Writer clarifies story on shoreline program

To The Eagle:

I just received our copy of The Eagle in the mail and am concerned about factual errors in the article entitled, “Commission, advisory committee review comments for shoreline program."

At the early August public hearings on the Real Property Rights Advisory Group’s (RPRAG) draft SMP, we set a deadline of August 19 for any additional comments anyone wanted to submit. We reported that we would then review any comments received, develop responses and, if appropriate, make amendments to the draft. We also stated we would review the draft for typos, pagination errors, and wording corrections. It was reported that responses to comments received, and any changes made to the draft would be discussed at the September 8 meeting of the RPRAG. If approved by the group, the draft would then be provided to the county commissioners with the recommendation of RPRAG for commissioners’ approval.

At their weekly meeting on Oct. 5, Chuck Hendrickson and I provided a presentation to the commissioners which covered the comments we had received, our responses to those comments, corrections made to typos, pagination changes, as well as additional clarifying language to the draft. We noted that in the event the commissioners approve the RPRAG 2021 draft Shoreline Master Program for forwarding to the Department of Ecology for review and approval, a careful review should be made of all the required accompanying documents (public participation plan, ICR, restoration plan, cumulative impacts analysis, interested parties mailing list, all written comments, public comment response matrix, signed ordinance/resolution, SEPA documentation, public hearing documentation, submittal checklist, memo, and index) to insure they reflect and align with the approved draft and not the previous CREST draft. To that end, RPRAG volunteered to review these additional documents and advise the commissioners on any needed changes.

At the end of the presentation, the RPRAG recommended draft 2021 Shoreline Master Program was handed off to the commissioners for their consideration. Each commissioner was provided with a thumb drive containing the RPRAG recommended draft.

I believe your article needs to be corrected to reflect the above and request that you include that in your next edition.

Nick Nikkila

Deep River

Editor's note: We had tried to report the progress of the SMP as outlined in Mr. Nikkila's letter, but in less detail, which apparently resulted in miscommunication.