Please attend the Skagit County Planning Commission meeting on Tuesday, May 24th at 6:00 pm in the Board of County Commissioners Hearing Room, 1800 Continental Place, Mount Vernon. Your presence and support is needed at this important meeting to further review the Skagit County Planning commission’s decision last week to remove/cancel all walkway & bikeway projects in the County’s 20-year comprehensive plan.

While we appreciate the complexities of the many private and public interests the commission must balance, we feel that a strong presence of pro-trails representation at this next meeting will help demonstrate the overwhelming public support these programs have – so as make the case against a vocal minority that has advocated canceling walkway & bikeway projects.

The Mount Vernon Parks Foundation would like to also praise the Skagit County Planning & Development staff for "strongly advocating" that the Planning Commission re-consider their decision to remove all non-motorized (walkway & bikeway) projects from the County's comprehensive plan. The Skagit County Planning & Development Dept. May 20th memo makes a clear, well thought-out and convincing recommendation to the Commission:

“The Planning Commission recommendation to pull the NMT projects from the 20-year needs list was apparently a reaction to a few public comments (a minority of commenters on non-motorized transportation) advocating that outcome. Those comments advocated for removal of these projects on the basis that they had not gone through the public process for addition to the 6-year TIP. The commenters misunderstand the process on several levels…”

Attending this Planning meeting will be an opportunity to show our support of trails and parks in our community and encourage the commission to reconsider their previous decision.

This month we are proud to mark the 30th anniversary of the partnership between the Mount Vernon Parks Foundation and the City of Mount Vernon. From this cooperative relationship, we have come to recognize the power of citizen groups and elected officials working together to make great things happen in our community. We have learned that our elected officials and their staff welcome respectful citizen participation in the decision making process. We have also learned that “showing up” matters.

We hope to see you there.

Sincerely,

Rick Levine
President
Mount Vernon Parks Foundation