Creating The Eco Matrix

The movie The Matrix depicts a dystopian future in which reality as perceived by most humans is actually a simulated reality called "the Matrix," created by sentient machines to subdue the human population, while their bodies' heat and electrical activity are used as an energy source.

In San Juan County, our dystopian present is created by the Machine to subdue our human population using trumped-up eco-doomsaying, while grants are used as an energy source. We saw this on display today during Amy Windrope's presentation for the undead San Juan Initiative. The zombie San Juan Initiative 5-Year Review was funded by a TACT grant from the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife. We've talked about the TACT grant before. It stands for "Trouble shooting, Action planning, Course correction, and Tracking and monitoring." Under this grant, the Friends and members of our MRC reportedly worked with armed state police in boats from WDFW's Enforcement Division to map supposed shoreline violations. Sources suggest that this grant-funded activity resulted in a phonebook-sized inventory of purported violations, especially along the west side of San Juan Island, where activity was focused.

This was all supposed to come together in a neat little package. The on-the-ground mapping of the TACT/San Juan Initiative was supposed to be reinforced by Pictometry. The Conservation District would facilitate State agency enforcement (enforcement based on bias and misinterpretation). It was all arranged, and "they" just needed an obsequious, complicit County government to play along with the demands of the State agencies (WDFW, PSP, Ecology), the grant-driven whims of our non-profits/quangos (Friends, Kwiaht, Madrona Institute, Stewardship Network), the illusory subject-matter expertise of the Conservation District, and the self-interests of the tribes.

That's how homeowners get framed. That's how the Eco Matrix is created, and before you know it (see the video), we have soccer moms talking like jackbooted thugs before the Council asking, "What is the concern with armed boats?"

She understands our concern ... sure she does.

A Bankruptcy of Grant Recipients

If it's a "school" of fish ... and a "gaggle" of geese ... and a "murder" of crows ... then I propose the phrase,  "a bankruptcy of grant recipients."

On Tuesday of next week, Barbara Rosenkotter will be discussing the Lead Entity's salmon recovery efforts with our County Council. She sent out the following email to her colleagues asking them to support her during that meeting.

Looks like she wants a "bankruptcy" of grant recipients there to help her explain things.

From: Barbara Rosenkotter <barbarar@sanjuanco.com>
Date: Wednesday, September 4, 2013 4:17 PM
Subject: Salmon Recovery Update to County Council - Sept 10th at 10:30am 

Hello MRC, TAG and project sponsors,

FYI, just wanted to let you know that there will be a salmon recovery update provided to the County Council on Tuesday, Sept 10^th around 10:30am.  If you can attend, it is helpful for them to see folks in the room.  They will be meeting in Friday Harbor in the county chambers. 

Thank you,

Barbara Rosenkotter

Lead Entity Coordinator for Salmon Recovery

San Juan County / WRIA2

barbarar@sanjuanco.com

360-370-7593

PO Box 947

135 Rhone Street

Friday Harbor, WA 98250

I Think I Need A Diagram

We have frequently characterized as "dizzying" the interrelationships and incestuousness among the various people and organizations that seem to govern, influence, and fuss at us at every turn. Let's take a look at a couple of recent examples.

Sarah Crosby has a letter in the Island Guardian where she says the following about us:

The Trojan Heron, on the other hand, is an angry anonymous blog, which is my main criticism of your association with it. Someone who spews opinion without the courage of assigning his/her name to it, does not have my respect, nor should they have yours or your platform. On the TH random slinging of accusations at people as if hoping that some of it will stick smacks of self indulgence in the extreme and truly serves no useful purpose. Is this really what you want to offer to our community?

You can read her entire letter at this link. Sarah Crosby is on the Byers Campaign Committee, a member of the (nonpartisan) League of Women Voters, a PCO for the San Juan Democratic Party, a donor to the Pratt campaign, and Chair of the Advisory Council of the Madrona Institute and ex-officio member of the Madrona Institute Board.

The Madrona Institute and its founder, Ron Zee, are busy setting up (what amounts to) an alternative governmental structure here in the islands. We have already brought to light that Zee/Madrona is the local fiscal agent for the Puget Sound Partnership (PSP), taking a modest 5% to 10% off the top of all PSP grants that get distributed to our local Stewardship Network. Remember, the Stewardship Network is a group of 24 local groups who have been paid by the PSP to spread the word that Puget Sound is in trouble and that our environment is our economy. The Stewardship Network includes the Friends of the San Juans, Kwiaht, the Conservation District (of which Zee is President), and five separate County entities (ARC, MRC, Land Bank, Noxious Weed Board, Salmon Lead Entity). Theoretically (or perhaps not so theoretically), the linkage of the PSP-Madrona Institute-Stewardship Network presents an alternative funding route for County projects without the County entities having to receive Council approval.

