Angry crowd forces
meeting postponement
Jefferson
County officials are overwhelmed by people
opposed to the controversial project anxious to
make their voices heard.
Christopher
Dunagan
Sun Staff
May 26, 2004
Jefferson County
commissioners canceled a Tuesday hearing after
it drew such a large crowd of people concerned
about gravel-mining operations near Hood Canal
that it exceeded the capacity of the meeting
room.
Many of the people,
numbering well over 120, had come to the
Jefferson County Courthouse in Port Townsend
to protest a controversial pit-to-pier project
proposed by Fred Hill Materials of Poulsbo.
City fire department
officials interrupted a staff presentation at
the start of the meeting to say the courtroom
in the old courthouse was overcrowded. After
30 volunteers walked out, they said the room
was at its listed capacity of 90.
Standing in the hall,
several people shouted complaints that the
county commissioners should have anticipated a
crowd and chosen a larger location.
Hearing their
protests, County Commissioner Glen Huntingford
asked for and received a strong show of hands
asking to reschedule the hearing. It will be
at 7 p.m. June 9 at Chimacum Auditorium, 91
West Valley Road.
"I would have liked to
have finished (the hearing)," Huntingford
commented after the hearing, "but I didn't
have control over how many show up."
Immediately before
Tuesday's hearing, Hood Canal Coalition staged
a "march on the courthouse." The march
involved about 25 sign-carrying protesters and
a good number of people who eventually
overflowed the hearing room.
County planner Greg
Ballard said he had not heard about the
protest when he published a legal notice
listing the place of the hearing two weeks
ago. Also, he said, few people had acquired
new county documents, which is usually an
indication of interest.
John Fabian of Hood
Canal Coalition said he hopes the county
commissioners don't underestimate the public
interest in the future.
"There's an enormous
amount of interest," he said, adding that
people have a strong desire to protect Hood
Canal.
In reality, Tuesday's
hearing wasn't about Fred Hill Materials'
proposal to build a 4-mile conveyor belt to a
1,100-foot pier on Hood Canal.
But it was a chance
for opponents to make their views known.
The hearing was
required to deal with a comprehensive plan
change to designate 690 acres near Shine as
"mineral resource lands."
The commissioners had
approved the land-use change once before, but
the Western Washington Growth Management
Hearings Board ruled that the environmental
review was deficient.
If the land-use change
goes through as before, Fred Hill Materials
could have a 40-acre active gravel-mining
area. Without the approval, existing rules
would limit it to 10 acres.
IF YOU GO:
The meeting is
rescheduled for 7 p.m. June 9 at Chimacum
Auditorium, 91 West Valley Road.
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