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Envision Skagit 2060 – RIP?

3/8/2013

31 Comments

 
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Submitted by a Skagit County contributor

On Monday morning, February 25, 2013, a notice was sent out from the Skagit County web server announcing a special ceremony the next day.   The purpose was to celebrate Skagit County’s receipt of the Smart Communities Award from former Governor Gregoire and to recognize the outstanding contributions of over 60 local community leaders in a project that had taken over three years and cost in excess of 1.2 million, most of the amount in tax dollars, in the form of a grant from the EPA.  The county was obligated for an additional third of that, but was able to satisfy the requirement by “in-kind” contributions utilizing paid staff as well as volunteers.   After an intense process of goal setting, obtaining grant money, establishing committees, hiring inspiring speakers, obtaining studies from well paid consultants, conducting local meetings to obtain citizen involvement in predetermined outcomes and drafting a series of recommendations, the project was presented to the public and elevated to the Skagit Council of Governments (SCOG) in April 2012 for consideration and implementation. So, an awards ceremony recognizing the county for its progressive vision and complementing those who played a key role seemed appropriate after the completion of such a long and arduous task.     

It is perhaps ironic then that on the previous Wednesday afternoon, February 20th, the SCOG narrowly defeated a resolution that was a watered downed version of only one of the recommendations that had been proposed by the project’s citizen advisory committee.  The other recommendations, which were based on Envision Skagit’s nine major goals, had either been rejected outright or incrementally dropped from subsequent proposed resolutions in the face of persistent opposition from the public and lack of support from key members of the SCOG itself.  It seemed like a rather ignominious ending for a project that was avidly promoted as Skagit County’s opportunity to secure a bright and happy future for the next 50 years.

Envision Skagit 2060’s lack of success resulted from a disconnect between its proponents, who included the county commissioners and county planning department staff desirous of grant money, their paid consultants and a specially chosen Citizen Committee, and the opposition, who were just interested residents of the county worried about what this project would mean for them and their heirs.  The proponents were satisfied with essentially sentencing future generations of county residents to lives of reduced freedom as well as less material wealth and convenience in order to accomplish their visionary goals of abundant green infrastructure, open spaces and greenways.  Their ideal was to crowd people into densely packed urban growth areas.  Building up and not out was a catchphrase.  Residences were typically to be clustered in multistoried buildings. Retail establishments would occupy the ground floors.  Almost everything a person needed or did would be in walking distance.  The goal was to limit people living in rural areas to only 10% of the population. 

Getting around in the county was also supposed to change as an emphasis on mass transit apparently would displace the American preference for individual cars and trucks.  The citizens committee proposed increasing rail traffic, more buses and vans, and even water transport.


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A third-world "Collectivo" bus
Collectivos, a third world answer to transportation needs used in South America were suggested as a means of moving people back and forth along SR20.  In addition, priority was to be given to bicycle lanes and walking paths.  To prevent excessive travel, especially for those living in the eastern part of the county, broadband coverage at urban rates was suggested so people could work at home.

Concerns about an increase in flooding due to climate change led to a recommendation to remove residents from Hamilton and Cape Horn.  Opponents of the project understandably sensed a threat to property rights with the emphasis on relocations, redesigning zoning laws to confine populations into specifically identified urban growth areas and widening non-use corridors along the Skagit and Samish rivers.

Envision Skagit 2060 only tepidly addressed the real need of Skagit County, now and in the future; economic vitality. What was addressed was mostly in vague terms.  The most specific proposal was to set aside 1600 acres of land on Bayview Ridge for industrial purposes.  Otherwise, there was only a recommendation to encourage sustainable businesses that enabled people to work without long commutes and which made sustainable use of sustainable resources. “Sustainable” was a word used frequently during the entire envisioning process. 

The unfortunate truth is that healthy environments and high “livability” standards are found almost exclusively in wealthy societies.  And prosperity requires an energized, mobile population in search of economic advantage.  Mobility, except for the ability to travel short distances under pedal power, was actually discouraged under this plan by its very nature.  The primary reason that people freely move to crowded enclaves, such as major and even medium sized cities, is economic opportunity.  That transcends all other considerations.  If the leaders of Skagit County wanted its demographic to include more than retirees, drug dealers and a few farmers, Envision Skagit 2060 wasn’t the program to look to for guidance.  In fact, it was a blueprint for stagnation and blight.

The Citizen Committee stated that its most consequential recommendation was the creation of a “Skagit Alliance,” which was a supra-county decision making authority comprised of public and private sector leaders.  Apparently, unaware or unconcerned that this was a real threat to representative democracy at the local level, the committee promoted this regional entity as a means to “implement a unified approach to growth, development and conservation over the next 50 years.”     