Now we find out that Ron Zee wants to appoint Kyle Loring, the Friends staff attorney, as an associate Board member to the Conservation District (Loring's wife is already on the Madrona Institute Advisory Council). Nearly simultaneously, we learn from the February 6th meeting of the PSP's Action Agenda Oversight Group (AAOG) that their plan is to offer Ron Zee the Chairmanship of the AAOG/LIO, and part of those responsibilities may entail PSP funding of the Conservation District, of which Zee is president.

Also remember that Zee was Chair of the local Democratic Party last year, and he headed up the endorsement of candidates Byers, Pratt, and Stephens. While our attention has been focused on the elections, CAOs, and various lawsuits, the "fourth candidate" (Ron Zee) has been moving ahead with the consolidation of his power over everything subterranean in this County -- the Conservation District, the Stewardship Network, ECONet, AAOG/LIO, and grant funding going to those groups via the Madrona Institute. Each of those entities, in turn, has tentacles that reach out to state authorities, visioning events, long-range planning activities, and all manner of stomach-churning bureaucratic power levers.

We may be in the midst of Council elections, but Ron Zee, inventor of the CRC "Better Government" Zee Wheel, is already the boss.

_______________________________________________________________________

Historical Tammany Hall Boss Tweed political cartoon updated for life in modern San Juan County

Iceberg Government

Who runs this County? Is it the people we elect? Sometimes it's hard to tell.

Many of the posts on this blog present evidence of how this County operates. We've shown emails of public officials and contractors conspiring to avoid public participation. We've seen State officials tell whopping lies. We have accounts from former citizen-committee members about being led around by the nose by staff and consultants.  We've watched consultants dodge questions and ignore evidence contradictory to their recommendations. We continue to hear double-talk, such as the State contending it has no authority over the CAOs yet the Council uses them as a scare tactic. Latest case in point, we currently hear some existing Council members saying that they have to pass the CAOs otherwise the State will slap a building moratorium on us.

A building moratorium? For what? As a penalty for all the horrible pollution here?

Threats. Sometimes our government seems to be nothing more than a network of bullies insisting that the public be ignored. Along those lines, the latest veiled threat from the Friends came out in the past few days. You can read Kyle Loring's buzzword-laden diatribe here, which combines several environmental themes shotgun style in an effort to strike a chord with the public on something ... anything. Having trouble getting traction on your CAO position?  Mix in a little coal outrage and re-launch.

Let's look at one of Loring's CAO comments:

San Juan County is on the verge of adopting one of the weakest critical areas ordinances in the Puget Sound region. The ordinance’s buffers are designed to allow 40 percent of all local pollution into our streams, lakes, and seas.

This is akin to saying we have the weakest air pollution laws in the region because 100% of our air is allowed to flow unfiltered into our lungs and homes. It's like saying that we have the weakest food laws in the region because we are allowed to eat 100% of the produce from our gardens. We have some of the weakest standards for public responsibility in the region because we let our grant-funded local environmental non-profits baldly misinform and conspire against us.

When our local smoking-gunners can't rely on authenticated facts or sound logic, they rely on their network to back them up. That brings us to "iceberg government," which is the term I've coined for the unseen people and organizations who really wield power here. They drown out and "out-consensus" the views that conflict with their bureaucratic self-interests. They freeze out the public good.

As a summa graduate of Bowdoin, Loring might claim some familiarity with icebergs (Bowdoin alums are known as "polar bears"), and he might even claim some experience with environmental truth. Here's a clip from Bowdoin's Kent Island Research Station from 1998.

Kyle Loring ('98) conducted an experiment to test whether false eye-spots taped to the back of a hard hat truly deter Herring Gulls from dive-bombing. To my surprise, after exposing himself to daily systematic walks through the gull colony, he found no difference in the frequency of attacks or the number of direct hits with or without eye-spots -- it appears that we may have been fooling ourselves into thinking that the eye-spots conferred some protection. He did document, however, that most attacks come from behind (60%) or the side (35%) vs. the front.

