To the editor:

In the past, our government in Coupeville and the “I’ve got mine” crowd have been openly hostile to building anything on South Whidbey; homes, apartments, destination resorts, businesses, you name it. Therefore, it’s not a surprise that we are fast becoming mainly a retirement community, a process that has been accelerating for the past decade.

The conscious policies that have made it so expensive to live on the South End, mainly housing, have a price. Our public schools and local tax revenue are paying part of that price.

At the moment, our commissioners seem to be saying that their revenue shortfall solution is to increase local real-estate taxes from what was a short time ago 51 cents per $1,000 to 75 cents per $1,000, about a 50-percent increase, with further increases to follow automatically if we vote for Proposition One.

True, our local taxes will still be comparatively low (as are our services) but I believe there’s a constructive path that doesn’t depend on continuously escalating real-estate taxes.

We don’t need to turn into Lynnwood, a silly and impossible threat given our topography and other limitations, or buck the existing forces pushing us toward “Retirementville” and its healthy demographic.

If the county will support, rather than obstruct, affordable retirement cottages (“affordable” demands economies of scale), group retirement homes, destination resorts and affordable apartment buildings for young families, we can take advantage of our local economic and aesthetic advantages.

These types of developments will change South Whidbey, something that old-timers who have lived here six months have objected to more vigorously than those whose families have lived here for generations.

I don’t believe the types of development I’m suggesting will hurt the quality of life here. True, this community will be less elitist, but it will be living rather than dying.

Jamie McNett

Clinton