Impressed with Town Council

Very impressed with the Friday Harbor Town Council. The Town Council’s open discussion about the Argyle project was productive and sane without mayor Jackson. I’d even say impressive and wondrous to see local government work as it did this day. Steve ran a friendly meeting, Barbara was a star getting through the unnecessarily complex items. The rest of the council had great questions and suggestions while navigating the nuance of each issue. Too bad the home trust didn’t get an opportunity to answer questions, while the town manager got every opportunity to push an agenda. Because, yes, there are reasons to build roofs that don’t offer “maximum return,” such as aesthetics and efficient sight layout. The Land Bank was good to let the Historic Preservation Board decide on these things, not the FH staff. The glaring question is why this meeting didn’t happen sooner? My guess is that the staff had an axe to grind. It was even somewhat alluded to when the Town Manager explained why they wanted to approve the county’s hiring of the Argyle project manager! The staff should have taken the sticky issues to the people we elected for guidance before stepping out of their lane and overstepping authority. Thank you Mayor Jackson for being absent so that we could see directly where the problem lies. And thank you Home Trust for forcing this to play out as it did. We will all be better off for it.

Jeff Rachwitz,

San Juan Island