By ANGIE HOMOLA
It’s difficult for voters to decipher government from politics. Government acts in the best interest of the many, whereas politics plays favorites and is coated with deceiving confectionary lingo. Good politicians have this down to a science, saying one thing and doing another, with a sleight of hand that leaves the electorate swooning with admiration.
The only way to remedy this is to learn how to decode political babble, and to demand honest government and unbiased journalistic reporting.
The legislature in 1971 provisioned counties to set aside conservation land to assure the use and enjoyment of natural resources, by adopting an open space planning and acquisition statute that describes how the program fund should be administered and levied. In Island County the Conservation Futures Fund (CFF) program has, for many years, drawn more public interest than any other program. Islanders love it; they overwhelmingly support it, and encourage funding to be increased annually.
The average property owner in Island County pays roughly $1 per month into this fund, annual increases when levied, fall well below 5 cents a month. The fund garners approximately $750,000 per year. That’s not a lot of money when considering acquisition, maintenance, and debt service for farm, forest, beach access, critical habitat for listed species and development rights. This open space is vital to recharge our islands’ sole source aquifers, and to provide ecosystem services that nature generates for free, like water filtration, and oxygen production.
Past Democrat and Republican commissioners saw the value in not only maintaining the fund, but in regularly assessing modest increases. Recently certain county commissioners have made it their mission to chip away at the program, first by trying to abolish it, then attempting to diminish it, then agreeing to maintain it without inflationary increases and now setting annual spending priorities that meet their personal goals. All while telling us they are acting transparently and in the interests of county citizens.
Administering this fund has reached a champion level of political satire. During the July 28 public hearing held on a workday at 10:15 a.m. the Board of County Commissioners passed new rules on how to prioritize spending the fund. Since its inception in Island County, willing landowners have come forth with a variety of proposed projects before two voluntary review committees, members who ideally have expertise in the areas the state Legislature delineated. These committees visited sites and ranked projects, prioritizing them before they went to the board for final selection. The new program gets an annual set of project criteria goals established in advance by the commissioners. This approach not only narrows the proposal field, it invites “good old boy” favoritism. The Legislature intended for counties to, “set open space priorities and adopt, after a public hearing, an open space plan and public benefit rating system for the county.” No such plan exists, but at least in the past community members weighed in before the commissioners openly selected from the legitimately ranked list. Current commissioners claim this new method is more transparent, stating they already know what they personally want to select and this way there are no surprises. That approach denies an honest unbiased administrative and competitive process.
The commissioners’ new criteria arbitrarily gives negative points for proposals that allegedly remove economic value, land that could have otherwise been built on. Under this concept, Americans would not have New York’s Central Park, Washington D.C.’s Rock Creek Park, Seattle’s Seward Park, or Freeland’s Trillium Forest — all spaces that vastly improve the local economy, property values, tourism, and quality of life. On the contrary such acquisitions should gain points. This arbitrary and capricious use of authority is anything but good government. Its politics, and it stinks.
Editor’s note: Angie Homola is a former Island County District 2 commissioner.
