No Loss for Words

Michael Whitney
Snohomish County Tribune

I am sorry I couldn’t spend more time with you at our event on February 9th. I wasn’t able to spend too much time with folks in that setting. I look forward to sitting down with you again to talk about my campaign.

Since you provided some questions, I will try to answer them. I have taken the liberty of posting my responses to your questions on my blog so that if you edit my answers the complete text will be available for readers if they are inclined. Your questions and my answers at http://www.nolossforwords.wordpress.com

Your Question #1 “What will you change on how Dave Somers has run this district?”

The first thing you need to understand is that County Council Members do not run their districts. The whole county is managed by the County Executive and other elected administrators. Council members have only the authority granted by the Charter. I have included an excerpt from the Charter describing that authority.

All powers of the county, not reserved by the people or vested in specific offices by this charter, shall be vested in the county council. The county council shall exercise its legislative power by adoption and enactment of ordinances, resolutions and motions. It shall have the power:
1. To levy taxes, appropriate revenue and adopt budgets for the county;
2. To establish the compensation to be paid to all county officials and employees and to provide for the reimbursement of expenses, except that no council member may receive a salary increase for the term of office he holds during which the ordinance is adopted;
3. Except as otherwise provided for herein, to establish by ordinance executive departments and to establish their powers and responsibilities;
4. To adopt by ordinance zoning regulations and other land use and development regulations, including improvement plans for the present and future development of the county;
5. To employ legal counsel as allowed by the laws of the state of Washington;
6. To confirm or reject without cause nominations of members of all county boards and commissions, provided, the county council shall have concurrent authority with the county executive to nominate members of the Snohomish county planning commission;
7. To approve contracts or establish by ordinance methods by which any type of contract shall be approved;
8. To set collective bargaining guidelines to be followed by the county executive and to approve any and all collective bargaining agreements negotiated by the county executive.
The enumeration of particular powers shall not be construed as limiting the powers of the county council. (Amended during General Election, Nov. 5, 1996, Effective date Nov. 30, 1996).

If you want to know what I would do different from Somers, I would probably suggest having a more visible presence in the district. I would advocate having “neighborhood meetings” at different places in the district to maintain contact with citizens. In spite of the fact that internet technology allows us to have virtual meeting spaces, many of our citizens are not up to speed with the technology of the day and need old fashion face to face conversations. I think citizens are entitled to meet their representatives on a regular basis without having to make an appointment.

In addition to the visibility thing, I would probably look at government regulation a little differently than Somers. My history in city government has always focused on making the public and private sectors more partners in a common quest for prosperity rather than the adversarial relationships we hear about so often. “Balance” is the word to describe my approach. We need to insure that citizens remain a high priority in our debate as we develop environmental and energy policies for the future. Government appears to be trying to change our “human behavior” with punitive methods rather than the incentive system I prefer.

Your Question #2 “Executive Aaron Reardon has said that the county, if not the state, needs to maintain its competitive edge, however that may mean lifting further regulations for business. Do you agree with the Executive’s push and how will you balance that business competitiveness with labor rights?”

I tend to agree with Reardon on this issue. Government at every level should place “competitiveness” in a high position on their priority chart. It drives the decision making process for private sector investment and that comes back to public sector returns.

Everyone involved with local government at both city and county levels understands the ramifications of the 1% property tax revenue limit and how it has affected our ability to deliver services. The cost of government services is growing faster than the one percent so new sources of revenue are required to maintain existing levels of service or to allow increases. The primary alternative to Property Tax revenue is Sales Tax revenue. Sales tax revenue grows only when businesses thrive. So, it would make sense for elected officials to view the business community like the proverbial cash cows. Treat them right and they reward you with the cash you need; treat them poorly and they perish and we all suffer. Many elected officials have not been sensitive enough to this concept.

With regard to your reference to “labor rights” I can only suggest that healthy businesses are much more capable of rewarding their labor force than struggling ones. Whether you like it or not, government doesn’t have much to work with unless there is a healthy business sector.

Your Question #3 “The issue of Paine Field has been of great concern. Where do you stand on having flights in and out of Paine Field?

