02/24/2009: "SJC Not Part Of Marine Transportation Facilities Bill"

While officials are asking for clarification of the language in a proposed bill that will give the State control of Marine Transportation Facilities in specific areas of Puget Sound, they have been assured that it was not the intent of the bill to include San Juan County. ( Original story)

Well, kind of assured. The County Council on Monday received second and third hand notice that Bill 5836 is being introduced specifically to “help a mining and transportation” permit application in Jefferson County.

Calls by The Island Guardian to Representative’s Quall and Morris, were not returned, however Senator Ranker’s secretary called to say “San Juan County is absolutely not included” as part of the geographic area described in the bill.

While this is also the opinion of County Administrator Pete Rose, he told the council he too had been informed the sponsors of the bill would fine tune the language to make it clear that the bill did not apply to SJC.

After some discussion, the council agreed to send a letter in support of Jefferson’s county’s opposition to the bill, based on the premise that the bill would remove some local control from a county to issue permits for land use within the county -a loss that SJC would not want to have happen here .