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Sultan's Comp Plan Main page; or go right to the 2003 comp plan page

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS:
City Administrator/City Planner Rick Cisar

City Consultant for Comprehensive Plan, Tom Beckwith of Beckwith Consulting

Joe Downs

Kelly Korn

Cole Auckland

Kay George

Jim Flower

Sue Shawger

Paul Tortice

Jean Roberts

Loretta Storm

Ron Olson

Storm (re CFP)

Randy Johnson

Mrs.(?) Weisenberger

Mel (?)

Ray Kistenmacher

Storm (Question for Beckwith re "newsletter")

Korn (re Plan minimum strategy)

Mark Fallgatter

Jackie Owen (?)

ENDNOTES

Seehuus The public hearing on the Sultan Comprehensive Plan is now open. This public hearing will proceed in an orderly fashion and I would like to ask your cooperation in the following procedure. Everyone present will be given an opportunity to be heard. The secretary will be recording what is said. Therefore, you will address the Commission. Begin by stating your name and address. Please speak slowly and clearly. Only one person will be allowed to speak at a time. The concern is that this hearing be fair in form and substance as well as appearance. Therefore, I would like to ask if there's anyone in the audience that objects to my participation as Chair, or any other Commissioner's participation in these proceedings? [pauses] Okay. do any of the Commissioners have an interest in this property or issue? [pauses] Do any of you stand to gain or lose any financial benefit as a result of the outcome of this hearing? Can you hear and consider this in a fair and objective manner? Let the record show that Commissioner Dalmasso showed up. Has any member of the Commission engaged in communication outside this hearing with opponents or proponents on this issue to be heard? If so, that member must place on the record the substance of any such communication so that other interested parties may have the right to [unintelligible] rebut the substance of that communication. The purpose of this hearing is for the Commissioner to hear and consider the pertinent facts relating to this issue and to make recommendations with or without conditions. Before hearing from the audience, we will request that Rick Cisar provide some background and [unintelligible]. Rick?

Cisar Let me brief you on the procedures that the Commission will follow and how your recommendation will be forwarded to city council. The Commission this evening will conduct the public hearing regarding the Comprehensive Plan. And the determination, through this hearing or a series of additional hearings, you will forward a recommendation to the city council. It may be one of the growth alternatives that you've been studying or a compilation of. Once you make that recommendation, I'll take your recommendation and send it to the state. They have a 60-day window to review your recommendation for consistency with the Growth Management Act. Once I get that recommendation, [unintelligible] recommendation, I'll set up another public hearing before the city council. You're looking at timeframes --we're probably looking at October for that city council meeting. That's the procedure. Then once council acts on your recommendation, they will formally adopt the Comprehensive Plan and that will be the process that you go through. [back to top]

Seehuus Is Tom…going to do an overview on this?

Cisar Yeah. I would like now to introduce Tom Beckwith, our consultant. Tom will give you and the audience [unintelligible] of the comp plan to date.

Seehuus Thank you.

Tom Beckwith There are three formal documents that are available from the Planning Department, that the city [unintelligible] produced in the process. A draft EIS issued in February, along with a Comprehensive Plan document and statement of goals and policies that compliments the draft EIS, in fact, they both need to be looked at together. And a final EIS which was issued here on the 6^th of June. In addition there are two newsletters. One was a 10-page version that contains virtually all three of the alternatives and the key planning proposal [unintelligible] too much of it up there in the front on the board and it should be in the handouts that you've got. [unintelligible]. The key ones are the three alternatives, a low, a moderate and a high growth The proposed open space planning, from reading from left to right, that's the top right. [unintelligible; something about the non-motorized trails plan] and next to that is the proposed transportation, or [unintelligible] plan. In addition, during the very first steps of the process, we did a brainstorming workshop and identified not only the concepts of [unintelligible] those plans, but 75 individual planning actions that would be involved in the programming planning, most of which are in all three growth scenarios [actually, there are four scenarios; one is a No Action alternative, maintaining Sultan's current UGA boundaries], and they're also contained in of the three concept plans. In addition, since this year we could begin to [unintelligible] procedures, all three alternatives, again [again, there are four] evaluate the holding capacity and the population and employment capacity has been projected for those, for each of the three, plus what exists now [once again, for what would exist in the future if the No Action alternative is selected, using Sultan's current UGA]. And the specifics on that are in the newsletter (see endnote #1), that also [unintelligible] in each of the plan documents. The last [unintelligible] to happen will have a public [unintelligible] is a final public survey of the semi-final planning actions, to ask the public to review those and rank those for priority so that they go into the implementation plan of whatever you forward to council. I think that's the main highlighting unless any questions come up during the hearing. [back to top]

