Government Is Growing .... The Economy Isn’t

There is no shortage of proposed tax increases to fund government growth.

A number of proposed new tax obligations for property owners are on the ballot this fall: a bond for rebuilding part of the Orcas school campus and a property tax levy for a new Orcas recreation district; and then there is a tax proposal that is likely to come next year to subsidize the County’s solid waste operations.

Other possible tax proposals are a local public Transportation District to run buses around the islands and a tax to support the parks department. Still unresolved is a tax strategy to build homes for those with low incomes.

Property taxes already on the books for the Fire District; the Library District; the County Road Fund; and the County General Fund, don’t seem to be going down even, though property values have decreased.

Fees the County charges for mandatory permits at the Health Department, for building and land use, and the fee that the County charges for their garbage services, have all been going up.

The taxes above are all local. I have no idea how the public is going to assimilate all the new taxes and tax increases from the State and Federal governments.

Somewhere there is a “tipping point” where the cost to the general public for government “services” is more than people can pay. That “tipping point” varies with each family. Those who earn the least feel the hit first. Those with no debt and a dependable income, or those with substantial savings or secure pensions generally are immune from the initial increases. They can afford the higher taxes and fees without a major disruptions to their lifestyles.

But just like a fire can suck the air out of a room, taxes suck the air out of the economy; jobs disappear, families go broke and businesses close, and even those who were secure find themselves in a community that has lost its ability to function.

So why do elected officials keep advocating higher taxes?

Maybe, just maybe, it is because government decision makers are not directly impacted and “their government” benefits from higher taxes.

Except for lower echelon staff, most elected officials and bureaucrats feel secure with a virtually guaranteed paycheck, benefits and pension. Many get automatic increases every year regardless of what is going on outside the doors of the courthouse.

Many elected officials are “true believers”. New or expanded government programs and saying yes to requests from various interest groups is more rewarding to the elected official than taking the heat for saying “No, the public can’t afford more taxes”. It is human nature to want to be agreeable.

The reasons for expanding the reach of government can be so compelling, that it can be hard to say ”No.” Giving away “services” by redistributing dollars from taxpayers rewards both the elected official granting the “services,” and the recipient who has convinced themselves the public really needs this or that program.

If they have a job, families can save by not going out to dinner, not buying cloths, or any of the discretionary decisions that people on a budget make. What citizens cannot avoid is the reach of the public tax collector. Unfortunately those who cannot afford to pay more in taxes generally don’t show up at government hearings -most of which are held in the middle of a workday- and so they largely suffer in silence, coping if they can, and for some, eventually slipping through the cracks of society.

The only answer is to elect representatives who truly understand the crisis facing working families, small businesses and our economy. There need to be more people running for local and State office who are not afraid to say no to all those great ideas for increased government spending.

We cannot tax and borrow our way to prosperity.

John B Evans: Columnist for the Guardian, Farmer and nurseryman in Doe Bay, County Commissioner for 12 years, past Chairman of the San Juan County Republican Party, Executive Director of SJC Builders Association, and one of the founding members of Citizens For Responsible Government, a not-for-profit & a non-partisan corporation

Is County Government Too Perfect to Question?

It is kind of a hoot to read a joint letter from Kit Rawson, a representative of mainland tribal commercial fishing interests and Jim Slocum, (both major players on the County’s Marine Resources Committee), claiming County planners haven’t shown a predisposition toward a particular outcome in the County’s Critical Areas ordinance update process. Everyone in this discussion has a point of view, including the County staff.

Responsible citizens don’t appreciate being dressed down like an errant child by County staff or elected officials. If there needs to be an adult response and a “time out” given in any of this, it needs to be the Council instructing their Administrator and staff that a citizen questioning the performance of their government is central to our system of governance. When elected officials and their staffs forget they are responsible to the public, we are in serious trouble.

From the beginning of the CAO/Shoreline process, the Council majority and their planning staff have had a singular focus .... to do whatever was necessary to put SJC in the good graces of the Governor and three agenda-driven State Goliath's; the Department of Ecology, the Department of Fish and Wildlife, and the Puget Sound Partnership. Part of this singular focus is a fundamental belief that islanders are an environmental problem, period. Another consideration is that with State agency “ata-a-boys” comes State dollars.

The County staff recommendations on the CAO/Shoreline to date have had a singular focus of “compliance and any cost.” To claim the County’s actions to date are unbiased is to ignore the planning department’s own public record.

