News From Your Friends

What’s On Our Radar – Week of March 10th, 2025

March 10, 2025 in General
  • Last week:

    • BIG GOOD NEWS on the Clark County Comp Plan Update: During Council Time last week, County staff presented about the legal risks associated with the direction Council had given them on the scope of work for the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for the 2025 Comp Plan update, particularly about the hasty resource lands study and the site specific requests (SSRs). For background on all of that, check out our newsletter article that came out last week here: https://friendsofclarkcounty.org/comprehensive-plan-update-february-2025 During the discussion, Manager Kathleen Otto shared that, “Doing this intensive work [resource lands study] in a short amount of time does give me pause in opening us up to being [legally] challenged.” The Clark County Council went ahead with giving new direction to staff to nix the resource lands study (until 2026 when they have time for a quality one) as well as the SSRs for surface mining overlays (SMOs).

      So what does all this land use mumbo jumbo mean?       It means that the Council has moved to greatly reduce the amount of options for land use changes to be studied in the environmental review for the Comp Plan, which essentially takes a WHOLE BUNCH OF BAD IDEAS off of the table. De-designation of resource lands, ie: changing the zoning that protects resource lands (think agricultural, rural, and forest land) and allowing other uses (such as sprawling housing development for the wealthy) cannot happen during this update. Also, not including the SSR’s means that the mining industry must go through the normal process to open up a new mine in Clark County. This is potentially a HUGE WIN for Clark County’s water, air, climate, resiliency, quality of life, and more—but there’s a catch: this new direction has to be translated into a resolution that must come back before the Council, and we know that private industry interests will be working around the clock to turn up the pressure on the County to act against its own interests until that resolution comes back. That’s why FOCC and others must generate a big showing of support for the County to stand strong and do the right thing!

    • Dabbler: Also at Council Time, the Council discussed sending yet another letter to the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) with multiple suggestions, most of which fail to meet the moment and do not exercise the County’s ability (as the main trust beneficiaries) to ensure DNR acts in the interest of Clark County residents, about swapping legacy forest units of the Dabbler for other forest or cutting the Dabbler differently. A reminder that FOCC and Legacy Forest Defense Coalition’s (LFDC) motion for a preliminary injunction against the DNR is on March 24th. Until then, we ask that you consider chipping in what you can to the Go Fund Me created by LFDC to raise the funds needed to fight the Dabbler and other legacy timber sales (totaling 2,328 acres) all over Washington: https://gofund.me/d4e1dcc0
    • Agricultural Advisory Commission: Staff provided an update that they’d interviewed 25 applicants for the upcoming Agricultural Advisory Commission!
    • Work Sessions were held on the Neighborhood Traffic Management Program and the annual presentation by the Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee (BPAC). The latter was particularly inspirational and has implications for equity, air quality, and climate stability so we recommend a watch!
    • You can view recordings of last week’s Work Sessions and Council Time on the Clark County, WA YouTube page.
    • FOCC’s Spring Newsletter dropped last week! Be sure to get caught up on some of our latest efforts and deep dives in the news section of our website here: https://friendsofclarkcounty.org/news/
  • This week:

    • Wednesday, 3/12 at 9am is a Work Session on the Vacant Buildable Lands Model (VBLM) as a courtesy to the new Councilors. While the VBLM work is finished, you can tune in to learn more and understand how it fits into the Comp Plan update!
    • Wednesday, 3/12 at 1pm is Council Time. While there is not much of note on the agenda, FOCC expects that the proposed third Dabbler letter (see above) will be coming back before the Council for approval. As always, Council Time includes Councilor Reports and Policy Updates where we often get tipped off on future business, so FOCC will be watching just in case!
  • Other happenings:

See you next week!
Karissa
FOCC Community Outreach

 

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