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08/22/2007: "County & Town Discuss Town Dump"

Friday Harbor’s town council members came to the court house on Tuesday for a lunch meeting to discuss agenda items ranging from transportation to dump sites.

Because some of the County Councilmen, and many of the Town Council members, wished to attended a one o’clock memorial service for former Friday Harbor Mayor Alan Carter, Chair Bob Myhr quickly worked through the agenda, but when it came to the solid waste Transfer Station update, the Town representatives let it be known they continued to be puzzled by County’s lack of action on buying the Town dump site.


Council member Carrie Brooks asked the Council “why can’t your look at the (Town) dump site?”, and was told that it is one of the sites the County is reviewing. But when Myhr attempted to keep moving through the agenda, Councilman Alan Lichter said he would like to hear more from the Town on the transfer station issue.

Mayor Jones said “the site there is priceless”, noting that it is “a permitted fully functional site, and that it is possible to “engineer around any of the problems." Town Council member Wally Gillette reminded the County that they had purchased land in front of the town dump, and “the two sited together make it easier” to meet the Counties needs.

Councilman Kevin Ranker said that when the County attempted to obtain a land use permit for the site they were sued and lost; but he also noted that the County is preparing an Essential Public Facilities ordinance that may make it possible to develop a transfer station in some, but not all, land use designations that do not allow them

Lichter inquired as to the cost of the town site, and was told the Town had originally offered it to the County for 650k, but has since lowered the price to below 600k. Town Council member Kelley Balcomb-Bartok said the Town had received one inquiry from the private sector, and cautioned the County that they could lose the opportunity to purchase the site. Brooks said she failed to understand why “it takes so long for the County Council to come back to us” when the they (the Town) offers to sell the site to the County.

County Administrator Pete Rose reminded the combined group that the town site was still one of the sites the County was looking at, and that it was too soon to remove that site, or any of the other sites, as possible candidates for use as a county transfer station.