The city government has been entirely in the pocket of the Cowlitz/Pashkent/Mohegan/Barnett interests since the rightfully anti-megacasino faction was voted out on Jim Irish's campaign of lies and deceit.
Growth Management Law is not a series of suggestions.
What it boils down to is this:
The mega-casino that Irish; a major pro-bridge toll loot rail guy, I might add, has been bending the city over for years on IS ILLEGAL. It sits on land zoned agricultural. It sits outside the UGB of LaCenter. NO municipality can run ANY services to an ILLEGALLY SITED DEVELOPMENT.
I'm surprised LaCenter has a lawyer involved in this. I'm not a lawyer, and even *I* knew this wasn't going to happen... why didn't their lawyers know it?
So now, the GMHB sends the city a little love note, and drops them like a box of rocks.
Irish should never have bent the people of LaCenter over this way. And now, they're between a rock (Needing to run water/sewer out to the junction to develop that area) and a hard place (No way to pay for it unless... like the anti-megacasino faction has been warning for years, you stick it to the people of LaCenter)
They have been warned, and warned, and warned. You CANNOT run a sewer line out to the megacasino on the other side of the freeway from LaCenter's UGB when, first, you can't put services over either state or county land outside the UGB to agricultural land... even if it IS tribal, presuming they can scam some sort of exception from Carcieri... which they can't; Obama's tribal scam notwithstanding; second, you can't put sewer lines over state and county land without their permission regardless... and third, the megacasino was projected to use ALL of the available sewer volume so that even if they DID build the line, no one else could have used it... and no, La Center just could NOT expand their sewer plant; they've limited to the maximimum extent based on the permits they have acquired. getting new permits, if they COULD get them?
Years away.
The agreement was illegal the moment they signed it. The Cowlitz, of course, don't care. They'd sign any agreement, trumpet any lie, exaggeration or faux racial attack to get SOMETHING from SOMEONE that actually shows the communities around here don't hate the thought of this societal-infrastructure wrecking scam.
And, by the way: when Irish says "“there is nothing more that I can add to your inquiry," he's fibbing... just a bit.
He can explain why he's breaking the law in his effort to be the megacasino's buddy. He can explain why his lawyer... HIS LAWYER... allowed this to happen.
"Can" is, of course, not the operative word. "Won't" is just a touch more accurate.
Posted: Monday, May 14, 2012 4:52 pm
That agreement was appealed before the Growth Management Hearings Board by the owners of La Center’s existing card rooms. The base of the appeal was that La Center would be extending sewer service beyond its Urban Growth Area and into a rural area in contravention of the Growth Management Act as well as the City’s own Comprehensive Plan policy.
The City of La Center then filed a motion to dismiss the appeal. At the May 9 City Council meeting, City of La Center Attorney Daniel Kearns informed council members that the Growth Management Hearing Board denied the City’s motion to dismiss the appeal and that the Growth Management Hearing Board does have jurisdiction to review the City’s sewer agreement with the Cowlitz Tribe.
Facing the likelihood that the appeal would be granted, La Center council members voted to repeal the resolution approving the agreement.
La Center Mayor Jim Irish responded to a request by The Reflector for an interview with a text message that read (in part) “there is nothing more that I can add to your inquiry.’’
More:La Center council member Al Luiz, who along with Irish and other City officials has participated in the negotiations with Cowlitz Tribe on the sewer agreement, said that he wasn’t comfortable talking about the issue because all discussions by council members on the repeal to this point have taken place in executive session.
It's kinda like any other law: don't like it? Get it changed.
But until you do?
Don't be a moron and try and break the law.
And, by the way?
You can't use the "executive session" dodge as a way to shield yourselves from public scrutiny forever.
You people were warned; you broke the law and now YOUR pants are down around YOUR ankles.
For once.
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