Seehuus Rick? Anything else to add?

Cisar Ask everyone to be sure they sign our sign-up list, so we can send them future [unintelligible]. Appreciate that very much.

Seehuus Okay, then. At this point the floor is open for comments from the audience. In fairness to all, each person will be given an opportunity to address the Commission for an initial period not to exceed five minutes. If more time is needed, it will be made available after everyone's had a chance to speak. I'm requesting the Commission to hold their questions until everyone is done. Remember, this is a hearing, not a workshop or a Q&A session. The purpose is to receive public comment on the plan. So is there anyone would like to lead off? Please raise your hand and step up to the mic. Sir?

Joe Downs I hope this is the right format to be bringing this up. My name is Joe Downs. My wife's name is Afreda, and that's A-f-r-e-d-a, with no "i". That's D-o-w-n-s. We live at 31805 - 124^th Street S. E., and the reason I have to [unintelligible] we use a Post Office box address and I haven't bothered to memorize the street address. Anyhow, I'd like to thank, I guess, Rick Cisar, for all the information that's been made available. And I don't pretend to know all the complications of all this stuff, so I'm not goin to try to cross the t's and dot the i's, but just two points basically I'd like to make, and one is that in whatever logic I can possess, it seems to me to be indisputable logic that it's always best to maximize your options. And therefore, in this kind of scenario, it would seem to be the best to maximize the options of the UGA, to maximize the UGA. Since it's not necessarily expanding the city of Sultan or doing anything that's terribly controversial, but it will only provide them most options for future consideration. That seems to me to be most [unintelligible]. Now, for my situation, our property is -- I don't know if you're all familiar with it, but we have the Holiday Hill Christmas Tree Farm on the north side of 124^th up there a mile off the Basin Road. And our primary objective at this point being is access to city water. It's not a crises. We have a good well. But, uh, I just -- I'm not wearing [unintelligible] and suspenders but I describe myself as a belt and suspenders kind of a person. I have a good well, but I'd also like to have access to city water. The UGA is now corner-to-corner with my property, as best as I understand it. When I bought the property, it was my understanding that the UGA bisected my property and I found out later that either the map had been changed, or the city of Sultan's map and the county's map weren't the same, or there was some type of confusion there. But anyhow, I ended up being outside the UGA, and therefore, even though the water line goes under my driveway, I can't hook up to it. But anyhow, it's now corner-to-corner with my property. Under the low-growth scenario, you're going to include my neighbor's entire property, which is now bisected, and then I've got one whole border that's in the UGA, but my property would still not be in the UGA. And I would like my property to be annexed into that description so that it would be included in the low growth UGA. And if you go to the moderate UGA, you would include my neighbor to the west. It would include the county gravel pit, or whatever you call it, [unintelligible] just south of the western portion of my property. And so I have a border on one side, a border on the other side still in the UGA and mine still would not be in the UGA, and I have a property across the street from me [that] would be in the UGA, and once again, my property would be in the moderate growth scenario of the UGA. And I guess that's about my whole story. I've got two things to say and that's, I think logic [unintelligible] the highest number of options available, and my own selfish motives I'd like to be included in the low and moderate growth UGA, so I have the best likelihood to get access to city water. Thank you. [back to top]

