PORT ANGELES — Clallam County Republican Party Chairman Dick Pilling urged county commissioners Tuesday to rescind their support for the Wild Olympics Campaign.
Wild Olympics is a Quilcene-based coalition of environmental groups mostly in Puget Sound that has proposed designating 134,000 acres of Olympic National Forest as wilderness area and to add 37,000 acres of state trust lands and private timber company land to Olympic National Park as a wilderness area if the owners agree to sell.
Much of the land is in the West End of Clallam County.
County commissioners signed a letter supporting the campaign in February 2010. The letter stipulated that there had to be a willing seller.
Pilling presented Commissioners Mike Doherty and Mike Chapman with a resolution on behalf of the Clallam County Republican Party.
Commissioner Steve Tharinger, who is also a state representative, was absent from the commissioners meeting because he was representing the 24th District in a special legislative session in Olympia.
“At first glance, the campaign is an admirable goal well worth pursuing,” Pilling said as he read the resolution aloud.
“A second look reveals it to be a not-so-subtle invasion of both public and private property rights.”
Restricts entry
Pilling said Wild Olympics restricts entry to public land to only those who can hike or horseback.
“Any productive use of the protected lands is prohibited,” he said.
“Long the source of Washington’s economic hydropower, our rivers could no longer be harnessed. Timber, the former building block of Washington state’s economy, is off limits.”
Commissioners took no action on Wild Olympics on Tuesday. The item was not on their agenda.
Pilling said rules and regulations inflicted on property owners restrict their ability to use their land as they see fit or even to access it.
“This diminishes its value to the point that they have no choice but to sell to only the buyer available, which of course is the government,” he said.
“There is no willing seller in this, but in reality only a coerced seller.”
Pilling noted the Port Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce, the Port Angeles Business Association, the North Olympic Timber Action Committee and Washington State Grange have all taken stands against the Wild Olympic Campaign.
If Wild Olympics was implemented, Pilling said, up to 225 jobs and millions in annual tax revenue would be lost.
He said the Path Forward on Olympic Watersheds Protection proposal supported by U.S. Rep Norm Dicks, D-Belfair, of the 6th Congressional District and U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Bothell, is essentially the same program as the Wild Olympics Campaign.
Several speakers followed Pilling in urging the commissioners to rescind their support. Each was followed by a round of applause.
Commissioner Mike Chapman said he has met with both sides on the issue.
He said he signed the letter to support the idea of a willing buyer and willing seller.
Chapman: many issues
“But, that said, there are a lot of issues moving forward,” Chapman said.
“At the end of the day, if someone doesn’t want to sell, I don’t support — and I don’t think this board supports — a coercive moment.
“I think that private-property owners, if they were interested in selling, should have had that right.
“It appears to me now that no private-property owners in this proposal wants to sell, so I actually told the representatives of Murray and Dicks’ office you should just remove the private-property owners and look at it as a federal issue.”
Chapman said the issue has become politicized.
“I think that we’ve begun to divide our community, which I think is a really sad thing,” he said, adding that both sides want access to federal lands.
“What I told both sides is, why are we polarizing the community instead of finding areas of agreement?”
________
Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-417-3537 or at rob.ollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.