I get the sentiment raised in the Sunday letter which asked that victims of the Oso slide not to sue taxpayers for its failure to protect the residents of Steelhead Drive, based on the idea that some residents themselves did not welcome any government restrictions on their property and accidents happen. However, there are two sides to the moral hazards involved.
A primary reason that building permits were continuously issued for Steelhead Drive in the first place and better information was not provided to imperiled property owners, was county and state agency fear of lawsuits from the real estate interests involved. Now, if the people who were harmed by these fear-based policies cannot sue, out of some heightened sense of hypocrisy, the county will never have incentive to take a firm stance on the side of public safety. We see this over and over again, especially in Snohomish County. Fear of reprisal from moneyed developers leads it to err on the side of faint-to-completely-absent protections of our drinking water supplies, stable slopes, our fisheries and public safety.
The number of county hearing examiners that the Master Builder’s lobby has drummed out of a job for imposing some legal limits to development for the sake of public safety is too long to recite here, and is a legacy of the Reardon administration. The attitude speaks volumes and is ripe for change under our more open-minded Executive Lovick.
The county already spends millions of tax dollars to settle developer claims, regardless of merit. (So much so, let’s just hope disbursements are leveraged affordable through insurance anyway). Victims of heedless land use policies must take their turn to hold government accountable. It’s the only way for decent public safeguards to get respect.
Laura Hartman
Snohomish
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