I am sorry to say that I have made very little progress to restore our use of N Shore. I am committed to the weekly Skagit County public comment session where I am awarded a three minute time allotment to plead our case for reopening. I read my written presentation to the commissioners and then follow up by sending it via email for their review and files, also copying Grace Kane the Public Works Director.
If you would like to join the meeting in person it is located at: 1800 Continental Place, Suite 100 in Mount Vernon. You are also able to join their meetings via Zoom, linked from the Board of County Commissioners website.
To sum it up, I have used every possible scenario and reiterated the reasons why our road should be restored and reopened. Most importantly I am concerned about emergency travel time for our volunteer firefighters, but in addition there is the garbage and delivery trucks, snowplows and graders and our mail. The road closure is a significant inconvenience for those services let alone for residents and our needs. The road tax portion of our property tax dollars goes into the county general fund and from there the money is used based on priorities. We are not high on the priority list due the number of people served as proved by the traffic count strips that are put out periodically. I was instrumental in having the counting strips out for 8 days and during a summer weekend, but still our increased traffic volume was not sufficient for Public Works to consider the road restoration.
Currently the county is creating turnarounds at both closure points and cleaning up debris on N. Shore within the barriers.
If you would like to write to the commissioners on this or any other matter of concern, their contact information is below.
Skagit County Commissioners Address
1800 Continental Place, Suite 100
Mount Vernon, WA 98273
360.416.1300
Skagit County Commissioners Email
commissioners@co.skagit.wa.us
Grace Kane, Public Works Director (same address)
gracek@co.skagit.wa.us
If you would like to reach me for further information and details of my conversations with the Skagit County, please contact me any time at: 206.794.7141 or email: larita_humble@frontier.com