HomeMy WebLinkAbout081726 email - Concerns about code compliance S_O_P_sALERT: BE CAUTIOUS This email originated outside the organization. Do not open attachments or click on links if you are not expecting them.
Hello,
I appreciate that Heather reminded me this weekend that the county commissioners represent everyone in the county, including me. A member of my team suggested I reach out to you all
with my issue.
I've been facing some difficulties with Becca Maurer. I understand that she is trying to do her job and feels pressured to respond to community complaints. However, despite my providing
a lot of proof against the claims lodged against me, she seems to ignore them. I have yet to see any proof of the code violations she is claiming. Perhaps they will be made available
for the first time at a scheduled meeting at the office on Wednesday. Recently, months after she told me she would call to schedule an on site walk through, she sent me a very threatening
email with a short deadline that was over long before I saw the email. The email threatens steep fines compounded daily unless I correct violations that do not exist. She has repeatedly
asked me to sign a document that removes my right to appeal these claims of violations with an examiner and allows county staff to enter my property at any time without notice. I am
concerned about these practices for code compliance and I wonder if they are standard operating procedure.
She has sent me a document with the complaints and it definitely sounds like a single person or a small group has become fixated on my property and is trying to weaponize the department
of public health.
The complaints use a lot of the same terminology and one complaint states, "I have called repeatedly about it". These complaints were posed to me as though they are all separate individuals
but several are from one person, as that complaint clearly states.
The subject of the complaints all seem to focus on a story that has been created in their imagination. The word "encampment" is used repeatedly. They are concerned about the "type of
residents" being drawn to "our neighborhood". They are complaining about the porta potty that the department of public health required. They complain about a non-existent dumpster.
"Waste tires" have been mentioned several times by Becca Mourer, but they do not show up in the complaints or exist on site. The complaints also alleged that because I have storage
sheds, they must be housing people (they are not, they house stored items). They alleged that because there must be many people living here and therefore those people must be dumping
waste into the neighbors pond. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth.
I have met all three of you, whether only once or many times. I have been a respected member of the community for the last 15 years. I run a thriving repair business in Port Townsend
and on the weekends I am restoring a degraded wetland on a 6.8 acre parcel that I bought for that purpose and to live on as well. I don't have a lot of time to spend, but I do have
a passion for restoring this wetland. It's a slow process. I will be the first to admit my staging area for this project is a bit chaotic, but it is not full of code violations. Trash
is taken regularly (usually multiple times a month thanks to my business producing excess debris) and the self contained RVs are dumped off site at the fairgrounds and Fort Warden.
The rarely needed porto potty is plenty for the people onsite, which number 4. Myself and 3 relatives who are moving to Whidbey Island soon. Even with them here, I have a hard time
believing that 4 is too many people for 6.8 Acres. The Rvs being used are fully self contained. They might not be the newest or the prettiest, but they all run and drive and operate
as they should. I do have additional Rvs that are not being used. One, an airstream, is waiting to be sold or perhaps made into a commercial kitchen to rent out. A similar vintage streamliner
is waiting to become a cedar sauna, and the 1969 international school bus that receives so much ire is going to be patched, painted, and pinstriped and made into a "Tool Bus" for tool
storage. Of all my vehicles it is the only one that technically meets the criteria of a "junk vehicle" and the code allows me to have 2.
The large boat is a community wide project to rescue and restore The Seaweed. This boat has a rich and celebrated history and is being hosted here for no charge until its completion.
These projects all have to take a back burner to making the property more fire safe by limbing low branches, creating fire breaks, cutting tall dry invasive species and restoring the
critical water restoration area.
All staging for this project is packed into a tight little space because most of the action is on the rest of the land. I have received a grant from the NRCS to "continue my conservation
practices" My assigned NRCS conservation planner has been out here several times. He has walked all around and was just here on Friday 8/14/26. He took no issue with the state of my
property.
Our grant writer is seeking funding for a $12,000 wetland delineation that must be done, and our environmental planner is working on a clear path through the permitting steps for the
project. This is all moving at the speed of bureaucracy, and I also wish it could move faster. Becca Maurer would like me to immediately have a septic plan and permit, even though that
is not possible without the delineation. This is an action more appropriate for a residential build. There is currently not a buildable lot on site. It was an agricultural zoned parcel
for years and as soon as I can it will go back to that zoning. The previous owner did not keep up on the requirements for that designation. It should have been put into recreational
zoning, not R-10, but I've just been paying the higher taxes until I meet the requirements for an agricultural zoning designation. Regardless, until the delineation is done there is
no possibility of locating a proper site for a septic system, let alone planning or permitting it.
One reason the complaints may have increased is because I have been limbing low branches for fire safety. It has made storage canopies and items that have been here for years appear
new. I know I need some better organization for the supplies and items here, but I have prioritized other things like meeting the ecologically necessary timelines for the conservation
efforts and fire safety tasks. Someday this place will be pretty enough for the neighbors, but it is not my top priority.
The tone of the code compliance office in response to these unfounded complaints has caused me a lot of stress, lost sleep and time away from work. There has been no professionalism
shown by reaching out to confirm or disprove the claims, but rather it has been with an assumption that these people driving by are correct in their fears of a homeless encampment and
all they imagine it entails.
I'm hoping that I can clear this up in the meeting on Wednesday, or that I can get some instructions regarding filing an appeal. I tried looking it up by the code numbers given, but
there is not a clear path to appeal. I'm wondering if you can offer me any support in this.
I have been told that the complaints are coming through the office of one of the county commissioners, so I hope that my voice as a property owner can carry weight as well. I believe
I have the right to live in peace in what is also my neighborhood. The complaints against me are all maybes and mights with no one actually seeing anything that's a violation. It's
all about what they want to and don't want to look at and what it makes them imagine is happening, while my property is no different than half a dozen others between me and discovery
road. It is not appropriate for me to be singled out in this way. My staging area is temporary and other places have been as disorganized or much much worse for years and years. Yet
they remain unbothered. Laws applied unequally are unjust. I apologize for my lack of brevity, but the amount of these fines and the threat of property liens make this more distressing
than you can imagine.
Thank you for your attention,
anami (Zan) Cloud
1991 Cape George Rd
Port Townsend
Phoenix Salix Pharm Wetland Restoration Project Coordinator
&
Owner Quimper Fixit Services LLC
360.460.3112c
360.670.7571w
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