04/20/2006: "Dissing the Marquess of Queensberry"

I believe in good sportsmanship. The Marquess of Queensberry rules. That sort of thing. The Marquess of Queensberry rules constitute a code of popularly accepted rules in the sport of boxing. They boil down to fair play. Now in my own profession – lawyering – I believe in fair play not just as a matter of good ethics, but also as a good business practice. Attorneys who walk the wrong side of the line never do well in the long run. The old saying "The wheels of justice grind slowly, but ever so finely," turns out to be true, in law as in life. But even in 5th grade I believed all this Marquess of Queensberry stuff. In one of those embarrassing moments that stalks you for life, in my 5th grade play, my part (at least, what I remember of it) was to get stabbed to death. When the killing moment came, I was in a sword battle with another classmate when my friend Dave Owens, having already dispatched his foe, joined the fray against me. Two against one: I was outraged! "One at a time, Owens," I called out at the top of my voice, "one at a time!" To the audience, that was the funniest line in the play: I can still hear the laughter. So I believe in fair play. And as part of that, I hate piling on – which was also prohibited by the Marquess of Queensberry rules. Which brings me, as do most of my prefaces, to current events.

Over the past months the Island Guardian has carried a long series of editorials, articles and columns critiquing the Commissioners for their position on guest houses – or as they are sometimes referred to, ADUs, for accessory dwelling units. Critiques in the articles seem an almost-daily event (see for example 3/28/06 article, "CC May Ask For Vote On Iraq War:" in which the article states that "The last time the voters went to the polls to vote an advisory ballot was on the Guest House issue, which passed with a nearly 74% majority in favor. The current Council has so far chosen to ignore the results of that election, which had been supported by the previous BOCC…"). John Evans has written a long series of columns on the topic: 03/24/2006: The Planning Commission Made Me Do It!; 03/05/2006: Individuals Are Defined By The Choices They Make; 12/27/2005: If It Isn't Broken, Don't Fix It; 09/14/2005: A Perfect Storm Is About to Sink The Good Ship "Friends" On The Guesthouse Issue; 08/19/2005: Prosecutor and Commissioner Torpedo an Island Tradition; 05/14/2005: The "Friends of the San Juans" Grand Strategy; 05/11/2005: The "Friends of the San Juans" are no Friends of Guesthouses; 04/29/2005: The "Perfect Storm" For Driving Up Land Prices.

And lately Gordy Petersen has joined the fray: 02/25/2006: Friends Don't Let Friends become "Friends". And those are only the highlights. So enough has been said, right?

No. I'm piling on. The County Council-members are wrong to vote in a new guest house ordinance now. Here is why.

This is a lame-duck Council. The citizens by a large margin voted in the new County Charter, which dramatically changes the way business is done. One of the biggest changes is adding three new Commissioners. Those new Commissioners will take office on January, 2007. At that point, we'll have six County Councilors, and the current three would be able to pass nothing without a fourth member's concurrence.

Put a different way, the three current Council members will have a veto over any potential changes to whatever legislation they pass now. Why? Because to get any change passed, four votes are needed, and that would require the concurrence of one of the three current Council members.

This is important legislation. It should await the full Council.

This is a lame-duck Council proposing to act against the will of the people. A majority of nearly 74% of the County's voters, voted for guest houses. Not the pallid, pretend guest houses – which must be attached to the main house – that the Planning Commission recently recommended to the County Council, but detached guest houses. (By the way, beware changes in vocabulary; by calling them "accessory dwelling units" the Council could plausibly say that they must be attached to the main house; that could never be the case with a "guest house", a "house" is by definition detached.

If the Council wants to act against the will of the people it should do so only with the full six member Council sitting.

This is a lame-duck Council proposing to act against the will of the people over the advice of its Prosecuting Attorney. Randy Gaylord has advised the Council repeatedly that it should release the stay on the Court of Appeals, and let it decide the case. Mr. Gaylord believes that it would be in the County's interest to know, once and for all, what the rules are, rather than facing repeal after repeal on what the GMA allows or doesn't allow. And even if the Court rules against the County, the ultimate result would be no worse than the guest-house ordinance that the Council is proposing to adopt.

Kevin Ranker ran on a platform of supporting the advisory vote in favor of detached guest houses. If he votes against that position now, he would be violating a specific campaign promise. During his election campaign, Mr. Ranker attended a men's group monthly meeting, in the conference room at the Islander's Bank administrative building. He was asked a lot of questions, but many of them centered on the guest-house issue. I personally asked him whether, if elected, he would support the position of the citizens on guest houses as expressed in their advisory vote. He said he would.

I don't care about guest houses. I care about Democracy.

I currently don't want a guest house for myself. I am not writing this column because I care particularly about guest houses. I'm writing this column because it twists my fritters when democratically-elected office-holders act against the will of their electorate. I don't like it on the national scene, where Republicans continue to try to limit environmental rights – including an impending vote to dismantle the Endangered Species Act – even though 86% of the nation supports the Act. [See poll by Decision Research Illustrated cited at stopextinction.org.] And I hate it on the local scene when office holders ignore the public's advisory vote on guest houses.

Obviously, citizens don't have the luxury of insisting on passage of a guest house ordinance that doesn't pass legal muster. But the ordinance the Council is considering is far from pushing the legal boundaries of guest houses. If the Council wants to find out exactly what the legal limits are, it need only release the Court of Appeals from its stay, and then we'll all find out.

If the Council wants to eliminate guest houses and to substitute what I grew up calling "mother-in-law apartments," it should just say so. Mr. Lichter calls the proposal to allow only guest houses which are attached to the main house, a "simple, elegant solution." But since it would essentially eliminate all new guest houses (guest houses being in most people's minds by definition detached, which is why they are called guest "houses"), Mr. Lichter's "simple, elegant solution" is the same as what Lewis Carroll's Queen of Hearts might have had for a troublesome subject: "Off with his head!"

I appreciate Mr. Lichter's proposal for an advisory vote on the Iraq War, as I think our legislators ought to keep in mind the opinions of its citizenry. But what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander: Mr. Lichter himself should keep in mind the citizenry's advisory vote in favor of detached guest houses.