LETTER TO THE EDITOR: County did respond, sort of
Published 2:41 pm Thursday, October 2, 2008
To the editor:
Thank you for your coverage of the important Greenbank public access issue. However, it was reported that my letters to county officials had gone unanswered. That is not the case.
All county and port commissioners responded in a courteous and timely manner with the exception of the appointed District 1 County Commissioner Phil Bakke, whose responsibility includes Greenbank. He did not respond until Sept. 11, after I requested the help of Commissioner John Dean.
Repeated calls to planning director Jeff Tate went unanswered for more than two months. On Sept. 11 he e-mailed me, “As I have indicated numerous times, the ball is not in my court on this.” My last previous information came from him on July 10 when he informed me that the issue had been turned over to legal staff for review.
The county did respond to my complaint about the illegal wall blocking Greenbank Road. It hired an off-island attorney/surveyor at $100/hour, not to exceed $10,000, to research the issue through local title companies. I was left to find out about this development from an article in the July 26 South Whidbey Record.
It should not take $10,000 to figure out that the wall constructed by Bruce Montgomery across Greenbank Road is illegal.
In Washington state uplands extend to mean high water or the meander line, whichever is further out. The wall across Greenbank Road is 170 feet inland from mean high water.
The planning department has never acknowledged or responded to my second formal written complaint about Montgomery’s septic tanks and drainfields on the tideland fronting his Lot 17-3. The plot plan for this project was approved on May 21, 2007. Phil Bakke was planning director at the time. So much for ”experience.” This should have been researched before a permit was granted, not after.
If Greenbank Road ends at the meander line, then so does Montgomery’s adjacent Lot 17-3 and his septic constructions are on tideland and illegal.
If Montgomery’s Lot 17-3 extends to mean high water, then so does adjacent Greenbank Road and the wall is illegal. Montgomery can’t have it both ways.
The backroom manner in which the Greenbank Access/Montgomery encroachment issues have been mishandled is disturbingly similar to the way officials have reacted to sincere public concern about the historical reserve McMansion permit and the Linde wall, and by the same unelected career bureaucrats. Sell it off to the plutocrats. It’s one way of increasing the tax base. I will be glad to eat my words if the county finally decides to defend public access at historic Greenbank Landing.
For some of us this beautiful land is not a commodity. It is our lifetime home and the future home of our children.
Glen Russell
Greenbank
