical Areas were being protected on that property. WEAN asked how they could know this, since the Commissioners had never seen a Farm Plan. WEAN asked to see the Farm Plans, not to torture farmers but to verify the statements of the County Commissioners and to determine if Farm Plans really do protect Critical Areas as required by law under the GMA. The Farm Plans do not meet the legal requirements of the GMA and are now secret and cannot be viewed through a Public Disclosure Act request.
The Commissions fought for unregulated development for twenty years, spent $2 million + in fighting implementation of the GMA, exhausted all legal recourse and then started a divide to conquer campaign against WEAN. They sent out questionnaires slandering WEAN and telling farmers that WEAN was out to put them out of business.
WEAN is dedicated to preservation and restoration of native biological diversity of Island County and the Pacific Northwest. They have fought to keep land for farmers not put them out of business. Steve and Marianne are founding members of Whidbey Island’s Tilth and 2nd generation Island farmers.
Why after the Growth Management Act Hearings Board, the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court ruled that Island County is out of compliance with the law and subject to the state withholding taxes have the County Commissioners not done as court ordered? If the County would not have spent the $1.5 million + fighting the GMA but instead spent the money and time implementing the Growth Management Act they could have saved the taxpayers a lot of money, brought the community together and contributed to our quality of life instead of the opposite.
Respectfully for our seventh generation,
Theresa Marie K. Gandhi