Chuckanut Mountain Park District

What is a Metropolitan Park District?

Metropolitan Park Districts were initially authorized in 1907 to enable neighborhoods within existing city limits to define a specific area within which the affected voters could tax themselves in order to have a neighborhood park, otherwise not available to them through the city government. One such park was created in 1907 and still exists. A second was created under the original law in 1945 which was subsequently disbanded after a short time. In 2002 the State Legislature passed an amendment at the instigation of two existing publicly constituted park and recreation districts to allow two existing governmental bodies to consolidate for specific budgetary reasons across jurisdictional boundaries, thus creating a “loophole”. This legislation also provides for a petition initiative to enable the creation of a Metropolitan Park District by citizens (an unforeseen future problem). Click here to learn more.

What is the purpose of the Chuckanut Mountains Park District?

In late 2006, a group known as the CMPD advisory committee took advantage of the above “loophole” and began a petition drive to obtain the required number of signatures in order to place the Chuckanut Mountains Park District proposal on the ballot in November of 2007. The CMPD advisory committee’s intention is to place a land mass encompassing over 42,500 acres of land (encompassing Chuckanut Mountain and Blanchard Mountain) into this park district to “protect” the land. This mass of land encompasses two major counties, Whatcom and Skagit.

What governs a park district?

The laws that govern a park district are the RCW’s (“Revised Code of Washington”)of the State of Washington.

• Laws Governing a MPD
• Why the NSC Does Not Support the CMPD Proposal
• NSC Lawsuit
• Organizations and Agencies Opposing the Proposed CMPD

NEWS ARTICLES

Chuckanut Park District at Dead End

Skagit Valley Herald
September 13, 2008
By RALPH SCHWARTZ
Staff Writer

A Skagit County judge’s ruling Friday ended a two year effort to create a new park district that was intended to preserve open space and provide recreational opportunities on 65 square miles from Bow Hill Road to Bellingham.

Superior Court Judge Dave Needy’s ruling let stand a settlement reached by the Upper Skagit Tribe, the North Sound Conservancy, and Skagit and Whatcom counties. In their lawsuits against the counties, the tribe and the conservancy group claimed the boundaries drawn around the Chuckanut Mountains Park District were flawed.

The counties ended up agreeing, and the auditors in the two counties reversed themselves and revoked their certifications of the ballot petitions for the park district.

This effectively put an end to the park district proposal.

Friday’s hearing was about the Park District Advisory Committee’s effort to intervene in the two lawsuits after the settlements had already been reached. Judge Needy ruled that the committee did not meet the high standards required to intervene in a case that has already been settled, because the committee had ample time to intervene before the settlement.

The park district committee has one option left — to challenge the boundary review boards in the two counties, which both rejected the park district proposal.

Because the auditors declared the committee’s petitions ineligible for the ballot, the park district committee will not pursue those appeals, committee member Frank Eventoff said.

“It looks like the park district is over for now,” he said.

Eventoff said he and some of his fellow members are willing to renew the effort to create a park district, which would have the authority to collect a tax from property owners within the district’s boundaries. The money would pay for land acquisition and recreation projects.

“I know the campaign is valid and needs attention, and we need to protect this fragile environment that we live in,” Eventoff said.

The park district plan faced opposition from a broad base of local agencies and property owners on both sides of the county line. They opposed a new property tax and feared the park district’s legal right to take over their land under the eminent domain law.

Court strikes blow to Chuckanuts park district

Bellingham Herald
July 31, 2008
Jared Paben
GROWTH

A court decision may have ended the effort to create a park district stretching from Bellingham to Bow that would tax landowners to preserve land from development.

The Skagit County Superior Court on Friday, July 25, said backers of the Chuckanut Mountains Park District made errors on their petitions to create a district. Judge Susan K. Cook ordered the Whatcom County and Skagit County auditors to yank their April 2007 stamps of approval for the petitions, which the auditors have done.

Opponents of the district say the decision is "pretty much the end" of the controversial effort by the Chuckanut Mountains Park District Advisory Committee. Some Skagit County residents say the district would be another unnecessary layer of government, and zoning already protects land from unnecessary development.

"I think with respect to this petition it's been pretty conclusively determined that it doesn't meet the requirements of the state law," said Bob Rauch, vice president of the Burlington-based opposition group North Sound Conservancy. "Hopefully, the committee will now realize it just doesn't make sense to keep pursuing this further."

Bob Gibb, a district backer, said the court's decision was wrong, but the committee hasn't decided whether to appeal.

"It totally stops the proposal unless we challenge that," he said.

The opposition used the legal process to financially wear down backers, who don't have as much money for lawyers, Gibb said.

"The whole thing is a civil liberties thing because there are over 3,000 people who signed that petition and they're being denied just based on technical claims and using the courts as a fiscal weapon," Gibb said.

