I thought I’d choke when I read the April 19 article about Snohomish County’s plan for growth. Executive Aaron Reardon claims that there has been tremendous sprawl and unmanaged, unplanned growth. He also claims that the schools are overcrowded. Can anybody be surprised after 12 years of unchecked growth? Maybe Mr. Reardon was too young to remember the initiation of growth management in Snohomish County in 1992 or 1993. The County Council has had everything to do with the sprawl since it voted on all of these developments. The sprawl has continued for one simple reason: The more units you can put on a piece of land, the more tax revenues the county realizes. It’s that simple.
People are creatures with immediate needs. If they can’t find a new house to buy when they’re looking, they’ll move to another county with better job prospects. Most don’t want to wait to have a house built for them. Our county doesn’t have enough jobs to employ all the people that already live here, hence the logjam of vehicles on I-5 heading south toward King County every morning. Snohomish County needs to quit encouraging home building and start encouraging businesses that can offer a decent living wage to settle and build within Snohomish County.
The officials of Snohomish County circa 1992 brought us this sprawl, much to the delight of the big developers and builders. Now Reardon claims that we need to make a change and make self-contained towns and urban villages. I think we’ve had enough of the Snohomish County Council’s help, don’t you? Any comment you may make at these growth workshops will make little difference, since sprawl equals a huge tax base for the county.
Cathy Ryan
Everett
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