Public meetings were held in April and May of 2012.  An additional Envision Skagit 2060 related forum was held in June, which was an attempt to shore up climate change assertions that  provided the basis for key elements of the program.  At the meetings, many of the oral comments centered on property rights protection and questioned the necessity for the expense and effort of creating the envisioning scheme.  One person mentioned that the program appeared to undermine the Growth Management Act. Some people pointed out the remarkable similarity in process and results of Envision Skagit to numerous other programs around the country.  Another person wondered if the county hadn’t got shortchanged by this apparent cookie cutter approach.  Although it elicited emphatic denials from presenters and synchronized eye rolls from attending cognoscenti, a few individuals suggested Envision Skagit 2060 had ties to Agenda 21, citing the proposed program’s social engineering goals in line with the UN program, as well as the county’s membership in ICLEI.  Skagit County had joined ICLEI in 2009 at the beginning of the Envision Skagit creation process.  ICLEI is a NGO, headquartered in Bonn, Germany, that was set up to help local governments implement Agenda 21.  Reportedly, as of 2011, the county has let its membership lapse.    

During the meetings in the spring, and subsequent SCOG meetings in the fall, those opposed to the project were clearly in the majority and the comments reflected that.  The negativity with which Envision Skagit 2060 was greeted obviously did not go unnoticed by public officials and undoubtedly led to the program’s defeat.   It is not surprising then that there were hard feelings. According to the February 27th edition of the Skagit Valley Herald, in the midst of the celebratory affair, disparaging remarks were directed against Envision Skagit detractors by Citizens Committee spokesman, Tim Rosenhan.  Opponents of the project were collectively labeled “tinfoil hat Taliban.” 

One of the criticisms of those opposed to Envision Skagit 2060 is that they are against all planning.  That’s a straw man argument. More than a few opponents stated publically in previous forums that they weren’t against planning, just this particular plan.  In the end, Envision Skagit 2060 went down to defeat because its recommendations didn’t fit the current and future needs of Skagit County.  And some of the recommendations were not simply unsuitable, but patently ridiculous.  The question now is will some official, motivated by ideology or dreams of career advancement, attempt to resurrect a version of this discredited program in one form or another?

The complete Envision Skagit 2060 Citizen Committee Final Recommendations can be found here. 

A more in depth critique of the committee’s recommendations is on the Skagit Republicans website.

31 Comments
Ma Bear
3/8/2013 06:20:59 am

They talked about removing citizens from their little towns? That's unconscionable. This plan nearly passed in the hands of this regional "council"?

Which politicians voted "for"? The people in those towns should know.

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Mike Newman
3/8/2013 11:29:03 pm

The Envision 2060 Plan states right in it that the cities of Anacortes and LaConner will be impacted the least because they were not expected to grow over next 50 years. Ironically, the most vocal support for this plan came from the Mayors of LaConner and Anacortes. We also have our 3 County Commissioners who see the opportunity for additional grant money that would like to keep this plan alive.

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Forest Steward
3/10/2013 04:13:42 pm

According to the paper, Ray Nivers (Port of Anacortes) moved to reject the resolution altogether. Burlington Mayor Steve Sexton, Sedro Woolley Mayor Mike Anderson, Skagit PUD Commissioner Jim Cook, and Lyman Town Councilman Eddie Hills agreed with him. They saw the flaws in the Envision project and voted with the public's sentiments to reject the Envision 2060 resolution and keep it out of SCOG's preview.

The SCOG members on record that were there that day and voted against the motion (ie. were for the Envision 2060 and its egregious proposals) were Swinomish Tribal Chair Brian Cladoosby, La Conner Mayor Ramon Hayes, Concrete Town Councilman Jason Miller, and Skagit County Commissioner Ken Dahlstedt.

County Commissioner Ron Wesen did not vote at that SCOG meeting as he was as acting as chair, but Wesen and his two fellow County Commissioners Sharon Dillion and Ken Dahlstadt were the ones that threw the 'Envision 2060 Celebration Party' after it was rejected by SCOG, ensured the expensive full page ad backing the Envision 2060 plan was published, printed, and avidly to promoted it through the county listserv. They certainly must have been aware and were fully behind the other county listserv announcements that went out promoting the Envision project as well and very likely they knew about the published cartoon too. In simple terms, all three county commissioners are still fully endorsing the Envision 2060 that the public rejects wholeheartedly and have turned deaf ears to the citizens.

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Kathy Mitchell
3/15/2013 12:04:00 pm

I attended this SCOG meeting (and all of the others that involved SCOG & Envision 2060 before hand) and saw the SCOG members in favor of adopting the Envision 2060 resolution push forward and go through the resolution, yet again, and make the ones against what was left of the resolution in a most painful process, word by word, to try to massage it to make it pass; that took quite awhile, and indeed looked forced.