Judge Cook wrote that district backers had conflicting descriptions of the district's southern boundaries. One error in the legal description "causes the southern boundary of the proposed park district to include a parallel of latitude that circumnavigates the world," she wrote. They also illegally included land belonging to the Upper Skagit Indian Tribe, which joined the North Sound Conservancy in suing to stop the district.

To get to the ballot for a vote, the proposal needed approval by the Whatcom County and Skagit County boundary review boards, but both previously rejected it. Backers appealed those decisions.

Rauch said this court decision negates those appeals because, without certification from the auditors, the proposal couldn't proceed to the boards anyway.

Reach Jared Paben at 715-2289 or jared.paben@bellinghamherald.com.

Another nail in Chuckanut park district coffin

Skagit Valley Herald
July 30, 2008
By RALPH SCHWARTZ
Staff Writer

Counties, park district opponents settle lawsuit, agree district boundaries were drawn incorrectly

A proposal to create a metropolitan park district from Bow Hill Road to Bellingham may have been dealt a final, fatal blow.
   
After two lawsuits challenging the proposed Chuckanut Mountains Park District were settled last week, it is even less likely that the proposal will go before voters in Skagit and Whatcom counties.
   
The park district proposal has been on life support ever since the boundary review boards in both counties rejected it earlier this year. The park district’s advisory committee appealed the boundary review boards’ decisions in Superior Court.
   
Members of the North Sound Conservancy, one of the groups that filed a lawsuit challenging the proposal, believe the settlement puts an end to those appeals. In the settlement, the county auditors agreed that the ballot petition filed by park district proponents last year was invalid.
   
As a result, the boundary review boards no longer have authority to consider the proposal, North Sound Conservancy Vice President Bob Rauch said.
   
“It’s our position of course that now that those cases are moot, the (courts) will take the appropriate steps regarding those cases,” Rauch said.
   
“It would be our hope that this would end it.”
   
Park District Advisory Committee President Bob Gibb said Wednesday he was not aware of the settlement and could not comment.
   
The North Sound Conservancy claimed in its lawsuit that the auditors should not have approved the park district advisory committee’s ballot petitions. The park district boundaries were described differently on different parts of the petition, rendering the petitions invalid, according to the settlement.
   
The Upper Skagit Indian Tribe also filed suit because the park district included Indian trust land within its boundaries. The settlement acknowledged that this would have violated state law.
   
After Skagit County Superior Court Judge Susan Cook signed the settlement on Friday, the auditors in both counties withdrew the decisions they made in April 2007 to qualify the park district’s petition for the ballot.
   
The 65-square-mile park district would have had the authority to collect a property tax to fund conservation and recreation projects. Park district proponents had originally hoped to put their proposal before voters within the district last November.
   
The vote had to be put off after the Skagit County commissioners and Fire District 5 expressed concerns about the proposal and requested a hearing before the Skagit County Boundary Review Board.
   
County commissioners believed the county would not have been fairly represented in the park district. The county had 40 percent of the land in the park district but only 8 percent of the voters.
   
The proposal also faced strong opposition from landowners on both sides of the county line. They feared the park district’s authority to condemn property and didn’t see the need for a new tax for services already provided by the Department of Natural Resources and other agencies.
 
Ralph Schwartz can be reached at 360-416-2138 or rschwartz@skagitvalley

 

Chuckanut Park District Plan is too Broad, Unclear

May, 4, 2008
OUR VIEW
BELLINGHAM HERALD EDITORIAL

About three years ago, then Bellingham Mayor Mark Asmundson told opponents of Fairhaven Highlands that if they wanted to stop the development that they should form a special taxing district and raise the money to buy the property.

Several residents took him up on the challenge and in 2006 proposed the Chuckanut Mountain Park District.

Unfortunately, the group has come up with a plan that goes well beyond the original idea of raising money for Fairhaven Highlands. They propose a park district that stretches over 60 square miles and has the potential to include many taxpayers with no geographical interest in another Fairhaven park.

The proposal has lost its way. Backers can’t say how much new taxes homeowners in the area would pay and what exactly the money would be used for. Given that, we recommend citizens and community leaders reject the plan.

NEW BUREUCRACY

There are many people in our community who favor spending money to preserve the Fairhaven Highlands property, an island of trees across the street from the Edgemoor neighborhood.

But the proposed park district won’t raise nearly enough money for that purchase. On the other hand, it will create another level of bureaucracy and more taxes for thousands of residents of southern Bellingham and rural areas south of the city.

That prospect has already raised concerns. Members of the Samish Neighborhood Asssociation, for example, are on record opposing the district. But supporters drew the boundaries of the district so that Samish residents would have to take part and pay taxes anyway.