As for the general pubic, who are largely outside the loop in this event, requests for the County to clearly identify local environmental problems not addressed by current regulations, ...the oft used phrase, “show us the problem” irritates some members of the Council’s planning staff, leading to the claim that questioning the work product equates to a “personal attack.”

Recently the public’s request that the County actually follow the law and consider locally relevant science before moving forward with draft regulations has caused the County to back-up and revisit that part of the process; a legal element the County had somehow bypassed.

Glaringly missing so far is any substantive recognition by local elected officials that their constituents are genuinely concerned by the Council’s planning staff’s tacit endorsement of a series of proposed new County regulatory restrictions.

The County effort to date is largely a rehash of what other counties are contemplating sprinkled with State agency “guidance.” It was pesky public comment during public access time that caused the County to hire a third party to do a review of COE wetlands issues; a small but important step.

Also not being addressed are citizen concerns about retaining the reasonable use of their property in the face of staff draft proposals for expansive critical area buffers. Likewise, many homeowners are concerned about the restrictions that would befall thousands of county property owners under a non-conforming use status that would result from the staff-proposed massive critical area “natural” no-human-use buffers.

Citizens who raise the issue of the apparent “predisposition” by County officials to take functional control of large swaths of privately owned property are vilified for daring to question local authorities. Those asking the County to balance the 14 GMA planning goals as, the law requires, have been told directly by County planners that any “balancing” that might happen will occur only after the new environmental rules and regulations are imposed. Jim Slocomb witnessed those conversations several times on the CAO Citizen Committee.

The irony of all this is that the Council and staff are paid by local taxpayers; the same taxpayers who have to organize, raise money and spend countless hours defending themselves from the County’s draft regulatory schemes.

Citizens who are making comments at the Council’s citizen access time expect the County to do it’s part to protect the quality of life we enjoy in the islands. The public is not opposed to identifying critical areas as the law requires, or of reasonable protections for those areas. The public is not speaking against rules for shoreline development that truly address real local environmental issues. However, the public is unwilling to sit back quietly and take whatever the County and the State chooses to cook up.

The public does have serious questions about the expressed mind set exhibited by some Council members and Council staff employees toward the public that hires them. They are concerned by the regulatory recommendations from County staff. They are concerned by the absence of a balanced consideration all 14 GMA planning goals, including property rights, housing affordability and the local economy.

The notion that County staff’s work product is above any questioning by either the public or the Council doesn’t sit well. Neither does a public employee's expression that anyone with the gumption to study the issues and ask serious questions is making a personal attack.

Problem Solving

Generally the first step toward solving a problem is to clearly define what the problem is. In the case of Puget Sound, the general view is the problem is not enough fish.

We know there is a fish shortage because the folks who catch fish as a business or for recreation have told us so. The State agency charged with making sure there are enough fish to catch, say there are not enough fish. The environmental folk say there are not enough fish for the whales, birds and seals to eat. So there you have it; Puget Sound does not have enough fish.

To start solving the “not enough fish problem”, talking directly to folks who catch fish for a living or recreation would seem a logical place to begin. After all, if we were to stop “harvesting” fish, that would seem to be a good starting point.

It turns out that telling folks to take a break and let the fish stocks recover is a political non-starter.

Cleaning up the waters of Puget Sound so the fish have a healthier environment could also be a logical place to look for a solution. If fish have a healthy environment to do fish stuff in, logic would say that there are going to be more fish to catch. But, this too is another political non-starter.

Aside from the rivers that flow into the Sound, the largest continuous inflow comes from municipal sewer plants. The thing about sewer plants is that they process the organics (poop for us layman) but not the industrial and household chemicals, caffeine and pharmaceuticals that are part of the waste. All that stuff flows untreated into the Sound as part of the billions of gallons of annual sewer system discharge. Toilet bowl cleaner, caffeine or prosaic are probably not good for fish. My guess is that if you put a toilet bowl cleaner into your home aquarium, the gold fish will be fins-up in short order.

So if we are not going to stop “harvesting fish” for fun and profit, and ignore the chemicals in our sewer water, where should we be starting?

The regulators have zeroed in on homes within 200 feet of the shoreline. Somehow, Fred and Ethel’s family home on the shoreline is, to bureaucrats, the biggest contributor to the lack of fish.

