At Wednesday’s Jefferson County Planning Commission meeting enough people showed up to exceed the room’s rated capacity, at least for the first several minutes. Most of the audience was against the overly-restrictive proposed revisions to the Shoreline Master Program (SMP).

We were a bit surprised to see that just a few of the usual suspects, those who believe in taking your property from you, were there to speak. Only three spoke in favor of the proposed SMP revisions.  

The message was quite clear to the Planning Commission, the state Department of Ecology, and the county’s Department of Community Development that the proposals far exceed what could possibly be necessary. This message was firmly delivered by Dennis Reynolds, attorney for Olympic Stewardship Foundation on the SMP. Mr. Reynolds was the lead-off speaker, setting the tone for several hours of public comment.

We encourage shoreline property owners who need an attorney to represent their interests to contact Mr. Reynolds. His web site is: https://www.ddrlaw.com/

For those of you who prefer to let OSF fight this battle on your behalf, we humbly take this opportunity to remind you that we depend on donations to pay our legal fees.

And to those OSF supporters who attended Wednesday’s hearing or who wrote letters, a big Thank You.

Written public comment will still be accepted through January 30^th. The Planning Commission will start work on the SMP proposal at their February 6^th meeting. Chairman Peter Downey voiced his opinion that enough changes could be made to the draft that another Planning Commission public hearing could likely be held at a future date. OSF will keep you informed.

Dick Bergeron

Communications Director

Olympic Stewardship Foundation