Freeland officials ignore input | LETTER TO THE EDITOR

To the editor:

The Freeland sewer project will affect more than 450 properties in the district boundaries and include properties not even in the existing district boundaries.

The broad citizen input for the last 10 years of the project never envisioned a single-phase implementation. That input seems to have been ignored by the current commissioners acting by resolution rather than by citizen petition.

Many of the citizens who organized in opposition to the current proposal continue to express ideas consistent with the original Freeland Comprehensive Sewer Plan:

• Matching urban growth in Freeland with actual population trends;

• Keeping Freeland’s village character through realistic development regulations; and

• Protecting all of its citizens from an exorbitantly expensive sewer project.

In addition, many of the citizens in Freeland are concerned about the effect of a large single phase implementation:

• The current project will not recharge the aquifer – this is a fact spelled out in the hydrology report;

• Traffic growth – there is no concurrency report addressing this implantation;

• An increase in water runoff into Holmes Harbor;

• Processing only effluent water as opposed to all sewage waste; and

• Uncontrolled project overruns as currently experienced by residents of Belfair.

It is time for the district to at least return to the original sewer plan and examine the project from a perspective that will lead to success. The current proposal is the wrong path. It is time for Freeland to vote in new commissioners, Abrahamson and Malzone.

ROBERT H. HUNTER

Freeland

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