Shoreline homeowners are viewed as being far more toxic to fish and the recovery of the Sound than the direct killing of fish, shrimp, clams, and crabs by fisherfolk, or the chemical soup flowing from municipal sewer systems.

Of course, In the political world, the focus on shoreline homes makes sense. The Tribes, commercial fishers, recreational fishers, environmentalists, and entrenched bureaucrats are a powerful political force. Shoreline homeowners are not.

Ticking off a few shoreline homeowners to give the appearance that you are actually doing something is an easy political call.

Secondly, there is no easy answer to the problem of municipal sewage outfall pollution that is not hugely expensive. With millions of voters using those systems, the politicians don’t want to get them upset. So shoreline homeowners are an easy mark. There are not many of them, so making Fred and Ethel the scapegoat is expedient. Besides, some of them are wealthy, and political types know wealthy folks are fair game in this day and age.

It is also true that there are not as many fish in Puget Sound as there used to be. We have all seen the pictures of the old time salmon fishery and read the stories about the good old days. Not enough fish is a problem, and restoring the health of the salt water ecosystem and the biodiversity of the water column are worthy and important goals.

Clean water, whether salt or fresh, is a good thing. A healthy sustainable environment on land or in the water is a good thing.

Politicians who ignore the obvious contributors to the current problem, and while pretending to be doing something useful by taking the future from citizens whose contribution to the problem is minimal, is not a good thing.

In fact, it is just plain wrong.

President Recognizes Our Success

I have to say I am impressed that President Obama, a mere mortal with so many important issues on his plate; taking over the nation's medical system, expanding government jobs, printing money to fund unsustainable national debt, increasing energy costs with cap and trade, extending federal control to all waters in America, etc. has taken the time to recognize the superior job the citizens of San Juan County have done in keeping the San Juan Islands such a special place.

Designating the San Juan Islands and its residents as a National Monument is really special. I am sure the folks living in the San Rafael Swell in Utah, and the other sites, are equally excited about the President's recognition of the job they have been doing protecting and preserving their areas.

For those of us in the San Juan Islands, I would imagine the new designation means that the President is endorsing what we have been up to over the years and wants to make sure that we continue our good works. Along that line, I expect the designation will mean that the State agencies, special environmental interest groups and Federal agencies will be told to "stand down" by Executive Order" so that we can continue to do the fine job that his National Monument status has highlighted.

As to the Monument itself... Does the government in Washington D.C. truck out a statue or sign or something that we mount at the ferry slip in Anacortes? You could see if Rick Larson or Patty Murray have any federal stimulus money left in the re-election accounts that could be used to hire local artists to design and build the statue or sign? Do you want your likeness on the sign or is the more generic National Monument what you have in mind? How about a "Hope and Change" tag line along the base of the statue?

I think an Obama statue on the Courthouse lawn and a letter of appreciation from the Council or maybe a petition signed by all island taxpayers is called for.

Thank you Mr. President. (Now about this trillions of dollars in debt you are putting on future generations thing ...)

Optimistic

As we usher in the new year ...blue moon and all ... I remain optimistic.

On a personal level, 2009 was pretty good. Our children and grandchildren are happy and doing well. We grew a year older, and with increasing age slowed down a bit, but all in all have been healthy and happy. Our friends and neighbors have made it through the year in good fashion. Our farm are doing well and so far, no “100 year” wind or snow storms.

I am also optimistic that the goofiness currently afflicting government at all levels is curable.

At the federal level, the general public has figured out that politicians “bringing home the bacon” with money borrowed from China is not sustainable. They also clearly understand the omnibus “fix” to pay for the medical needs of Americans is a trillion dollar boondoggle. In a rational world, the upcoming election cycle will clean out the fuzzy thinkers and put the country back on a track to fiscal responsibility.

In Washington state the governor and elected officials are cutting essential services for citizens who really need help while increasing funding for a laundry list of questionable environmental programs. The County is getting hundreds of thousands of dollars state and federal funds to build a bridge at Buck Bay on Orcas Island so the few dozen fish that have been planted in a short reach of Cascade Creek will be happy. At the same time, the local food bank and churches are struggling to feed hundreds of local citizens who have fallen through the cracks. There is a real problem with priorities. Again, I am hopeful men and women will run and be elected who still remember that people are important.

I am also hopeful that our local elected officials will take a step back and get realistic about our local initiatives.