Maybe his research gave Loring insight into how to conduct attacks regarding the CAOs (i.e., approach issues obliquely, from behind or from the side, not head on), but I prefer to think that it might offer a clue as to why Loring's arguments customarily lack cogency (too many blows to the head?).
____________________________________________________

Countdown to CAOmageddon: Flaw #62 - Rotten from the Inside Out

The emails below illustrate several aspects of our grant economy at work, but the point to emphasize in this posting is that the County GIS data has been completely corrupted by insider, grant-driven, back-room power politics with inherent conflicts of interest. While there may be questionable public participation about ordinances (see CAPR lawsuit), the real work of assembling the faux data that will be used to accuse us of eco-crimes under the CAO/SMP occurs in a subterranean world where there is no chance of public scrutiny. That insider world is run by low-level government functionaries, unelected appointees, the Friends, and their allies ... and they serve no one but themselves.
_________________________________________________________________

From: Jeff Hanson <IMCEAEX-_O=SAN+20JUAN+20COUNTY_OU=SJC_CN=RECIPIENTS_CN=JEFFH@exmx.net>

Date: May 31, 2011 11:32:31 AM PDT

To: Katrina Hoffman <kathoff@u.washington.edu>

Subject: RE: response to Stephanie

Hi Kat,

I think there is a little bit of terrain to carefully negotiate here. Backing up to the stated goal of the Green Shores project to create a structure and some capacity in County government to at least be an integral part of the ultimate Green Shores program in SJC, we need to focus our efforts there. As Stephanie correctly notes, The MRC has indeed contracted with the Friends a number of times for projects that resulted in excellent data that has become part of the County's GIS system and used in the development of regulations such as CAO and SMP. The negotiating needs to be around the fact that another important arm of the organization is as a strong advocate for the environment and as a litigator, too (sometimes with, and sometimes against, the County) and, for some, the County's credibility would be called into question if the two seem too close.

So, for now, I think a response should concentrate mostly on being appreciative of the likelihood of using some of the obvious overlapping opportunities for match and for the use of the data created through projects dome by the Friends, and for future data and consultations as well. We have more work to do to determine future steps and involvement in the project and the Friends' work and data will definitely kept in mind. The County needs to have a seat at the table as incentives are discussed, and needs to be seen as leading on this (if that can happen!)

My next step needs to be, with your help,  to consolidate these ideas for match, making sure it looks like a good balance, and get it to Shireene to get to the County Administrator so we can get the MOA completed.

I'm on my off day today, on the ferry, but will get back to you tomorrow about this.

I hope this helps. Feel free to write for clarification, etc.

Jeff

-----Original Message-----
From: Katrina Hoffman [mailto:kathoff@u.washington.edu]
Sent: Fri 5/27/2011 5:05 PM
To: Jeff Hanson
Subject: response to Stephanie

Hi Jeff,

Is the sort of response I crafted to Stephanie below appropriate, or
should I back off with the historic explanation and just acknowledge
receiving the info she sent? I don't want to overstep boundaries. Let
me know.

-Kat

Hi Stephanie,

Thanks for all this! It'll be helpful with posing SJC's match
alternatives to EPA. Regarding your comment about inclusion (or lack
thereof) of FSJ in scoping, etc. of the project, I agree, it is
unfortunate. It seems like things moved really fast around application
time (when the proposal was submitted); but the MRC was aware of the
opportunity and since FSJ has folks on the MRC, that would have been
the most likely opportunity for both parties to engage in some cross-
talk at that point in time. I don't know to what extent that happened
between Mary and various entities around the County (other than the
County itself as a collaborator). It sounds like talking about how FSJ
could benefit from the grant in exchange for matching activities is a
conversation that could happen with the County along with your
conversation about contributing matching exercises, but it's not
something over which I have decision-making authority. That said, your
acknowledgment of how and where FSJ's recent and upcoming initiatives
are strongly aligned with the Green Shores for Homes grant is much
appreciated, and it sounds like they will help the County achieve some
of the milestones in the grant.

On May 27, 2011, at 11:42 AM, Stephanie Buffum wrote:

Hi Jeff and Kat!

Based on my review of this grant, it appears that you will be using data and work products primarily from FSJ projects including:

Shoreline Modification (for shoreline characterization),  Wild Salmon Project (aka PILA Pulling It All Together); countywide feederbluff assessment (joint MRC/FSJ/SJI); Bullitt Project (modeling sea level rise on shorelines; and land owner outreach);Tulalip (pending).