The proposed district also stretches well into Skagit County. But the Skagit County Boundary Review Board eliminted that possibility when legal reasons and the lobbying of upset Skagit residents forced board members to deny the district’s establishment there. It’s possible district supporters may appeal that ruling through a lawsuit.

We support the protection of the wonderful recreational areas on and around Chuckanut Mountain. Where zoning is already appropriate, we are glad to have that area to use for hikes and other outdoors excursions. Thankfully, much of the area is already protected, including more than 2,600 acres in Larrabee State Park and a roadless area in state forests on nearby Blanchard Mountain set aside last year.

We are not sure how creating a new government, with the ability to tax up to 75 cents for each $1,000 of home value, is the right way to approach more protection. On the contrary, we believe that the protection of areas in the Chuckanuts are the responsibility of the Whatcom and Skagit county councils. Those councils must guarantee they never allow increased development in these hills. As our board has stated on many occasions, we believe new development should come within cities, such as at Fairhaven Highlands, and not on our rural, agricultural and forest lands outside of cities.

TAX QUESTIONS

We believe now is not a good time for creation of any new taxes or taxing authorities. The economy is tight and county residents are already rebelling by voting down needed school bonds. Despite some critical needs, schools are paying for a tax burden that, to many, already seems too high. Fire districts in the proposed park district area have come out opposed to the plan, concerned about competition for limited tax dollars.

Proponents say in their literature, and on their Web site at www.chuckanutmpd.org/, that they only support a new tax of some 25 cents per $1,000 of property value. Yet they know that once a park board is elected, that board could choose a much higher rate, and can increase it annually, as other governments do. Meanwhile, the same proponents admit that 25 cents per $1,000 of property value would only raise about $625,000 a year, well short of the $15 million or more price tag on Fairhaven Highlands. With limits on the amount governments can raise by issuing bonds, they would be short of the money needed.

The park district could be created by a littleknown law passed in Olympia. Opponents of the plan argue that the law was meant to help neighborhoods create taxing districts to support their local, existing parks, not to stretch well outside of cities and allow taxation of rural residents. Those opponents say they don’t feel they should be taxed because some Bellingham residents want to save Fairhaven Highlands. But the park district boundaries have been set up in a way that those residents would be easily outvoted by city residents should a new district come to a vote.

And that is where the process stands today. Proponents of the park are arguing in front of the Whatcom County Boundary Review Board for their plan. If it is accepted, the plan would likely come to a vote, though lawsuits are sure to be filed before that.

We hope and expect, based on what happened in Skagit County, that the proposal will be rejected. Then maybe organizers can refocus their efforts on their own neighborhoods and not a too big district and a potentially too expensive new government body.

http://www.bellinghamherald.com/315/story/398953.html

 

Board Right to Reject Chuckanut District Bid

Skagit Valley Herald
Editorial
March 11, 2008

The Skagit County Boundary Review Board dealt a potentially fatal blow to the proposed Chuckanut Mountains Park District last week when it voted to reject the 26-square-mile portion of the district that would be in Skagit County.

We endorse that locally sensitive decision. The Whatcom County Boundary Review Board is now left to decide whether to approve the remaining 39 square miles of the proposed district. That group is proceeding with an understandable abundance of caution, seeking more legal and environmental advice before it acts.

Public sentiment has been building against the proposed district, particularly on this side of the county line. Supporters point to the need for a means to resist overdevelopment and overuse of the scenic area. Opponents worry that taxes may be used to buy private property through eminent domain.

From the first, we have questioned the necessity of such a district, the lack of specific goals and the apparent inequities of representation for Skagit County residents. Absent any more-enlightening answers, the local boundary board’s decision is appropriate.

* Editorials reflect the consensus opinion of the editorial board and are written by its members: Publisher L. Stedem Wood, Editor Don Nelson and City Editor Dick Clever.

http://www.goskagit.com/index.php/opinion/article/board_right_to_reject_chuckanut_district_bid/

STILL TOO MANY QUESTIONS ABOUT PARK DISTRICT

Skagit Valley Herald
Editorial
June 15, 2007

No need to be delicate about it.  To many Skagit County residents, the proposed Chuckanut Mountains Park District looks a lot like a naked land grab by Whatcom County residents who want to end-run the recent Blanchard Mountain management agreement.

It kind of looks like that to us, too.

But motives aside – and we’re not putting them entirely aside – it’s hard to tell what the proposal really amounts to, or what its backers intend, because many of their own statements about it are vague or contradictory.

The citizen group that gathered enough signatures to qualify the Chuckanut Mountains proposal for the ballot seeks creation of a park district stretching from south Bellingham to Bow Hill Road in Skagit County.  In Skagit, the western boundary is Samish Bay and the eastern boundary would follow Interstate 5.  The district, which would have taxing power, is intended to enhance recreation and wildlife management within its boundaries.

