Chris Dunagan’s story about the Legislature’s help with cutting the cost of the purchase of 7,000 acres in North Kitsap has behind it a tremendous lobbying effort taken on by legislators and citizens just to get the bill heard in the state Senate.
Those involved shared e-mails. Someone shared with us the exchanges of e-mails and I’ve done the work to pretty much show them to you in the order they happened. I took out the names of the 67 people who were CC’d on the e-mails, in large part because we would love to continue receiving e-mails like this in the future if someone finds a string that illustrates a story like this. I found out a couple of years ago that legislator e-mails are not public record. There are local officials in the mix here, so all these e-mails would be public record, if you’re interested in doing a record request through the county or city of Poulsbo.
We’re including the e-mails to tell a story of what was happening behind the scenes, the events illustrated in the following part of Dunagan’s story:
Sen. Christine Rolfes, D-Bainbridge Island, said the bill got hung up because it appeared to affect only a small group. But, with the clock winding down, lobbyists from timber companies, environmental groups and local governments joined together, along with many local supporters. They pushed Senate leaders to move the bill to a vote, which was unanimous in the Senate after only one dissenting vote in the House.
“It took teamwork,” Rolfes said, “but it was very easy to say that everyone wants this.”
Jon Rose, who is spearheading the land deal for Pope Resources, said the legislation shows how people can make things happen when they need to.
“This was one of the best examples of a diverse group of Kitsap County residents coming together for a positive result,” he said, “and I would like to see more of it.”
The evidence follows.
