We have graduated from mediation, a series of three meetings, gatherings of “Shareholders” which means those parties who are generally opposing one another, political, ideology, whatever.

We have learned an immense amount about new low impact development code that will control how future land development proceeds in western Washington. You notice that I use the term “low impact development code” as if I know what I’m talking about. I guess that I have learned something in 19 years, although I didn’t intended to do so.

But I barely know what I’m talking about partially because I don’t want to know, never did. I just applied for a rezone hearing on the advice of my neighbor who did know something about development code. He said that “we should” and being a well trained parochial rule follower I went to work to apply.

Now, nineteen years later, that neighbor has passed away and we still don’t have a resolve on that 1997 accepted application for a rezone hearing. My neighbor property owner also involved in this long journey counts 16 contractual agreements to sell his property signed and failed for lack of the ability to pass experimental city code requirements.

Is there light at the end of our tunnel? Well, seems so, maybe, possibly, or is it just another mirage like the past years that allowed us to come so close to resolution only to have the rug pulled out each and every time.

Now that we have our son, whose brain disorder is killing him, we have pleaded earnestly that time is running out with needed resources to move beyond the region’s medical facility, to travel perhaps to one of the institutions in the east to get him in a possible trial because research trials have shown to allow help for people like actor Michael J. Fox. We have literally exhausted the resources of the Pacific Northwest. But without the resources of what our property is actually worth in this housing crisis, fast expanding market, we have no hope of even trying to save our son’s life.

Can you imagine how we as aging parents feel being put through 19 years of grueling effort against what is positively conspiratorial politics, that we deny being involved in, only to have our life’s investment tied up and taken away from us to satisfy someone else’s zealous dreams of control?

I grew up, also, in the household of my great grandmother who as a young girl walked behind the family’s covered wagon from California, caught diphtheria while passing across the Columbia near Wallula and survived arriving in the Yakima valley prior to 1870. She became a pioneer premier hop grower in the valley with the first stationary picking facility. My experience extends from what I learned in my youth until now, a dizzying amount of change. We grew our own crop of apples here at the Canyon Park Orchard and defied predictions that we couldn’t do that in this Puget Sound Convergence Zone weather. And we produced notably the highest flavor varieties around.

And now we will end our lives with an everlasting taste of what Bothell has handed us for reasons that don’t show valid cause regarding Zone 1.

To those who have tried so hard to help us – I’m in tears – thankful. We may be about to find out if it truly has been all in vain.

The story, the why of Zone 1 of the Fitzgerald subarea, Bothell Washington. http://canyonparkorchard.com

Tom Berry, Bothell