We have a local tax that is gong into a storm water fund. Before the County spends the money it would be nice to know what the actual problem is that we are paying to solve. The scientific evidence of environmental impacts from the County storm water is sketchy at best. There does not appear to be any baseline water quality analysis in place in order to measure whether the millions we are scheduled to spend is making any difference. I anticipate the Council will address the lack of a baseline and establish a measurement metric before proceeding with implementing a storm water “fix.”

The County is well along with a new Critical Areas Ordinance. As with the storm water “problem” there is scant evidence that our citizens are having any impact on the environment that is placing “critical stress” on our local ecosystem. Most of our citizens value the quality of our island environment and would willingly take common sense steps to solve a problem if the “critical” problem is clearly identified through local scientific study. I anticipate the Council will make sure that any new land use rules that might be needed are clearly based on local peer-reviewed scientific evidence, are common sense solutions to real, not imagined problems, and are the minimum necessary out of respect for our island property owners. Maybe the Council will even have the courage to tell the Puget Sound Partnership entourage, their agenda and their money, thanks, but no thanks.

Blue moons do come along on occasion and there are times when those we elect to serve our needs actually do a good job. Lets hope 2010 is a good year for us all.

Saying No Is Not Easy

If you have raised children, you will remember the thousand and one times they tested how you defined the boundaries of acceptable behavior. NO you can’t eat with your fingers. NO, don’t do that to your little brother. NO you can’t quit school. NO you can’t date the guy with 5 DUI’s.

Saying no was a big part of the parenting adventure. If things worked out, and with a little luck, the children who were forever testing and learning right from wrong eventually became responsible caring adults who one day said thank you for caring enough to head them in the right direction.

Saying NO and meaning it isn’t just about raising children. There are times when citizens need to tell politicians, bureaucrats and special interest groups NO and mean it. It is striking how close the parallel is between politicians, bureaucrats and special interest groups and children out of control. Like a two year old, it is all about them, and like a teenager, they think they have all the answers and should be in control.

Here is a revelation. Councilmen can say NO to wrong thinking state and federal officials. They were elected by us to say yes when it makes sense, and NO when it doesn’t.

Saying NO to officialdom isn’t easy. They are almost always smooth talkers. They are congenitally hard of hearing ... or at least have selective hearing. They are very adroit and polished at explaining why local citizens and officials are wrong and they are right; remember those teenage years. Officialdom is good at getting around any efforts to take away their allowance. Getting them out of the house and facing the real world and real problems is a challenge. To most parents this all sounds very familiar. Councilmen can take a lesson.

Saying NO isn’t being mean spirited. Saying NO is establishing boundaries for children when you are a parent. A councilmember saying NO to adults who arrive in the islands and act like teenagers feeling their oats, are a necessary part of defending our collective peace, security and well-being.

The agenda-driven down-Sound bureaucrats are largely powerless if the County Council simply says “No thank you,’ and does not favor them with their vote. Those six council votes are a very powerful tool. The carrot and stick might work for training a mule, but it shouldn't work on local elected officials who took an oath to serve their local citizens.

In the case of the CAO (Critical Area Ordinance), no one in officialdom, here or up the food chain, has actually bothered to figure out and prove there are real on-the-ground, “here they are,” specifically identifiable critical environmental issues “occurring, as we speak,” that result from not enough rules and restrictions on San Juan County citizens.

The first step in problem solving should be to actually define a problem.

No neutral party has done the local science to actually understand the dynamics of an assumed local citizen nexus to the yet to be defined environmental crisis.
Finally, no one in officialdom has put any intellectual effort toward determining if the extreme measure of taking the use of peoples land from them is the only reasonable solution to the “problem.”

Taking control of a citizens private property and delivering that control to a regulatory government bureaucracy may not seem extreme to those who don’t value the individual rights protections in the US Constitution. To paraphrase officials of one local environmental group,

”private ownership is a very old fashioned notion that gets in the way of the common good ... as we define that good.”

The simple truth is that under the draft CAO, many of the current rural property owners in San Juan County will have to contend with new critical area and critical area buffer regulations any time they apply for a permit, to do anything, on their land.

As the draft CAO stands now, a sizable majority of the rural private parcels and shorelines will be touched by the new CAO designations and buffer regulations -or by the soon to be re-written Shoreline Master program.

Already have a home? It does not matter. You will still have to go through the new permitting hoops. You may earn the mystery prize of becoming a “non-conforming use” without even knowing it.

