CARE

The Board of Island County Commissioners will convene the second of a series of public forums on Tuesday, March 31, 2009 at 6:00 p.m. at the Camano Senior and Community Center, 606 Arrowhead Road, Camano Island, Washington.  The purpose of the public forums is to solicit ideas and hear general concerns about local communities. The purpose of the meeting is to obtain input on the budget crisis and priorities for Island County government.

The BOCC has set  hearings for sometime in April for the Gateway Village Zone proposed Comprehensive Plan ammendments. The proposed ammendments may be viewed at: http://www.islandcounty.net/planning/CamanoGateway.htm. Unfortunately the website doesn't have the minutes of their last meetings to find out when these hearings will be, ,so at Tuesdays special forum we will get the information about that. We will post this information as soon as we have it. If you are able to assist us with calling folks to come to hearing we need volunteers. Please call Allison Warner(425-344-7829) or call Joan Schrammeck (360-387-9589) to volunteer.  Letters to the BOCC are needed and can be emailed to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .  Or snail mailed at BOCC P.O. Box 5000, Coupeville, WA 98239.

The Planning Commission changed the proposed ammendments from what was agreed to by the Committee to re-include gas stations and convenience stores in the 532 Gateway Corridor. Please email or write to the BOCC to let them know how you feel about the possibility of another gass station convenience store at the location of the Antique Mall on SR 532. It is our understanding that DOT had issues with TR Camano's proposal for a gas station convenience store based on traffic issues. Additionally there was no consensus by the committee on allowing hotels, and CARE opposed this in the meetings. There is still a possibilty that this BICC will disallow hotels. CARE's position is that Salt Water intrusion is a high risk at this location, and a Salt Water Intrusion analysis needs to be done before allowing the change in use, and also that an economic development analysis should be conducted to verify the need/feasibility of a hotel at this location.