Kelly Korn 13226 Trout Farm Road. I would like to ask you guys not to vote on an alternative until some of this stuff has been added to the plan. I notice there are inserts that come later; the capital facilities plan, the stormwater plan, [and] I think these are things that should be inserted before you vote on your alternative. For example, Cliff Morris would like to put a development at the end of our road, and it has contingency on stormwater. How do you know what plan, how much growth you can afford without going out for a loan how much money you have to deal with, or how much water is available and to be incorporated? I really, I like the vision of the comprehensive plan, but I don't see expanding boundaries until you can say that you can support them. Also, I have, on the parks, you don't propose parks in that, but it's not defined how they will happen. I would like to see it put on paper that if impact fees are what's going to pay for the parks when people who come to town, we should put it in writing. There's going to be an impact fee for anybody who builds a house and that's going to go towards a park. For every 1000 people, there's supposed to be 42 acres of park, so let's -- we need to define this stuff before you vote.. That's why Rick's suggestion is, he's going to vote. And another thing I would like to say is that I believe that when this public hearing is over, they will vote on an alternative. Well, maybe it'll [unintelligible] high, and then it goes to the council, and the council takes it. Well, who is going to insert all the comprehensive plans and the scenic things and all the goals that you put in there? Who's going to fill in those blanks? I think that's something we really need to know. [back to top]

Cole Auckland I my only question is I look at all the Sultan Comprehensive Plan surveys, and I'm reading all these things that they've inserted, I think my question is Sultan has told me that they're broke. How can they afford it? Where's all this money going to come from for doing all of these things that you guys want to do? All this urban growth and sewage systems? And I understand that the sewage system now is almost at capacity. A whole bunch of this stuff needs to be repaired, and Sultan can't even afford to do that. So I guess my question is, where's this money coming from? Thank you. [back to top]

Kay George I'm at 1304 Skywall Drive here in Sultan. And I would like to encourage you to vote for the moderate or high density plan. The reason being that so many people [unintelligible] would like to work in Sultan and in order to do that, we need more jobs. In order to keep businesses going in Sultan, we need more clientele for those businesses, who are very tired of being asked for special levies to run our police and schools, when commercial properties should be paying for this. [unintelligible] in this area is extremely [unintelligible] because very few businesses want to come to Sultan because very few of them last. And we need more people in order to get more business here and in order to get more jobs. Before we [unintelligible]. For instance, Mr. Morris' plan to put some houses out on Trout Farm Road, if we don't cooperate with him and get money for our sewers and water system and other facilities, he'll just go to the county, and the houses will go in anyway and we will not get the benefit of that. Just as we did not get the benefit of the gravel pit. We now have a lot of gravel trucks going through our town, yet route 2 was the major roadblock and the major downfall that I've heard of when the gravel pit issue was going around. However, we didn't, we have the gravel trucks going through our town, but we don't get any of the benefit now. We don't have the jobs. We don't have the commercial growth. We don't have the commercial tax break base that neighboring towns welcome. And we should be doing that, too. And the medium to high density plans certainly does that. If we don't welcome the development, our neighboring communities certainly will, and we'll such suffer from the development that goes into our neighboring communities and get no benefit at all. Thank you very much. [back to top]

