Members of the Council,

If I was going to make a garden on my property, the very first thing I would do is decide how much I am prepared to spend on the project. Having established that, I would then go ahead and rough out a general layout so I could call in a landscape gardener to do the detailed design and arm him with my spending limits.

I simply do not understand how you can design the CAO’s without taking their cost into account unless you tell me nobody cares what it costs!

Since “the costs” all have to be paid by us property owners (both the county’s costs via our property taxes and our direct costs of hiring experts etc. to do the things you say we will be responsible for) I assure you that both I and the property owners I have spoken with do seem to care, quite a bit in fact, about what your definitions and rules etc. are committing us to.

Since you, the council are our representatives in this matter, I would like to request that you provide us with the specific cost implications before any agreement is reached on CAO regulations.

Thank you.

John Gorton

Orcas Island