Marketing Sedro-Woolley with ad campaigns? A blue ribbon panel to guide the city? Both are great ideas on the surface.

But how do you market a city with a garbage dump a few blocks from downtown? How do you spin the fact that tourists and residents will navigate Highway 20, on their way to the natural beauty of the North Cascades, behind long lines of garbage trucks and pickup trucks dropping garbage? And how do you market a long line of bars and people peeing on the street?

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Shelley Carroll Burgett,

Good vs. Evil?  Calm down and be rational. 

What other industrial zoned “allowed use” business would you like to see in it’s place?

Plenty exist that are much more nasty and contribute less to the City coffers.

Look up the “allowed uses” for S-W Industrial Zoned property.  Then, let your mind go wild with the lovely prospects.

Timey – The issue is not “land use” but a process that was corrupted by an aggressive business: the deluxe dump and a susceptible City Government: Sedro-Woolley. We have a City Supervisor/Attorney that pushed through law changes to undermine public participation by enacting the Hearing Examiner and at an exorbitant fee structure; now over $4,000 billed to Annie Janicki.

This administrative decision to make the deluxe dump an “allowable use” flies in the face of the Skagit County Public Health Department, the Skagit County Public Works Department, the Sedro-Woolley School District, hundreds of concerned high school students, and many-many neighboring property owners, all en masse asking for a Environmental Impact Statement.

See all the comments from the everyone listed above, all requesting an EIS:

http://www.ci.sedro-woolley.wa.us/Home/documents/publication_notice/Deluxe_Recycling/20080717_Fallquist_Declaration_Exhibits_G-P.pdf

ah, but it is all about land use.

answer the question.  what would you rather see put in place of the recycling center?

Timewarp - 06 August 2008 01:33 PM

answer the question.  what would you rather see put in place of the recycling center?

Must I reiterate? Zoned as it may, there are specific processes that MUST be followed before any - ANY project is built. SEPA at its bare minimum states: “A state policy that requires state and local agencies to consider the likely environmental consequences of a proposal before approving or denying the proposal.” This could very well be Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory we’re talking about, but Willy would still need to go through this rigorous assessment. The Environmental Impact Statement would have been preferred by countless Sedro-Woolley residents in the deluxe dump case and it is an egregious error on behalf of the City of Sedro-Woolley to not require one. The EIS is very vital tool of SEPA and if required for Deluxe, none of this costly litigation and horrendous rancor would have come about.

Did Janickis do a EIS on their big Sedro-Woolley complex? How about Snelson’s new big building off State Street? I don’t think there has ever been an EIS required on a development in Sedro ever. Talk about a EIS, how come Janicki’s huge development up in Hamilton that has a building the size of a Boeing hanger didn’t have to do a EIS. And then there’s Skagit Valley Hearld’s new newspaper building over critical wetlands and no EIS. You see, EIS doesn’t seem to be required unless you want to use it as a tool to stop a project.

Hey Ex,

Right on.  SEPA checklist is a review of the possible impacts. If an EIS was required, I’m sure that the city would have done one.  As it turns out the city strapped significant conditions on the MDNS.  I suppose the conditions were put on the MDNS due to the PUBLIC COMMENT PERIOD. 

ANSWER THE QUESTION.  WHAT WOULD YOU RATHER SEE PUT IN PLACE OF THE RECYCLING CENTER?

Dan, Interesting point on the Janicki’s projects.  I didn’t know that.  Maybe they should do an EIS on their next project.  They are really in a glass house on this one.

Timey… it is so sweet how credulous you are. You have a keen way of persuasion, so I will answer your question. I would prefer to see Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory in place of a deluxe dump; hands down!

Dan, you are quite aware of differences between companies like Snelson, Skagit Valley Herald, and Janicki versus Deluxe. The afore mention businesses are largely manufacturing and services; Deluxe is a solid waste transfer and sorting company: GARBAGE. The larger impact of companies like Snelson, Skagit Valley Herald, and Janicki on it’s surrounding neighbors is minimal as compared to Deluxe’s impact on its neighbor Sedro-Woolley High School. Hundreds and hundreds of trucks and cars and garbage-trucks, in and out each day, all with a whole gamut of possible waste, all spewing toxic emissions into the city, into a neighborhood, into a school zone.

One of the neat things that the city can determine is if a project “Is compatible with the surrounding area, that is, causes no unreasonable adverse impacts” Only the City and Deluxe believes that the dump is compatible with the surrounding area. The EIS would have quelled any animus against the City of Sedro-Woolley, the dragon slayer Larry McCarter, the Florida living Steve Snell, and the poor speller Philip Serka.