Green Believers

In order for the “Green Industry” to exist it needs a huge brainwashed customer base. These green believers must be certain of imminent global destruction and convinced that they are responsible for it. They must feel tremendous guilt for their role in planetary extinction. Since there is no factual basis for these beliefs they must be assumed by faith. This not only makes environmentalism religious in nature it also makes it possible for unscrupulous corporate predators to con these naïve true believers into buying “carbon credits”.

Who could have predicted a few years ago that anyone would buy a carbon credit because they felt guilty for their lifestyle? Collective guilt is a powerful force and fortunes can be made if companies can figure out how to tap into it. And due to popular consensus, consumers actually believe that they are the source of planetary stress. It is no wonder that corporate America is bringing us salvation with "sustainable planet saving" products and concepts promoted on fancy web sites. Today, nothing covers the nakedness of self-interest like the fig leaf of environmentalism.

Take a minute to think about the convergence of incredible things that need to happen in the marketplace for the carbon credit industry to succeed. Advertisers must convince consumers that the world will end if they don’t make responsible “planet saving” choices. Marketers need to persuade people that they can actually change the weather by purchasing their products. To perpetuate the profit consumers must be convinced that no matter how much they spend to save the world it’s never going to be enough. And the massive guilt we are expected to swallow for our part in destroying mother earth requires a powerful selling job. Mission accomplished!

There is no doubt that this industry has achieved success. So either these guys are the best group of professional promoters that ever walked the earth, or there is another reason.

Why have green consumers abandoned logic and robotically accepted the guilt? I believe the answer is that this eco-phenomenon is actually a religious movement and corporations and entrepreneurs are tripping over each other to take advantage of the green believers.

Most religions encourage followers to make soul saving choices. Today we are encouraged to make earth saving choices. When this kind of green orthodoxy is demanded in consumer behavior it is clear evidence that environmentalism has changed. It has become a new paradigm for “seeing” the world and gives real meaning to people’s existence. And sadly, environmentalism is no longer related to science. It has all the characteristics of religion.

It is astonishing to realize how deep in the collective psyche this goes and how many people actually believe fantastic ideas like “if we buy this product we can change the climate”. Just like other types of religious fundamentalism when the evidence can’t support an idea then it must be believed on faith. And it takes blind faith to believe that personal buying habits have anything whatsoever to do with planetary events in our solar system. (However, if you believe this then carbon credits may be for you.)

I don’t have a particular problem with environmentalism as a religion, but it should be called what it is. In this country we are free to believe whatever we want. I want to save the planet as much as the next guy, but I also know a scam when I see one. I just can’t understand why a rational person would give away money to some company that claims to perform questionable agenda driven ecological miracles, unless the decision is a religious one. This is just like what happens in cults.

Like most religions, there are those who choose to live outside the group. Those who doubt and deny the faith become “the problem”. That’s me. I don’t need to apologize for living and neither should you. Stop torturing yourself.
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(See http://www.perc.org/publications/articles/Crichtonspeech.php)

Author’s note: Parts of this article also appeared in AdventureTravelNews.com

(Gordy graduated with honors from Seattle Pacific University with a useless degree in Philosophy. He also attended Theological Seminary. He has spent most of his life sequestered in the remote San Juan Islands where he has survived by fishing, hunting, and growing prize-winning vegetables. He once owned a small chain of grocery stores in the islands. He has served on many committees and held elected office, but few people ever take his writing seriously. Some don't care for it at all. Others think his humor stinks. Many don't understand it or just disagree with his stupid opinions. He has been called a mean-spirited loud blowhard. This may be the reason he holds the record for accumulating more critical e-mail for his columns at The Island Guardian than anyone else.)

Lab Rats

The white bearded scientist scowled as he scraped the gooey substance out of the Petri dish. Some of the foul smelling matter dripped onto his lab coat and he swore angrily. When he loaded the slide and slipped it under the microscope he knew he had found evidence of “anthropogenic distress”. This was not some unknown virus. This was something much more pervasive. The scientist had discovered evidence of human activity in the natural marine environment and he was really ticked off!

Today there are many mad scientists. Not mad like Dr. Frankenstein. No. Their anger is righteous. They know what is best for us. They just lack the required consent to force their point of view upon the unwashed populace. They are extremely frustrated because some people don’t share their ideas about science and the environment.

Science has evolved from the time when man thought he was the center of the universe to today where obviously even a fish like the snail darter is superior to man. According to popular scientific consensus wherever there is conflict between humans and natural ecosystems the needs of man are subordinate.

