Opening the LID

on Reporter story

This is in response to the article titled “Hearings board upholds Fitzgerald development standards” (Nov. 19).

Quoting from the article: “(Ann) Aagaard added that her group knew going in that in order to prevail it would need to prove Bothell’s rules were ‘clearly erroneous,’ a high burden of proof they never thought they would be able to meet.”

We were very involved and always present through the long deliberations — working on the LID (low-impact development) code for the Fitzgerald subarea. All the delays in the process to include the petition to the Growth Management Board, that wished to reverse the completed LID, have caused us irreversible economic damage. We are sweat equity farm folks who have paid cash through our entire lives, paying for our kid’s college education and putting all our resources into our land as sustainable-agriculture providers. We provided for the community, and now having reached retirement age have no hopes of retiring — having been dragged into an economic disaster — and now are facing the real danger of bankruptcy.

You see, we owe no money outside of property taxes and upkeep and the necessary expenses of life, but we are in trouble.

That’s how dire things are!

The people responsible for the petition and delays in general have cost Bothellites a tremendous amount of resources across the board. These are fortunate citizens who have resources in time and money to pursue their compulsions. They have displayed their bereft for humanity and have never sought to balance the equation between the people who own land in the subarea and their definition of “The Environment.” They have shown their willingness to use flawed data to support their goals. Frankly, their aim is frightening and tantamount to fraud. We are all concerned for the environment — “WE LIVE HERE” — but if you don’t avow to their politically correct version of “environmental,” it’s just too bad.

With the election of our new president and the rekindled involvement of Americans in their political process, it would be nice to think that Bothell now becomes more aware of what is going on here, too. That which would be assumed to be the greater good has come to cause too much damage, caused by the few for far too long.

Tom and Susan Berry

Bothell