1.       Feeder bluff ($20-60,000 thru 2011) - landowner workshops and newsletter materials etc.

2.       Bullitt (runs July 2010-July 2011) $10,000

3.       PIAT - PSAR (Nov 2010-2012) $50,000

4.       Tulalip ($15,000 -pending) Technical assistance/education

Potential match: $145,000 (depending on start date of grant). The longer this waits, the less match available.

Rationale for including FSJ in this grant.

San Juan County is a rural island county of 16,000 residents located in the most western limits of Washington State.  San Juan Counties geography makes data collection challenging for state agencies who cannot afford to conduct marine research projects in the San Juans.

For decades the State has left many data gaps unfilled for lack of funding to survey San Juan County.  The county, like so many rural counties, lacks a department of natural resources. Any significant marine research study or shoreline characterization has been done by not-for-profit organizations, Conservation Districts or staff from the University of Washington Friday Harbor Labs or Washington State University, or tribes. For the past decade, Friends of the San Juans, an IRS not-for-profit has secured funding to ensure that comprehensive data for San Juan County data was  collected on critical marine species, nearshore marine habitats, and nearshore geomorphic habitat forming processes.  These research projects included county-wide assessments for forage fish, eelgrass, feederbluffs, kelp, shoreline modifications, and salmon habitat in the San Juans.)  All data followed state protocols for collection and many of these projects involved an educational and public outreach component.

Friends of the San Juans has extensive experience managing county scale habitat assessment and mapping projects, as well as spatially explicit analyses and the application of results to improved protection and restoration. Friends of the San Juans has also worked with community groups to protect and restore nearshore habitat.

Friends of the San Juans laid the framework for this project with many of their previous projects in which they partnered with San Juan County through the San Juan County Salmon Recovery Program which San Juan County Department of Planning oversees.

Friends of the San Juans has been filling the natural resource planning and management gap for San Juan County for 32 years.  We have developed a professional working relation with county, state and tribal partners, and we have provide the County with 10 years of mapping our most critical nearshore marine resources.

General Observations:

There will be much cross walking and data harvesting that FSJ will be needed to translate. It is unfortunate that FSJ wasn't included in the initial scoping of this project, as it builds on most  of our work products. That said, this is water under the bridge and we are committed to ensuring that our data can inform this process in the best way possible from this moment forward.  Perhaps some pots can be used to pay FSJ as "sub contractors" or as "experts" for our time in assisting you all with data organization, interpretation and harvesting. We certainly want to keep as much $ and data in San Juan County. We can certainly make the match without too dependency on our Canadian counterparts.   I would like to ensure that the data is always created in a manner that is consistent and compatible with the San Juan County GIS database maintained by Public Works.

Stephanie@sanjuans.org

360 378-2319 office

360-472-0404 cell

Let's Help Councillor Miller et al. With A Better Answer

Repeatedly, many in our community have asked "What's the problem?" purportedly being addressed by stringent new CAO proposals. We have received no clear answer.

Last October, at least one member of our Council was looking for answers too (see emails below). For the sake of argument, let's ignore whether the right questions were being asked in her email. The community isn't saying, for example, that we shouldn't comply with the law regarding the CAOs. The disagreement is over what compliance looks like.

That said, I think the email reply from Pete Rose speaks to the real need for the CAOs. We need them to protect the ecosystem. Not the natural ecosystem, but the grant and funding ecosystem that is our County's fiscal habitat. That's the habitat we're really protecting with buffers.

There exists an interlocking network of legal requirements and grant eligibility rules that serve to fiscally coerce local governments down a path of State-sanctioned propriety, especially eco-propriety. The CAOs appear to have less to do with on-the-ground ecological impacts than with impacts to the fiscal environment where our government's budget psyche lives. Like an insecure beauty contestant, our County feels pressure to satisfy some wink-and-nod notion of grant attractiveness to the State.

Pure and simple, our County government wants money. It feels strongly incentivized to externalize questionable costs to private citizens under the guise of environmental protection for the underlying authentic purpose of simply improving its own prospects for grant and loan eligibility with the State. It will then use those grants and loans to undertake projects for us, whether we want them or not and whether we need them or not. If the past is any guide to the future, the grants and loans will establish policy and fiscal obligations that will end up costing us more than had we never taken them to begin with. Back in 1990, our County Commissioners (Cowan, Orchid, LaPorte) opted into full compliance with the GMA in part for the promise of grants, and we've been chasing grants ever since.