Today this concept is called “best available science” and it is used as a weapon by an elite group of enviro-fundamentalists to bludgeon those of us who need to work and want to live and enjoy life in these islands. Those who claim ownership of this tool wish to see human activity in the islands severely restricted. They don’t want anthropogenic distress stinking up their ecosystem. To accomplish this they need to create marine sanctuaries so they can experiment in the name of preservation ‘till their heart’s content.

Locally, a small group of like-minded people including the Marine Resources Committee, along with many environmental and government groups are taking the position that the islands should be designated for research only. According to their plan all other uses will be subordinate to science. They trust the Department of Natural Resources to manage it all for us.

There is a small problem with this scheme. Some of us don’t want our home turned into some kind of research laboratory where we are forced to live like lab rats for the next 90-years. We don’t care to live in a community where a state agency becomes the exclusive lawmaker and treats local citizens as trespassers. We enjoy living in our environment not worshiping it. We think it is ridiculous to pretend humans are not part of our surrounding ecosystems. And we have no intention of giving up our local control without a fight.

We face a choice. We can stay silent and let the "greener than thou" people who claim ownership of "best available science" sit in the lab at taxpayer expense and experiment for the next 90-years while our freedom disappears, OR we can do something to stop this nonsense. I am not the silent type. I want to live here too!

Jelly Jar

When people tell me they want to preserve something I get a mental image of being stuck inside a jelly jar like some freaky thing on the shelf in a curiosity shop. So when I heard about a proposal to turn the San Juan’s into an “aquatic preserve” I had to investigate. I studied the 84-page proposal and went to the open house meeting at the Grange Hall. It got ugly quick!

The “Open House” that the Marine Resources Council (MRC) hosted in Friday Harbor almost immediately broke out into a hockey game. The quarrelling got so heated that the moderator actually asked one audience member to “step outside”. Just asking a simple question drew the ire of MRC members as they shouted back angrily in defense of their proposal. The surprising emotional response of self-righteous anger that some committee members showed towards the public certainly did not dignify the affair. So what was all the fuss about?

Acting outside of any constraints a group of appointed MRC committee members has made it their goal to give control of the permit process for the marine areas around San Juan County to bureaucrats from the Dept. of Natural Resources (DNR). Never mind the fact that they have no legal authority to act on behalf of the people nor any mandate from elected officials to negotiate the sellout of our local control to a State Agency. They are determined to do it anyway. Who is going to stop them?

They thought they could get away with it. No one from the public comes to their meetings so they haven’t had much feedback except of course from all the enviro-fundamentalist groups. They ran their ideas by the Nature Conservancy, SeaDoc Society, Friends, and others, but that is like Michael Jackson inviting a cadre of pedophile priests to a slumber party at the Neverland Ranch. They’re all twisted up in the same way. It certainly was not what any fair-minded person would consider impartial public outreach.

As an attendee I was shocked to find out that an appointed advisory group to the County Council actually believe that they can dispense with public hearings and go around elected officials in an attempt to get a State agency to lock the islands into a 90-year management contract. When asked about this their reply was, “MRC is the lead agency on this.” But how can an unelected group of volunteers be agents for us? Something is way out of whack here.

The DNR Aquatic Reserve is for those people that just can’t get enough regulation. The reserve is advertised as a “regulatory tool” that will add another layer of intense scrutiny to the already onerous permit process. Proponents argue stubbornly that a takeover of the permit process by DNR will give us islanders more of a voice in decisions that impact our marine environment. How naive is that? Since when has a bureaucracy really had our best interests at heart? Can anyone name one that is effective or efficient at anything?

I suspect that this bureau will be inclined to deny almost all permission to use our shores for commercial or recreational activity. Instead the DNR will give us more reasons why humans do not really figure into the “natural marine ecosystems” that they will manage for us in the next 90-years. Their new focus will be putting an airtight lid on the big jar.

There are many new laws that will come into play if we somehow end up in the jelly jar of aquatic preserves. Here is a doozy: WAC332-30-151 (2) “ Leases for activities in conflict with reserve status shall not be issued.” Who will decide what activities are in conflict with what? I guarantee you that the decision will not be made locally.

So for anyone concerned about strict enforcement upon new or existing marine activities you should know there may be a new Sheriff in town. If you enjoy the use of boat launching ramps, docks, or marine repair facilities; if you benefit from underwater marine utilities or desalinization intakes and outfalls; if you live-aboard a boat, or you are a clam digger, YOU should get involved.