The proposed district surfaced at about the same time an advisory group was hammering out a compromise – since endorsed and partly funded by the state – to reduce logging on Blanchard Mountain in exchange for timberland elsewhere.  That agreement includes features to protect logging revenues that go to some Skagit County governments.

It is no surprise that the Chuckanut proposal is seen by some skeptics as a stalking horse for continued efforts to stop logging on Blanchard altogether.  Blanchard Mountain is managed by the state Department of Natural Resources – raising the question, what exactly would the Chuckanut district manage?

Property owners in that part of Skagit County have to be wondering what, aside from an additional line on their annual property tax bill, the district would mean for them.  About half of the proposed park district is in Skagit County, but Whatcom County residents make up more than 90 percent of the registered voters within the proposed boundaries.  If every eligible voter in Skagit County opposed the measure, they would still be overwhelmed by a positive response in Whatcom County.

That could suggest a big Skagit County impact with little Skagit County participation or say-so.  That strikes a lot of people, including us, as woefully out of balance.  The proposal is likely to have a public hearing, where we are hopeful that such issues will be addressed.

Everyone agrees that the area within the park district’s proposed boundary is an extraordinary part of the state.  And who doesn’t like the idea of improved recreational uses?  But we have yet to hear anything about the Chuckanut Mounts proposal that sounds like urgency, necessity or even desirability.

B-E Schools Oppose Chuckanut Mountains Park District

Skagit Valley Herald
September 11, 2007
Jennifer Carter

BURLINGTON — A proposal to create a park district stretching from Bow Hill Road to Bellingham hasn’t impressed the Burlington-Edison School District, whose elected leaders say they have too many questions about how the proposal would affect school district finances.

The School Board voted 3-0 Monday for a resolution opposing the proposed Chuckanut Mountains Park District. Vice President Marty Lopez did not attend the meeting.

“The school district absolutely has nothing but things to lose,” board member Dick Spink said after the meeting.

He said the board put a lot of thought and research into the decision to oppose the park.

A citizens group has proposed creating the park district, which would include land in Skagit and Whatcom counties, including Blanchard Mountain.

The mountain is managed by the Department of Natural Resources, and the school district is one of several public entities that receives some revenue from timber harvests there.

Those revenues can vary widely year to year, district Finance Director Greg Thramer said. In the 2006-2007 school year, the funds only came to about $6,000, down from about $29,000 the previous year and about $252,000 the year before that.

About 40 percent of the proposed park district’s area is in the Burlington-Edison School District, Spink said.

Board President Liza Bott said after the meeting that board members aren’t sure what might happen to logging on the mountain — and the funds the school district derives from it —under the proposal. She said they’re also concerned about an “additional layer of taxation” that the district would add for some Burlington-Edison taxpayers.

“There are so many unknowns,” Bott said.

Before the vote, board member Mike McLeod said the decision was clear.

“I believe this resolution is what we need to show our taxpayers that we are looking out for them and looking out for the school district,” he said.

In the only public comment during the meeting, Bow resident Bob Rauch, vice president of the North Sound Conservancy, said his group believes the proposed district is “not the right answer” and might conflict with the work of the Natural Resources and other local districts to manage the area.

“We feel that many objectives of those supporting the park district are worthy, but the park district is not the way to go,” he said.

* Jennifer Carter can be reached at 360-416-2147 or jcarter@skagitvalley herald.com.

Backers Seek Chuckanut Park District

THE BELLINGHAM HERALD
December 4, 2006
KATIE N. JOHANNES

A Chuckanut Mountain Park District could preserve land in southern Whatcom County and northern Skagit County for recreation, open space, habitat and ecological quality
.
It also could buy land from private property owners, one way organizers hope to limit development.

Residents on both sides of the county line have launched a park district effort, with Fairhaven Highlands and Blanchard Mountain as priority projects.

They need to collect signatures from 15 percent of the estimated registered 20,000 voters in its proposed boundaries to put the measure on a ballot in November 2007.

The district would cover about 65 square miles, with Sehome Arboretum at its north end, stretching east to the Lake Whatcom watershed, south along the Interstate 5 corridor as far as Samish Island, and including Blanchard Mountain and Bow Edison, said Frank Eventoff, spokesman for the Skagit County side
.
The district would have no regulatory authority over privately owned property.

"The Chuckanut Mountains are a very unique mountain range..where the Cascades meet the sea," Eventoff said, using the campaign's catch phrase. "There's no other place where this happens in Washington."

Under state law, the district could collect up to 75 cents per $1,000 of assessed property value, but organizers think the amount is too high for voters, Eventoff said.

Instead, they are campaigning to collect 25 cents per $1,000 of assessed value, or $62.50 per year for the owner of a property assessed at $250,000.