Grants and loans are not the solution to local government finance; they are the problem. Instead of asking Pete Rose for answers, I wish our Council would have picked up a book and read Nobel-prize winner Muhammad Yunus' bestseller Banker to the Poor. In fact, I wish the Council would recognize the analogies between the grant/loan ecosystem they inhabit and the ecosystem of international aid for poor countries, because the dynamics are very similar.

Yunus witnessed how billions of dollars in foreign aid created colossal projects (dams, bridges, huge industrial plants) but did not create a situation in which the local population had to organize itself to solve its own problems. And that, according to Yunus, holds the key to poverty:

"Poverty is a creation of a complex system of conceptions, rules and attitudes we have thought up ourselves. Therefore, if you want to eradicate poverty you have to go back to the drawing board, discover where we have planted the seeds of poverty and make changes there."

Yunus' revelation was that international aid primarily benefited the countries and organizations providing the aid, not the supposed poverty-stricken recipients.

When grants/loans become a raison d'etre, all economic perspective (and control) has been lost. The community is no longer looking to itself to solve its problems. In our own community, the people who peddle grants/loans and the people who crave them probably have more in common with John Perkins than Rachel Carson.

If the Council wants an answer, they should contemplate Mohammad Yunus when he says, "go back to the drawing board, discover where we have planted the seeds of poverty and make changes there."

Stop thinking of the CAOs as a fundraiser for the County.

________________________________________________________________
-----Original Message-----
From: Patty Miller [mailto:PattyM@sanjuanco.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, October 12, 2011 5:29 PM
To: Richard Fralick
Subject: FW: What happens if we do not update CAO?

fyi in case you find this useful
________________________________

From: Pete Rose
Sent: Wed 10/12/2011 11:27 AM
To: Patty Miller; Randall Gaylord
Subject: RE: What happens if we do not update CAO?

Hello Patty,

I'll take a shot at this and see if Randy wants to add or correct anything.

We can be in non-compliance either by missing a GMA deadline, which applies now to the CAO update and certain comp plan updates, or by having a compliance order in effect.  Anyone who feels aggrieved by our missing the deadlines can make a "failure to act" filing before the GMA hearings board and try to get us under a non-compliance order (which is generally a schedule to comply). 

The grant programs are:

*         Centennial Clean Water Fund;
*         Public Works Trust Fund;
*         Recreation & Conservation Office (RCO) various funds;
*         Emergency Management Hazard Mitigation grant program.

We are currently precluded from applying for loans or competitive grants from the Centennial Clean Water Fund (mainly sewer/septic and stormwater) and the Public Works Trust Fund (mainly infrastructure), with the exception of their emergency fund (such as a public health emergency due to septic or sewer failure).  These programs distribute hundreds of millions and loan at very low rates, which get lower with your increased percentage of match.  Centennial also has major grants for sewer improvements.  

To give you an idea of how you finance a public improvement, a city I previously worked for had to finance a $12 million sewer plant.  We started with a $2.5 million Centennial grant, worked a $2 million partnership with a state agency that needed the plant for its facilities, saved a couple million over 5 years in ramped up rates, and borrowed the rest from the Public Works Trust Fund at 1%.  Monthly rates were at one time projected to rise to $100 a month per house.  This approach kept them under $40 at the time the plant opened in 2000.  Our future needs for stormwater projects and possibly a transfer station come to mind.  Access to this money can help us be more creative in meeting our needs and wants.

The other two grant programs listed above simply cost the applicant agency a point on the scoring form.  These programs distribute tens of millions and the points are often split by 10ths in landing in or out of the money.  An example of how this costs us was in the purchase of the marine access dock at Orcas Landing.  We were the last project in at the cut line and got what was left after those above us got fully funded.  My noggin is too full of thoughts and data to tell you how much more we would have gotten if we did not have the point deducted, but it was in the hundreds of thousands.  On the Odlin project, we were the first one out of the money and then when someone else cancelled a project, we again got what was left over, not the original request.  Public Works, Parks and Land Bank compete in the RCO programs.  Brendan Cowan does not believe we have been hurt in the Emergency Management Hazard Mitigation program.

For the extremely recalcitrant local governments, the Governor may impose sanctions allowed by 36.70A.340 & 345.

RCW 36.70A.340
Noncompliance and sanctions. 