Send an email to the County Council, and the DNR and tell them what they can do with their aquatic reserve. Contact the DNR in the person of Doug Sutherland ( cpl@dnr.wa.gov ASAP! cpl@dnr.wa.gov The County Council may be reached at council@co.san-juan.wa.us

UFO

There is something hovering around San Juan County. Witnesses have seen it flying around. It is expensive, limitless in size, and has a bad odor. It is a solution searching for a problem. It is the new revised edition of the Unpopular Flawed Ordinance (UFO) for storm water.

The Council did not get the message from the people who voted overwhelmingly to repeal the last storm water ordinance. It was very unpopular. The people said that there must be a demonstrable and well-defined problem before there can be a solution.

We are being told that uncontrolled storm water may pollute groundwater and the marine environment. Where is the evidence of widespread drinking water contamination? Where is the catastrophic flooding?

Recently the greener-than-thou folks at the department of bigheaded ecologists (DOE) reported that the waters surrounding the San Juan Islands are “the most pristine in the state of Washington.” If they can say this considering the volume of pollution and raw sewage spewed out just a few miles away from “Supernatural British Columbia”, then how bad can the problem really be?

I’m not saying that there are no pollutants in the rainwater that runs off the back of our pristine green islands but it is minuscule when compared with the urban areas down sound. The State GMA storm water legislation was intended to deal with industrial pollution and runoff in the concrete jungles of lower Puget Sound where they get three times our annual rainfall. It is flawed reasoning to assume that we have problems of that scale and try to apply the same Draconian fix for our little drop in the proverbial bucket.

The thing that rankles islanders the most is that the Council treats us like we are big polluters and fines us just because we live in a house on a dirt road where it occasionally rains. There is ample evidence that our Council has an insatiable appetite for tax money and this is just one more sneaky way to extort it. Many islanders think that we already pay through the nose for our local government services and yet these guys continually tweak that same swollen nose until it resembles an eggplant. It is irksome.

It’s easy for our leaders to blame this tax on the GMA. They tell us we will be punished if we don’t comply. However, in this case the GMA doesn't require a specific funding ordinance for storm water. Even so, the Council seems unwilling to cut any waste from their $53 million budget to prove to us that there actually is some big storm water issue to solve. So the Unpopular Flawed Ordinance (UFO) is just floating around looking for a problem.

Hit Men

What do fascism, Nazism, socialism, communism, and liberalism all have in common? The supremacy of the state and society over the individual is at the core of these political philosophies. The leaders of these movements always know what is best for the rest of society. In some cases they feel the use of force is justified in order for the state to achieve the end result of domination over the weaker individual.

History gives us many examples of unscrupulous tyrants who have eradicated a class, or ethnic group, or species, in order to purge out enemies of the state and create their own vision of a utopian society. Success is achieved when overwhelming force puts the rebels down.

What follows is the true story of a planned mass annihilation by the rising forces of the new eco-fascists. We all know who the enemies of these green goose-stepping fascists are. Some of you know the poor heartbreaking story of their intended victims. The rebels.

They left the old world to start a new and free colony here. They dreamed of someplace where the sunrise was bright, the earth was soft, and the digging was easy. They sought a dry place, and a flat prairie so they could keep a watchful eye out for approaching enemies. They needed a place where not many trees grew that could give cover to perching assassins. They dreamed of a place where the wind pruned the grasses and wildflowers so that tender new shoots of grass were ever abundant. This place by the sea was more than they hoped for. It became their home.

Thus the rabbits came to the San Juan Island prairie in the 1880’s. Over time the gene pool grew more diverse as captive pet rabbits broke free of their prison-like hutches to join the growing colony. The population flourished. Rabbits were hunted and exported from the island. Some years saw the slaughter and export of 50-80 thousand rabbits to nearby markets. Still the bunnies humped and thrived.

Fox were imported to try and control the herds. Birds of prey such as owls, hawks, falcon, osprey and eagles ate their fill of the cute little cottontails. But despite the many predators they have stubbornly hung on to life and continued to blissfully breed and multiply. They have yet to meet the most dangerous predator yet; the master race of eco-fascist hit men hired by the U.S. Government.

