Miscellaneous Items - 8/19/08

Illahee Community Plan - Final Review Meeting. Wednesday evening (8/20/08) at 6 pm at the Sylvan Way Library citizens will have an opportunity to discuss the final draft of the Illahee Community Plan. This is a must attend meeting for community members who want to have a say in what the Illahee Community Plan looks like.

Green Belt. The Plan calls for a green belt area that is depicted on a zoning map in Chapter 3. The wrong map got included in the file that was sent out on Friday and it was corrected on Tuesday, so if you reviewed Chapter 3 earlier you will want to look it over again. This is a great step forward for the community and the county.

Illahee Preserve Fire. There was a fire in the Illahee Preserve last week and below is a follow-up report of what happened.

I called the fellow who reported the fire & guided CK Fire crew to its location. He said he thought he smelled smoke in the area the previous day (Tuesday), then went looking for it on Wednesday.

I also spoke with my neighbors who are frequent walkers in Illahee Forest. They had been walking in Illahee Forest on Tuesday and thought they smelled "pot" in the area where the fire occurred. They also smelled smoke the next day (Wednesday) where the fire occurred. By that time CK Fire was already on their way. My neighbors suspect the fire was started by pot smoking revelers?

By the way, the person who reported the fire is a nearby resident. He says he walks his dogs several days per week in Illahee Forest. I thanked him profusely for his efforts.

I visited the location of the fire. It is near the trail which heads out of Compass Circle directly west toward the Crossroads. The location of the fire is on your left, immediately after the trail traverses a big dip or gully. The fire department put a white & black striped ribbon on a tree limb to mark the location along the trail. The fire was about 60 feet directly west of the trail. The fire smoldered on the ground covering roughly a 40 foot circle. The roots of about 5 decent sized hemlocks may have been affected by the heat (?) The Fire Department did a good job of turning over the soil to ensure there was nothing more smoldering.

Timbers Edge Hearing. We have heard residents are organizing their thoughts and comments for the Public Hearing for the Timbers Edge project scheduled for all day Thursday, August 28, 2008. There is a group that is working on coordinating citizen and expert witnesses so that the hearing will have some structure and order from those filing the SEPA appeal. We aren't sure who is going to lead that effort so we are providing those interested with two group members who can be points of contact. The first is Rebecca Hall, who can be reached at 265-9393 but will be out of town until Friday, and second is Judith Krigsman, who can be reached at 792-6934.

Update Vacation. We are not planning on sending out updates for awhile as this reporter is going on a short vacation to attend a high school reunion in the Midwest and will return on August 27th, just in time for the Timbers Edge hearing. However, he will be at a computer most every day and if an update is desired to be issued, it needs to be written so all he needs to do is forward it.

Jim Aho