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
This is a nice website!
ReplyDeleteHow did you get drawn into road vacation issues? Leave them to the commissioners who get paid the big dollars.
Also, personal gain will trump community conerns everytime. Leave them alone if you can, unless you have strong community support.
Good luck on your plan!
If they are trying to divide and conquer is it possible that a meeting of all the Illahee groups could take place with the topic of consolidating into one group with teams who focus on different issues such as the three groups do now --but with one voice governed by majority vote??
ReplyDeleteThat would certainly have more power and show the county we are united and strong
Mary