CHIMACUM — The political line between environmental protection and property rights was clearly drawn Wednesday night when more than 30 people spoke out about a proposed Jefferson County ordinance that would regulate building near streams and wetlands.
Port Hadlock real estate agent Terry Nomura told the three county commissioners and an audience of about 100 people at the forum at Chimacum High School that she supports the proposed critical areas ordinance as a way to protect water quality.
“It’s not just downstream on the river, it’s down under,” the ground, she said.
“Water is the new gold.”
Nomura said that her clients come to Jefferson County to enjoy and protect its beauty, and so she wouldn’t expect them to object to restrictions that would protect environmentally-sensitive areas.
Others saw it differently.
Bob Pontius, of Port Ludlow, an unsuccessful Republican candidate for county commissioner, argued, “When you set these buffers and eliminate property from use, you basically violate the Constitution.”
Chimacum farmer Roger Short angrily stormed out of the meeting after Phil Johnson, commission chairman, refused to allow him to speak longer than the allotted three minutes given each person.
When deputies, who had been summoned, asked if Short could stay, and Johnson agreed he could, Short shot back, “Why would I stay with a bunch of communists?”
Short said he went blind in his right eye after suffering a stroke brought on by stress while trying to work through county regulations to establish a creamery on the farmland his father bought in 1925.