Jim Flower Hi, guys. I live at 14110 339^th [Rice Rd.] Avenue SE here in Sultan. I've been a business owner in this town since 1987. And I just want to comment on the section here that has to do with open space and conservancy. On page 5, item 14, it says, "conserve the Wagley Creek corridor and adjacent wetlands from Sultan Basin Road across Rice Road to the edge of the plateau and Pacific Northwest Pipeline to reduce flood risk, protect wildlife habitat and improve surface water quality, preserve [unintelligible] value and provide public access. I've spoken on this issue before (see Note #2) and it's kind of curious, the history of this so-called creek, 'cause it's actually a ditch. And I've talked to many long-time residents of this town that tell me that this was manually dug by the City of Sultan, long about the turn of the 20^th Century, to feed a mill pond. The mill pond itself was moved several times. There was one down by Hoco Flats, there was one down at the Sultan Saw Shop, and I'm told also that at one time this ditch flowed right down Main Street. That's the reason that this thing, for the most part, runs in straight lines. Creek don't make straight lines. This creek originally, in the 19^th Century, flowed into Wallace Creek, the Wallace River. And what I'm getting at is that it's only in the past few years that the City decided to adopt a 100-foot setback from this creek, or ditch, to protect wildlife habitat, scenic value, or whatever reason. However, this -- essentially, a drainage ditch -- this time runs right through the best industrial land we have. (see endnote 3) It was because of the special protection of this ditch that the LID 97 ran so many millions of dollars in overruns in costs, when essentially it could be moved back. I have spoken with the actual property owner that is, owns the property that the ditch could be moved to a future location and apparently it's a very short distance. I was told once at a city council meeting, says, well, yeah, you could re-route that, but you'd still have a wetland. Well, you might have a wetland, but you wouldn't have a Type 3 salmon-bearing creek with 100-foot setbacks. What I would like to see in these different growth scenarios to address the issue of that particular creek, and reduce the setbacks to its original 25 feet. An example of that would be down where Wagley Creek Automotive is, a place where I used to rent a building from for 15 years that was built around 1987, and using the 25-foot setback. And you're welcome to walk back and see there's absolutely no harm done to any of, of the habitat in there, 'cause it runs a nice, square line around the property north and south and directly east and west and down towards the tracks, as drainage ditches tend to do. Twenty-five feet is not too close to that creek, as long as strict attention is paid to what's on that particular [unintelligible]. I feel that 100 feet is a terrible waste of prime industrial land. And for economic growth of this town, or at least [unintelligible] the only industrial land we have, I think we're throwing a lot away towards this unnecessarily. It is not our fault that there's only a few salmon left. I would say that the major reason there's only a few salmon left is the wholesale dredging of the Pacific Ocean. I heard a resident recently say, "You know, if you had to give a two-year moratorium on salmon fishing, they'll all come back." Well, whether or not we park 25 feet or 100 feet away from an old drainage ditch, isn't going to make that much of a difference. But it does make a difference as far as the economic development of this comp plan. Thank you for your time. [back to top]

Sue Shawger On the comprehensive plan, page 2, second column just above Alternative Two, second paragraph above that, arterial roadway network, I know you said this was not a question and answer period, but I have a question, nevertheless. And that's a road along Pacific Northwest Pipeline to provide access between Old Town and the Plateau that would not be dependent on State Route 2, I don't understand that, how you'd get down to town. I do understand that the pipeline is on the south edge of my property, and on the north side of my south neighbor, who is currently high density [unintelligible]. It just seems like there's so many things going on. We have 132^nd where [unintelligible] sell off your land, and high-density houses in some instances, and the Trout Farm Road project; it just seems that there's a lot going on all at one time. Thank you. [back to top]

Paul Tortice {Not very good sound quality] I live at 132^nd Street in Sultan. There are some issues that come to my mind. I have a manufactured home in Monroe. [unintelligible] to Sultan. And I inquired, but I haven't really found any success in finding something that would make it worth my while to invest [unintelligible] to grow here. I would like to encourage the council to make it more user-friendly for the [unintelligible] the city. [Something about having property that would be more obtainable and affordable.] As for growth, actually there's a lot of things [unintelligible] and I think the city needs responsible citizens and leaders to have a vision to take this city forward. It's been a small city for quite a long time, and I think now we have an opportunity to do something and take [unintelligible] ahold of it and grow in a responsible manner. And I think the moderate-to-high growth area would be an excellent opportunity for the city to take. And I encourage you to do so. Thank you. [back to top]

Jean Roberts 31724 - 124^th Street S. E. I would like the Planning Commissioner to consider the zero growth alternative. I think things the way they've been, because I think there has been a point of [unintelligible] and people, that Sultan has a lot to decide on and is building a lot in the urban growth area right now. And Mrs. Kelly had a lot to say about the lack of capital facilities plan, and that I understand the City of Sultan does not have very much money. And so I am also one of those people wondering where we're going to get money to put these ideas into action. And so I urge to you to just wait a bit and choose the zero alternative. Thank you. [back to top]

