New goal: Get the college, then a site
Published 11:07 pm Saturday, November 29, 2008
Bill Wilkerson can extract the possible from the impossible better than most.
He’s garnered respect in the state as a go-to guy in difficult situations, a man capable of turning adversaries into partners by crafting fair agreements rather than politically expedient ones.
It’s a reputation built from his role in negotiating treaties to end some heavyweight fights on fishing rights and timber harvests and forest practices.
Eight weeks ago he boldly accepted a new challenge — and $10,000 a month — of trying to untangle the knot that’s nearly choked the hope out of the community of ever seeing a University of Washington branch campus.
For months, lawmakers from Snohomish, Island and Skagit counties have been wrestling on the question of where to pour the foundation.
The state Legislature gave $100,000 to the Higher Education Coordinating Board to try to find consensus. The board hired Wilkerson as its emissary.
Had all gone well, Wilkerson would be providing state lawmakers with an answer this week on an agreed-upon location.
He’s not, because once again, the disagreement on soil proved more unsolvable than a Rubik’s Cube.
There continues to be a clash of wills between pods of folks led by Rep. Hans Dunshee, D-Snohomish, and Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen, D-Camano Island, respectively. Dunshee’s side wants it in Everett, Haugen wants in Marysville, and the distance between them is not much less today than when it emerged a year ago.
Wilkerson said he wouldn’t call his effort a setback.
“I think it was the wrong assignment,” he said.
He explained that everyone he spoke with these last two months agreed a college is needed and this opportunity shouldn’t be lost.
Yet he sensed — as many others have — that with the legislators arguing about land before securing a legislative commitment for the university, they put the proverbial cart before the horse and risked it all.
This week he’ll recommend legislators do what they did in launching the University of Washington Tacoma: They authorized the branch campus without identifying where it would be built.
Classes began at a temporary location while community leaders sorted through sites and settled on one.
In 2009, the goal would be a law pledging that Snohomish County house the next state-funded four-year college without naming a place, setting a timeline for opening or committing the University of Washington to run it.
It would put the county first in line when the state is ready, willing and able to operate another higher education institution.
This authority would be more than nothing but far from the something expected from the studies, jibber-jabber and $2 million spent on the college pursuit since 2005.
Dueling lawmakers can save some face if this tack succeeds. Then maybe they’ll be more inclined to shelve their egos, end their battles and make the dream a reality.
For that, Wilkerson should get his name on one of the buildings.
Political reporter Jerry Cornfield: 360-352-8623 or jcornfield@heraldnet.com.