I view Paine Field as a County-wide asset that we should use as a resource to improve the whole county. It has been in place for more than my fifty-eight years. In its current configuration, it has enabled our county to host The Boeing Company and several other high profile employers. Most of the county benefits from having industrial activity at the airport.

The controversy about Paine Field passenger service is understandable. Commercial Aviation Airports are not often viewed as good neighbors to residential communities. The public response is the all-too-familiar (NIMBY) Not in My Back Yard. Our county elected officials rebuffed attempts to address the issue in the past by passing resolutions that prohibited things.

I am sure different councils asked for legal opinions from their legal staff so they understood their legal standing. Even as they were inclined to oppose use of the airport for commercial passenger service, they needed to know your legal position.

If you don’t care what your legal obligations might be, and you are determined to obstruct them you do what Snohomish County did for thirty years and is still doing. You stick your head in the sand and do nothing.

I would look to the law for guidance.

In spite of the fact that the airport has been accommodating jet aircraft for most if not all of its history, county officials have resisted making it available for passenger service. Now the Federal Government through the FAA is telling Snohomish County that if they accept the federal money for airport improvements they (cannot prevent) must allow public use of the airport. The time for decision making was when they agreed to take the money, not now when a request for services is forthcoming. If county officials had taken the time to do a financial analysis prior to taking the first federal dollars, this whole thing could have been avoided. But then again, the Boeing plant would have gone somewhere else too and our county would have gone in a different direction.

There is little doubt that the County needs the money to maintain the airport so the only issues left for discussion relate to what commercial passenger service will look like at Paine Field.

The follow-up here is related to the sales tax revenue and economic development issue I touched on above. Would the whole county benefit from the economic activity generated by commercial air service at Paine Field? Would we generate more employment, property tax revenue and a lot more sales tax revenue?

It also is related to the “balance” issue. There is no doubt that surrounding communities will be impacted. Any change of status will be perceived by some as adverse. Communities around the airport need to have a system to address their concerns. Allowing commercial air service does not mean the airlines can just have their way. Maybe an Airport Impact Commission will get the job of recommending airport regulations to the County Council.

Your Question #4 “You’ve been paying attention to the towers issue in the river valley – should those towers exist?”

The County Council and Planning Commission determine where land uses will be allowed through the GPP and the comprehensive planning process. Limiting specific uses should be addressed within that process in advance of applications for permits.

Regulation of radio transmitters and towers cannot be done at the permitting level. If our GPP allows or does not prohibit this use in that zone then they should be allowed. The time for planning discussions needs to be before a permit is pending not after.

Policies regarding health and safety for people around commercial radio equipment should be developed by government entities high enough on the authority chart to apply their regulations everywhere in the country. Qualified professionals should analyze the science and draft rules for federal adoption. I would look to the Federal Communication Commission for standards and guidelines. Absent that guidance, I would be inclined to look at communities that already have transmitters and towers to see how they have been affected by them.

There is no doubt that building tall structures that obstruct pristine views might be protested regardless of the location in the county. Government deals with that issue every day.

Airplane operators might object to tall structures that present hazards to navigation. There is a process to evaluate that risk as well.

Your Question #5 “The County is looking at the issue of farmland and how that contrasts with development. Will farmland be a high priority in your campaign? It appears so but I wanted to gather your campaign priorities. I addition to what we discussed yesterday (at our previous meeting) would you have done anything differently with regard to the decision to limit some rural developments?”

The issue of farm land has been a hot topic with me for some time. As a business person in a community historically tied to agriculture, farm land is important, but FARMERS should be a higher priority. As land use regulators, county elected officials need to be responsive to the needs of this economic sector. Snohomish County has a significant section of the GPP addressing agriculture land. Sadly, it is not just the availability of resource land that drives the AG industry. The most essential component is FARMERS.

At Aaron Reardon’s Focus on Farming Conference last November, the Director of the Washington State Department of Agriculture shared statistical data about farming in our state and indicated that biggest threat to farming was government regulation. Certainly market forces, available labor, debt and the weather affect farmers, but government regulation was consistently the most dominant threat to farmers. That is a compelling statistic.

