09/27/2005: "A Response to Losleben & Garrison:"

In reading your response (note: letters are posted below) to Gordy Petersen's column, you both seem to be leaving out some important points in your analysis.

First, regarding regulations being a minor cause of increasing real estate costs: Just the fact that regulations removed over 15,000 buildable parcels from the inventory is a huge cause of increasing land costs. In King County 15,000 developable parcels is a small amount in the supply and demand equation, but in San Juan County it is a major factor, and has a direct relationship to costs and the rising prices of real estate.

Regulations have also created a situation where we can not have another project like the "Oaks" on San Juan Island. The Oaks is a model community for the rest of the country as to what the private sector can do -if allowed- and could easily solve our affordable housing problems, but "Regulations" prevent it. There are many other examples of regulations driving costs up, but to the most affluent these additional costs are minor, while for the less affluent these regulatory costs can mean the difference between affordability and not.

Second, "Taxes in San Juan County are the lowest in Washington State". Yes, we have the lowest mil rate (or the lowest percentage rate) per capita in the State. So What! I don't care what the mil rate is, but I do care what the dollar amount that I pay is. In San Juan County, the dollar amount that we all pay is the HIGHEST in the State per capita. That means that on April 30th and October 31st when we write our checks to the Treasurer we pay more than anyone else in Washington State per capita in real dollars. That is MONEY out of your pocket, not a tax rate, but a tax bill.

There seems to be two different points of view. One point of view is that the government should take care of us and solve all of our problems, and the other point of view is that we should take care of ourselves. Socialism or Capitalism, neither one is evil and neither is perfect, but they both come at a price, and you can't have both. You decide. In any event, if the government is involved you can be certain that it will be expensive, inefficient, wasteful, and cost all of us real dollars.

Ray Bigler
San Juan Island