(Side note to the Council...there is one overworked staff person now who deals with critical areas issues. How many more positions do you think will be needed and how will they be paid for if the draft CAO is passed? Have you looked at the administration overhead necessary to implement the “reasonable use provision,” CASP, the mitigation rules and the non-conforming uses, not to mention the lawsuits that will flow from this regulatory quagmire?)

We all care about the environment. The basic principals of conservation, sustainable use and being good stewards are worthwhile practical approaches to environmental protection.

The existing rules are working as intended. They are just enough and not too much. Doing the review as required by GMA, and sticking with what we have now, makes a whole lot of sense.

The current draft CAO is beyond what is rational; reasonable; affordable; governable, or sensible. The Council can step up and to tell the off-island patent medicine salesman: “Thank you for your interest in little old San Juan County, but NO. We are sticking with the rules we have unless WE decide it can be clearly shown they are no working.”

And as you told your children ... “NO” means NO! Keep your hands to yourself, mind your own business and YES, you may be allowed to borrow the keys to the car if and when you demonstrate responsibility, have a real job, exhibit some common sense and pay for your own insurance!”

Day Trips & Land Use Planning

The State says we need to protect Critical Areas (the places where critters live). So far so good. Most of us are willing to make some lifestyle adjustments and submit to some land use regulations so that the critters who share the islands with us do not become extinct like the North American passenger pigeon, or reach the verge of extinction as was the case of the North American bison.

However, like any other action involving the current crop of politicians and special interest groups, a goal that is fundamentally pretty simple -instituting sustainability and a conservation ethic as part of our land use regulations- quickly became a regulatory quagmire complete with snake pits, sharpened stakes, special agendas and multitude of unintended consequences.

When our kids were young we used to load up the car and take a day trip with no specific destination. Everyone thought it was fun to see what unexpected adventures presented themselves. Our non-destination trips also dealt with the boy’s persistent question every few miles, “Are we there yet?”

Taking a trip with no destination makes for a fun family outing, but it is a heck of a way to run a government.

At a County Commissioner function in Olympia, I remember asking Governor Gary Locke what the goal was for our “save the salmon” effort. I thought the folks back in San Juan county would like to know if we are doing well and how we would define success.

The governor wouldn’t answer the question. I don’t think he had a clue. There still is no answer. No one in government or the various special interest groups pushing the salmon and other species agendas will answer the simple, “How do we define success?” question. I guess we are expected to do what the government tells us, and hope the Indian and commercial fishing industry will let us know when they think there are enough fish.

When it comes to our local situation. the lack of clarity is the same. There is a glaring absence of any measurable destination circled on the CAO regulatory “map.” Nothing tells us how we determine if we have enough surf smelt or Gerry oaks. If we do not have a goal, a destination, some measurement of our starting point, and a clear understanding of where we are headed, how in the world can we be passing regulations to get us there...where ever there is?

It appears the proposed new regulations are nothing more than a family’s whimsical non-destination day trip, but a heck of a lot more serious trip the County is sending us on.

Many property owners are being shanghaied and stuffed in the car trunk. Affordable housing is bungee-corded to the rear bumper. The local construction industry is being left behind. The drivers are not sure if the County’s tax base was packed or not. Middle income working families are being strapped to the roof and told not to worry. The whole shebang is headed down a dirt road, in a cloud of dust, with no turnaround, and not knowing if there is a cliff at the end. The Constitutional right to own, and benefit from the ownership of private property, is the fading view in the rear view mirror.

The solution for protecting our local environment is fairly simple.

First, lets figure out which of our local critters are in serious trouble if we don’t act. The critters the State says San Juan County needs to pay attention to are actually doing pretty well by all accounts. (Olympia is a long way from the islands. They seem to have little knowledge of what the actual conditions are here, so they just pull out their boilerplate recommendations and requirements and send them our way. (Why we pay much attention to those bureaucrats is another mystery. The courts say time and again that sound local plans are what the law requires.)

The next thing to do is ask the science folks to get to work on evaluating our local conditions. They should be asked to address the species upper and lower range of habitat conditions critters need to continue to be part of our island environment.

Unless we plan to turn the islands into a wilderness, logic would say that the balance point for species protections is somewhere between the optimum ideal environmental conditions and the low end. In school they called this grading on the curve. If we provide “good average habitat conditions” for our critters, our human population can adjust and the critters can be successful. Scientists call this approach to measuring the range of conditions that support and sustain a species, “species resilience.”