Organizers believe they could collect about $750,000 a year, according to their estimates of total property value in the proposed district.

STARTING FROM GREENWAYS

The park district campaign spun off an effort by some Bellingham residents to dedicate millions of greenway tax dollars to the acquisition of the Fairhaven Highlands property, formerly known as Chuckanut Ridge and affectionately dubbed the 100-Acre Wood.

Greenbriar Northwest Associates plans to build 739 housing units on the 85-acre property near the south end of the city.

"Early last year, we were disenchanted with the way a lot of the material was going," said Bob Gibb, the park district campaign's Whatcom County spokesman. "Suddenly we realized the problem wasn't an isolated piece of property. It's the whole Chuckanut range."

Gibb and others wanted a mechanism that would block overdevelopment and overuse of the land.
But almost two years ago, the estimated sale price of the Fairhaven Highlands property alone was more than $20 million, a price that would be upward of $30 million now if the property were on the market, said Bob Tull, attorney for the developer.

"If they had a viable district..and came up with a purchase price that was attractive, the owners would decide whether they want to look at that or not," Tull said.

Besides thinking the property is grossly overpriced, Gibb said the object of the park district wouldn't be to throw all its money at purchasing it.

And the $750,000 a year they estimate they will make on property taxes could be seed money for matching funds and grants, said Gibb and Eventoff.

"We're not in a position to purchase that (Fairhaven Highlands property)," Eventoff said. "We'll be the counterpoint to the aggressive developer and find solutions...Our interest is: `we are the voice of the community and give the public a place at the table.'"

OTHER PRIORITIES

In Skagit County, Blanchard Mountain is a priority project. Use of the forest there has been the subject of debate between recreationists, conservationists and state logging interests.

The state Department of Natural Resources estimates logging on the mountain will generate about $1 million a year for the next 10 years, a portion of which is earmarked for the Burlington-Edison School District.

A 10-member collaborative group is working out plans for future uses of the land, but Bill Wallace, DNR's Northwest region manager, said the state intends to continue logging on some level.

"We're willing to find a balance there. We can still have multiple uses and still have some land in a recreational core," he said.

Other spending priorities include money for wildfire planning, trail work and maintenance at state parks.

Gibb hopes a park district will help preserve natural areas, which he believes are being destroyed by development.

"If people are willing to tax themselves for the benefit of our environment, there is such great hope for our country," he said. "We don't want to look like Vancouver or Issaquah. We're just letting it happen by apathy, one of the greatest enemies of our whole culture."

Debate on Blanchard Mountain’s Future Continues

Skagit Valley Herald
June 10, 2007
Ralph Schwartz

During a crucial month when their proposal is open to public review, members of a group seeking to set aside open space for recreation and wildlife on land from Bow Hill Road to Bellingham choose their words carefully.

In response to members of the public who support revenue from timber harvesting, some members of the Chuckanut Mountains Park District advisory group indicate they would take no action to halt logging on Blanchard Mountain, which is included within the proposed district boundaries.

But in letters to the Department of Natural Resources, other members of the Chuckanut group strongly oppose logging on Blanchard Mountain. They argue that enhanced recreational tourism would replace lost logging dollars.

Blanchard Mountain is managed by DNR, and some of the logging revenue is divided among local agencies, including the Burlington-Edison School District.

Conservationists have for years sought to end logging on the mountain, a popular hiking destination within a few minutes’ drive from Bellingham. Representatives of beneficiary agencies, conservationists and the state hammered out an agreement earlier this year, after nine months of discussions. The compromise reduced logging on the Mountain in exchange for timberland elsewhere. 

Many of the activists involved in the Blanchard agreement are also trying to establish the park district, a move viewed with some skepticism by Skagit County officials. About half the Chuckanut Mountains Park District would be in Skagit County’s northwest corner.

A question of revenue

Bow resident Leslie Braun challenged members of the Chuckanut Park District advisory committee at a hearing before Skagit County commissioners May 29 on what their intentions are with logging on Blanchard Mountain.

“If logging is halted, then that money wouldn’t go to United General Hospital (and) the school district...,” Braun said. “Taxpayers would have to carry the burden.”

In response, park district committee member Ann Eissinger downplayed the notion that her group posed a threat to logging and the revenue it generates, saying it has no authority over logging or land use.

In an interview two days after the hearing, Eissinger reasserted that her group would not challenge logging on Blanchard Mountain. “Are we a threat to timber? No,” said Eissinger, who lives on Blanchard Mountain.

Logging revenues from Blanchard Mountain fluctuate year to year, Burlington-Edison School District Finance Director Greg Thramer said, but they can be as high as $400,000 or $500,000 a year — up to 1.5 percent of the school district’s total budget.