Upon receipt from the board of a finding that a state agency, county, or city is in noncompliance under RCW 36.70A.330, or as a result of failure to meet the requirements of RCW 36.70A.210 , the governor may either:

    (1) Notify and direct the director of the office of financial management to revise allotments in appropriation levels;

    (2) Notify and direct the state treasurer to withhold the portion of revenues to which the county or city is entitled under one or more of the following: The motor vehicle fuel tax, as provided in chapter 82.36 RCW; the transportation improvement account, as provided in RCW 47.26.084 ; the urban arterial trust account, as provided in RCW 47.26.080 ; the rural arterial trust account, as provided in RCW 36.79.150; the sales and use tax, as provided in chapter 82.14  RCW; the liquor profit tax, as provided in RCW 66.08.190 ; and the liquor excise tax, as provided in RCW 82.08.170; or

    (3) File a notice of noncompliance with the secretary of state and the county or city, which shall temporarily rescind the county or city's authority to collect the real estate excise tax under RCW 82.46.030 until the governor files a notice rescinding the notice of noncompliance.

RCW 36.70A.345
Sanctions. 

The governor may impose a sanction or sanctions specified under RCW 36.70A.340 on: (1) A county or city that fails to designate critical areas, agricultural lands, forest lands, or mineral resource lands under RCW 36.70A.170  by the date such action was required to have been taken; (2) a county or city that fails to adopt development regulations under RCW 36.70A.060 protecting critical areas or conserving agricultural lands, forest lands, or mineral resource lands by the date such action was required to have been taken; (3) a county that fails to designate urban growth areas under RCW 36.70A.110  by the date such action was required to have been taken; and (4) a county or city that fails to adopt its comprehensive plan or development regulations when such actions are required to be taken.

Imposition of a sanction or sanctions under this section shall be preceded by written findings by the governor, that either the county or city is not proceeding in good faith to meet the requirements of the act; or that the county or city has unreasonably delayed taking the required action. The governor shall consult with and communicate his or her findings to the growth management hearings board prior to imposing the sanction or sanctions. For those counties or cities that are not required to plan or have not opted in, the governor in imposing sanctions shall consider the size of the jurisdiction relative to the requirements of this chapter and the degree of technical and financial assistance provided.

Thanks,

Pete Rose, County Administrator

San Juan County
350 Court Street No. 5
Office Location 55 Second Street
Friday Harbor, WA  98250
(360) 378-3870


From: Patty Miller 
Sent: Wednesday, October 05, 2011 10:34 AM
To: Pete Rose; Randall Gaylord
Subject: What happens if we do not update CAO?
Importance: High

Hello,

I would like to develop a more accurate response to the question "what happens if we do not update the CAO" or if we say "we think our current regulations adequately protect the critical areas".  I am able to provide the standard answers but am repeatedly being pushed or challenged regarding the answer.

Pete - what types of grants are and are not subject to our GMA compliance.  I do not expect that you will list all of them but if you can tell me what types are not at jeapordy and which types are, it would be helpful.

Randy - what are the legal ramifications of us not updating.  I have been told that Jefferson County refused to do it and a moratorium for building permits was put in place however I have been told that this would be highly unusual.

Can you help me develop a better answer?

Thanks, Patty

The Friends Money - Whence Come and Whither Go?

In an earlier post I described how most of the Friends' money comes from government grants, according to their IRS filings.  They also get non-government grants.  For instance, the attachment below shows that they've received $235,000 from the Bullitt Foundation too. That's very impressive. Of course, the Bullitt Foundation gives money to lots of environmental causes, but if you look at the organizations that have a "Friends-like format," then the Friends of the San Juans' success at attracting out-of-county money is quite impressive indeed.  Of the eleven like-minded organizations that received Bullitt funding, the Friends of the San Juans ranks third.

I wonder what that money has been used for.  This is a quote from the Bullitt Foundation website:

In pursuing this goal, the Foundation looks for high risk, high potential payoff opportunities to exert unusual leverage. It has a special interest in demonstrating innovative approaches that promise to solve multiple problems simultaneously. It searches the world for successful projects and policies that can be adapted to the Pacific Northwest. It strives to build the intellectual foundations and political support needed for sweeping innovation.

Hmmm ... "innovation"? I do not think I will view that word with quite the same innocence ever again.

