From the very start of the process, Kitsap Alliance of Property Owners (KAPO) has remained firm on three key issues; public participation during the process, protection of property rights, and common sense development of regulation based on credible science. Perhaps most of the KAPO detractors would be surprised to learn that those three issues are part of the Growth Management Act (GMA) and are required elements in development of regulations. KAPO's repeated appeals to the Commissioners throughout the process were merely a demand to follow the law.

The county has spent over two years and probably more than one million dollars to create a revised ordinance that even the Commissioners do not fully understand. Public involvement has been peripheral to the process and essentially meaningless. The State Department of Ecology, Department of Fish and Wildlife, Department of Community Trade & Economic Development, and the Indian Tribes have all played a bigger part in creation of the revised ordinance than did any individual citizen or citizen group.

County Department of Community Development staff decided what public testimony was acceptable, controlled the public process, and steadfastly assured the Commissioners that public input was incorporated in the several drafts prepared by staff. The end result was that the public was effectively eliminated from the process and very basic questions raised by the public were never properly accepted, considered, or answered.

Even the Planning Commission's involvement in the process was skillfully manipulated by staff. The Planning Commission is an appointed body and has been an integral part of land use planning in Kitsap County since 1961. Serious questions about DCD staff's machinations of the Planning Commission process remain unanswered — but not forgotten!

The most significant question raised by the public that remains unanswered to this day is “What scientific evidence is there that the regulations enacted by the 1998 ordinance are not providing the required protections?” The reason the answer is not forthcoming is because there was never a set of initial conditions established to measure progress and no monitoring program was put in place. It is not surprising that the revised ordinance does not have either of those elements included. Thus the obvious intent of not having to be responsive to public concerns was achieved by simply eliminating effective public participation.

KAPO has never objected to effective protection of actual critical areas to ensure the continuance of our natural environment. To assume otherwise would be contrary to common sense. KAPO members are residents of Kitsap County and place as much value in the natural setting as do any others. Where we draw the line is at the point when regulations are created that impose unwarranted and unnecessary burdens on property owners. KAPO does not object to protection of wetlands, streams, wildlife habitat or other critical areas when such protection is demonstrated to be necessary and scientifically appropriate. KAPO does object to generalized regulations that establish exclusionary controls over private property, without positive proof of necessity and without consideration of the rights of the property owner.

If there is a need for the county to assume control of 30,000 or more acres of privately owned land in the county to properly buffer wetlands, streams, and wildlife habitat, should there not be some recognition that approximately $900 million dollars of private property is lost through that process? It may be easy, on a grand scale, to neglect the impact on a single property by citing some “reasonable use” determination, but the real effect is legalized theft of a person's hard earned property. The regulation, as adopted, requires 10 percent of the population to fund the “public benefit” for the other 90 percent. If it is essential to the public welfare that the buffer properties pass to effective government control, the proper process is called “eminent domain.”

Because the county has never clearly identified the specific scientific basis for the regulations in the approved revisions, it is very difficult to support the regulations. For example, staff noting that the scientific basis is review of over 1500 scientific studies provides little strength to the argument that it is “best available science.” The Kitsap Peninsula is unique in both geography and geology. To be applicable, scientific study must consider those unique conditions.

Very few, if any, of the 1500 scientific studies referenced by staff are directly applicable to Kitsap streams and wetlands. The studies do not apply to our critical areas, except in the most general terms. The studies do not provide a credible basis for the regulations proposed. Because the referenced studies are so general in nature, staff has effectively reduced all our critical areas to common "classes," each having equal importance for protective measures. Consequentially, the proposed regulation provides no assurance of effective protection for any actual critical area site.

Then of course there is the matter of non-applicability of the regulations to much of the county. Since the implementation of the regulation is triggered by application for a permit to develop, if there is no application there will be no regulated protection. There is a demonstrated lack of common sense in a law that would base its need on protecting all critical areas of the county and then establish a process that eliminates vast areas of the county from such regulation.

Perhaps staff and the commissioners can understand the sense in that approach but it certainly eludes most of the citizens of the county. In addition, since there are no measures to verify that the protective measures instituted by the ordinance revision are actually producing the desired results, the overall effect of the regulation is meaningless. To try to “protect” anything without a way to validate the protection lacks every test of common sense. Of course, if metrics were established and a monitoring program established, we might all find that the regulations are far too restrictive. The very thought of reducing restrictive regulation is enough to sent bolts of fear through every bureaucrats heart.

Property owners are not villains and property rights activists are not out to destroy the environment. Collectively we stand for an approach to government that protects both the environment and the rights of citizens. We find it hard to believe that any group could find an honest disagreement that the protections of our inalienable rights afforded by our state and federal constitution, should be set aside for some assumed higher purpose; especially without convincing evidence that it is indeed a higher purpose.

Are those who would freely surrender the property rights of others willing to have their personal rights, freedom, and liberty, curtailed at the whim or another party? We certainly hope not, or we must question the continued survival of our nation.