“With a budget that tight, that’s a pretty key 1 percent,” Thramer said.

Burlington-Edison Superintendent Rick Jones said he doesn’t want to lose that revenue because it would take away from services provided to the students.

“The only other place to make that up is to go to the taxpayers,” Jones said.

United General Hospital Communications Director Valerie Stafford said the hospital’s timber revenue is small, and possible changes to logging practices on Blanchard Mountain have not been discussed recently by the hospital’s board.

Blanchard’s “fiscal future”

The logging issue is not being ignored by supporters of the park district. At the commissioner’s hearing, group member Robert Gibb said, “The logging problem as an agricultural product is being discussed at other levels.”

Frank Evantoff, another park district committee member, wrote in a letter to the state Department of Natural Resources that the 1,600 acres on Blanchard Mountain recently removed from timber harvesting were inadequate to protect habitat and serve other environmental needs. This protected “core area” is one third of the state-owned land on Blanchard Mountain.

In his May 22 letter, Evantoff called for a logging moratorium on Blanchard Mountain until more scientific studies were done.

Gibb, a Whatcom County resident, also wrote to DNR about the Blanchard compromise, arguing that “catastrophic damage” could result from runoff after a heavy rain if most of the DNR land remained open to loggers.

“Recreation and tourism are the fiscal future of the Blanchard state forest, and mechanisms must be developed to allow those users and the community in general to provide funds for maintenance and development,” Gibb wrote in his May 21 letter.

Although Gibb didn’t name the Chuckanut park district in the letter, his group sees the park district filling a void by providing funds for recreation — Blanchard’s “fiscal future.”

Providing funds for recreation, for projects like building and maintaining trails throughout the district, is part of an overall vision to “preserve the rare beauty, unique ecology and recreational value” of the Chuckanut Mountains, as Eissinger put it.

The group proposes a new property tax, 25 cents for every $1,000 of assessed property value, that would generate $700,000 annually. Eissinger said the group hopes to double its income by attracting more money from grants.

Taxation without representation?

State law allows park districts to collect up to 75 cents per $1,000, or $225 per year on a $300,000 home, but it would require a vote of the residents to increase faster than 1 percent a year.

The money could also be spent on property acquisition, conservation easements and acquisition of mining and logging rights, according to the group’s Web site, http://www.chuckanutmpd.org.

Park district proponents collected 2,470 signatures on petitions, more than the 2,300 needed to take the proposal to a vote of residents within its boundaries. Of the signatures received, 132, or 5.3 percent, were from Skagit County residents.

Before making it onto the ballot, the park district plan must be approved by the boundary review boards in Skagit and Whatcom counties. Individuals and public agencies have until June 22 to request a hearing before the Skagit County boundary review board.

Skagit County Fire District 5 has submitted a letter to the board tentatively requesting a hearing. The county commissioners have spoken skeptically about the proposal, so the fire district and some residents are waiting to see if the commissioners request a hearing, boundary review board staff member Carole Korelin said.

Fire District 5 will go forward with its request if the commissioners don’t, Korelin said.

Skagit County Commissioner Ken Dahlstedt believes Skagit County voters are under-represented in the proposed park district. Skagit County residents make up 7.6 percent of the voting population, while roughly half the park district land lies within the county.

“They’re going to have little or no say about their taxes. It’s like a British colony,” Dahlstedt said.

“If there’s lot of support in Whatcom County, then it’s a good thing for them to do. But for them to be racing down and grabbing land in Skagit County is not really appropriate.”

The two other commissioners said they would like to call for a hearing before the boundary review board.
“Public input doesn’t hurt in any process, so I personally would like to see it go to that,” Commissioner Sharon Dillon said.

Hearing could cause delay

Commissioner Don Munks didn’t see any reason to rush the matter to a vote this year when he and several others still have questions about the proposed boundaries and who will run the park district.

Munks, who said he wants to invoke the boundary review board process, expects the commissioners to consider taking that action before the June 22 deadline.

The criteria the review board must consider when ruling on the issue include how irregular and impractical the boundaries are. The issue of most concern to Dahlstedt would not be enough for the review board to deny the park district, Korelin said.

“The disparity in the voters could be a factor, but that factor alone would not be a deciding factor,” she said.

If a hearing is requested, that could delay approval another 120 days and jeopardize the park district’s chances of getting on the November ballot. District supporters must file their intent to get on that ballot by Sept. 7.

Eissinger said if her group can’t make that deadline, it may call for a special election next year or alter the district’s boundaries.

“But I doubt that would be a viable option,” she said, referring to the boundary change.

Bill Wallace, regional manager for the Department of Natural Resources, says he hopes to learn more about the Chuckanut park district proposal, even as his agency remains under assault by some of its committee members.

