As a past president of the Snohomish County Farm Bureau, I respectfully have to disagree with the contents of the letter written by Barbara Bailey in which she seems to claim that the Growth Management Act has been good to farmers (“Council members must quit fighting GMA,” Feb. 12).
When Sen. Cliff Bailey voted for the GMA more than 10 years ago, he thought that one of its goals, of improving agricultural industries, was worth the drawbacks of the rest of the GMA. Ever since, however, the Washington State Farm Bureau has been fighting the unconstitutional principals of the implementation of the GMA.
Although the Snohomish County Farm Bureau does not always agree with the Snohomish County Council’s decisions, the grass roots policies established by the farm bureau support the actions of Councilman Jeff Sax and the council to defend the individual rights of property owners. It is the farm bureau’s policy that land use issues should be decided by local ordinance, and not by some group of people in Seattle appointed by the governor – the very issues this council has taken to the courts.
Under GMA we have lost more farmers in Snohomish County than before. GMA has punished farmers by locking up their lands, by increasing their regulatory burdens and by demanding unconstitutional buffers. The net income of farmers has deteriorated to the point that they cannot afford to farm anymore. The fact that farmers have to resort to compost facilities, hay rides, pumpkin shoots and corn mazes speaks for itself. But in reality that is not farming. GMA was never intended to save the farmland without the farmer. This council supports the right to plow, and passed an agricultural amendment ordinance as recently as last year in support of farming activities. The Growth Management Act may be somebody’s friend, but it is not mine.
John Postema
Snohomish
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