Loretta Storm 33520 - 116^th Street S. E. I would like to urge the Commission to recommend an alternative #1 -- or maybe it's zero; several people had requested on previous input on the comp plan that the No Growth Scenario be considered Alternative #1. I'm not sure what it is now. To support that -- one of the things to support that is an August 22, 2002 article in the Herald, where Snohomish County Tomorrow quoted -- it was a quote by them -- that said, "By 2012, every city except Sultan would run out of land now designated for urban development under the state's Growth Management Act." Sultan does not need any more land expanded in the UGA. [unintelligible] in the comp plan justified in there. There are still hundreds of undeveloped acres that have not yet been tapped. I understand that everybody wants their own personal agenda -- Mr. Downs, I certainly respect his viewpoint, [unintelligible] Jean Roberts and Sue Shawger -- my fear is that we just will take on too much. The process, I believe, and the leadership and the vision is not yet in place to be able to handle more land than we have right now. All of our infrastructure is pretty well maxed out with what we currently have. And I think it would be prudent to review -- or to make a decision based on the No Growth scenario. Let's get caught up in the plan for the fill-in of the UGA that we have currently. And as -- you know, we can always add new land later. And as Rick Cisar and Tom Beckwith and others who are so fond of saying, "It's a work in process," and annexations occur, can occur easily to expand the UGA, given time, so I guess my concerns are that we…try and develop slowly, with quality, rather than helter-skelter as we have been doing. Once we've ruined it, we can't, it's not a redo. We have to live with that. Thank you very much. [back to top]

Ron Olson 712 [unintelligible]. I guess we want to talk about growth and how big growth is and, you know, I'm an engineer and so I tend to think growth is a good thing because it keeps me in work. Specifically, on transportation, highway work. So I'd like to see growth and see highways and stuff. But I gotta tell you, that expanding the UGA out in Sultan is probably not, it does not seem like a prudent thing to do. If we had a four-lane highway out on Highway 2, and nice, free-flowing highways running all the way into our major work horse entities, you know, say, Everett or Bellevue or Seattle, and [unintelligible] all those areas, that'd be another thing. I don't know how many of you people commute, but I commute to Bellevue and this doesn't just affect us here. I mean, it affects the entire highway. And again, I could be a little self-serving and say let's put more people in the area, let's put more people on the highways and I'll get more work out of it. But the fact of the matter is, it's an absolute nightmare out there. And none of this takes me to town [unintelligible]. I think Monroe in general, I hear I don't think we've done a great job in recent years. And I think we need to be more prudent, we need to be slower and the No Growth or Slow Growth is the best way to do it. There's a big difference if you were right down in the main workforce area. But we're not. I don't know how well we'd think of it if, say, Skykomish suddenly -- I mean, does it make a lot of sense to put thousands and thousands of new homes up in Skykomish? Heck no. It wouldn't make sense for Highway 2. So I think we're kind of in that situation so I'd like you to consider that. Thank you. [back to top]

Storm Can I just make -- ?? I'm sorry.

Seehuus Yeah, come up.

Storm I just have one more comment on the capital facilities plan. We have not done one for approximately 8, 9 years. To echo what Kelly Korn was saying and other people have been saying, you -- and the RCW's say -- you need to do the capital facilities plan in concert as part of this Plan. It needs to be done before the [unintelligible] goes to the council, if that's possible, or certainly a draft. Not doing a capital facilities plan to me is sort of like -- as a real estate agent -- and Bart [Dalmasso} and Tom [Green] can relate to this -- you would not show a $1 million, $2 million house to someone with an income of $30,000 a year. And you have to be able to find, to determine what your buying power is, and that's called a capital facilities plan. And it's way over due. [back to top]

Randy Johnson 1208 Love's Hill Drive. I would like the council, the planning commission to vote on Alternative Zero, No Action. I also commute to Bellevue, and until something's done with the highway, if we try to increase the density out here, it's just going to be incredibly worse, trying to make the commute back-and-forth. I'm also concerned about the, our water supply and sewers, sewer district, whether or not we're at capacity for that. So until some of these other things have been dealt with, I think that Alternative Zero is most definitely the way to go, to vote. Thank you. [back to top]

