| “A conversation with Patty Lent” featured in your February edition should make it perfectly clear why Patty did not win a second term. Your interviewer asks: “What is your view of the results of the ruling by the Growth Management Hearings Board on the appeal filed by the Kitsap Alliance of Property Owners?”
Ms. Lent’s answer: “I think if KAPO hadn’t appealed the CAO, the tribe and the Kitsap Citizens for Rural Protection wouldn’t have jumped on it ….” She goes on, “When they (KAPO) did appeal KCRP and the tribe saw an opportunity."
How Patty Lent can claim that the tribe and KCRP only took action because of KAPO’s appeal is irresponsible. The tribes, other jurisdictions, Citizens for Rural Preservation and environmental groups are perennial appellants on just about every regulation the county adopts that these groups don’t think imposes enough regulation on property owners.
KAPO has appealed against the county on only ONE occasion — the county’s 12/05 adoption of the Critical Areas Ordinance. KAPO believed those regulations were so egregious that appeal was the only responsible (and available) course of action. Ms. Lent along with Chris Endresen in December 2005 voted to adopt the CAO – among the most restrictive land use regulations in the country.
But the most obvious reason Ms. Lent’s statement is wrong is because the tribe, Citizens for Rural Protection, et al filed their appeal prior to KAPO filing our appeal. These witless public statements Ms. Lent has made couldn’t possibly better reflect how uninformed and “out of it” she was while in office.
It is well known by all who closely followed the CAO process through 2004 and 2005 that the tribe and other environmental groups wanted minimum 150’ shoreline buffers and no exemptions for wetlands of any size. They made it clear in public testimony many times. For Patty Lent to make a public statement that KAPO gave them the “opportunity” could only be made by someone ignorant of the facts.
Ms. Lent seems to believe that since the Hearings Board disallowed the KAPO appeal that the KAPO issues were invalid. It is obvious she does not understand the full extent of the KAPO appeal and the process now ongoing in Superior court dealing with “takings” and the county’s violation of “due process.” It’s not over yet, Patty.
It is unfortunate that KAPO, an assembly of private citizens, has to step forward at their own expense to do the job she promised to do, but did not — protect and defend the individual rights of citizens against environmental extremists and others who have an insatiable appetite for government control of private land.
Patty Lent should go back to the travel business where there really is a “Never-never land.”
Karl Duff, President
Kitsap Alliance of Property Owners | 
