May 1, 2005

Skagit County Commissioners

Dear Commissioners,

First, we would like to thank you for continuing support in providing ferry service to Guemes Island. Your recent property purchases to expand the Guemes parking lot are greatly appreciated and are in keeping with your 15 year capital facilities plan to encourage walk on traffic. After many years of waiting, we are told that the 6th street parking lot in Anacortes is in its final stages of completion and could be in service by the end of the month.

We realize that these facility improvement expenses have added to the budget within the past few years. However, these facilities will be there for a long time and the money spent could justifiably be amortized, or depreciated, over their projected lives, making the actual cost per year considerably less. Public Works has continued to fund the needed repairs to pilings and ferry in order to maintain top quality facilities and vessel.

We appreciate your continuing support of the Guemes Ferry operation.

Today, many of us are here because we are disturbed that you are considering extending the ferry service into the evening Monday through Thursday. This discussion is not the result of the recommendations of the Task Force which worked for nearly a year to provide a blueprint for the future at a cost of $300,000 paid to consultants Berk and Associates and which you signed more than a year ago. In working on those recommendations, the Task Force clearly saw no support for extended service. Certainly you are not considering this option as a result of recent votes to elect members to the Ferry Committee in which the issue that separated the candidates was whether they supported extended service into the evenings, or not. In my re-election to the FC last year, I received nearly 70% of the vote based on my opposition to extended ferry service. In our recently completed election this year, Vic Garcia was elected with 65% of the vote based on his opposition to extended ferry service. In both of the mail out elections, approximately 75% of those sent ballots voted. In 2004, there were nearly 400 registered voters and in the year 2005 nearly 500 registered voters who were sent ballots. Obviously, there is an overwhelming majority of registered voters on Guemes who oppose extended ferry service into the evenings, Monday through Thursday.

Most Guemes Islanders realize the impact that extended service will have on our Island, not only in direct added costs to the operation which are already escalating out of control but also the inevitable growth in population which will put pressure on our limited water resource which has qualified Guemes Island as a Critical Area. In fact, it is believed that such an extension of hours would violate the Growth Management Act regarding the extension of transportation corridors into Critical areas without an environmental impact statement. The extended service proposal might be likened to putting a 4-lane highway through Fir Island, where only a two lane now exists without considering the consequences beforehand.

We believe that it is time for the Commissioners to stop this discussion of extended hours and instead urge you to direct Public Works to work with the Union to more equitably distribute the work among all crewmembers and to bargain a contract, which reflects the reality of the current situation. Many of the escalating costs that we are seeing are a result of the inability of the County and the IBU to reach agreement on a new contract while paying wages based on a contract that reflects an entirely different era. Furthermore, the fourth person was added to correct a Washington State Auditor cash-handling finding even though the auditor said not to "fix a $10,000 problem with a $100,000 solution." In fact, the fourth person cost the County $130,000 last year.

We believe that if the extended service option was taken off the table permanently, there would finally be progress in the negotiations. As long as extended service is an option, there will be no willingness to work on resolving the contract and the escalating cost of the ferry operation will continue. In the current fiscal atmosphere, it is unconscionable to propose extended service that will increase costs to Skagit County taxpayers, especially when this proposed extended service has been rejected by a two thirds majority of Guemes Island voters.

Sincerely,

GUEMES ISLAND FERRY COMMITTEE