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01/18/2008: "How’s That? Bureaucrat Says “My Fault, I’ll Pay”?"

(Cul-de-sac for school parking lot in Friday Harbor sans required sidewalks)

The Town (Town of Friday Harbor) has standards that are to be met when installing curbs, gutters and sidewalks. In 2006 the School (San Juan Island School District) submitted plans to the Town for a cul-de-sac, as a part of their site development plans for school ball fields.

The plans approved by Town Administrator King Fitch did not require formal concrete sidewalks. King -and some members of the Town Council- believed the plans as submitted were adequate, since the cul-de-sac was, while legally part of the Town street system, was to be closed off to access from Town streets, except for emergency use only, and served only the school parking lot.

The only reason it was installed at all was because the plat required it, and it was quicker and easer to install it, then change the plat.


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The Village Grove subdivision contains the street that terminates at the cul-de-sac. The subdivision was originally approved by the Town with a requirement that a “cul-de-sac designed and constructed to Town standard” would be installed at a later date. It had been assumed the property -now owned by the school- would one day contain homes, not a parking lot. When the School acquired the propert, they inherited the cul-de-sac requirement.

The problem for the Town, and then the School, started when the owners of the homes in the adjacent subdivision signed a letter in protest to the lack of a formal concrete sidewalk, and presented it to the Town. This resulted in the Town taking a second look at the approved permit, and subsequence discussion of what to do about it followed.

The School took the position that nothing would be served by using tax dollars to undo what had been done, and then spending more money to re-do it. Councilman Kelly Balcomb-Bartok gave voice for the concerns of those who felt it set a negative precedent, and the lack of sidewalks constituted a danger.

In what may be a first in the nation (if not in the history of government) an administrator not only admitted a mistake was made in following -as Councilmember Liz Illg called it: “the spirit of the law, and not the letter of the law” and volunteered to pay for it

King wrote a letter to Superintendent Michael Soltman explaining the problem of the sub-standard improvement, and said he was willing to make it right by paying to have it removed out of his own pocket. No demands or threats of a lawsuit had been made by anyone, King just seemed to think it was the right thing to offer.

Fortunately for all concerned, the Town Council did the right thing on Thursday night when they assumed some of the blame for what was ultimately a Town error, and voted to pay for the costs required to undo the error.

After an seemingly interminable discussion, Councilman Kelly Balcomb-Bartok was able to hammer together a motion to “Authorize $4,500.00 for the removal and disposal of the extruded concrete in preparation for the gutter and sidewalk, to be done during phase one.”

The reasoning behind it, and where the amount came from, was not defined clearly in the motion, and that resulted in more discussion and second guessing, but in the end a unanimous vote of approval was given, which was then followed by questions from the public as to why and what it was they had just approved.

Unlike the County Council which prefers to go it alone, the Town pays Town Prosecuting Attorney Don Eaton to attend all of the Town Council meetings to observe, answer questions, and give advice when he believes it to be necessary.

In response to the questions from the floor, Eaton succinctly explained for the public, and as it turned out, for the Council, the what and why of the vote by stating “you want to contribute $4,500.00 to the cost of removal; you know the cost of removal is probably going to be far less than that. That is okay with you, because you really want some of the money to compensate them for all the work they did to begin with… that is now going to be torn out.”

So the School will get some money to meet the new standards that should have been imposed in the first place, and the Town will get some concrete sidewalks. "And the next agenda item is...."