In my opinion, most of the conversation by the different SCOG member's comments were decidedly leaning to reject it all along anyway despite the persistent push by a minority of the SCOG members to try to pass a resolution, of some kind, of any kind, regardless of the over-whemling dissent against it.

Then finally, to his credit, one of the Port guys made a motion to scrap it entirely, was seconded, and the resolution was voted down.

Many of the public in the last several SCOG meetings on this specific topic, questioned the concept of SCOG taking on an Envision 2060 resolution and its resulting activities because according to their bylaws and SCOG's reason for existing, working on Envision would be well beyond their purview, therefore, they should never have even been considering adopting such a resolution anyway. This is one of the many reasons the new SCOG director changed so much of the first Envision resolution that came to them around Thanksgiving 2012 and put forth a second one. This next draft of the resolution, although marginally better, in my opinion, still held many of the objectionable components most citizens and evidently many of the SCOG members still objected too as well.

The process looked forced to me to try to work and re-work the unnecessary resolution so it was passed one way or another. Why?

We must ask ourselves, why would they force the concept of a bad resolution, then insist it must be reworked to make one pass just because it was proposed? What a waste of valuable collective time and energy when real issues need to be discussed by SCOG relating to transportation and industrial lands inventories that SCOG already is struggling with by their own admission.

Bottom-line though, remember that SCOG has no authority to legislate anything.

Kris Halterman link
3/9/2013 02:46:02 pm

Once again the Excavator hits the bullseye on what is happening in Skagit County, Whatcom County, and almost all the Counties of Washington State and the United States. These "envision," or "visioning" projects have been created as a one-size-fits-all source for planners worldwide to create a sustainable world. The real lie is that it could create a sustainable world. The real fact is that it destroys self-reliance, self-determination, liberty and the rights of property. These rights are the sole reason the citizens of the United States have been capable of establishing individual wealth and technological advances which have improved the human condition beyond anything imagined. Prior to the establishment of those rights through our United States Constitution the world had only known two classes of people; the Elites and the Serfs.
Those who would strive for a sustainable world should direct their effforts to the establishment of a Constitution that establishes a government by the people, for the people and of the people, in order that they would acquire the guarantee to their inalienable rights to life, liberty and property.

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Forest Steward
3/10/2013 02:12:41 pm

Apparently after meeting so much public resistance to the whole Envision 2060 proposal and its subsequent rejection at being implemented through the Skagit Council of Governments (SCOG), they now plan to re-dress the Envision concepts and policies to re-introduce them to SCOG, elected and appointed officials, and get them implemented under the banner of Skagit County's Growth Management Act (GMA).

So, for anyone puzzled and wondering why the County Commissioners & Envision project managers/proponents were paying for so much publicity and propaganda in the local news and through the county's list serve announcements the last 2 weeks AFTER being defeated - there you go!

So, now thier ridiculous cartoon where they put a GMA banner on a horse with smaller letters saying Envision 2060 under it makes sense.

They fully plan to re-package the regionalism concepts the vast majority of the public soundly rejected and plan go for it anyway under GMA. How's that for refusing the feedback from the public - yet again?

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George Wolner
3/10/2013 05:27:49 pm

Rosa Koire's small book (Behind the Green Mask) is an excellent documentation of what the communitarians have done and how their agenda is implemented. Her outline of how to counter this attack makes sense.

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Tina Champeaux-Wolner
3/10/2013 04:45:40 pm

I couldn't have said it better myself, Mr. Steward. Skagit government operates under the old concept that if you don't get what you want by asking Mother, ask Grandma. Just use a different tactic. The citizens have spoken and again, have been ignored. We pay the taxes that support this bureaucracy to implement an agenda that takes away our property rights one by one. In addition, there appears to be a funding addiction that dictates further interference by the federal government. And do we really need paid employees dictating to elected officials?
This grand celebration is nothing more than an attempt to steamroll the citizens again!

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GEORGE. WOLNER
3/10/2013 05:18:14 pm

I have the deepest appreciation for the article and the subsequent comments. The only way all this one world order can be achieved is by negating necessary morality. It is the mainstay of prosperity. The lack of morality spawns what we are now experiencing locally , nationally, and , In the world view. Israel in about 750bc thought they could 'fix' their breached walls bigger and better than before by their own will. They ignored providential history and got scattered to the winds and bondage because they left God. This is why the teachers of our children are to be protected from the lies of politicians and ' one world gov' t'. They want the power and worship that only God has and deserves.

