A pall of uncertainty accompanied Island County Commissioner Mac McDowell and Oak Harbor Mayor Patty Cohen on their recent trip to Washington, D.C. for their annual meeting with military brass.

In a further effort to prevent encroachment on Whidbey Island Naval Air Station, the city and county have partnered with the Navy and the state to acquire an approximately 18-acre piece of property located north of Oak Harbor in the “accident potential zone” beyond the runway. The county has already signed the purchase agreement, contingent on financing. The two elected officials wanted to make sure the deal was still going through.

Days before departure, McDowell received an ominous e-mail from his Navy contact saying that the money budgeted to help U.S. bases stave off encroachment was in danger of disappearing.

“They said they had a budget crunch and they may have to cancel the program for this year Navy-wide,” McDowell said.

An offer to purchase the land, known as the Boyer property, for $2.4 million was made in August. An appraisal came in at $2.5 million.

“At the time I had no idea how much the Navy was going to kick in,” McDowell said. “The new encroachment program is relatively new, so the Navy tries to treat all communities the same. Us raising a million dollars is a big deal locally. Raising the same amount in San Diego is nothing. It’s not apples and apples.”

McDowell initially hoped federal funds would be closer to $1 million. Don Boyer, a staunch Navy supporter and property trustee, agreed to lower the price by $200,000 after consulting with his children, who hold the land in trust.

The Navy agreed to contribute nearly $800,000 of the $2.4 million purchase price. The state budgeted another third of the price. The county then had to decide how to proceed.

“That left the city and county to decide whether to stay together or punt,” McDowell said. “I said, ‘$770,000 from the Navy? We’ll make it work.’”

The entire property — eyed at one time for the Wal-Mart location — has been assessed at approximately $550,000, well below the potential sales price. When attaching values to properties, County Chief Appraiser Gary Bur said his department must adhere to market value, utilizing sales from the past. The Boyer acquisition is an entirely different beast because of the parties involved.

“If the sale goes through from the Navy, state, and county and city of Oak Harbor it will be an unqualified sale, as the government is involved and we will not be able to utilize it to appraise other properties in the area,” Bur said. “The entities involved look at the purchase from a completely different perspective than we as appraisers or the typical purchaser would.”

An interested buyer from the private sector would have to contend with obstacles that would make the purchase price prohibitive.

Neither the state nor the Navy would purchase land, only development rights, McDowell said. That left hanging the question of ownership.

“That’s where I thought local dollars could come in,” he said, adding that he believed the city and county could make up the substantial sum of money. The county will be responsible for $600,000 and the city of Oak Harbor will be asked for the remaining $200,000.

“That’s the level of participation that the commissioners are looking to the city for,” Mayor Patty Cohen said. “The city council will have the final word on that.”

The county signed the purchase agreement. It is not, however, interested in owning land within the city limits.

“We’d like to see an option in there that this could be assigned to the city,” Cohen said. “And if we go down that road, it would really be nice to someday restore that piece of property, which has been forested, to its original, native state.”

City density restrictions on the property were passed at 30 people per acre after the Navy extended its Air Installations Compatible Use Zone in 2005 to include the Boyer property. The Navy was more comfortable with an allowable density of 10 people per acre. The city and the county went a step further to help prevent encroachment.

“The city and the county determined that it was in our long-term best interest protecting, preserving, and enhancing the training environment of the naval air station to buy that down to one person per acre,” Cohen said. “If that was the threshold that we wanted to set then we had to be willing to pick up that additional cost.”

The current zoning and density regulations could allow for light industrial use or boat or RV sales, Cohen said. McDowell said the density was set lower to protect people on the ground should an aircraft crash during take-off or landing.

“That’s really when many accidents tend to happen,” McDowell said. “The fact that they’re all funneled over this piece of ground makes it more likely that one would crash in an accident potential zone. And that is scary. Why put people at risk?

“It doesn’t make sense to have a shopping center on the extension of a runway.”

Cohen and the McDowell met with top Navy leadership last week and once again told the story of the peaceful and fruitful coexistence between the city and naval base. Whatever they said did the trick, although the countenances of the stoic military officials gave nothing away.

“I had no idea what was going to happen when we got out of that meeting,” McDowell said. “Then less than 12 hours later, it was that night, I received an e-mail from my contacts here in Silverdale that said, ‘We don’t know what you did, but we got notified today that the $770,000 is secure.’ The timing just happened to be right. The speed they made it happen was incredible.”

The timeline for putting all the pieces together is tentative, but McDowell was ecstatic that the deal is still alive and kicking. A former Navy pilot himself, the commissioner is wanting to protect the base from closure if the naval air station ever comes under scrutiny again from the Base Realignment and Closure Committee.

“Encroachment is gradual,” he said. “It doesn’t happen overnight. Either you take a stand or you don’t. We’re taking a stand.”