Friends Had 16% Profit in 2010

According to tax returns available from guidestar.org, the Friends made a profit of 16.1% on revenue of $652,538 and expenses of $546,897 in 2010.  Our local environmental "non-profit" had a profit margin about as large as pharmaceutical companies.

There is no way to know where the Friends' major donors for 2010 were located, but most of the Friends' revenue came from grants, and presumably the bulk of the government grant money is from out-of-County sources instead of our own penurious County.  That might change, though, if the CAOs go in.  Bear that in mind when you hear our County Council members talk about how the County has lost millions in grants and loans because we're behind on the CAOs. If we get the CAOs and SMP done and the grant flood-gates to the County open, ask yourself where that grant money might ultimately flow.

For 2010, here is a breakdown of the Friends' revenue.

Membership Dues - $195,575

Federated Campaigns - $59,349

Government Grants - $388,288

Stephanie Buffum, their Executive Director, was paid $52,683, which is not an exorbitant sum at first glance.  However, according to the Washington Regional Economic Policy Analysis website, the average earnings per job in San Juan County is only $25,726 (2009 data), or about half of Stephanie's salary and about half the state and national averages for per capita income too.  That means that working people in the San Juans generally have to work two or more jobs to earn what most people (or Stephanie) earn with one job.

For the Friends, other salaries and wages in 2010 amounted to $153,297 and consultants/contracted services were $162,766.  Also keep in mind that the Friends' employees and contractors (e.g., Tina Whitman, Jim Slocomb) sit on County Committees, such as the Marine Resources Committee, and we don't know whether they are compensated by the Friends for the time they invest in those committees.

More Public Records - Jamie and a Constituent Talk CAO

In the red highlighted part below, Jamie suggests the Council has to make hard choices. I agree that they have to make hard choices, but will they make the right choices?  From my perspective, so far the answer has been "No."  By the way, the black bolded parts of the following emails are part of the original email, not modifications by me.

Also, Jamie says that we've lost money. What money exactly? I am not aware of "millions" in lost grants and loans.  And do we really want millions in grants and loans anyway? Grants often establish policy and financial obligations that seem to cost us more money in the long run. Do we really want more loans? And is that really the reason that we're doing the CAOs: to get grants and loans for a grant-and-loan-fueled economy? I thought we were protecting the environment. I am confused.

From: lopezsound@hotmail.com
To: jamies@sanjuanco.com; arnoldjune@msn.com
Subject: RE: Concern over CAO Activities
Date: Wed, 15 Feb 2012 02:12:27 +0000

Jamie,
Thanks for the fast response.  I am not in the "chicken Little" crowd on this issue, but the somewhat cavalier way the maps are being classified has me concerned.  Lets take a specific REAL world example....SUNSET... We sit on a 4+ acre special zoned "commercial" center on the island.  The current map shows a "wetland" across a good portion of our parcel (which is not true) and an associated 1% potential to flood designation across most of the lot.  As you know from being on our lot many times, the yard is elevated approximately 15' above the level of the adjacent wetland (to ensure it doesn't flood by the way).  If the maps persist as drawn, what specifically can I expect when we go to expand our main building (we have had drawings in the works for 18 months now)? or we want to add an additional dry storage building in the NW corner of the property (which we have also drawn and intend to operate an equipment rental business for the island).  The expansion of the store in the designated "Commercial area" is exactly what is supposed to happen....we concentrate commercial enterprises into logical pockets so that mixed land use doesn't occur willy-nilly all over the island.  We have been planning the expansion for some time to better serve the community with a wider variety of products.  One example would be more storage for a low end paint  as today we only have room for one, so we carry what the builders want Benn Moore at the expense of the home owner who might want a $20/gal general can of paint.  Additionally, expanded clothing, sporting goods, expanded pet department, and an expanded house wares/cooking section to fill obvious voids in our small community.  The only way to expand the building is to push it to the west by about 50', in doing so we can pick up an additional 2000 SQFT of retail space.  Today, the 50' of expansion to the west would flow without a hitch (no impervious surface or lot coverage issues) permitting the process would move along the normal path.  Now comes the new maps and the new regs......What will happen? (if right now your answer is I don't know, then you can't in your right mind consider passing and approving them).  How are the fish and frogs going to be effected by my building expansion in the new era? Is it better to have treated lumber sitting in that area, or an expanded building?  Who ultimately decides what's best? Who has the final say?  How much more will it cost me to conduct studies to prove that the fish and the frogs are going to be OK?  The building addition as planned will cost more than $100K to complete, the reason it isn't done yet is that it only can marginally return the investment in a reasonable timeframe.  Now because someone may have been a little cavalier with the pen designating wetland areas, the burden of proof (and cost associated with it) shifts to me, the land owner, to shoulder.  If I choose not to build what does it mean.....Maybe nobody in the community covers these needs, which means more people must drive off island, consume fossil fuels, burden the failing ferry system, and what happens....the environment suffers (including fish and frogs).

