A controversial ordinance to change how Conservations Futures money is spent has been brought back to life by County Commissioner Bill Byrd.

Conservation Futures funding is spent to save at-risk land from development and use it for parks and open space. The proposed ordinance will divide the county into three districts following school district boundaries; South Whidbey and Central Whidbey in one district, and the Oak Harbor and the Stanwood-Camano school districts into two other territories.

Commissioner Mac MacDowell first presented the three-way split in June, but it went belly up after a public hearing when his fellow commissioners would not support the districting plan.

Byrd, however, has since rewritten the ordinance. It will come back before the commissioners during a public hearing Monday.

“It’s not the most ideal solution, but it will keep things somewhat reasonable,” Byrd said.

Byrd said it’s an issue of fairness.

“If we don’t adopt the ordinance, the issue of parity will be the same,” he said. “We’ll be facing the same problem of inequity.”

Many people, including Commissioner Mike Shelton, disagree.

“I oppose putting into an ordinance something that tells the Board of County Commissioners what they must do at some future date in relation to purchasing a piece of property regardless of what part of the county it is located,” Shelton said.

“The board already has the final decision making authority and the ability to establish equality without tying our hands with an ordinance,” he said.

Critics of the plan include the Citizens Advisory Board for Conservation Futures — the group that issues recommendations on how Conservation Futures funding should be spent. Members of the board and others say the three-territory idea will prevent any individual district from having enough money on hand to make any land purchases when they’re needed.

“It could possibly cause us to miss an opportunity to purchase a piece of property with high conservation value,” Shelton said.

Critics also say the “parity” issue is a bogus argument.

Conservation Futures spending in different areas across Island County will be almost equal by the end of this year.

And they also point out that most of the county’s land base is in South and Central Whidbey, and residents of South and Central Whidbey pay almost half the property taxes in the county. Based on that reasoning, they say, true parity would mean South and Central Whidbey getting 50 percent of the dollars available while Camano and North Whidbey splitting what’s left.

Byrd re-wrote the rejected ordinance with some modifications.

He said the new ordinance puts a lot of responsibility on the Citizens’ Advisory Committee and the Technical Advisory Committee for the Conservation Futures Fund.

“Those committees should set the stage and do the front work on conservation futures applications. The Board of Island County Commissioners should say yes or no to the proposals, once all the information and recommendations from the committees have been presented,” Byrd said.

Beginning with projects purchased in 2007, if the accumulated purchases from one or two of the areas total twice or more of the total Conservation Future Fund annual revenues for the year, future purchases from that distribution area will be frozen until the area that received the least amount of funds has received equal purchases.

MacDowell said he supports the plan because some North End residents feel the great bulk of money has not been spent on North Whidbey and parity was needed across the county.

The proposed ordinance to create separate districts for Conservation Futures funding will be considered by the commissioners during a public hearing at 2:45 p.m. Monday, Aug. 28 in the commissioner’s hearing room at the annex building in Coupeville.