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Jack Arrington
3/11/2013 04:18:58 am

Governing agents occasionally manage to do the right thing while in the spotlight of public focus, but then too often confuse the hell out of everyone by applauding what they have previously rejected. Presumably, they see such duplicity as beneficial in securing votes in the next election? Sadly, it seems the presumption is sufficiently fruitful.

Political flip-flops are nothing new, so there is little in our brave new world that should surprise us. But there is one universal truth of which we must be aware: In a land where individual freedom is bartered for societal magic potions, subterfuge is the only medium of exchange.

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Vince Henley
3/11/2013 01:10:26 pm

"Envision Skagit 2060" is without a doubt one of the most pernicious and deceptive documents that I've ever reviewed. Never have I seen such an effort made to conceal the intent and the source documents for what purports to be a homegrown planning document for an entire region. It is nothing of the sort.

In order to understand the Envision Skagit 2060 document it is first necessary to examine three other documents that are not mentioned anywhere in the materials produced by the Citizen’s Committee. The first document is a United Nations Sustainable Development document created in June 1992, called Agenda 21. It is not necessary to review the entire document, which is hundreds of pages long, but only Chapter 7, PROMOTING SUSTAINABLE HUMAN SETTLEMENT DEVELOPMENT. This section will map closely to the vision proposed by the Citizen’s Committee. The second document was created in June of 2012 and thus is later than the Envision Skagit 2060 work, but it was created by the same United Nations organization that created Agenda 21, and is a reaffirmation of that plan. This document is titled THE FUTURE WE WANT, and is a shorter document that consists of 283 paragraphs that describe a new emphasis on achieving Agenda 21. Paragraphs 134 through 137 under the title of Sustainable Cities and Human Settlements cover the same concepts as Chapter 7 of Agenda 21 and Envision Skagit 2060. The third document was created in June 2012 by ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability, formerly known as the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI). This is a United Nations-spawned non-profit organization of which Skagit County was at least once a member and whose charter it has agreed to follow. This third document is titled PREPARING FOR TOMORROW – Strategy 2012-2018 (Belo Horizonte Plan). This document advocates the rapid implementation of UN Agenda 21 through radical action and is the latest of a series of such plans. One quote from this document is, “ICLEI will support its Members in taking rapid transformative action and applying radical solutions to become sustainable, planet-friendly cities, towns, counties and regions.” There are other calls for radical action throughout the document. Anyone can find and read all these documents and come to their own conclusions. What disturbs me the most is the fact that this so-called citizen's committee and its consultants were not honest about their intentions to saddle our local communities with a plan created by a United Nations sponsored non-governmental organization. It is also unfortunate that we seem to have so many political figures in positions of power that are willing to relinquish local control to an organization that is not elected and is not representative of either our local community or the basic constitutional principles of the United States. We are not subject to a dictatorship or in the complete control of a faceless bureaucracy. At least we are not yet, but perhaps tomorrow, if we fail to be vigilant.

If "Envision Skagit 2060" is truly resting in peace, then I applaud its demise. Unfortunately, I suspect that somewhere its supporters are gathering a subtle effort to imbed it into our local laws and regulations under a new disguise.

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Ma Bear
3/11/2013 01:45:20 pm

You're right. I doubt the EPA spent a million plus not expecting something to come of it. Stay vigilant!

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Kevin
3/12/2013 03:37:07 am

Envision 2060 is the perfect example of unelected government employees being allowed to trade the rights of the public at large for grant money. Our elected officials encourage and support this by placing a high priority on getting “free” money in the form of grants. Beware, this subject is not dead. The unelected employees will bring it back in different forms until they accomplish their personal goals with total disregard of rights of the public. Unfortunately too many of our elected leaders will support them in any way possible. Beware
Kevin

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Grant Guru
3/13/2013 06:45:52 pm

Hey, about those grants - look at this Envision one.

Please read this Envision 2060 Skagit County Commissioner signed contract carefully, especially the excerpt below where the contract calls for "ensuring expected outcomes” for the Envision 2060 Project:

C20120082 Page 11 C Facilitation 2: Larger Meetings, Workshops, "Summit":

"Type 2" facilitation includes larger meetings such as the Elected Summit, or other meetings that involve multiple stakeholder groups and pre-meeting contact with individual participants or entities. These meetings typically involve employment of more advanced facilitation, decision making, and conflict resolution techniques, speaking to participants prior to a meeting and a significant amount of 'pre-work' to ensure expected outcomes. Work will include strategic planning, definition of expected outcomes, agenda development, one-on-one calls or visits with some meeting and participants prior to the meeting, facilitation of the meeting and one draft of summary minutes. Base labor and expenses for these is $1,800 up to 13 hours per meeting.

