Conservations Futures program prioritizes its proposals

Pierce County Council at its Oct 8 meeting passed an amended version of Proposal No. R2019-123, acknowledging receipt of the Citizens’ Advisory Board’s recommendations for funding the purchase of land related to the Conservation Futures program meant to preserve open space, wetlands, wildlife habitat, timber land and agricultural lands.

The amendment, which passed by a vote of 6-0 (council member Jim McCune had an excused absence), removed the Gateway Park Expansion project at the north end of Key Peninsula from the list and moved Sumner’s Salmon Creek Park proposal – four acres of active and passive recreation including trails and corridors – to eighth place on the list of ranked property acquisitions. The council then passed the amended proposal 6-0.

Prior to the vote, council member Pam Roach had her say regarding what she considered a lack of transparency regarding the Salmon Creek Park proposal, which she said people – including a few members of the council – didn’t know about until very recently.

Roach noted that she has spent some 30 years in government, including her time as a state senator, “and the one thing that is important to me is open government – that people have the ability to hold their government accountable and that they have the ability to be responsible for some of the things that are happening in their own lives, and that certainly did not occur here.”

In other business, the council approved 6-0 several ordinances regarding applications for open space classifications: Proposal Nos. 2019-42, 2019-43, 2019-51, 2019-68, 2019-69, the first three in unincorporated Pierce County and the latter two in Tacoma and Gig Harbor, respectively.

Proposal No. 2019-63 was also passed on a 6-0 vote. The proposal places the Joshua Raines home and property on Fox Island on the Pierce County Register of Historic Places. Raines was Fox Island’s earliest landowner and logger in 1882.

The council approved several proposals by a 6-0 vote:  Proposal No. R2019-130, proclaiming the county government’s intent to participate in “The Great Washington Shakeout,” an earthquake safety event, on Oct. 17; Proposal No. R2019-131, proclaiming October 2019 “Domestic Violence Awareness Month”; and Proposal No. R2019-134, recognizing the 25th anniversary of Pierce County Superior Court Felony Drug Court.