Armed with guns, shovels, leg-hold traps, scent hounds, ground-penetrating radar, and “best available science” these professional hit men will soon receive orders to carry out this shocking eradication plan. They want to destroy the hopes and dreams of one species for the good of the many. They know what is best for the island ecosystem and their idea of a utopian green society does not include all those pesky rabbits. They plan to snuff out their lives for the crime of colonizing the wild prairies at the southern tip of San Juan Island. These guys just can’t let nature go wild!

What’s up Doc? How did the bunnies strike out? According to National Park Officials they are causing damage to the archeological and cultural resources of American Camp. A rare and unusual prairie exists here. The rabbits are destroying it. Strike one.

The National Park Service would like to restore and protect this prairie by re-establishing rare plants and native grasses and allowing the natural processes to take over. Even though the rabbits were here well before their home was declared a “park” they are apparently not natural enough. Swing and a miss, strike two.

This exceptional grass and dune habitat is also important for the Island Marble Butterfly. This species is threatened and is being considered for placement on the endangered species list. Rabbits are not endangered. Strike three, you’re outta there rabbits!

First it was the Pig War. Now American Camp will once again be the battlefield in another war over animals. Bullets will fly. Burrows will be backfilled. Fences will be erected to prevent re-colonization. The bunnies must be sacrificed in order to save the once wild prairie habitat for an endangered butterfly that spends half of its life as an ugly caterpillar.

Will this plan work? I have my questions. What is to stop someone from tossing a pair of bunny newlyweds over the park fence to start over? When did fences become part of the “natural” landscape of a prairie anyway?

Has anyone ever successfully fenced out rabbits? I have a garden and I admit I have failed at this. Believe me, I have tried. I think it has to do with the gate. So, how will the park staff keep their gate closed when there are hundreds of visitors every day?

Doesn’t backfilling rabbit burrows in an archeological area and shooting guns in a National Park violate just about every law? Can the public get permission to hunt rabbits too or do the jack-booted Green Special Forces get to have all the fun?

Will the eco-fascists target me next? Stay tuned.

Nannies

Mothers used to teach common sense about conserving resources. My mom did. She said things like, “Close the door! Were you born in a barn? Turn off the light when you leave the room, don’t drive when you can walk, don’t waste good water, try to be efficient.” I admit I’m a bit out of touch, but did everything change since I was a kid? Did mothers really forget how to teach the basics?

I guess so. Acting as our mommy substitutes the Council decided to make common sense mandatory so they passed the bold “declaration for climate change”. But do they really believe they can make the weather better if we follow their rules and behave?

They have instructed all county employees to turn off the lights when leaving their cubicles for the night. It’s the law now to only use those swirling florescent light bulbs. (They do save electricity but disposal of the burnt out bulbs is real nasty for the environment.) Some people complain that the light from these things hurts their eyes. That’s too bad. The law is the law. Someone will have to police all the county buildings to monitor compliance. Resistance to nanny rule is futile.

The document is chock full of instructions and requirements for county employees to follow. Never mind that the Charter expressly forbids the Council to “give orders to or direct employees or other elected officials”. They still feel the need to do this.

I can appreciate their good intentions for making up these silly rules. In their continuing effort to act globally and ignore people locally, they passed this just in time to avert worldwide global warming and avoid a deadly plague from disease-carrying insects. (I’m not making up the part about the insects

The declaration contains more than just unenforceable rules and ill-advised orders to employees. There is also a lot of expensive policy in it. I wonder if the Council considered the cost to bring all county buildings up to U.S. Green Building Energy and Environmental Design standards? Who will they hire and how much will it cost to create an inventory of all greenhouse gas emissions in the County? (Don’t forget to compute cow farts) The taxpayers are also required to shell out for composting and reuse centers at all solid waste facilities. But why would they worry about a trivial thing like money when they are saving the planet from certain destruction?

We all want to reduce vehicle emissions. But does the Council know what kind of a signal they are sending to the State Ferry people when they imply that people should not bring motorized vehicles to the islands? I’m sure the DOT would be more than happy to accommodate us by reducing our number of car ferries. The way it’s going that’s a real possibility.

Do they intend to provide island-wide mini-bus service at taxpayer expense? They made a pledge to support this in the document. Have they done a cost analysis of the effectiveness of switching the fleet of County vehicles to hybrids? I thought electric car batteries wore out shortly after the warranty expired. Anyway these are mere pixels of concern in the big digital picture.

