DRAFT shelly letter to wiltsie
City of Yelm
105 Yelm Avenue West
P.O. Box 479
Yelm, WA 98597
March 24, 2005
Edward A. Wiltsie, PE
P.O. Box 946
Rainier, WA 98576
Dear Mr. Wiltsie:
Mayor Rivas asked that I respond to your letter presented at the City Council meeting on March 23, 2005.
First, I would like to restate that raising a permit process issue at Council meeting for the first time is inappropriate. The City’s designated SEPA Responsible Official is Grant Beck,
Yelm’s Community Development Director. It would be the Responsible Official’s decision whether or not to transfer lead agency status through a lead agency agreement, not the City Council’s.
Further, the City Council is an appellate body for land use permit and SEPA threshold determinations and its participation in the process at this stage is both premature and inappropriate.
It is tantamount to asking the Court of Appeals to rule on a matter that has not yet been heard by the Superior Court.
I have full faith that the Community Development Department will discharge its duties in a manner fair to all parties to the land use application, as always. As you heard at the Council
meeting, the Department was criticized for being overly stringent on another developer, which is a good indication CDD is the unbiased and neutral governmental body with jurisdiction
and that your perceptions may be based on your position in the debate.
Finally, I strongly disagree with your characterizations regarding your observations that the City and staff are not meeting responsibilities pursuant to the Growth Management Act.
Planning is a process and my observations of both the consistency review and critical areas review is an open public process that has responded to somewhat limited input from the public
in a measured manner. While I am sure that your comments regarding the transportation plan will be addressed through the Wal-Mart review process, I believe that you are not applying
the adopted policies correctly and that the land use assumptions that you attribute to the Transportation Plan are incorrect.
Sincerely,
Shelly Badger,
City Administrator
c. Mayor Adam Rivas
Grant Beck, Community Development Director