Dean Boyer (Letters, July 22) misses the point.

Either Mr. Boyer doesn’t know his own organization, or he’s doing spin control. He claims that the Farm Bureau is not affiliated with the $1 billion conglomerate FBL Financial Group, but the groups share a logo and board members. Remember, he’s paid by the Farm Bureau to write this stuff, so we need to take what he says with a shaker of salt.

The point is: He says I-933 would help small farmers, but he is dead wrong. It helps developers who would like to put the cost of public services on us, the taxpayers. Selling out brings urban sprawl with its demands to change the UGA to suit them, roads clogged with shopping mall traffic, (already we are being ticketed for driving too slowly on the highway) and increased emission pollution from long commutes. Developers get rich paving over farmland, but our quality of life goes down the drain.

Mr. Boyer says I-933 would require government to consider the impact of rules and regulations of private property owners – but it has been doing that all along: the Growth Management Act protects all property owners, not just the few who want to get rich at our expense. Taxpayers will face huge tax increases if I-933 passes and the county has to pay developers to follow the rules. “Fairness” means taking care of the community as a whole.

The problem is still jobs: Where will the people work who buy houses in the Fakkemas’ planned development or shop in the shopping centers that will line the highway from Oak Harbor to Clinton? Deception Pass bridge is still only two lanes, and that will not change, however much we spend on the highway in Island County. We need to defeat I-933 to protect our farms and our rural way of life. Please don’t turn us into another commuter suburb.

Mary Fiddler

Oak Harbor