I always hear the same kind of return response (refreshingly so far not from you)...."well you have a vested interest in development" your damn right I do and so does every other person living on Lopez.  Every project undertaken employs architects planners, inspectors, carpenters, plumbers, electricians.  Those people have families, those families keep teachers doctors, dentists, and other professionals employed.  Anything that potentially upsets this balance and introduces new burdens of cost has the potential to destroy the system.

I get that there needs to be updated regs, but how will we ever account for the unintended consequences of the decisions we are going to make, its not good enough to just hope its all going to workout.  Real damage is going to be done here.

Joel

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Subject: RE: Concern over CAO Activities
Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2012 14:46:35 -0800
From: jamies@sanjuanco.com
To: lopezsound@hotmail.com

Joel:

Thank you for your email.  

I do appreciate your concerns about the Council's update of the CAO and the impacts it will have on property owners and developers. I agree that most property owners are and want to be good stewards of their property and that education can be far more effective than regulations.  However, the council is required to comply with state law, and this update to the CAO is a long overdue state requirement.  In the time since this update was due (2005) the state requirements have become even more onerous from the perspective of property owners and developers, so the delays we have had are not providing a better outcome.  

The council is also working to address what I see as improvements needed in the current code.  One example is that the update will allow non-conforming homes that are destroyed by fire to be re-built in the existing footprint - something that is not an option in the current code. Much has been disseminated from property rights groups and environmental groups looking at tiny portions of the code and then taking it to the extreme. Much of the code that is being criticized is current and hasn’t been altered. These groups haven’t mentioned that in another section a buffer was reduced from200’ to 100’ because it couldn’t be backed up by best available science.

To better understand the state requirements that dictate the CAO General Section update process I urge you to read the analysis of SJC's existing code (available on the county website on the CAO Notices & Documents page): http://www.sanjuanco.com/cdp/docs/CAO/GenSection_Recs_2011-06-02.pdf

The ordinance won’t please everyone  in the end but rarely  do large complex code revisions. The general section that we just finished needs some tweaking for a part that was purposely general for flexibility but seems to have back fired. It can be done before final passage.

This process has stalled many times because no one was willing to make hard choices. By not doing it, it has cost the county millions in lost grants and loan opportunities that could have helped our economy. It has also been a giant suck on staff time. Prescriptive measures were thought to be too harsh and one size fit all. The variable approach gives more flexibility but it harder to implement. The current council is committed to getting through this process and is devoting a tremendous amount of time to be informed.

I would be happy to talk further with you about this - or any other issue.

Jamie Stephens

District 6

From: Joel Arnold [mailto:lopezsound@hotmail.com]
Sent: Monday, February 13, 2012 4:51 PM
To: Jamie Stephens
Subject: Concern over CAO Activities

Jamie,
I hope this note finds you well.  I wanted to take an opportunity to contact you to express my concerns over the current path towards implementation of the CAO regulations.  While June and care deeply about the environment, we are even more concerned about the fragile state of our little local economy on Lopez and the greater San Juan County.  I haven't spoken with you directly, so I am not clear on where you stand on this critical issue, but I implore you not to let this half-baked set of rules and red tape make it to implementation without a real scrubbing of what we are really getting for the significant risks we are going to assume to the livelihood of our community.

For years, the county has had rules and regulations in place that more than adequately provide for the balancing of the needs of the environment and the need for our community to responsibly grow at a reasonable and sustainable pace.  You need only walk the beaches and forest lands of the county to confirm this fact.

While it might be easy to dismiss this plea as we have an obvious "vested interest" as business owners in your community. The health of our business is directly tied to the overall health of the local economy and nearly every job in it.  A new set of onerous and expensive needless regulations will certainly have a negative impact on nearly every working member of our community as we all rely on a steady and predictable path of responsible growth.

Please make a stand for a more rational less restrictive approach to balancing the various needs in our community before its too late

Joel And June Arnold
Sunset Builders Supply
Lopez Island