Evantoff, for one, accused the DNR of staging the compromise process and stacking the 10-member Blanchard Strategy Group with representatives of logging interests.

“DNR is really in a learning mode in terms of what the role of a metropolitan park district would play as part of our (Blanchard) forest land, in terms of how they could help assist or maybe even hinder our trust management activities,” Wallace said.

More money for recreational support would be a good thing, Wallace said, but funding methods are already in place. The DNR plans to collaborate with the county and the state park system to fund recreational projects once the Blanchard compromise comes out of the review period, Wallace said.

Wallace: “The question is, is that in the interest of the community that such a metropolitan park district could occur, when you have other agencies that have that responsibility?”

• Ralph Schwartz can be reached at 360-416-2138 or rschwartz@skagitvalleyherald.com.

Article about Proposed Park District

The following article from The Skagit Valley Argus was written to announce, for the first time, the idea of the CMPD to Skagit County, the concept of conserving the Chuckanuts as a Metropolitan Park District.  Note that this was before the details of how they would really do it were revealed.  Once the details were revealed, even the DNR spoke out against the plan at the March 6th & 7th, 2008 Skagit BRB meeting, along with many other Skagit County groups and agencies.  

Skagit Valley Argus
Wednesday, October 11, 2006 
Stephanie Kosnonen

Chuckanuts Park Idea Drums Up Skagit Support

From the north, the Chuckanut mountains are threatened by development. From the south, the unique coastal forest faces logging pressures.
 
The lowland hills are also popular among recreationalists, yet funding for trail maintenance on the more than 10,000-acre land mass is already insufficient and will become even less available as urbanization along the Interstate 5 corridor results in more people using the hills to hike, bike, horseride or hangglide.
 
The ecological value of critical habitat within the Chuckanuts is also increasing, as fewer and fewer costal forests are left untouched, and open spaces in general become few and far between.
 
Since last spring, a handful of Skagit and Whatcom County residents has been exploring the possibility of doing something about this situation by protecting these mountains, which they say would probably be deemed a national park if they were located anywhere else.
 
The group hopes to achieve this conservation goal by creating what is called a metropolitan park district, a special service district that could use levies, impact fees and real estate excise taxes, as well as matching funds from other public and private sources, to acquire land and easements, maintain trails and monitor habitat as well.
 
The advisory group for the proposed Chuckanut Mountains Park District plans to start collecting signatures next month to put an initiative on the November 2007 ballot that would create such a district.  They will be showing a PowerPoint presentation to Skagit voters at a 7 p.m. community meeting tomorrow night.  Thursday, Oct. 12 at Edison Elementary on Main Street in Bow.
 
Earlier neighborhood meetings held in Whatcom County about the idea have been overwhelmingly supportive, said the group members.  Tomorrow’s meeting will be just the second one with Skagit County citizens.
 
Not a park

The Chuckanut Mountains run west from the Cascade Mountains to the salt waters of Samish and Chuckanut Bays, and south from the Fairhaven district of Bellingham to Skagit’s Blanchard Mountain, just north of Edison. Though its aim is to protect as much of the area as possible, the group is still fine-tuning the borders of the proposed park district.
 
The timing has coincidentally lined up with a Department of Natural Resources effort to balance social, environmental and ecological interests in Blanchard Mountain.  The DNR manages the land for timber revenue to support local taxing districts, the largest of which being Skagit County, the Port of Skagit County, and the Burlington-Edison School District.  Responding to a recent outcry from recreationalists, the DNR in May appointed nine representatives from stakeholder groups to discuss the mountain’s values and make suggestions on how the forest should be managed.
 
The strategies group is scheduled to finish their brainstorming later this fall.
 
The park district group believes creating a metropolitan park district would successfully balance the various interests in Blanchard, and has attended most of the Blanchard Strategies Group meetings, sharing its ideas during the public comments periods.
 
As one of the last undeveloped wilderness corridors that connects the Cascades to the coast, the land block is seen by Wildlife Biologist and Blanchard resident Ann Eissinger, a member of the advisory group, as a critical place to conserve in order to promote biodiversity in the region.
 
Eissinger has led studies as to which species live there, and said the mountains have probably already lost biological resources that humans will never know even existed.
 
“We’re starting to lose things, because we’re not minding the shop,” she said.  She has expressed dismay that logging and other natural resource extractions chugs along despite a serious lack of knowledge about what those critters’ habitat needs are.”
 
“We don’t know where things are because there’s no map, there’s no inventory, and things are starting to get lost,” Eissinger said.  “It’s as though the store’s open 24/7 and no one is in charge of the inventory – we are starting to extirpate species from geographical areas.”
 
The park district would provide those species with a voice and a funding mechanism for their protection, but the group stressed that it would neither create a park nor a regulatory agency.
 