On the land use regulation side, our county has failed miserably at preserving farm land for farming. Even today prime farm land is being consumed by urban encroachment because county elected officials don’t have the willingness to stop it. Farm land is being converted to swamps is some areas to develop wildlife preserves. Farm land is being flooded to mitigate urban development in urban areas. The only way farm land will really be safe is if farmers can make enough money farming to keep land values higher than the predators are willing to pay. That means we have to go back and FOCUS ON FARMERS.

In an urbanizing county the pressures to accommodate growth force us to look everywhere to meet the demands of not just the market, but also the State Growth Management Act. Unfortunately, elected officials have to make compromises to make everything work. In the process, agriculture resource land is often the loser.

One mandate of the Growth Management Act was for the clear delineation between Urban and Rural. Counties were given the authority to manage growth within their boundaries and have significant influence over the cities as well. In our county, cities were told they needed to increase population density within compact urban growth areas. At the same time, the lands outside urban growth areas would be down-zoned to a level determined to be “rural” and defined by standards. In our county that level was one dwelling unit per five acres. That meant that minimum lot size would be five acres. In my mind, that would be adequately rural.

But wait, if a property owner had five acres or more he could use for his own purposes, he might actually decide to use it. That caused environmentalists to devise clustering so that you could own an interest in land you could not use. It would take four of your five acres as a condition of development. Then they came up with Density Bonuses that increased density to one dwelling unit per two acres. How can that be complying with low density? Combine that with smaller lots for the homes and you have an even worse product. Rural Cluster Subdivisions do not achieve mandates of growth management and only marginally achieve environmental goals while it all happens at the expense of home owners. That is not right!

Your Question #6 “What about environmental issues – how will you contrast environmental protection with business? Is such a contrast necessary or implicit, or could these work harmoniously?”

Most of us live in this area because of the natural beauty of the region. Nobody that has made a home here for the long term wants to see it destroyed. We want it preserved for future generations to the degree we can while managing the resources in a heavily populated area. The compromises we have to make to deal with expanding human population force us to deal with all the issues of urban planning. Unfortunately, urban development in almost every form degrades the environment. Natural becomes Un-Natural when you deposit 20,000 people into it.

Certainly government can react to urbanization through extreme regulatory practices, but at what price and for what incremental gain? I go back to “Balance” with the environment and the newer climate change initiatives. Proposals by government types (elected and bureaucrats) tend to punish most of us for not having the proper “sense of urgency” in dealing with environmental issues through regulations that rarely assess impacts other than changes to the environment and only from their perspective. How often do they moderate their regulations because of adverse impacts they create to land owners as residents or businesses?

Balancing the interests of urbanizing counties requires that we consider the financial, the social and the environmental factors when developing policies for people in our communities. All of the factors should be weighed when developing those policies, not just the environment.

Your’ final Question “Why should people vote for you?”

I am running for County Council because I bring a Balanced Agenda to government. I understand the relationship between a robust business community and the government’s ability to pay for and provide services. I am angered by County decisions to promote development for the sake of the permit revenues and not the quality of the communities resulting from it. I am angered by the County for promoting and permitting urban development in areas best left to cities.

I am running for County Council because our current priorities need to change to bring the average citizen into the discussion about how our county evolves and ultimately accommodates significant population growth. We need to be making balanced decisions that give as much consideration to the cost (to the taxpayers) of regulation as it does the need for regulation itself.

I am running for County Council because I can represent farmers better than Somers has. I can represent cities and their residents better than Somers has. I can represent rural residents better than Somers has. I can represent business owners better than Somers has. I can represent average citizens better than Somers has.

I am a Snohomish County native originally from Lake Stevens who chose to stay in and around Snohomish because of unique character of our county and the opportunities available to young people in the late sixties and early seventies. I worked in farming, forestry and construction in my younger days. I worked in high tech electronics and low tech restaurant businesses. Community service has been a part of my life since I first joined the Jaycees in 1970 and has been a continuous part of my life for almost forty years.

Running for County Council just seems like the right thing to do.