It’s their first public appearance together.
Well, not exactly, but it’s the first time San Juan County Council member Richard Fralick, Orcas West, and new member Patty Miller, Orcas East, will host a town hall meeting together.
“We’re trying to make it more of a community conversation,” Miller said. “We want to hear from a wider group of people.”
The two council members will be at the Eastsound Fire Station on Thursday, March 10 from 4 to 5:45 p.m. Fralick and Miller hope to hear feedback on three topics: balancing the county budget in economically challenging times; the solid waste department; and update of the Critical Areas Ordinance and the Shoreline Master Program. They will also take questions from the audience.
Balancing the budget
“We have a balanced budget for this year,” Fralick said. “In 2009, voters approved the levy lid lift for reserve funds. We’re able to make deposits into the reserves. That is huge from my perspective.”
Fralick said the county received “significant” savings from county employees who agreed to forgo a cost of living increase and to take five days of unpaid furlough days.
The first of five budget-mandated furlough days will close San Juan County’s offices and solid waste facilities on Friday, March 18. However, the Sheriff’s office will remain open and the Superior and District Courts will continue to operate. The remaining designated furlough days are: June 10, July 5, August 1, and September 2. The furloughs will reduce employee wage and payroll-related payments by $238,000.
“We’re looking at a six-year horizon,” said Fralick, who is on the budget subcommittee with Miller and council member Jamie Stephens (Lopez/Shaw). “We want county government to be sustainable six years into the future.”
Solid waste and transfer stations
“We’re very clear on the services that our citizens would like to maintain,” Miller said. “Unfortunately, we don’t have a funding model to maintain it.”
The transfer stations are dependent on tipping fees, the price one pays to drop off garbage and recyclables. Despite raising rates, the stations are losing money every month. To date, the department has lost close to $1.3 million in the past two years.
The council plans to put a measure before voters in November 2011. It will either be a parcel fee or levy to pay for the current level of solid waste services. If the initiative is not approved, the transfer stations will be closed and household garbage will be picked up by a franchise hauler. Miller and Fralick say they have no intention to close “The Exchange” on Orcas or the “Take It Or Leave It” on Lopez, which are both located at the solid waste facilities.
“We made a very good cause with our levy lid lift, and the voters overwhelmingly supported it,” Fralick said. “We’ll have to do a comparable job (with the solid waste initiative) and explain what the realities are.”
Miller says many community members have given her tips on how to improve efficiency at the stations, but she says it is not enough to pick up the financial slack.
Fralick and Miller are adamant that the problem will be solved this year.
“After the budget, this is our priority,” Fralick said. “Our citizens are frustrated with us, as well they should be. This is the year we have got to get it done.”
Critical Areas Ordinance/Shoreline Master Program updates
State law requires all counties and cities whose long-range planning efforts are dictated by the Growth Management Act to revise their regulations protecting critical areas.
As defined by state law, critical areas include wetlands, critical aquifer recharge areas, fish and wildlife habitat, steep or unstable slopes and conservation lands. Updates must be done through the use of “best available science.”
The county, which embarked on its Critical Areas Ordinance (CAO) update in 2003, was supposed to have it completed by 2005. Last year, the council decided to finish the upland portion of the CAO update and revise the shoreline portions in conjunction with the update of the shoreline master program, which is due to the state by 2013.
The county hired wetlands specialist Dr. Paul Adamus of Oregon State University and The Watershed Company of Seattle to collect best available science data for the updates.
A draft of the CAO uplands science was presented to the council on Feb. 8 and 9 and a resolution for adopting those findings is likely to be introduced in April.
“We’ll look at the current regulations and if they are supported by the best available science,” Fralick said. “If not, then the regulations will be examined.”
Fralick says the council hopes to adopt a CAO update in December of this year.
Shoreline Master Program
Consultants from The Watershed Company led the first in a series of public meetings last week on Lopez, Orcas, and San Juan, outlining the shoreline master program (SMP) update process.
The SMP includes policies and regulations for the use and development of the shoreline. It protects shoreline processes, promotes public access, and accommodates appropriate shoreline uses, as well as aims to balance public and private interests. Washington legislature passed the Shoreline Management Act in 1971. The act applies to lakes greater than 20 acres, marine shorelines, and land within 200 feet of the high water mark. Shoreline rules apply to any land use activity that occurs within that jurisdiction.
The rules cover development activities such as: construction of houses, sheds and decks; building height; construction of docks, buoys, piers, and marinas; land development; and restoration along the shoreline.
“We recognize we have to balance the public and the private interest,” said Dan Nickel of the Watershed Company. “It’s state waters but a lot of the shoreline is private land.”
Updates to the SMP only apply to future development. There are no retroactive shoreline master program requirements. A “non-conforming use” is a use or development that was lawfully constructed or established but does not conform to present SMP requirements. These “grandfathered” developments may continue as long as they are not enlarged, intensified, increased, or altered in a way that increases the non-conformity.
State law requires local governments and the Department of Ecology to mutually regulate shoreline development, use, and protection. San Juan County’s update is due by June 30, 2013. The county’s last update of its SMP was in 1998. The Department of Ecology has provided a grant to fund the entire process. There are more than 400 miles of shoreline in San Juan County.
Over the next two years, the county will host a series a meetings on the SMP. More information is available at http://www.sanjuanco.com/smp/.
