Our friend over at The Syre Times continues with great circularity to confound the growth debate. And what better way to begin than misstating the position of those opposed to continuing unmanaged growth, and begging the question at the heart of the debate.

His commentary tells readers that we “miss the point” in our opposition to “growth that is lawfully authorized.” In fact The Weekly misses the point. Though the battle line is presently drawn at stopping the growth machine's old game of exaggerating future populations, the war is really all about what in fact is "lawful."

While the growth lobby has strained to restate the law to serve their purposes, in its opening words those who passed the law wrote that the Growth Management Act, “is intended to recognize the importance of rural lands and rural character...a county should foster land use patterns and develop a local vision of rural character... compatible with the use of the land by wildlife and for fish and wildlife habitat; foster the private stewardship of the land and preservation of open space; and enhance the rural sense of community.”

Mr. Johnson does not miss the fact that Whatcom County practice and policy has effected the opposite of the Act's intent and fostered an “explosion” of growth in rural areas instead at, “four times the rate anticipated—the very definition of unplanned, unsupported, unconnected leap-frog development.”

And Mr. Johnson understands, “We’ve lost an average of 1,200 ag land acres per year over the same period, the most egregious loss of agricultural capacity in Western Washington. What the community wished to preserve, we’re quickly losing.”

Going on twenty years ago, the first priority of the popular effort to manage growth, the first step mandated by the legislature in the effort to preserve the character of our rural counties, was to designate resource lands important to agriculture and forestry and protect them from incompatible development.

How has Whatcom County managed to avoid this intent and produce these disastrous results? By gaming the system. By projecting growth and then creating it. Like the man in the cornfield was told, “build it and they will come.”

As Johnson writes, “people elsewhere are mobile and able to move here to the extent of their interests and means.” He appropriately points out that Whatcom County's policy of putting the burden of infrastructure on the public, and their failure to establish impact fees similar to the city, drives developers into rural lands.

But the paper ignores the purpose exaggerated expectations serve in rationalizing the need for additional land supply to grow, and thereby making that land cheaper.

The development club enjoys posing as a charitable bunch primarily interested in creating affordable housing. They then oppose any measures that make land more expensive to them, or development less profitable. This charade should be exposed for what it is. In fact by making land cheap, and keeping the price of housing low, people who otherwise would not move here for lack of means are attracted, and the developers can sell houses.

It's true the public is learning just how they subsidize the very growth that destroys rural character and the cherished features of our towns and cities. And soon they will similarly understand the Big Lie. “It's lawful. You can't stop it.”

The law does not require rural communities to destroy their character. Irrespective of past trends, the time has come to decline growth that is beyond our financial resources, and can not be supported with the water critical to maintaining agriculture and habitat for fish and wildlife. The law does require us to protect and preserve these resources for generations to come. We can just say no to growth.

Rather than pound the drum, toot his horn and play from the sheet of music put in front of him by the development crowd, our friend might consider that actual law enforcement to implement effective land use policy trumps population forecasting. The carrying capacity of the land is exceeded. Come join the opposition to the county administration that ignores the law to promote profits for a few at the expense of many.

That is the point in opposing the promoters.