For two years, the county commissioners in Chelan
County, Wash., have led the state’s property-rights movement. They
thumbed their noses at Washington’s Growth Management Act,
challenged its planning requirements in court and even suffered
economic sanctions for ignoring them (HCN,
6/10/96).
But the county’s outlaw image changed
dramatically when voters threw out one of the two anti-planning
commissioners and defeated a like-minded candidate for the open
seat in last fall’s election. Voters elected Jim Lynch and Esther
Stefaniw, two political centrists who promised they would work with
state law and that consensus and not confrontation would be their
style.
The two sent a letter Jan. 7 to then Gov.
Mike Lowry informing him that the county would comply with the law.
Lowry responded by lifting the sanctions and releasing some
$865,000 in state gas-tax revenues that had been withheld from the
county since last June.
Lynch and Stefaniw also
fired a private attorney whom the county had hired to challenge the
Growth Management Act. The county had paid him $125,000 since
November 1995 for unsuccessful litigation before county, state and
federal courts and had set aside another $75,000 for upcoming
appeals.
“It’s been a waste of taxpayers’ money,”
Lynch said.
* John
Rosapepe
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Renegade county gets a makeover.
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