Pre-determined outcomes equals ensure expected outcomes. That certainly is exactly what they got.

http://www.skagitcounty.net/Common/Documents/LFDocs/COMMISSIONERS000013/00/00/01/000001fe.pdf

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Mike Newman
3/12/2013 07:20:24 am

I'm glad grants were brought up. The primary purpose of the grant system is to feed government bureaucracies under the guise of providing services. Each department that touches the funds as they move from agency to agency takes a cut for administration or processing. Our current system of grants are the reason why it only costs taxpayers $1.00 for 15 cents worth of road repair. I think Kevin hit the nail directly on the head. Envision 2060 is intended as a cash cow for the County bureaucracy in the form of continued grants. That helps to explain why our planning professionals would base a plan on faulty parameters.

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Buzzsaw
3/12/2013 11:50:30 am

As usual, the Whatcom Excavator is right on point with a timely article on an important topic. Thank you for that. I wish there was a Skagit Excavator; goodness knows there’s enough, uh, stuff to dig through.

Now, with my tin foil hat strapped on, I’d like to offer my opinions on Envision Skagit 2060:

Envision 2060 was ill conceived and poorly executed – unless you’re a utopian socialist zealot, then you’ll think it’s awesome. The Chicken Little Granola class has dire predictions for Skagit (nay, the world) and only their infinite, infallible, and irrefutable wisdom will save the rest of us poor, dumb bastards from our ignorant selves. Envision 2060 is full of all the flavor-of-the-week buzzwords and drivel brandished by those who would control what we say, what we eat, where we can live, what we can live in, and what mode of transportation we can use. It is full of dictates that range from the sublime to the absurd. Envision 2060 would confiscate our freedoms, radically alter our chosen lifestyles, usurp our hard earned property, and destroy our very souls.

And utopian socialists don’t care. Individuals don’t matter; only the vision of utopia does. This is how we end up with salmon, spotted owls, and eelgrass taking precedence over humans without any common sense applied.

If these zealots can control our food, our water, where we can live, and what we can say – they will have taken the very essence of life from us. And I believe that is precisely their calculated goal. The ramifications, the adverse effects on normal individuals that result from these utopian plans are intended, not unintended, consequences.

Envision 2060, in typical utopian socialist zealotry, is very short on factual basis and long on undocumented, unproven, untested progressivism, collectivism, and nihilism. Full of pseudoscience and political science, not actual science. No economic analysis. No analysis of the psycho-social ramifications of their stack ‘em and pack ‘em housing scams. Little analysis of verifiable data, just stream of consciousness, wishful fantasizing. These people can't convince anyone based on the merits so they use smoke and mirrors, bluster, misdirection, and prevarication to push their bereft agendas. They refuse to acknowledge, let alone accept, the possibility that they may be wrong or that someone else may have a valid, accurate, and appropriate point of view. They are so morally bankrupt and insecure that they cannot even have the civility or common decency to respect alternate opinions. Their religious-like fervor won't permit objectivity - but that's never been their goal. And, of course, they love to hurl epithets. It should have been offensive to any normal, responsible person that the county’s de facto spokesperson for Envision Skagit 2060, Mr. Rosenhan, showed his obvious contempt for those wisely spurning the Envision Kool-Aid when he denigrated them, calling them the “tin foil hat Taliban”. Someone at the county should be strongly reprimanded, if not more, for allowing that to happen and Mr. Rosenhan should be banned from any further relationship with the county, paid or otherwise.

I feel sorry for at least some of the unwitting citizens carefully selected by the utopian zealots-in-charge to participate on the Citizens Advisory Committee for the Envisioning Process. To this day those citizens are probably oblivious to how they have been used and how the outcome of the Envision Process was predetermined long before the Citizens Committee was assembled. There is a formerly honorable technique called Delphi that has been corrupted in its use by utopian socialists whose principal mantra is “the end justifies the means”. An analogy for the corruption of the Delphi technique would be the photography editing software, Adobe Photoshop. In a photo workshop, one of Adobe’s world-renowned experts on Photoshop once said to me, “Photoshop can be used for good or it can be used for evil”. Most people know you can use Photoshop to make an OK photo look better, but you can also use it add things to a photo that were never originally there and pass it off as real. In the hands of Envisioning consultants, the Delphi technique is used to direct the participants, unbeknownst to them, to a pre-determined outcome and have them believe they came up with it on their own! That’s how the Envision Skagit 2060 recommendations were conceived. As other nouns have been morphed into verbs, use of the now corrupted Delphi technique is referred to as “Delphiing”. The practitioners of this deceitful use of “Delphiing” treat the participants as “useful idiots”. Unbeknownst to many on the Envision Citizens Advisory Committee, they were “Delphied” into producing outcomes predetermined by ICLEI. The paid facilitator made the Citizens Committee feel like Envisio

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Buzzsaw
3/13/2013 01:32:58 pm

I apologize for the length of my posting but Envision 2060, in my view, is extremely detrimental to Skagit County. My original posting was accidentally truncated; for what it's worth, here is the rest:

The paid facilitator made the Citizens Committee feel like Envision 2060 was the vanguard of progressive thinking, that what they were doing was cutting edge stuff when actually it was the same cookie cutter ICLEI-directed “vision” being foisted on unsuspecting, mostly well-intentioned folks and communities all across the country.