Mrs. Weisenberger 3360? - 132^nd S. E. [the large, security-fenced property at the southwest corner of Rice and 132^nd St.] We are not in the city, but we have had [unintelligible] to the city asking to be in the city, 'cause we'd like to use the water. We have adequate water through a well, but it's an expensive system, and we don't really care, but we moved here in 1968, and we moved here. It's the same thing. We're here now, so pull the gate across the highway, nobody else come in. That's kind of a funny situation, isn't it? What if we did that in 1968? There'd probably be a lot of people that wouldn't even be here now, right? So [unintelligible] come up with the same old thing. I think zero [unintelligible] is great, if we don't have any more kids. Is that going to be a possibility? It is for me, I hope, but… [then chuckles; [Mrs. Weisenberger is closer to "grandmother" age than she is "mother" age]. And the other thing, you know, the [unintelligible] that says, we need more [unintelligible] shops, more restaurants, fix up the [unintelligible], and blah-blah-blah. But on the next page it says how many people shop at the stores that are here? How can we survive [unintelligible] these things, if everyone's going to Monroe to do their shopping? [Mrs. Weisenberger is basically saying that focus needs to be on commercial business and local shopping. My apologies to Mrs. Weisenberger, but her comments did not come through well enough to do a precise word-for-word.] If we had a road from, like Sultan Basin to downtown, instead of [unintelligible] you have to go out on the highway. There are these people that live along the [unintelligible] go down to school, go to the post office, they go to churches or whatever. That would save a lot of traffic on Highway 2. Of course, that's not the easiest thing in the world, but it's the [unintelligible]. Thank you. [back to top]

Mel [last name sounds like, "Christian"] I grew up and [unintelligible] the valley here and came in about, oh, 13, 14 years ago. The only way you're going to get better highways out here is to get more people. The highways don't come before the people. [unintelligible]. I lived in Renton almost my entire life. I moved out here in Sultan [unintelligible; missed several sentences, unfortunately, but he was more pro-growth, than not.]

Ray Kistenmacher 33520 - 116^th S. E. Two things. If we only get a four-lane highway by developing, when is that going to happen? Dept. of Transportation doesn't even have four lanes on their 20-year plan, so how long are we going to put up with congestion following any development? Secondly, there seems to be a big misconception on the Zero Growth plan. Zero Growth doesn't mean Zero Growth in the town, zero growth means zero growth in the UGA. There are still hundreds of undeveloped acres inside the UGA that can be developed that will provide lots of growth for the town. You don't have to enlarge it to grow the town. [back to top]

Seehuus Anybody else? Going once….

Storm Can I ask a question? John, can I ask a question? Is that possible, or not?

Seehuus Eh…[unintelligible]?

Storm I actually need to ask it of Beckwith or Cisar.

Seehuus Tom? Are you willing to field a question?

Beckwith Sure.

Seehuus Go ahead.

Storm Thanks. You said the 12-page document was a newsletter? The - ?

Beckwith Yes?

Storm Okay, I just wondering, when was that mailed out to everyone?

Beckwith This was mailed out at the [Tom indicated the small, two-sided, one-page document was mailed out, but the larger, 12-page was only available for review at city hall.]

Storm Right, the double-sided? But that was a newsletter, and that [the larger document] was never a newsletter. I think that's important. I, I believe that's a very important distinction.

Beckwith But [unintelligible] call it a newsletter. This is a newsletter.

Storm But when it goes to CTED [Washington State's Department of Community Trade and Economic Development] is probably you won't call it a newsletter. I mean, it didn't go out as a newsletter. That's important. Thank you.

Seehuus Thank you, Loretta. Is there anybody else before we… [back to top]

Kelly John? Can I [unintelligible]?

Seehuus Go ahead.

