To the editor:

Is Ray Gabelein really surprised that county commissioners, whose election and positions he opposes, didn’t reappoint him to the planning commission?

As for whether “WEAN’s ideas have ever been accepted by the majority of people in Island County,” lately it seems that all factions support law enforcement. So does Whidbey Environmental Action Network. That’s all the laws, including environmental and land-use laws.

When he chaired the planning commission, Gabelein twice led the commission in recommending that the county deliberately violate the Growth Management Act and state subdivision laws. And that was after the county prosecutor’s office advised against the action. So the Growth Management Hearings Board twice struck down the illegal law Gabelein led the planning commission in recommending. (See final decision and order for Western Growth Board Case Nos. 06-2-0023 and

08-2-0003.) How many thousands of dollars did Gabelein’s wanton defiance cost the taxpayers of this county?

WEAN is often accused of being “radical.” WEAN simply enforces the law. Environmental laws. Land-use laws. What happens when elected officials conspire for years on end to delay, defy and obstruct those laws? Citizen groups like WEAN enforce the law when that happens.

If WEAN hadn’t enforced environmental and land-use laws, Saratoga Woods would be a resort/housing development, the old Game Farm would be 10-acre hobby farms, Fakkema Farm would be on track for development of 1,050 houses, and nearly the entire shorelines of Whidbey and Camano islands would be zoned for 3½ houses per acre.

Those are just some of the legal decisions WEAN has won over the past 20 years. If enforcing environmental laws is radical, so be it.

Want to know what WEAN is about? Check out our Web site at www.whidbeyenvironment.org.

Steve Erickson

Litigation Coordinator

Whidbey Environmental Action Network