To the county executive, the King County Council and other interested parties:

Upon further research we have found that King County cites Article XI, Section 11 of the Washington State Constitution as authority for promulgating their regulations, restrictions and ordinances, including the proposed Critical Area Ordinance, the Storm Water Ordinance and the Clearing and Grading Ordinance.

So, for the benefit of the council and other readers, Article XI, Section 11 of the Washington State Constitution goes like this: “SECTION 11 POLICE AND SANITARY REGULATIONS. Any county, city, town or township may make and enforce within its limits all such local police, sanitary and other regulations as are not in conflict with general laws.”

“… as are not in conflict with general laws.” What could be more basic (or general) than the 5th and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution and Article I, Section 16 of the Washington State Constitution?

It should be fairly easy for anyone with even the least amount of common sense to conclude (especially for the county executive and our County Council members that swear on oath to save, protect and defend those constitutions) that King County’s proposed ordinances “are in conflict with the ‘most basic’ general laws” and thus are invalid on their face. These ordinances should have never been proposed in the first place and each council member knows it.

What it tells this observer is that special interests (radical environmentalists and city folk) have a strangle hold on the county executive, certain council members and county staff and they have been “bought” by the not-so-hidden agenda of those special interests.

That not-so-hidden agenda is to relieve (confiscate) rural landowners of not only the rights to own or use property, but to the very property itself. In fact, the proposed ordinances place almost the entire burden of environmental protection on one class of citizens while the majority class get off scot free, in egregious violation of the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution.

And they call this representative government? Hardly!

Ron Ewart

Fall City