Tell county what the public needs to have

On Tuesday, the Snohomish County Planning Commission will be considering some very important issues for the future of our community. If you haven’t heard about it, you’re not alone. Unfortunately, very few people have.

The county is choosing which facilities and services they will call “necessary for development.” These are the things that will have identified service standards that must be budgeted for in the county budget or shown to be adequate. Included in the list of items that are “necessary” are water, sanitary sewer (in urban areas), roads, schools and perhaps large community parks (though the proposed new standard for community parks is low and written ambiguously.)

Considered “not necessary” (and therefore without proposed service levels) are things like courtrooms, jail space, sheriff facilities, and local (smaller than 20 acre) parks. Not necessary? Do you want to do without them?

Common sense tells us that all of these services are necessary to build healthy and safe communities.

What needs to be done? In order to ensure that adequate funds are budgeted so that adequate services can be provided, the planning commission should demand that the planning department be honest about what communities realy need, about how much these needed facilities and services will cost and about how those facilities and services will be paid for. It is only with this kind of honesty that we can have faith that we have a government that works for the people of the community and is willing to hold itself accountable. The hearings will be at 2:15 p.m. (all facilities), and 4:15 p.m. (parks only) in the Ginni Stevens Hearing Room of the County Administration Building.

Lake Stevens

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