By Gay Wilmerding
Dear Council Members Fuller, Minney and Wolf,
Please rescind your decision of 9 July to fire five planners, because the decision to outsource employment may achieve the opposite of timeliness and cost savings. In addition to deterrents of lack of housing and high living costs, qualified candidates exercising due diligence will not seek employment here with such gross disregard for union members. Lack of public notice and opportunity to comment are troubling.
Outsourcing work to the mainland weakens our island economy and skill base. We need a professional core to balance seasonal tourism and vagaries of part-time residents in nearly half county homes. With ferries, unique environments and island cultures, corporatizing the permit process takes precious dollars off island and eliminates local knowledge. Take schools: San Juan and Stuart, Orcas and Waldron, and Lopez and Decator each have a superintendent, plus Shaw’s fourth for seven students. Islanders value autonomy.
Permanent code review off-island by for-profit business may cost more in the long-run. Local staff may wear other hats depending on need and qualification. Yancey Bagby and Shannon FitzGerald were on leave, while Marc Santos, Brooke Sullivan, PhD, and Jessa Madosky, PhD, each advocated for the regulatory process. Specifically, a conditional use permit (CUP) for the concrete batch plant proposed above Beaverton Valley marsh, a peat bog critical to aquifer recharge. FOIA documents re batch plant reveal other reasons for decimating the department. Staff understanding and implementation differ from management. Given legal wrangling, evaluation and investigation of merit becomes harder.
For instance, in 29 March email, Sullivan objects to her name being added to form “without my seeing/approving it … and the determination of no CUP is required, are against our code and may be an abuse of authority. … “I just want to be sure we are following the law and not providing preferential treatment/decisions with undue favor to a particular applicant… . I do not want to risk being fired … and I feel that I need to speak up before the problem gets worse.” Her request for guidance is forwarded to management whose responses could be considered a personal attack and certainly diminish substantive issues raised without providing leadership or mentoring. On 3 April, she writes, “There are other projects [than batch plant] that management has taken an interest in that are being ‘prioritized’ through questionable determinations and processes that do not appear to be following protocols or in the public interest.”
Given circumstances, I believe Council may have acted in haste or ignorance of conditions. Given new County Manager Jessica Hudson began work yesterday, only a week after summary dismissal, and given that two of you will leave Council, consider allowing the people who will be involved with this mess the opportunity to participate in decision making. Consider, too, the advantage of having an individual on staff who taught water quality classes at False Bay; Sullivan’s professional qualifications re water are desperately needed to protect or improve our drinking water supply. Jessa Madosky initiated the Seed Bank at the Library which helps strengthen community and improve island ecology. Having employees who live and work on island benefits everyone.
