We are approaching the twenty year anniversary of the Growth Management Act. I know that because I was a city councilmember in Snohomish in 1991 when it was first adopted. I was the Snohomish representative to Snohomish County Tomorrow’s Steering Committee from 1991 through 1995.
The idea of “growth management” was foreign to most of us and the state legislature didn’t provide much guidance with their intent other than the thought that we needed to get better organized.
Leadership in our state has not changed much in the past twenty years; the Democrats are still controlling everything as they have continuously since John Spellman left office in 1985.
For most of the cities here in Snohomish County, there was no need for the state to devise a growth management process, the cities weren’t aggressively promoting growth.
Snohomish County was probably a big reason for the Growth Management Act passing since the county was promoting growth on any and every piece of land they had control over.
Even today Snohomish County is working to undermine growth management north of Lake Goodwin. Representative Hans Dunshee from the 44th District and County Councilmember Dave Somers from Council District 5 are lobbying the legislature to create an allowance for another brand of cluster developments. In an effort to increase density in a clearly rural part of the county, elected officials from the other end of the county are pushing for a way to benefit one significant developer in exchange for nothing. Current county regulations reportedly will allow 600 homes to be built on about 2000 acres. My quick math tells me that already the acres per home are below the minimum 5 acres required in a rural area. If this initiative is successful the acres per home will decrease to about 1.
This plan stinks for a lot of reasons, but if only one or two property owners are the beneficiaries of the action then it might be viewed as spot zoning on a huge scale. Don’t we already work overtime to screw rural residents with efforts to increase zoning in rural areas?
The motivation for the Growth Management Act was to prevent 1-2 acre home sites. The legislature wasn’t real clear about how to implement their vision, but they were clear about reducing rural densities.
I am a little surprised that legislators and county councilmember John Koster who represent voter interests in this discussion are not more involved. If urban development is appropriate for the designated area, add them to Arlington or Marysville’s Urban Growth Area and get on with it. If urban development is not appropriate then keep it rural with minimum lot size of 5 acres.
As a city advocate, I know the pain of complying with mandates of Growth Management as our city struggled to incorporate greater population in a more compact community if the trade-off was the preservation of our rural areas through lower density. We did our part and Snohomish County continues to ignore their obligations even after 20 years.
This Dunshee & Summers deal is another example of how “what’s good for the goose is not always good for the gander”. Snohomish County needs to get out of the Urban Development business. The Growth Management Act is clear that Counties should not be Urban Service Providers.
If all the “Urban” land use designations were eliminated from the county code that would be a good start. Let the cities do the job they have agreed to do without disruption by the county.
Encourage your legislator to defeat this Dunshee Bill.
No Loss for Words 
Bus Drivers Deserve Respect Too
by Steve DanaAfter watching the video of the school bus driver in our district make national news, it’s clear that the bus driver made a poor decision in dealing with the student bus rider. He even admitted in a TV interview he had a bad day and reacted to the situation poorly.
I, for one, have a lot of respect for the bus drivers; they do a job that requires technical skill and interactive personal skills. If all we needed was truck drivers that could manage the bus itself without dealing with the live cargo then being a good driver would be the important consideration. If in addition to operating the bus, we ask that the driver also wrangle the kids, then that requires different skills.
I entered the school system as a first grader 55 years ago. There were bus drivers then too, but there was a difference. In my “old days” bus drivers got more respect and student riders were expected to behave on the bus; if they didn’t behave, they didn’t ride the bus any more.
I know that things have changed a lot in the past 55 years. Today, kids don’t respect their bus drivers, their teachers and if that is the case, they probably don’t respect their parents either. I say that because respect starts at home. Parents who never teach their kids respect seldom get respect.
I listened to parents describe their “near nausea” at the sight of the child being yanked to the floor of the bus. Did it ever occur to any of them that the child in the video has a responsibility for the outcome as well? I am not suggesting that a six year old can be responsible in the same way that we expect the bus driver to be responsible, but we have clear rules for riding the bus and we hold the driver responsible for the safety of the kids. If he fails in that regard, he is subject to punishment.
That looks like the bus driver is in a lose/lose situation. If he requires that the kids stay in their seats, and they refuse, the bus driver is punished. If the bus is involved in an accident and the child is injured it’s worse. If the bus driver takes any aggressive measures to get the kids to comply, he is punished. So how does that work for the bus driver?
I am not trying to make a case for bus drivers. I am trying to make a case for the responsibility parents have to teach their kids respect so that when they go out of the home they treat others with whom they interact with the respect they deserve.
It takes hard work to be consistent with kids in teaching them hard lessons. But if we don’t start teaching those lessons when the kids are young, they rarely learn them at all and we can see where that leads.
What Mr. Taylor should have done was keep his cool that day and subsequently refused to transport that child ever again. School bus drivers should not be forced to work in conditions where they have huge responsibility and no authority. Kicking unruly children off the bus is the only tool available to drivers today that considers the safety of the other kids.
And NO, riding a school bus is not a right, it is a privilege. Abuse the privilege and you lose your ride. Let the parents figure out how to transport their unruly kids. And maybe after we get them to school, we apply the same techniques to the class rooms. Drop by any public school to observe and you may well be truly nauseated.
Some of the righteous parents who are “sickened” by the behavior of the school bus driver should see their little darlings in the class room then tell me who has a right to be sickened.
Judging from what I have seen, Mr. Taylor is showing proper remorse for his actions and has quit his job as a bus driver. I am sorry if that doesn’t satisfy “outraged” parents. They can always show how angry they are by suing the school district. To what end, I don’t know. Or maybe they can look at the outcome and be thankful things didn’t turn out worse and chock it up as a learning experience for everyone.
Litigation seems to be the answer for parents who never learned to respect other people’s rights either. They are eager to teach everyone they won’t be disrespected, but fail to learn the lesson for themselves.
Posted in Snohomish County Political Commentary | 1 Comment »