The third action is to take an inventory of our island’s existing habitats that are already being protected by National, State and local parks, the Land Bank, the Preservation Trust, the County’s open space programs. (The total land area in San Juan County is close to 50%.) The existing natural area protections, along with the GMA’s rural density requirements and our existing land use regulations creates a picture of a County that is doing very well for it’s critters.

San Juan County can make a very strong case for not following the State guidelines for critical habitat buffers for upland properties and shoreline properties. The County doesn’t need to make so many homes a “non-conforming use” as is the case in the current draft ordinance. The County Council can make a very strong case for reasonable regulations that preserve our local species at a sustainable level based on “resilience” and, at the same time, protecting the beneficial use of a property owners primary asset: their home and land; which for most of us is the basis of our family’s security. Common sense and government should be able to be used in the same sentence as a positive statement.

Mother Nature

Despite weather that was too cool early on, then too hot, hit and miss watering, frequent trampling by our family dog and abundant weeds... the veggies are resilient and the harvest spectacular.

Mother nature figured, after a misstep here and there with dinosaurs and such, that resilience, (the ability to adapt to a range of less than ideal conditions ) works. She also determined it is a good idea to generate a “surplus” of everything...just in case.

When people are content with only harvesting the “surplus” that mother nature is providing we call it being “sustainable.” (The old fashioned term used to be conservation of natural resources). Sustainable harvest practices and resource conservation are good things.

Unfortunately for our salmon, (considered a public resource,) the responsibility for setting sustainable harvest levels was left to the government. What a mistake that has been.

Now the citizens of San Juan County are being asked to sacrifice to “save the salmon”. This is pretty high minded considering that San Juan County citizens didn’t create the salmon’s problem in the first place. It has yet to be shown that islanders, going about their daily lives, contribute in any measurable way to the salmon crisis.

Historically, few salmon have ever spawned here. We don’t have the rivers they need.

Most of our homes are on septic systems. We don’t pump the millions of tons of chemicals and pharmaceuticals into the Sound that today flow through mainland municipal sewer plants.

We have no affect on the variations of ocean temperatures that affect the success or failure of salmon in the open ocean.

There is a San Juan County connection. Our County pristine waters are apparently still a great place for commercial fisherman to catch salmon as they return to the mainland rivers to spawn. We don’t have any say in the matter, except to wonder why in the world we are about to lose the use of large portions of our private property in the islands when the commercial and Native American fishers are catching so many salmon in one net set that, in one recent case, it sank the boat!

The other San Juan connection is the theory that outward bound juvenile salmon snack on San Juan County “forage fish” as they head to the ocean. The habitat for forage fish is eel grass and sandy beaches.

Anyone who has flown over the islands can see that every island is surrounded by carpets of eel grass. Like all plants, eel grass comes and goes with changes in growing conditions. By any measure, islanders do not seem to be inhibiting the abundance. The 2/1000 of a percent of the County’s extensive shoreline that is encumbered by docks hardly seems to be a looming crisis. Storm water doesn’t seem to

As to forage fish...look under any dock and you will see massive schools of small fish. (Fish seem to like docks...go figure). The forage fish population must be adequate because the State still issues licenses to net them as they spawn on the beaches. According to Washington Fish and Wildlife, 100,000 pounds of surf smelt was netted by commercial fishers recently. No tally is kept of how many thousand pounds of surf smelt recreational fishers catch.

The State agencies have glossed over their failure to manage the salmon harvest on a sustainable basis or to protect the spawning habitats in mainland streams using sound conservation practices. Mother Nature can only be so resilient. With a classic “bait and switch” publicity drive, the State claims everyone is responsible...including the rural homeowners in San Juan County on upland property.

San Juan County property owners should be concerned about where all this is headed. Several have commented that even if we all moved off the islands tomorrow, it would make no measurable difference to future salmon populations. They are right. Our “salmon footprint” is very very small. The proposed affect of the County’s draft Critical Areas Ordinance is akin to making us all move. In many instances, the combination of wetland, stream and wildlife habitat set-asides will leave many properties with little useful benefit to the owners.

Our County can do better. We all support land use regulations that are sensible and responsible. We can acknowledge Mother Nature’s natural resilience and “surplus production” as we draft our local ordinance. Requiring local residents to make serious sacrifices that, when all is said and done, will be of little benefit to the environment is not a rational path for our Council to follow.