I’m not against planning. OK, sort of, I am. I’m against bad planning, disingenuous planning, deceitful planning, pre-determined outcome planning, unnecessary planning, and ideologically driven planning. Envision Skagit 2060 is all of the above.

The irony is that the Envision 2060 they are trying to jam down our throats is not “sustainable” because it is contrary to 200,000 years of human nature; it usurps people’s right to self-determination, disregards personal responsibility, confiscates personal property rights, and denigrates the American Dream. When push comes to shove, those are indispensable values that individuals and families will fight for.

The residents of Skagit County never asked for Envision Skagit 2060 or anything like it. I’ll bet if most residents read Envision 2060 they’d laugh at how unrealistic and foolhardy it is. Then they’d lament that over a million taxpayer dollars and county staff time was wasted on this. Finally, they’d get angry at county government for allowing this unnecessary, unasked-for project to go forward. I hope and trust that concerned residents will stand up for their rights, while they still have the opportunity to do so, and tell their County Commissioner they oppose Envision Skagit 2060.

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Don Black
3/12/2013 03:23:39 pm

The defeat of Vision 2060 was a positive example of Grass Roots in Action. Citizens pointed out to our elected officials that expanding bureaucracy is not healthy to the process of governing. This was accomplished by attending meetings, engaging in discussing and demonstreating that there was a broad cross section of voters that want to get back to basics. Due Process must be a part of protecting property rights. Citizens spoke up, officials paid attention and common sense emphasized the notion that responsible stakeholders, working with responsive officials make more sense than turning everything over to a bureaucracy that history shows becomes arbitrary and non pragmatic.

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Skagit razzberry
3/15/2013 08:22:45 am

The Skagit County Commissioners are beginning to sound like Nancy Pelosi. Will they will parachute over the wall of concerned citizens, pole vault over the wall of concerned citizens, cede the rights of constituents and generally do whatever it takes, to shove this elitist, socialist Utopian load of cookie cutter collectivism down our throats? It sure sounds like it. Why? Because they'll get 30 more pieces of silver in grant money for their treachery. Why did our county join a group like ICLEI to begin with? We need County Commissioners who understand that economic vitality does not come from a collectivist blueprint provided by control freaks. When are they going to REALLY clean up our corrupt Planning Dept. who promotes and enables such encroachments, using our tax dollars and misusing various grant funds to assault our rights and actually stifle economic vitality? There is a spreading cancer growing in Skagit County government and it must be excised. If our Commissioners can't see this, then they need to be replaced. I am disappointed in my Commissioner for supporting this expensive failed vision with a celebration that included ridicule of those rightfully concerned about the merits of regionalism. Glorifying failure and wasting money does not inspire confidence. It does however, inspire suspicion and mistrust in this local tax-payer. Great article, great website. Thanks!

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Tina Champeaux-Wolner
3/15/2013 10:12:37 am

Yes, Skagit Razzberry, the commissioners will pole vault over their constituents for 30 pieces of silver. They feel that we cannot live without those federal grants that end up dictating how we live and will live in the future......muddling the lives of our children and grandchildren as well as our own. We are members of ICLEI because the document that authorized the grant for Envision 2060 shows the signatures of Commissioners Dahlstedt and Dillon. There are documents showing who signed us onto ICLEI. The Skagit County Planning Department, made up of paid employees, promotes its own agenda turning the Envision monies into its own personal PAC- with apparent approval of the Commissioners. District #3 Commissioner position is open so we must scope out potential candidates who have a desire to serve the people of Skagit County and not an agenda, and we must do serious vetting of the candidate and get to know them. Citizens need to be present to observe and question what is being decided after elections. There is power in citizen involvement. Shame on us for letting the corruption get this far as Skagit County belongs to We the People.






