On Shaw Island, we are experiencing what might be called a Joni Mitchell moment. Will we ‘pave paradise and put up a parking lot’? That is what Public Works has persuaded the county council to allow. On June 3, the council signed an ordinance that gives Public Works permission to clearcut a lovely forested residential area in order to park industrial vehicles, spread contaminated soil, and burn slash over a large area. This would be paradise turned into not just an ordinary parking lot, but a heavy industrial one.

Unlike the lyrics in Joni Mitchell’s song, many of us who live on Shaw do know what we’ve got before it is gone. We are appealing the county’s decision. We created a Subarea Plan in 1994 to protect what we have and what we love. It was approved by 80% of the voters at that time and has served us well for over thirty years. Public Works’ plan for a large industrial zone in the middle of the Neck Point residential community does not comply with the spirit or the letter of the Shaw Subarea Plan. That Plan protects the “quiet, rural environment that results from limited commercial activity and a limited transportation network.” If county workers want a two-story vintage home with a hot tub on Shaw, they already own it. We would welcome them as residential neighbors, just don’t pave it over.

Lynn Bahrych, J.D., Ph.D.