Kitsap County has another chance to either maintain the status quo or change the government to become more efficient, transparent, accountable and cheaper to run.
1. We should use this recession to allow the county to catch it’s breath from the last twenty years of super-sized government. What we need to do is a Walmart rollback that honors traditional property rights, and streamlined, accountable government. We need a performance audit of all branches of county government and institute changes that I believe can save us millions of dollars. This Money could be used to provide more sheriffs, right hand turn lanes, homeless shelters, teen centers, senior centers, access to parks and pea patch gardens.
2. Property owners have been strangled by county government and are annexing themselves out of the county like rats off a sinking ship. Property owners are looking for cover wherever they can find it to escape the counties bloated, confusing rules and regulations. Bainbridge Island, McCormic Woods, the airport property to Bremerton and hundreds of acres have bailed out of the county tax rolls. Property owner’s rights, the value of property, and the cost of utilizing your property have skyrocket with so many rules it takes a committee of county employees to decide what, if anything, you can do with your property. YOU HAVE NO GUARANTEED PROPERTY RIGHTS EXCEPT TO CONTINUE PAYING TAXES. Private property has been under assault for the last twenty years, since Growth Management, Save the salmon, Smart Growth, Critical areas I &II, Shorelines management and now the vision of 2040. It is a relentless attack. While you are working to provide for your family, someone is government is constantly trying to limit your property options.
Example: In 2005 it took me 16 months to get all the permits from the county for a house at the end of Sylvan Way, and in 2008, just two lots down. After the city of Bremerton had annexed the property, Bremerton permitted the house in six weeks.
3. You can’t fix government if you don’t believe it’s broken. Government has to be fixed from the bottom up with the approval from the top. Most of government is about maintenance. public works, the sheriffs department and the judicial system, but all county growth and development has to go through the Department of Community Development which almost everyone agrees is dysfunctional, defensive and remarkably unaccountable. Sure, there are good people working at the county, but there are obstructionists and bureaucratic snafus everywhere. Unless you have tried to work something through the system, you cannot appreciate the mess. A performance audit that is accepted by the commissioners should take care of that problem.
4. There is a big difference between running the government and reforming government.
Josh Brown has shown himself to be a capable and ambitious politician. Josh also has a self proclaimed passion for government. That passion has translated into more rules and regulations. There is nothing the county won’t take over to make a buck, pet control, Kitsap Transit, and I’d be surprised if they don’t take a cut of the hot dog man out in front of the building Josh’s belief that PRIVATE PROPERTY OWNERS MAKE POOR STEWARDS OF THEIR LAND is troubling. Translation is that you are welcome to own land, pay taxes, but the county will decide what you can do with the land and the process for using your land will be riddled with confusion, onerous rules, regulation and tremendous cost.
Example: a family wanted to put a bedroom above the garage out in Seabeck and the health department demanded a $40,000 upgrade to his septic system. The man sold out.
5. Wally Carlson is a conservative democrat and a strong advocate of property rights. I like the idea of reasonable long term planning and consider PROPERTY OWNERS TO BE THE GOLD STANDARD of citizenship in Kitsap County. Private property owners are people who have invested in the county and are putting down roots.
My passion is the people and the environment of Kitsap County and the Pacific Northwest, and like all great politicians I have written a book. A novel, Annie’s Second Wind, is about a 75 year old grandmother who is trying to stop the county from taxing her off her land by rezoning her island as a resort and a state government that won’t let her raise her orphaned grandchildren. My goal is for the government to build roads, make me safe and get out of my way.
I have run a construction business for forty years and am used to dealing with the county and public works. I am a creative problem solver, a nuts and bolts kind of guy who has seen the problems of the county from the bottom up…no one can see the problems from the top down. You can’t see the forest for the career bureaucrats sitting in the trees.
I believe it is time to downsize county government and get back to our roots, and I am more concerned with the immediate future than the vision of tolls roads in Kitsap in 2040. The 2040 vision of transportation is a Seattle fix for Kitsap that doesn’t make sense. If you like 2040 vision then you must love the bogus intersection north of Silverdale. Or maybe you like the bloated nineteen million the county spent on Graves way, with four lanes, a turn lane, trees, flowers, fancy street light and sidewalks on two sides. Where’s the water feature? A two lane road at a third the price would do the same job. Kitsap County needs to stop outsourcing their positions and go local. Commissioners from Seattle and California, parks position to a guy from New Jersey and a head accountant from Florida and who knows where these people are coming from.
QUICK FIXES:
Instead of closing county parks because of maintenance costs, why not put in utilities, a septic field and let a retired snowbird or a full time caretaker monitor the park give him a lawn mower to cut the grass for a place to live. There are retired baby boomers who would jump at the chance to help develop a park with volunteer help.
Gorst bottleneck: make a flexible third lane in the middle by moving the Jersey barriers over one lane at peak hours. It would take about twenty minutes or so. This was done on the Tacoma Narrows Bridge before they built the new one. Or, by tweaking the lanes and doing a little rock removal, it looks like there is room for an extra lane. Norm Dicks should be able to get the military to make a wider overpass for the train. That will happen before the state will spend eight hundred million to fix the problem or the Native Americans will let a bridge cross the Gorst mudflats.
I’d also like to encourage accessory dwelling so extended families can live more cheaply together. The utilities are there. It works for the Obama’s and has been a traditional way for families to support each other and stay together.
I’d like to save the quality of life for people and salmon, encourage composting and encourage less use of nitrogen based fertilizers near running water.
How about a pay it forward program where you can take off fifty dollars on your property tax if you plant a ten foot by ten foot garden or fifty dollars if you compost. Make it the honor system or send in a picture with your property tax.
With cooperation I know there is a more efficient, cheaper, transparent and accountable way to run county government.
The choice is business as usual in Kitsap County or a chance to provide more affordable, accountable and transparent government with an emphasis on local control.
The campaign will try to target property owners, especially waterfront owners, private property owners and the 70% of the voters in the middle, independents, liberal republicans and conservative Democrats who think government is out of control with regulations and costs. If Republicans don’t cross lines in the primary, we will be stuck with Josh till he decides to move on.
Having three like minded commissioners is like having: Darryl, my brother Darryl and my other brother Darryl, run the county government.
Where is the dissent and the exchange of ideas?
No appetite for change will only bring more regulation.
– Wally Carlson
