Miscellaneous Items - 1/1/09

New Years Greetings!

Lost Dog Report on 1/1/09.

We lost our female, great pryenees (big white dog) on a walk on the beach 1/1/09 about half way between the Illahee dock and the Brownsville marina. Her name is Koda and she is very friendly. Please call 360-633-7224 if you see/find her.

Thank you, Josh Jablonski

Website Used. Josh used the illaheecommunity.com website email address to post his lost dog notice. We want to send it out via email as not everyone monitors the website. Website posts are forwarded to several of us so if you want to get something out to the community quickly, send it to the website and it is likely someone will respond soon.

More Hummingbird Items. We continue to be amazed at the number of hummingbirds that winter over in our area, and the response we had to our email updates. Attached is the most authoritative we've received, from our blog:

fieldguidetohummingbirds has left a new comment on your post "Miscellaneous Items - 12/21/08":

The wildlife rescue person misinformed you. The commercial hummingbird "food" sold in most stores (a.k.a. "instant nectar") contains no extra nutrition. It's just overpackaged, overpriced sugar with unnecessary dyes, flavorings, preservatives. There is a complete artificial diet for hummingbirds, but it's very expensive, not sold in ordinary pet stores, and only necessary for long-term captive hummingbirds.

Free-living wild hummingbirds get the bulk of their nutrition from eating insects and spiders, and while there are not many of those to be had when the temperatures get very cold, your local Anna's Hummingbirds are tough and cold hardy and can get by on sugar water until the weather gets back to normal.

You're already doing the best thing you can do to help them survive unusually cold weather by to making your sugar water a little stronger than normal. A solution of 3 parts water to one part sugar will give them extra energy as well as freezing at a lower temperature than the standard 4:1 solution. Any stronger than that it it starts becoming too syrupy and hard to drink. See my blog for more. http://fieldguidetohummingbirds.wordpress.com/2008/12/20/helping-hummingbirds-through-winter-weather/

Robins. We received the following email and can respond that there are a number of robins that winter here. We're not sure what the red berried bush is though which is visible in the first attached photo. There were a number of robins and varied thrushes observed near the Illahee Preserve during the snow. They were working the underbrush areas where the snow had not accumulated.

Robin or not ... we love our wildlife, and just a few days ago, a 'flock' of about 6-8 "robins" appeared in the yard. Their target was a rigid bush growing up the chimney which was full of red berries. Don't know what the bush is.. but the birds picked the branches clean and then went on their way ... isn't it too early for robins ??

Maybe your addressees might know what kind of bird this was ..

Snow Issues. We know that a number of Illahee residents were snowed in until this past Sunday. The most surprising for some was View Crest Drive, and at this time of year it is often referred to as Candy Cane Lane, when they went to view the Christmas lights on the evening of the 25th and found the street had not been cleared and they were barely able to get through. Evidently neither did the mailman for over a week to the disappointment of many residents.

Roosevelt Street. Roosevelt is probably one of the steepest roads in Illahee and one of the residents sent in the following snow comment to us early on, and probably wishes we had sent it out earlier:

Snowbound as we are near the top of the hill on NE Roosevelt, and with snow still falling, and with the prospect that we may not be able to get out by car until late this week, or whenever we have a significant thaw, I started wondering if there might be other Illahee residents who might want to contract for snow-removal service in the future. Maybe we won't have another snow like this in our lifetimes, but the idea seemed worth bringing up.

Snowbrush. One of the more interesting shrubs around is the Snowbrush which is a native evergreen, it was especially susceptible to the heavy snow. Several residents went walking in the snow by Audrey Boyer's residence on Ocean View during one snowy night during the storm and found Audrey working on trying to get several fallen Snowbrush branches out of her driveway. They helped her cut them up and haul them aside. We have attached some photos of Snowbrush shrubs in case you are not familiar with them. There are a number of them on Rest Place that came down as shown in the last photo.