Do you remember the old saying, “When Styrofoam containers are outlawed only outlaws will use Styrofoam containers”. Well they made a rule against Styrofoam containers too. If you attend any county activity like a hearing, a meeting, or a reception and you are drinking hot coffee from a Styrofoam cup you are disobeying the rules. You can forget about bringing those cup-o-noodles in your lunch bag. And don’t forget to recycle! It’s the law now. If you toss something in the wrong wastebasket your job could be on the line.

Of course it depends on how much of a stickler for the rules our Administrator will be. I’m sure he will take these new rules seriously. After all it is a legal resolution from our lawmakers. And they are hands on their hips furrowed-brow serious about protecting the planet from changing weather.

Do you remember just a few months ago that changes in Earth’s temperature were referred to as “global warming.”? If you are an attentive person you know they call it “climate change” now.

Isn’t it interesting how meaningless some words can be? Take the phrases “climate change” and “laws”. When you use them indifferently or haphazardly you dilute their meaning. People don’t take them seriously. For instance it seems silly to pass unenforceable laws that people ignore. It can potentially break down respect for serious laws.

And “climate change” for crying out loud, includes everything that happens. Climate change is what we used to call the weather report. “Cloudy with sunny periods today, look for the climate to change tomorrow.” Just like harebrained rules, a term that refers to every damn thing that happens has no meaning.

It just seems weird to create a list of rules about basic things your mother should’ve taught you. Labeling this as some great attempt to save the planet is nonsense. Calling it necessary to prevent the climate from changing is just foolish. Get serious. There are real local issues that you could focus on. We can’t afford nanny rule.

Part Three: Sustainable

Sustainable Growth must include pragmatic planning for economic growth without destroying the ecological balance of our Islands.

Economic Growth
We suffer today from planning that has caused some fundamental problems with regard to sustainable growth. We need to be willing to solve some problems by simply stopping what we have been doing to create them instead of coming up with new programs that ignore the fundamental issues. We should reexamine the underlying policies in the existing Comprehensive Plan that have been proven to fail.

To address the first point, it is a fact that we have an economy lacking in steady year-round employment at good wages. If we do nothing to encourage economic opportunities and continue to raise our cost of living we make this County unsustainable and unaffordable for most working families. In fact, we may destroy the very social diversity we all cherish.

The solution to social diversity is not for government to build “affordable housing”. Government subsidized housing should be part of a much broader plan to diversify our economy. We have inadequate living wage jobs in the private sector. Until we change the failed planning policies that created this problem it makes no sense to talk about building subsidized housing. Inviting workers into an economic environment that is failing to provide high-quality jobs creates the “plantation effect” where we actually subsidize employers that need workers but can’t pay them adequately and lay them off in the winter. In order to have a sustainable economy we need policies that encourage business and attract investment.

Our past planning efforts have discouraged economic development by failing to provide adequate Rural General Use areas for business development and added too many restrictions on commercial enterprises in activity centers. We maintain policies that discourage commercial use of the shoreline and limit population density in designated urban areas. Instead of planning for future growth and prosperity in these areas we are planning for failure. Limiting business activity by strict zoning and burdensome regulation has discouraged investment and created an atmosphere of litigation for those who dare try locate here for the purpose of doing any kind of business.

Because we are a community of islands, future business development would have been naturally shoreline based. What did we do to plan for this likelihood? Instead of adopting policies that encouraged commercial use while protecting the ecological balance of our near-shore areas we limited new construction or made it nearly impossible to develop. If residential or commercial property existed historically on the shoreline we wrote policies that required it to stay the same and if it fell into disrepair we said it should not be rebuilt.

Today permits to maintain or build shoreline structures are extremely hard to obtain, expensive, and too much of a risk for most entrepreneurs. We have essentially denied commercial access to the shoreline by regulations that restrict most commercial and recreational activity; prohibit docks, ramps, bulkheads, stairs, and marinas. We have harassed existing businesses on or over the water and discouraged all but a very few aquaculture activities.

Do we want to be a strictly residential community like Nantucket, Aspen, Martha’s Vineyard, or Jackson Hole, or do we want to encourage investment and job creation? What kinds of opportunities really exist for businesses that are not already restricted? The answers to these questions make a huge difference in any discussion about sustainable growth. If we further restrict business opportunities or simply do nothing it is inevitable that we will end up like the above communities.

Ideas for a sustainable economy may include such things as promoting agriculture, subsidizing farmers markets, encouraging local food production and consumption, paving the way for non-polluting vehicles, encouraging green building, renewable energy production, composting, recycling, etc. These are all good ideas but our economy needs to be reality based. Have any of these activities proven to actually support sustainable economic growth without government subsidy?

