08/12/2005: "On Need For New PW Yard"

By Piet Visser

I was at the first meeting between local residents and Kevin Ranker
with Jon Shannon. After listening to Jon Shannon talking about how
the old site could not possibly work because only 7 acres of land are
available on the existing site. I called Carlos at Herrera Inc of
Seattle. An engineering company that specializes in all aspects of
waste management planning, design and such (herrerainc.com). When I
asked him what size of facility would be needed for a community of
8,000 people, he said "an acre or two". So the old transfer station
could be built with tons of space left for offices and such for
public works. That does not appear to be what Mr. Shannon has in
mind. He is doing backflips to spend an additional $1.2 million for a
site that does not have a conditional use permit (and may never get
one).

The current office is set on just under one acre. The present
transfer station is set on a site almost 30 acres, but the area in
use for the transfer station is not much more than an acre. The other
Public works building in town is set on less than an acre. Why is it
suddenly so important to have this 27 acres? That is 10 times more
land than the space that they USE now - and for 3 times the cost of
the almost 30 acre site that they use now! Shannon claims that if
they buy the existing site that the use will revert to one that would
make it unusable. This is false too. The land is zoned by the town.
By transfer to the county, the site would have to be rezoned, since
it is not designated on the master plan (except as "Town of Friday
Harbor"

This is a huge waste of money! With all the budget constraints that
we have, somehow we can come up with $8million for this project, and
there seems to be and endless supply of money to pay judgments for
improper acts by Public Works and the BOCC. With good legal advice
much of this would be avoided by such simple acts as following the law.

These actions are also in direct violation of the BOCC Mission
Statement. Where managing public programs at the lowest cost is
listed (as the 3rd item) and conducting the public's business in a
responsive, accessible and open manner is top of the guiding
principals. Since this page is being ignored by the BOCC, maybe they
could use it to post pending litigation against the County instead.