Kelly Korn On your map here, this is a list of goals and implementation, it talks about not expanding the city limits for any major additional residential development within the urban growth area boundaries until or unless the economic/fiscal strategies produce the public tax revenues sufficient to support the additional urban population. So they're saying just to even grow in the land we already have, we're supposed to be able to say we can support it, let alone expand the boundaries. Who's going to say we're ready to expand the boundaries? Is there, like, a budget person here that says, "Okay, we're ready to take another step forward?" [back to top]

Seehuus Anybody else?

Mark Fallgatter 13231 Trout Farm Road. As long as we've been studying this issue -- I've attended meetings back and forth, planning commission, council -- I don't really hear people saying that they're against growth. They're just saying, "Is Sultan prepared to address growth? Do you have a track record that says, "Yes, we can handle the growth because we're handling what we have now." I don't have a problem with growth. I'm in an industry where growth is my livelihood. But if you can't do it right, don't proceed until you can. Take a look at all the issues that everybody has. And most people will address you on their personal level. The issue that needs to be taken into consideration is the benefit of all. Not that somebody wants a four-lane, like all the population in Monroe has a four-lane? How many times have they grown or doubled, and do we still have four lanes? Yeah. I don't want to be told what we're gonna get. Let's address what we're capable of handling today. If we have water that Sultan's in charge of and says we can provide water, let's have documentation that says yes we can. Let's have documentation from wastewater saying, "Yes, we can add this many." UGA? I thought it was perfect what Ray said about the No Growth doesn't say we don't growth, it just says where we do grow. We do have plenty of land in this city. Growth in the UGA is not a problem, if it's done correctly. Part of the issue is that [unintelligible] address these issues, you have to be able to answer for yourself and for everybody around, true answers, facts -- not what you think can be done, not what I guess someone else told me, but you have to be able to come back and say, "Here's why we can't do it," or "Here's why we can." I vote for the No Growth scenario. That's my view right now. Only because -- part of the thing that I hear in my work is, it's easier to ask for permission than it is to ask for forgiveness. A lot of people come to us after the fact and they say, "Oh, forgive me for what I did." Aren't we tired of asking forgiveness? Let's just do it right. Let's plan ahead and do it right so we don't have to be the person that says, "Forgive us for what we did. We didn't have all the information. We didn't -- we thought this was what was meant, but we really didn't know." Thank you.

Seehuus Anybody else?

Jackie Owen(?) I live at 33710 - 124^th Street S. E. in Sultan. My main concern, besides the crowdedness of the highway that already exists, until we put the growth in. We know how long the mass congestion took place before are able to fix the roads. And are we prepared for the school system, increasing more [unintelligible]? I was told by Dave [unintelligible] at the Sultan Elementary School that they could probably take up to another 100 children until they have a [unintelligible]. I'm in favor of some growth, but I think it should be planned out a little more carefully.

Seehuus Anybody else? Going once….? Okay. Are there additional staff comments? Rick? Tom? [back to top]

1. The "newsletter" is a several-page document that's a summary, or synopsis, of the four alternative plans. However, this so-called "newsletter" was never mailed to any residents. The only mailings made to residents was the first survey at the beginning of the process, and a one-page, two-sided notice of this June 17^th hearing which was mailed to all residents with a 98294 zip code. [back to top]

2. Mr. Flower's property on Rice Road borders Wagley Creek in the LID 97-1 industrial area. During the 2002 PC hearings on the Industrial Park Master Plan, Mr. Flower recommended that Wagley Creek be redirected to follow its original flow path, which was eastward, into the Wallace River. [back to top]

3. The "best industrial land" was made so by the City S.I.R.E.s making the decision to run a sewer line right through what also just happens to be the most ecologically-sensitive area in Sultan. The "many millions of dollars" in cost overruns was due to Mayor Rowe's blatant disregard for federal, state, county and city laws during construction, violating federal and state permits that caused a project shut-down. [back to top]

4 Rick Cisar had touted holding more than one hearing before voting on one of the Plan's alternatives, and perhaps an interactive workshop. [back to top]