Save a Forest in Southworth, WA

Southworth Forest Update:

Kitsap County Leadership Misrepresents Community Feedback

Posted June 25, 2024 by Southworth Forest

Jeff Rimack was the Director of the Kitsap County Department of Community Development (DCD) from 2019 to 2024. He misrepresented or ignored community concerns about deforestation in multiple neighborhoods from Southworth to Kingston during his tenure.

Through a public record request, the Southworth Forest community group learned that former Kitsap County Department of Community Development (DCD) Director Jeff Rimack drafted an email to County Commissioner Charlotte Garrido in early 2024 regarding a controversial 2019 deforestation violation and corrective permit in Southworth. That email from Rimack grossly mischaracterizes the factual issues related to the permit, diminishes his department's own failures in processing it, and badly misstates the community's concerns.

Leadership at the DCD either does not understand the basic issues contested in this permit or is attempting to create an alternate narrative. Missing from that email to the Commissioner is the full extent of the DCD's admitted mishandling of the permit, including "lost" community comments, ignored evidence of ongoing environmental impacts, inconsistent and erroneous statements to the community, a withdrawal of approval due to DCD carelessness, and decision-making without obtaining requested, basic information from applicants Meghan and Clint Edwards for review.

The information presented by Rimack about the Edwards deforestation permit is woefully inaccurate. It makes the community sound uninformed, petty, and unreasonable, painting a picture of what the DCD may want seen by the Commissioner rather than the truth. Rimack seems to suggest that there is no factual basis to these SouthworthForest.org articles, and yet the permit appeal filed to the Hearing Examiner assembles hundreds of exhibits of SEPA-oriented facts and will expose repeated disconnects with Kitsap County Code by DCD staff. Despite Rimack's misrepresentations, the proposed solutions from the community in that appeal are reasonable and supported by fact and law.

For instance, Rimack states up front in the email that the community pushback relates solely to the construction of a home and overburdening of a neighbor's easement. In reality, the community is primarily concerned with the County's poor handling of the illegal deforestation of the parcel and related environmental impacts. Additionally, Rimack falsely indicates that neighbors "do not want the Edwards to have livestock" in new agricultural operations when those concerns instead involve animal waste management, slaughter, and the lack of any indication on animal types and quantities. The community seeks buffering with conifer trees and for animals to be kept inside those buffers, which is supported by law.

Aside from completely neglecting the compelling environmental evidence and its relation to SEPA laws and several Land Use Policies, this permit review process has been a living, breathing violation of KCC 17.430.010 for years. Any suggestion that this permit has been handled in a "predictable, efficient and consistent manner" has been refuted by extensive evidence presented on this website and directly to the County. There are many examples of impactfully negligent conduct in this permit's review, and Rimack's dismissive and inaccurate email confirms once again that the problem includes DCD leadership.

This is not the first instance in which Rimack and other DCD leadership have misrepresented or disregarded community concerns about deforestation. In 2023 and 2024, Rimack dismissed concerns about acres of impactful mature tree removal in Kingston and Bremerton. When dealing with developers' desire to deforest Kitsap County, DCD leaders repeatedly decline concerns about climate-changing action despite available protective laws. This viewpoint trickles down to environmental staff like Scott Diener and Steve Heacock, whose SEPA decision in the Southworth case similarly ignores the impacts of mature forest destruction.

For Kitsap communities, the reality is disturbing: With controversial deforestation permits, DCD leadership may not recognize or convey the basic facts of this situation when protests emerge. They do not take the time to truly understand a controversial permit's action or simply prefer not to. Public record requests remain a mandatory tool to expose the DCD ignoring health risks, ignoring evidence, ignoring their own duties, and bending over backwards to waive fees and requirements for law breakers that use the DCD to retaliate against the neighbors who originally reported them.

No response was received from Commissioner Garrido by the Southworth community in regards to concerns about the mischaracterization. Rimack departed the DCD in March of 2024. No response was received from Assistant Director David Kinley, either, who had vetted Rimack's email and recently left his own employment at the DCD shortly after a request for comment. With the leadership vacuum at the DCD in 2024 comes an opportunity to restore new confidence in the agency's competence and consideration. We can only hope to minimize the impacts to our environment in the meantime.