To the editor:

Nice try but no cigar! Didn’t hurt.

Clear information is always refreshing for dialogue at city council meetings in Langley.

Regarding the Wharf Street land swap/circulation plan, I offer the following information, since I was named in the article as its author, correctly:

I volunteered my services, pro bono, to explore parking and boat-trailer circulation on port property as a test for the larger approved plan and to end a stalemate (deficient data).

Plans for the port property are exploratory, and do not bind the port to one approach.

I was asked to prepare a parking and circulation plan that maximized parking spaces, protected the waterfront for pedestrian use and facilitated boat-trailer traffic in and out of the site.

Standards: I used two sources of boat-trailer standards: the Port of South Whidbey (yes, theirs), used at Bush Point launch; and, engineering and planning design criteria from the University of Washington and professional practice handbooks. They are essentially the same.

The test plan provides more parking than previous studies and expands Phil Simon park along the waterfront; and it protects access to private properties.

The test plan specifies additional pedestrian movement both along the waterfront and inland to a future hill-climb facility (stair, etc.) to Cascade Avenue.

The waterfront portion of the loop road is proposed in the approved plan to be a pedestrian concourse shared with emergency vehicles only in the future, with the bluff segment being two-way traffic.

An interim one-way loop road is shown on the plan, and can work in either direction — the recommended direction is access along the bluff segment and egress along the waterfront segment to reduce cartway and expand pedestrian space.

Four or five parking spaces were shown as an option in front of the Drake properties for general use and potential retail uses within the Drake property — they are not critical to the success of the plan, significantly less than currently permitted.

And there is adequate maneuvering space for that rare and errant incompetent boat- trailer operator.

I am always happy to assist the South Whidbey Record in providing up-to-date information to the public.

Ron Kasprisin

Langley