Keep Passing on Information.

Jim Aho

Snow Photos - 12/19/08

We received some photos taken in Illahee on Thursday 12/18/08. Please send us any photos you want to share and if you want credit let us know, so in case they get picked up by others, you will receive the credit.

The first ones are of an accident at the corner of McWilliams and Sunset that occurred Thursday afternoon.

The bird photo is of a humming bird that evidently decided to stay put over the winter. We will try to get more information from the person who is feeding it, like how do they keep the sugar water from freezing.

The picture of the sledding group was from the top of Roosevelt Street.

Jim Aho

County's Road Vacation Decision - 1-15-08

Road Vacation "Hot Potato" Thrown Back to Illahee Community Plan

On Monday evening, the County Commissioners tossed the proverbial "hot potato" of road vacations, into the lap of those working on the Illahee Community Plan.

As we said in an earlier update, road vacations are extremely sensitive issues, and the ones in Illahee are proving to be no exception to the rule.

There are three landowners filing two petitions (which complicates the issues) at different times (which further complicates proceedings), which started out being heard on 12/17/07, and then again on 1/14/08, and now again on 1/28/08.

We are trying to get copies of the county's rules and procedures for road vacations, along with any relevant state RCW's, so we can pass them on as it appears this issue is not going to go away.

Neither the Illahee Community Citizens Advisory Group (CAG), nor the Illahee Community Club, took a stance on these two (or three?) road vacations. Every effort has been made to make sure we try to do the will of the majority of citizens, and until the road vacation issues came up, it seemed nearly everyone in the community was supportive. We have heard that road vacations can polarize a community, and we hope it doesn't happen in Illahee.

The decision of the board, as we heard it, was to deny the Woodworth's petitions, and the road vacation portion of the Smith/Peacock petition, (with the understanding that the Illahee Community Plan would be take up these issues), and to continue the Smith/Peacock tax title strip discussion to the next board meeting on 1/28/08, when Mr. Peacock would be in town.

This is not something we asked for, nor necessarily want, but is another issue we will have to deal with.

We welcome your comments.

Dennis Sheeran & Jim Aho

2nd Walk-Thru Scheduled for Sat 1/12

This is an update on the "road vacation" hearing scheduled for Monday, January 14, 2008.

First of all, some have asked what a "road vacation" is. Briefly, as we understand it, the county has a number of platted roads and right-of-ways, normally 60 feet in width, that are not currently being used for roads or other purposes. We have some in Illahee. Adjoining property owners can propose to buy these properties once the road is declared excess (the road use being vacated). The primary benefit to the county is the added tax revenue. The proposed vacation and purchase must go through a public notification process so the community can respond, and thus the past and upcoming hearings before the County Commissioners. In these two cases the community seems to be saying that while these areas may never be used for roads, they may be used for other purposes, such as future pedestrian paths, and therefore should not be vacated.

We heard from a number of residents who cannot attend the walk through of these county properties on Wednesday because they are working or busy, and suggested a second walk through. We have therefore scheduled another one for Saturday (1/12/08) at 11 am.

We also heard that the two Illahee road vacations were discussed at the County Administrator's Briefing session on Monday afternoon, and we are waiting to hear if those discussions will affect Monday's agenda.

Jim Aho

Road Vacation Walk-Thru - 1/7/08

There is a second Illahee road vacation hearing coming up on January 14, 2008; the first was held on December 17, 2007.

Walk Thru In order for residents to better understand the two road vacation proposals we are walking through both areas on Wednesday.

Past Hearing The first road vacation hearing was the Woodworth proposal on the 17th of December 2007. The hearing was well attended by Illahee residents and Illahee groups who were not in favor of the road vacation. The County Commissioners will likely decide the issue at their January 14, 2008 meeting. The county hearing notice sign is still up along Hardt Ave off of Roosevelt if you want to check out the area.

