Officials like Critical Areas plan, but not advice

A proposed update to Spokane County’s Critical Areas Ordinance came with too much advice to suit County Commissioners Todd Mielke and Mark Richard.

Commissioner Bonnie Mager welcomed a Planning Commission suggestion to hire a wetland biologist and another planner to enforce the ordinance, but Mielke and Richard felt planning commissioners – and the county planner who advised them – had overstepped their bounds.

“I’ve got to tell you, this is the first time I’ve ever seen a board or commission come in and essentially advocate for a restructuring within a department … actually down to detail as far as what positions,” Mielke told Planning Commission Chairman Bill Moore on Tuesday when Moore presented the commission’s proposals.

Mielke especially objected to a comment in the planning commission’s cover letter that “anything less than these recommended or similar efforts could result in irreparable damage to our critical areas and shoreline preservation.”

The letter called for creating a “natural resources” or “environmental” division in the Public Works Department as well as for launching a public information campaign on the Critical Areas Ordinance, which protects wetlands, shorelines and other environmentally sensitive areas.

Moore said the suggestions were offered in response to public comments the Planning Commission received.

“We don’t do it out of any lack of respect for the three of you,” Moore said. “This was not meant in any way to be critical of the normal process.”

Bruce Hunt, the county planner who helped planning commissioners with the ordinance revisions, accepted some of the heat and offered his own apology.

“I have to take some responsibility in challenging the (planning) commission to look at better ways that we could implement the ordinance, and so I must say that he (Moore) wasn’t alone in crafting that,” Hunt told Mielke.

Commissioner Bonnie Mager, former director of the Neighborhood Alliance of Spokane County, was enthusiastic about the proposal to beef up enforcement.

“It’s been a long time that the public has clamored for a wetlands biologist, so I really welcome all your suggestions and comments,” Mager told Moore.

Richard said it was “totally reasonable” for the Planning Commission to make suggestions for enforcing the ordinance.

“We need to do a better job in that area,” Richard said, but he estimated the proposals would cost $250,000 a year. He asked the Planning Commission to prioritize its recommendations.

That said, Richard agreed with Mielke that Hunt and the Planning Commission went too far in publicly suggesting that county commissioners would cause “irreparable damage” if they didn’t accept all the suggestions.

Addressing Hunt directly, Richard said, “That’s the position that I don’t think you ought to put us in, and that’s the position that I don’t think is really the role of the Planning Commission.”

County commissioners took the proposed revisions under advisement, indicating they may schedule some workshop meetings.

The draft ordinance adds some alternatives for determining the size of wetland buffers and some new guidelines for restoring wetlands. It is designed to coordinate better with a proposed new Shoreline Master Plan, which also is under review.

Richard said the suggestions for enforcing the new Critical Areas Ordinance sounded “strikingly familiar” to a statement in another recent planning report that, “if we didn’t follow the line of thinking of certain people that worked on the document, that we were going to be negligent in our duties.”

On Sept. 25, Mielke complained about a staff report that said allowing gasoline convenience stores in some rural areas would increase pressure for other commercial development.

“That statement doesn’t rub me well,” Mielke said. “We have a specific proposal before us. We don’t have additional proposals before us.”