Government involvement in business usually means tax it, regulate it, subsidize it, or hire government workers to do it. This should be resolutely resisted. The County is already the biggest employer in this Island economy. This has proven to be unsustainable.

The best idea should be to adopt policies that encourage entrepreneurs to invest in these sustainable ideas with their own capital, pass legislation that makes their vision possible, then get out of their way. Government must resist the temptation to get mixed up in business. That is the real challenge.

Part Two: Sustainable

Population growth cannot be sustained without addressing the issue of affordability.

Affordability
It is people not just the natural surroundings that distinguish and characterize a place. The prescription we’ve swallowed for protecting the natural environment first, and the people last, has had a nasty side effect. We are seeing our social environment crumble beneath our feet. Fewer taxes and less regulation are proven solutions that can bring us back into balance once again.

We got out of balance when we started down the road to protect the environment by limiting housing alternatives, reducing density, and preserving buildable land until we choked out the very social diversity we once cherished. Our demographics show an aging population with more deaths than births, fewer people living here year around, declining school enrollment, and the exodus of working families. If we keep going in this direction we will destroy the very things that attracted many of us to the Islands to begin with.

The ability for many people to afford to live here has been greatly diminished. It happened so fast that it took many of us by surprise. Those whose income is derived from retirement or investments outside the community are rapidly replacing people who once had the ability to live and work in the islands. Many of them simply could not find adequate year-around employment or couldn’t afford the taxes anymore.

Our community is now burdened with oppressive regulations that dramatically increase the cost of building even modest homes. We suffer from shortsighted planning which has failed to provide enough land where affordable lots and homes are permitted. We need to address this barrier to affordability first.

The “law of supply and demand” is a significant factor in higher housing costs. New regulations and “feel good” programs have helped create a situation where demand has exceeded supply. Our irrational fear of growth produced the down zoning that recently took more than 15,000 potential parcels off the map. If the supply of buildable land is restricted in the face of growing demand the price will go up. This result has been demonstrated to be true beyond a doubt.

The complexity of processing a permit has significantly increased the cost just to apply for one. Regulations on land that slopes or contains a wetland or is near water require engineering and environmental studies that can be very expensive. The cost of compliance and permits for designing and building septic systems have dramatically increased in the last 10 years. Water availability permits and the cost of drilling and registering a new well has increased exponentially because of regulation. Many of these restrictions on new development were put in place to discourage growth. Instead these restrictions fundamentally changed who could afford to live here and who could not.

Delays and uncertainty in permitting also add to the costs for new construction. Applicants are forced to pay interest on construction loans when permits are delayed. Restrictive building codes add time to construction and increase costs. After years of wrangling over the Comprehensive Plan in order to streamline permitting, and after adding more each year to the budget for staff, the process remains slow, expensive and uncertain.

The Land Bank and other programs that take buildable parcels out of the inventory and extinguish development rights on other parcels adds significantly to the price of the remaining available land. I have supported these programs wholeheartedly but recognizing when these programs have reached the point where they can do more harm than good is crucial.

There are many examples where these programs have changed the dynamics of communities and made them unaffordable to all but the very wealthy. We may have reached that point. More than half the land in our county is set aside in tax deferred status. The remaining parcels are taxed more to offset the tax shortfall. It is important to remember that under such programs the unintended consequence is the artificial scarcity of buildable land, which drives up taxes, land prices, housing prices, and drives out our longtime friends and neighbors.

Future sustainable growth of the economy in San Juan County will require a healthy building industry that provides houses for the natural migration of people who choose to relocate in the islands. This predictable population growth is essential to the growth of our economy, it is an important source of new construction tax revenue, and provides future property tax revenue. Construction is one of the few industries that provide year-round living wage jobs. If we continue to hinder and over-regulate this industry our economy will suffer and we will be forced to find additional revenue by raising other taxes and fees thus exacerbating our affordability crisis.

Can any barriers to affordability be taken down? Absolutely. We can bring back balance by repealing policies that are failing. We can support working families by supporting childcare resources and other family services. We must encourage businesses that create jobs, and abolish regulations that add unnecessarily to housing costs. These should be priorities for affordable and sustainable growth.

Next
Part 3: Economic Growth (shameless teaser)
We suffer today from planning that has caused some fundamental problems with regard to sustainable growth. We need to be willing to solve some problems by simply stopping what we have been doing to create them instead of coming up with new programs that ignore the fundamental issues.