May 26, 1998
To: Members, Lewis County Board of Commissioners Members, Lewis County Planning Commission Members, Lewis County Comprehensive Plan Citizens Committee Mike Zengel, Planning Manager From: Merrily Knutsen
On May 6th, Lewis County Planning Manager, Mike Zengel, wrote to the Comprehensive Plan Citizens Committee members. He outlined the attrition of committee members' attendance at the planning meetings and asked that we respond and indicate our intentions for future participation.
I had already been experiencing strong doubts about this planning process, so I took this opportunity to review my concerns and make a decision about my participation.
When the County Commissioners announced the formation of this committee last year, I applied for consideration for membership because I felt that my prior planning experiences qualified me to make a positive contribution. I was a citizens committee member for Lewis County land use planning over 20 years ago; that plan was never adopted by the county. In 1974, I was appointed by Governor Evans to be a member of the Alternatives for Washington Task Force, a statewide futures planning group. In 1976, I wrote a paper entitled, "Lewis County 1960 - 1975, Fifteen Years of Growth Without Planning", in partial fulfillment of an individual contract degree in Rural Planning from The Evergreen State College. I was eager to participate in this planning effort, both as an environmentalist concerned with water quality and quantity issues and, as a resident concerned for the future of the county that has been the home of the Knutsen family for over 100 years and, hopefully, for my husband and myself, our children and our grandchildren, for many more.
The land use issues of today are, unfortunately, the very same problems faced by the county in the 70's, multiplied by the interim years of growth without planning for growth: 1) sewage and drainage problems and subsequent health pollution problems from overburdened septic tanks; 2) the encroachment of industrial/commercial development in residential areas; 3) fill and development in floodplains and the subsequent reduction of flood storage; 4) lack of facilities planning for outlying recreational areas being converted to permanent housing; 5) the depletion of the forest and agricultural resource base; 6) the proliferation of substandard roads as developments spread; 7) the need to provide for economic development based upon the county's natural resources, recreational opportunities and tourist attractions.
The political problems of planning remain essentially the same as in the past. There is resistance to the concept of planning in the community at large based mainly on a fear of regulation. The county commissioners, although required to plan and to regulate, reflect this general public attitude in their decision making. The appointed planning commission and citizens planning committee members, having been selected by the commissioners, are mostly representative of this same political position. The position that "least is better" as it relates to planning and regulation is illustrated by two public comments made by members of the planning board. During a discussion of rural issues, one member asked, "What did other counties who've been approved get away with?" During a county commission meeting concerning interim urban growth boundaries, a member of the planning commission stated, "We tried to do the least we possibly can." This is planning for the status quo; this is not planning for the future of Lewis County, its people and its resources.
During meetings in August, 1997, during which the committee addressed rural issues, one of the members presented us with a prepared statement adding "Industrial Development" to our rural planning classifications. It was suggested that industrial development is important to the preservation of our rural lifestyle because without an industrial tax base, we would not be able to have "viable rural services." In a follow-up letter to the planning board, citizens committee member, Doug Stinson, made the statement, "It occurred to me that this board would be more aptly named a development board rather than a planning board. The only time I see any energy come forth is when it is directed toward development." This has become increasingly apparent and draws the planning committee's focus away from protecting the natural resources of the county.
I want to take this opportunity to present some problems that I would like to see addressed:
If this county seriously wants to plan for viable and compatible industrial development, then it will have to protect the conditions in our watersheds and aquifers. We should be planning to preserve and restore our forest and agricultural resource lands, instead of planting houses and roads on them. We should be providing for the retention and reclamation of wetlands, instead of continuing to fill and degrade them. We should put an end to filling and developing in our floodplains, and, as much as possible, reclaim them for floodwater retention and aquifer recharge. We should not plan to excavate the river to speed the flow of the Chehalis through our county, thus draining our aquifer instead of replenishing it. Without plentiful water resources, industries will not be able to locate in our county. Nucor abandoned Grays Harbor County because they could not be guaranteed an adequate water supply. Draper Valley would have overstressed our available water. The county will not be able to accommodate growth. These issues have not been brought to the table for discussion in planning meetings. It is time they were.
I would like to ask the question: "Why is the committee being redirected to a visioning exercise and a rural "quality of life" issues exercise at this time, when this is exactly where we were in March through May of 1997? We have already adopted a Vision Statement, although there does not appear to be a record of the June 14, 1997 meeting at which it was adopted. This is one of the reasons that I feel that my time spent here in these meetings has been wasted.
Also, in 1997, during the Visioning Process, when we were holding meetings in other parts of the county, we asked for some staff help in getting out publicity, such as leaflets, for these meetings, and were told that there was no budget for staff. We had hired consultants paid for by GMA planning monies, but the county could not provide staff time. We now have the services of two consultants and, instead of moving on to further steps in planning, we are repeating the areas covered one year ago. It would seem that there are some serious problems in budget management here which should be clarified for the public.
In the fall of 1997, I requested copies of minutes of meetings at which decisions were made by the committee/commission and, after a month of waiting, I finally received a set of tapes in lieu of recorded minutes. They have proven to be largely unintelligible and there are no tapes at all for the August 5, 1997 meeting at which we adopted the 5 acre minimum lot size for rural areas. As I mentioned previously, tapes for the June 14 meeting were not produced per my request. The Growth Management Act requires in its Public Participation section that "Each county...shall establish and broadly disseminate to the public a public participation program identifying procedures providing for early and continuous public participation...broad dissemination of proposals and alternatives, opportunity for written comments...information services, and consideration and response to public comment." This is not possible when there is no public record to which to refer. This appears to be a problem of lack of compliance with the Growth Management Act.
In addition to other personal reasons for withdrawing from this committee, I find that I must resign because I can no longer participate in a process that I feel is not being managed in good faith with respect to the public interest.
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