Upcoming Hearing The second road vacation hearing is the Smith/Peacock proposal which is scheduled to come before the Commissioners on January 14, 2008. There is a county hearing notice sign up on Fern Ave off of Roosevelt.

Details We will meet at 11 am on Wednesday (1/9/08) at Hardt Ave off of Roosevelt to walk through the area. We recommend hiking shoes because we will traverse the ravine and then walk north up a short, but relatively steep slope, to the county property being proposed for vacation by the Woodworths. From there we will walk east down Dock Street for a block to Fern Ave and go south through the county property being proposed for vacation by Smith & Peacock, which will require going down and up the ravine and then back to Roosevelt. The walk is a short round trip, but because of the ravine (the corridor that local residents say the wildlife use) has some fairly steep slopes, you should be able to walk up and down the slopes if you want to walk with us. For those who would rather not walk the slopes, we will explain the issues along Hardt Ave (Roosevelt side) as we begin our walk, and then again on Fern Ave (Roosevelt side) as we conclude our walk. That way you will be able to see and understand the issues without having to walk up unpathed areas. It should only take about 20-30 minutes, unless there are lots of questions.

Questions? Jim walked the area on Monday (1/7/08) so if you have any questions regarding any of the walk through details, call Jim Aho at 479-1049.

Dennis Sheeran & Jim Aho

PS We have been asked to attach a letter that was written to the Commissioners after the first hearing, which helps describe the sensitivity of these road vacation issues.

Dear Commissioners,

I cannot tell you how outraged I am by your apparent flip-flop on the issue of the Woodworth road vacation. To allow yourselves to be swayed by the inappropriate, emotional appeal of Commissioner Angel and completely disregard all of the facts and statements presented by the residents of our Illahee neighborhood, the Illahee Preserve Stewardship Committee, the Port of Illahee Commissioner, and your own County Parks Department is both startling and disappointing.

I am also quite concerned about what may have been major breaches of both parliamentary procedure and county meeting protocol. I do not profess to know either system well, but it seems to me that, after public comment is closed, there should be no further comment from the public. In this case, that would be from Mr. Woodworth. It seemed rude and inappropriate for Commissioner Angel to deliberately address a question to Mr. Woodworth, after the close of public comment, and not allow others to refute his statements or add additional opinions to the record. The motion to deny the vacation petition had already been made and seconded. At that point, discussion of the motion between the Commissioners was called for. That discussion between the three of you should then have been followed by a vote. Instead, Commissioner Angel stepped out of bounds, showed favoritism for the Woodworths, and essentially tainted what, to that point, had been a well-managed public hearing. Her behavior was bad enough. But to have the two of you blindly fall into the trap she set and so quickly reverse your initial opinions leaves me wondering who we can depend on to help preserve what is left of Illahee, in particular, and Kitsap County, in general.

There is also an obvious problem with Molly Foster's involvement in this situation. She has brazenly sided with the Woodworths throughout this process. Is she not supposed to be an unbiased, neutral county employee charged with compiling information and fairly representing all sides in this issue? Apparently she is not aware of that. Her behavior after the meeting is a prime example. We were all in the lobby of the building after leaving the board room. Did Molly make an effort to talk to any of us about what the next step in the process would be or give her opinion of how the meeting went or offer any suggestions on what we might do to clarify our positions in time for the January meeting? Absolutely not. She spent an extraordinary amount of time talking and laughing with the Woodworths. Might I suggest that someone talk to her and tell her to at least have the courtesy to hide her biases when she is in public view.

As you both are well aware, there are many of us in the Illahee Community who work hard everyday to participate in community functions, to be aware of what is happening in our area, to make our voices heard, to protect our neighborhood, and to appreciate the privilege we have of living in such a beautiful area. We have shown that we have the courage to educate ourselves about community issues, to take a stand, and to stick with it. We had hoped that the Commissioners, particularly the Commissioner that represents our area, would show the same courage. You failed us completely. Teresa Jones