By Ken Pickard

Free money. What a concept. Is it anything like Free Love? I tried that and it cost me hundreds of thousands of dollars. Hmmmmm.

Free money is a concept fully embraced by politicians and bureaucrats. There are two fine examples of this thinking presently at work in the Central Whidbey Island area, both having to do with road work.

Here in Coupeville, the town has just let the contract to destroy North Main Street and re-do it with wide pavement, big curbs, fancy sidewalks on both sides, just like in the city (isn’t that what we all want?). The street will be torn up all summer and the cost is approaching one million dollars. Of course North Main works perfectly as is, could use re-paving to even out a few dips, but work of the magnitude scheduled to start in a few weeks is wasteful and unnecessary. While lamenting to Mayor Nancy the other day that it is too bad the street has to be chewed up and closed most of the summer she gaily replied, “Well, at least it’s free money!”

Apparently when the money comes from a public coffer other than the coffer of the division of government receiving it, it is considered “free money.” Doesn’t seem free to me, for it all ultimately comes out of our taxpayer pockets. In the case of the fancy re-do of North Main the dough is coming from the State of Washington.

Then we have the unwanted road project where Island County proposes to install a new road through hundreds of acres of undeveloped forest lands between Race Road and Houston/North Bluff Road. I guess Real Estate Commissioner Mac McDowell must be thrilled by that prospect. This little beauty of a project has been in the works for a good part of a decade, but was just recently revealed to the public at an informational meeting last month. It will be funded by more of that good ol’ “free money,” about one and one-quarter million dollars, $1,250,000.00, this time coming from the federal government and matched by a like amount from the Island County coffer, with a total price tag approaching three million dollars. Yes folks that’s $3,000,000.

There are seven-tenths of a mile of SR 20 between Admirals Drive and Houston Road that has no parallel side road so that if that section of highway is blocked by an accident for example there is no bypass route for emergency vehicles, etc. According to one of the engineers from the county who spoke at the information meeting last month, this has a lot to do with Homeland Security. I’m sure Osama Bin Laden in revenge for the U.S. killing of over 150,000 civilian men, women and children in Iraq is planning to blow up that seven-tenths of SR 20 in order to disrupt traffic in Greenbank, Wa. Well, that is what that engineer suggested as one compelling reason for the expenditure of the three million dollars.

Then there was the possible auto accident blocking the road. At the meeting I asked if there had ever in recorded history been such an accident blocking the road there in that location and there was no knowledge of it ever happening. Another reason in support of the need for this new road was that a tree might fall over the road. Everyone knows that Trillium Corporation raped the trees on both sides of the highway there about 15 years ago. This morning I counted the remaining trees large enough to even hit the edge of the pavement and there are about 20. For $50, a logger could remove them from the right of way and problem solved.

I just had Ed’s Construction build me a single lane road for $10 a foot. Seven-tenths of a mile, about four thousand feet, that comes to $40,000. Why not just build a gravel bypass lane on the huge right of way along SR 20 and use it if ever needed? That is way to simple and cheap, $40,000 vs. $3,000,000. Obviously the county prefers the big pork make work project coupled with the huge real estate development potential. Pork at work.

So, let’s get busy and spend $4,000,000 here in Central Whidbey to do unnecessary road work, after all it is “free money.” If this bothers you as a taxpayer, please write, call, and e-mail the county commissioners and tell them to quit on the connector road. It’s probably too late for the Coupeville re-do.

Isn’t government great?

Ken Pickard is an attorney living in Coupeville.