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Keith Wagoner
3/16/2013 11:34:13 am

An excellent article that clearly explains what was wrong with Envision 2060. I do not blame the commissioners for taking the money (somebody was going to get it; why not us) but there was and is NOTHING in the report of value that couldn't be implemented under our current "elective representation" system. Why would we hogtie ourselves with another layer of bureaucracy to make decisions which we already elected officials to make. It simply allows the commissioners something to hide behind. I am proud to say the Sedro-Woolley City Council unanimously voted to support a "No" vote by our Mayor Anderson. Any "good" ideas in the report (and there were a few...very few) can always be implemented following normal procedures. Or better yet, trust landowners to make decisions in the best interests of themselves and their land. We don't need outsiders with an agenda running our lives.

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Gary Hagland
3/16/2013 02:48:18 pm

One wonders what really motivates the County Commissioners when they fervently support something as flawed as Envision Skagit 2060. Besides the implications for individual private property rights and personal freedoms in the Citizen Committee recommendations, the fact that there was no attempt at economic analysis of the costs of implementation proves it is fundamentally an unserious proposal. Rather, it is a framework of utopian constructs based on discredited science (UN IPCC AR4), on a questionable assumption that the population of the county will double in the next 50 years and a devotion to the concept of “Smart Growth” by all parties involved in its creation.

As an aside, the American Planning Association published a paper in May 2012 that revealed smart growth principles led to “less housing choice, crowding, congestion, property price increases, and increases in overall respiratory disease burden as exposure to traffic emissions is increased.” That’s not a pleasing vision for residents of Skagit County, but apparently one that our County Commissioners and the Planning Department want to pursue. One has to ask why. If it’s solely for the grant money as some have suggested, then the 30 pieces of silver analogy is valid.

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Gary Hagland
3/17/2013 04:09:56 pm

Have a short addition to my previous comment that I should have included. The authors of the paper in the May edition of the Journal of the American Planning Association, “Growing Cities Sustainably,” besides revealing specific negative aspects of smart growth policies, also weighed in on the general economic consequences, “The current planning policy strategies for land use and transport have virtually no impact on the major long-term increases in resource and energy consumption. ... They generally tend to increase costs and reduce economic competitiveness.” The authors admitted, “It is commonly asserted that so-called compact development is the urban form most able to sustainably accommodate growth by reducing travel distances and conserving land, but credible supportive evidence remains limited.” One can only hope that this is an indication that cracks are beginning to appear in the facade of the failed model that planners have promoted unquestioningly to city and county officials for many years.

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Vince Henley
3/21/2013 02:53:21 am

As the morning's Skagit Valley Herald has on its front page today, Envision Skagit 2060 is clearly not dead. SCOG voted yesterday unanimously, no less, to support elements of, and reference to that document. There was not a single dissenting voice.

These people never give up. They nibble away at liberty and property rights bit by bit until the entire cheese is gone. Pay attention to the Skagit County commissioner's meetings in the future. Envision Skagit 2060 is coming to a place near you. Just wait until they loft the idea of acquiring "development rights" and people start discovering that their property is essentially worthless after they give those up. The authorities will try to buy such rights at first, and then, when that hasn't the desired effect, will acquire them by down-zoning. It's coming.

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Douglas
3/22/2013 08:59:57 pm

Well - as I see it - they snuck FRED past SCOG without a word about it until it showed up in the local rag. I'll bet you that half the SCOG members didn't even know it was in there either and they voted for it without looking or questioning the thing as it was run right past them.

Someone should demand an inquiry to see who actually knew that they were voting for FRED aka Envision 2060 in their 2013 goals.

Well - here is a little backstory factoid you all who may not have known or remembered but find interesting . A buddy and I were sitting a few rows behind one of the Envision 2060 spokes guys and I could hear him clearly and see the back of his bald spot. Didn't think much of it at the time, but to paraphrase - and he said this when complaining about people against his Envision non-sense --- he said 'If they don't like the name Envision, I don't care, you can call it Fred for all I care!'. That got some laughs then. I didn't think much of it, but whoever just snuck this FRED (Forum for Regional Economic Development) in through SCOG, and you all probably know who it was, is flipping off the public by calling SCOG's Envision FRED now a couple of days ago.

They think they are clever that all of this won't catch up to them. They aren't that clever. They are wrong. People are mad about this as they are the other over-reaches and it will come back to bite them.

Another factoid - my buddy tells me that bald spot guy is the same one that resorted to name-calling anyone that questioned his pet Envision 2060 stuff 'the tinfoil hat Taliban' in the newspaper. In my opinion it is safe to say they can't do things honorably or above-board - and our electeds are right there too.

I may be grey and retired, but I am not stupid - neither are my pals.

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Kathy Mitchell
3/23/2013 07:45:27 am

Doug,

The room was packed that day, so imagine others will recall your factoid as well. For what its worth, I was there and heard that comment about renaming Envision 'Fred' too and had dismissed it as a flip comment it until one of the Skagit paper's reporters brought it up when I asked about the article they printed on SCOG last Thursday. The reporter heard it too and said so.

