Community Voices

City’s sewer plan hides true cost of growth

Despite my best efforts, I can find no one in town who wants to see their monthly utility bill double from $200 a month to $400 a month in order to incentivize 3,000 more households to relocate to our community, but that is exactly the direction that the city is taking. City leadership has abandoned two basic principles that have successfully managed growth here for the past 30 years: (1) the best way to address…

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Will Anacortes’ new Comprehensive Plan make housing even less affordable?

Anacortes’ new Comprehensive Plan appears to encourage the construction of thousands of new housing units. To do so, the City is considering reversing the long‑standing requirement that new developments pay for the utility upgrades they necessitate. If true, who decided this?  Where is it documented? The rationale seems to be that adding 3,000 new units will somehow create affordable housing. How does adding market‑rate units in an unaffordable market suddenly make housing affordable for working residents…

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Public Participation in Growth Decisions

Dear editor, I am 74, forming most of my views during the Vietnamese war, 3 political assassinations, resignation of President Nixon, horrible environmental degradation, and the Arab Oil crisis. For me, the future needed to use less energy and form rules to decrease ecological destruction, as did most other voters in this State. This was the cauldron that created the Growth Management Act. I fought for and embraced it. The citizens of Anacortes (me) have…

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