Editor,

I’m a resident of unincorporated Island County. In this role, I am also a voter, a property owner, a business person, a volunteer, involved with local organizations and I shop locally whenever I can.

What does all that make me? It makes me a stakehold. All of us are stakeholders in our communities, our cities, our counties, our state and country. We all get to have a voice in everything — sometimes that voice is a vote, sometimes it is as a stakeholder. Stakeholders are not less important voices than voters.

Someone wrote a letter that suggests that the Island County Comprehensive Plan work for Freeland (Few want to see Freeland a city) benefits only those who own property in the business district, but not the residents. It is shortsighted to believe that only residents are stakeholders for Freeland, or anywhere else.

A stakeholder can be a family who has been coming to Freeland beaches for five generations (my own family for example), someone who likes to eat dinner in a restaurant (gosh, that’s me again), someone who wants to see small businesses stay open and be successful 12 months a year, instead of just five or six months a year… and yes, stakeholders can be the residents who live full time or part time in the Freeland neighborhoods. Stakeholders are simply people who care about their communities, large or small — important people who have a voice that counts.

Stakeholders are one group. There is no way to separate residents away from everyone else; we’ve co-mingled for too long for that to stop.

No one is using political means to force unnatural growth on Freeland. The excellent planning team of Island County is doing their job, as required by the State of Washington, and as required by any interested stakeholder who wants to live, work or play in Freeland. I’m one of those interested stakeholders, and I hope you are too.

LEANNE FINLAY

Clinton