Cannot imagine how renaming the Envision resolution that SCOG rejected last month and repackaging it as goals changes the fact that SCOG deemed it outside their scope a month ago.

How many SCOG members really know what happened and what they actually voted in on those 2013 goals last Thursday?

Does SCOG have the authority for regional economic development? My understanding was they could work on transportation, but the language about borderless prosperity and other points in this new goals vote seems way too broad for what I thought their bylaws said they could do. I also remember similar arguments the last few SCOG meetings by different SCOG members when they discussed the Envision resolution and declined to adopt it for very sound reasons last month.

Tina Champeaux-Wolner
3/22/2013 01:22:46 am

I was at the SCOG meeting of February 20th at the airport. Envision
2060 was voted down. Somehow, this information has disappeared
from the table. The SCOG board, who I might add, has no authority,
circumvents the voice of We the People. Sliding in their own agenda,
they continue their love affair with the federal grants, building their
kingdoms at the citizen taxpayers' expense. Remember that their
positions can be replaced. Elections are around the corner. Fire them
as any responsible employer would do. I am a firm believer in term
limits, and some have been in office far too long.

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Mike Newman
3/22/2013 10:41:18 am

The following is an E-mail I sent to a frustrated voter in Skagit County. "FRED" stands for Forum for Regional Economic Development.

I understand your frustration, but we need to continue because we have RIGHT on our side, and the consequences of failure are too large to be ignored.

They've changed the name in hopes we won't notice, Envision 2060 is now "FRED". A massive change in our lifestyles. A plan based on faulty premise, with no provisions to pay for it, is now classified as "Economic Development". My guess is this was what was discussed during the private strategy meetings held by the County Commissioners on March 18th, but since they held those meetings individually they are not part of the public record and we'll probably never know.

I also was very disappointed in Commissioner Dahlstedt's statement that they are tired of the "same 20 people" showing up, but not surprised by it. What Ken said was that those 20 people, people that are willing to take time away form their busy lives to testify before the Commissioners, have less of an impact than the people that don't bother to show up. No one has testified in favor of the Planning Departments plan to weaken the authority of the Planning Commission. No one has shown up to testify in favor of Envision 2060 at any of the meetings that I have attended. No one showed up to testify in favor of the Pipeline Safety proposal. No one except Planning Department Employees spoke in favor of any of these proposals, but they end up getting passed by our Commissioners. What Ken is telling us, and by their votes Ron and Sharon both agree with him, is that their primary concern is for the employees of the County. What the Employees want is more important than what is best for the citizens of the County. They are going to implement the employee agenda in spite of the fact that not one citizen is willing to come forward and testify in favor of that agenda.

In front of reporters, or on TV, the Commissioners are always so happy that people showed up....but in private, as Ken told us, they would prefer it if we just went away. They've shown us that they have no concern for our needs, and Ken has told us that if we don't agree with the Planning Department they really don't want to hear from us.

Historically, this is the path of Democracy. From a government of the People, to a government of the bureaucracy, to economic collapse as the demands of the bureaucracy exceeds what the people can afford. The only thing keeping our current government from collapse is a printing press.

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Goldilocks
3/22/2013 09:03:49 pm

So much for not noticing. The county is buzzing about the deception and about making inquiries.

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Mike Newman
3/23/2013 05:22:12 am

One thing we really need is more people making inquiries to the County Commissioners, and to the other members of the SCOG board. One SCOG member that I talked to had no clue what had just been done.

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Vince Henley link
3/23/2013 10:31:28 am

I am constantly surprised by what a charitable bunch we are. One common thread of the recent commentary since SCOG apparently voted to promote and accept Envision Skagit 2060 under the new name of FRED, is that they did so ignorant of what they were doing. Ignorant? Fooled? Deceived by staff? I think not. These are not children who need to be tutored at appropriate times, these are seasoned and crafty politicians who very likely know exactly what they are doing, despite what they may claim when the stuff hits the rotating blades. These are peole who have invited organizations like ICLEI into the area, who have personally signed off on these UN spawned agendas, who have email addresses in these UN organizations. Oh no, these are not simpletons who have been led astray: These people knew exactly what they were doing and were unanimous about it. There was not a single dissenting vote, not one. This was collusion, wanton and purposeful.

Someone mentioned that we can always vote these people out. Of course that can happen, but I worry that we will reject the devil we know for the one we don't. If I've learned anything about the ruling political class is that they are adept at concealing who they are and what they believe until it is far too late. We proably just saw this demonstrated.

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