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Tristan's Letter to the County Council

Tristan is headed off this morning to talk to the Snohomish County Council.
Here’s the letter he’s bringing with him.

A huge “Thank you” to each of you who have responded so far. And for those of you who haven’t, there’s still time. Don’t wait, today, June 10th, 2015 is the close for the discussion. Add your voice to protect Snohomish County Farmland!

 

Good Morning, My name is Tristan Klesick and I am a local farmer from Stanwood. Before I begin, I wanted to say “thank you for choosing to be leaders”. Leadership is a rare commodity today and those who are willing to make the final decision are also rare.

I have been in the food and farming business for over 20 years and the last 15 years I have been involved with the TDR issue. The County has sent me to Maryland and California with then Councilman John Koster and Senior Planner Tom Niemann to study what worked and didn’t work in the TDR world. I was also co-chair of the Snohomish Agricultural Economic Development Action Team or SAEDAT.  The Current TDR program is a solid policy.

Local farmland is an economic driver that provides local, regional and national food, helps keep taxes lower, provides habitat and flood storage.

I appreciate the tension surrounding Amendment 13. This issue is important enough to me that I engaged my community of customers and asked them to help me preserve local food options and farmland. I sent an email to 8000 people on my list and posted it on my FB page. As of this morning, that FB post has been seen by over 20K people and shared over 225 times.

My customers understand that growth is going to happen, infrastructure needs to built, but preserving the ability to feed our citizens is equally important.

The current TDR program is a good start at managing that growth and also ensuring that local citizens will have local food.  Snohomish County needs the Development community to build the infrastructure to handle the growth and the TDR program, as it is, should also streamline that process for them. I understand that it is a new paradigm, but planning now to feed the current and future residents of our county is a part of that new paradigm.

This year I have seen the need for my farmland to produce more fruit and vegetables, because the local demand is increasing, but also because the “traditional” vegetable producing regions like Arizona and California are in major droughts. If things don’t return to somewhat normal precipitation, Snohomish County Farmland will be even more important to our county and this region.

My constituents, who are also your constituents, will want to hear how Council members Somers, Klein, Wright, Sullivan and Ryan voted. I will report back to them. I would love to report back to them that each of you led on the issue of managing growth and preserving local food options and farmland by voting no on amendment 13!

Thank you

 

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Please help me preserve local food options and farmland in Snohomish County

Dear Friends,

This is Tristan Klesick of Klesick Farms writing you today with Kristin Kelly, Smart Growth Executive Director of Pilchuck Audubon Society and Snohomish/Skagit Program Director for Futurewise, asking for your help with an important issue that will preserve our local food options and farmland, both today and in the future. 

We know, and I believe you will agree, that protecting farmland and helping farmers will ensure a healthy, local, and safe food supply for our county and region, as well as maintain a quality of life we all are thankful for and enjoy.

A few years ago our Snohomish County Council members made a very wise decision about the future of our growing county.  Growth is inevitable, but wise growth is the goal.  The County Council adopted a countywide Transfer of Development Rights (TDR) Program, which will give the development community the ability to increase densities in our urban growth areas to accommodate the future growth.  The developers would need to purchase a development certificate from our county farmers in order to get increased densities in parts of the county that are better equipped to handle more growth. 

Even though the TDR program was put together with an array of stakeholder consensus from farmers, the development community, environmental community and businesses, the development community no longer wants use the TDR program (to preserve farmland) for the increased housing density.

This is why we need your help!

We believe the current TDR program is a win-win for local citizens, developers, and farmers!   We (Tristan and Kristin) have spent years working on an equitable solution to preserve farmland.  We have shared our views on the proposed changes to the current TDR program, but sadly it is becoming apparent that we will need local voters to help us convince the County Council to not cave into the desires of the development community.

Help us convince the County Council that any change in our current TDR program is unacceptable.

Kristin and I have written an email to the Council and now is your chance to share your voice.  Please Click Here to add your voice to the discussion by sending an email the County Council before June 10th, when they reconvene for a public hearing.  You can add your story and your own thoughts to the email, urging the County Council to protect our local food options and farmland today and into the future.  

Also, calling your council member will help as well.  Just leave a message on their voice mail… call 425-388-3494.

Snohomish County Council District 1–Ken Klein

Snohomish County Council District 2–Brian Sullivan

Snohomish County Council District 3–Stephanie Wright

Snohomish County Council District 4–Terry Ryan

Snohomish County Council District 5–Dave Somers

Together we can ensure a bright future for our children. Click Here to send an email to the County Council today

Tristan Klesick, Klesick Family Farms

Kristin Kelly, Futurewise and Pilchuck Audubon Society