Rather, it would be a service district that would focus on conservation and recreation, with the ability to collect levies and other forms of public funds.
 
Having that local effort will help the mountain range get on the radar screen for the funding from the state parks commission, said group member Gerry Wilbourn [Wilbour]. Who has a hand in the Mountains to Sound Greenways project, which works to preserve and promote tourism along a 100-mile, connected green corridor that follows Interstate 90 from Seattle to central Washington.
 
Funds are available for sensitive wildlife areas like the Chuckanuts, said Eissinger.  All that’s needed is an entity like a park district to direct the effort and manage the money.
 
Wilbourn [Wilbour] added that one goal is to add easier trails so that a wider range of people can enjoy the Chuckanut experience.
 
Bill Wallace, Northwest Region Manager for DNR, said he sees opportunity for synergy between his department and a park district.  A park district could help generate revenue to help solve some of the public use issues that agencies like the DNR face, he said, adding it’s too early to tell for sure.  “We would need to hear more.”  Wallace said.
 
Leaving a legacy
Group member Dr. Robert “Bob” Gibb lives in Whatcom County and worked in forensics in Skagit County for many years.
 
Along with the urgency of ecological preservation, the 84-year old man’s desire to leave a legacy for his grandchildren has been propelling the group to work quickly.
 
Gibb said he remembers walking along streams in his youth while salmon were spawning, and believes their absence from most streams now is a sign of overdevelopment and senseless destruction of the land that future generations should be able to enjoy as much as he did.
 
“What we’re leaving them isn’t really near what we should be leaving them.”  Gibb said. Having worked for the Skagit County coroner for many years, Gibb said he made an important observation about what matters at the end of life.
 
“I’ve never seen a stock portfolio at the autopsy table,” Gibb said.  “We should just try to leave the place a little better than we found it.”
 
He said high-density developments are being built at an alarming rate in Bellingham, a sign of things to come for Skagit County.
 
“The time to do something about it is now, not once it starts,” he said.
 
Eissinger said discussions about the Chuckanuts should hinge on whether or not people wish to leave such a legacy.  “My answer is yes,” she said.  “Like a school levy pays for building new schools, this is a legacy-building money.”
 
Access to hills, processes

The park district boasts the capacity of being accessible to citizens who want to shape the future of the mountains.  Made up of five elected commissioners, the district would operate like any other regional service district, taking input from the people whose taxes support it.  The proposed park district would also cross jurisdictional boundaries that have previously prevented collaborative work on the mountain range.
 
Currently, the advisory group holds regular meetings, which are open to the public, on the second Tuesdays of each month and the fourth Tuesdays of each month at Whatcom County Fire District #16 [6] on Chuckanut Drive.
 
The land is currently under mixed public and private ownership, so no one agency is accountable for it, or its management, as a whole.
 
“The problem is that those agencies that are charged with maintaining the land, like the Larabee Park and the DNR, are underfunded, understaffed and just don’t have the mechanisms to manage it like it needs to be managed,” Gibb said.
 
Approaching the mountain range from a watershed viewpoint, rather than a piece-meal arrangement would best address habitat needs, Eissinger said.
 
A park district would also help to coordinate efforts across, town, county, state and federal jurisdictions, providing a go-to agency for the Chuckanut range.
 
Tourist attraction

The district will also help the region cash in on the number one industry in the world, the advisory group said – tourism.
 
“This is the best place we have in the entire region for year-round recreation,” Wilbourn said, because of the accessibility from I-5 and the ease of reaching spectacular views on both Blanchard and Chuckanut mountains. There’s already been some planning done to include the hills’ trails in a coastal trail system, he added.
 
A park district would be the best way to accomplish this because it can bridge the gaps between the state parks department and the DNR.
 
Gibb said he believes tourism dollars brought in would be able to replace or even surpass the money made from logging.
 
If the group is able to educate enough people about the make-up of a park district, Gibb said, the measure should not only make it on the ballot, but be approved next November as well.
 
A movement to fight development on Chuckanut Ridge in Bellingham is what spurred the idea for the park district.
 
“As soon as we started looking at it we realized that all of the Chuckanut range of mountains was in jeopardy and if something wasn’t done to save it now it would look like Issaquah in North Vancouver or Hong Kong,” Gibb said.
 
He adds the group has seen support in a big way from various community groups.  At one meeting, for example, a man walked up and put $1,100 cash in Gibb’s hand in the middle of his presentation.  At another, a neighborhood association offered to help in any way they could before the advisory group had even started its presentation.
 
“It’s something that people seem to want,” Wilbourn said.
 
Photo Caption:
(Left to right) Sarah Bishop-Mailhot, Sage Mailhot, Ann Eissinger and Frank Eventoff are the Skagit County members of a group that aims to create a metropolitan park district in the Chuckanut Mountains.
 
 
 
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