Save a Forest in Southworth, WA

Southworth Forest Update:

Southworth Forest Violators End Negotiations, Invite Permit Appeal

Posted February 1, 2025 by Southworth Forest

Overhead views of the illegal deforestation in the core of Southworth, before (2017, left) and after (2019, right). Developers Clint and Meghan Edwards, who cite resale value as a high concern, have refused to acknowledge that this action has had any adverse environmental impacts on neighboring properties. They even claim that their forest removal caused no negative aesthetic changes to the area. The County must hold dishonest developers responsible for their violations.

The after-the-fact permit to address the illegal 2019 deforestation of 11090 SE Southworth Dr. in Port Orchard has been paused since Kitsap County's decision about the mitigation requirements of violators Meghan and Clint Edwards in October 2024. Neighbors appealed that County decision, and permit staff has attempted to work with both parties to resolve the environmental impacts upon neighbors and clarify requirements.

During this time, negotiations between Edwards and the appellants were cited as a reason for pausing the appeal process. Hopes for a resolution appear to have suddenly ended on January 8, 2025, when Edwards announced to the County that they had no intent to continue negotiating with the appellants. The appellants responded that they were "blindsided" by this news and had never received any formal counteroffer from Edwards during the negotiation.

Records recently provided by the County also reveal that Clint Edwards, a mortgage lender in Port Orchard who was also cited in recent years for an unpermitted ADU on this same property, has continued attempts to evade responsibility for his code-violating actions. He especially protests that requirements such as restored screening buffers might be documented against his property in a way that limits future uses, reducing its resale value:

"We just don't want these buffers in a covenant restricting our property land use for future owners of our property which may decrease our saleability some day in the distant future."
- Clint Edwards, deforester

This self-entitlement, which Edwards and his wife have expressed throughout the permit process, may explain the apparent failure of the negotiations. They still insist that their deforestation of acres, including old growth within a wetlands buffer, has no lasting impact on the neighboring area. In fact, they argue that since the violation occurred so long ago, they should not be made responsible for mitigating impacts already addressed by neighbors since:

"The neighbors to the north already built a solid cedar fence along their entire property line that shares ours. It should be noted that we cleared our property well before the neighbors to the north purchased their home. The clearing was not an impact to them since it was always this way from the day they bought their home."
- Clint Edwards, deforester

Such fundamental lack of understanding about how environmental laws work in Washington State is why the County must finally hold Edwards responsible for the ongoing impacts of their violation, which included committing timber trespass on multiple neighbors. (Whether or not Edwards receives fewer requirements because of protective measures taken by neighbors themselves, they could be liable for neighbors' costs.) When told that they would need to replant buffers of trees along some edges of their clearing anyway, Clint Edwards responded:

"I see small farms all over our southworth [SIC] community and many of them do not have 25-50 ft screening requirements met. Why is our property being treated differently in that regard?"
- Clint Edwards, deforester

The reason, of course, is because Edwards converted forestlands to agriculture in a manner and scale that requires environmental protections for neighbors by law. It also doesn't help that he already destroyed that forest illegally. This quantity of forest clearing has not occurred in Southworth for many years, and now that the large pasture has been created in the core of the town, protections against future use are required.

Edwards also repeatedly expresses impatience with the County's permitting process despite refusing to comply with requests for revised site plans that would have sped up the process. The County spent much of 2024 attempting to convince Edwards to revise these plans before giving up. Edwards now expects the County to update his site plans for him rather than pay his own engineer to do that work, but he demands that the County do it quickly, which is a near impossibility given its own staffing shortages:

"Please confirm that the plan is to temporarily withdraw the acceptance to make the two changes only to then quickly reissue the acceptance letter displaying these updates? [I] want to be certain that we are not moving back in line for another full review due to these changes."
- Clint Edwards, deforester

The trail of correspondence between Edwards and the County is particularly alarming in regards to the way he addressed the failed negotiations. When the County's lead staff for the corrective permit, Cecilia Olsen, asked about the status of an agreement between Edwards and lead appellant, neighbor Christian Clemmensen, the latter responded:

"Unfortunately, no progress has been made on a written agreement for the broader issues involved in this action. The appellants are still waiting for a counterproposal from Edwards."
- Christian Clemmensen, neighbor/appellant

Shortly thereafter, Edwards responded that the appellants had already refused the best offer Edwards had made to them:

"There will not be a counterproposal offered from us to the Clemmensen's [SIC]. We offered our best offer and they have appeared to decline and ask for more than we are willing to accept. We are interested in moving forward with the update to our site plan removing the easement development and the site visit with Steve Heacock to discuss any additional landscaping needs. From there, we are ready to move forward with the appeal if needed."
- Clint Edwards, deforester

That response clearly caught the appellants by surprise, as they responded later that day to the County with a refutation of Edwards' assertion, partially included below:

"The appellants were blindsided by the news today from Edwards, who we had not heard from since our meeting in December despite reaching out to them twice. We have never received a formal counterproposal from Edwards, nor have we ever received notice that we had been sent any final or "best" offer. We would challenge Edwards to show us a proposed agreement we declined."

"It seems, in retrospect, that Edwards was only prepared to offer 1) compliance with what they believed the DCD was to force upon them in this permit and 2) the non-development of a spite road in the easement that they had not intended to build for the last few years anyway. For them, nothing more would be considered. We are always willing to negotiate, but those negotiations have to be conducted in good faith so that both sides communicate clearly and give concessions towards a compromise."
- Christian Clemmensen, neighbor/appellant

Clint Edwards' apparently dishonest statement, blaming the appellants for refusing a final offer to solve the Southworth deforestation case, is consistent with his past false statements. These include very erroneous and misleading permit submittals before and after his forest violation in Southworth, the filing of a legal claim against neighbors based upon his own badly inaccurate declaration (a violation punishable by Washington Civil Rule 11), and reportedly extending back to Edwards' very first encounter years ago with these neighbors eventually most impacted by the deforestation:

"Clint Edwards lied to my face the first time he met me. He assured me that he was going to get a boundary survey to fence the property line between our places. He instead cleared the whole forest without a survey, wiping out 1,000 square feet on my property, too. We're still trying to deal with the impacts six years later. Now, he wants some informal agreement that would make us give up our rights to protect our property and to free speech in return for what he wants to do anyway. It's all about his property value for him. It's about being cheap, fast, and off the record. That's exactly how the worst developers all want to make the world work."
- Stella Clemmensen, neighbor/appellant

The violators and appellants are now awaiting the County's revisions to the Edwards site plan and clarification of required environmental conditions after another staff site visit. Because of Meghan and Clint Edwards' continued refusal to acknowledge any of their environmental impacts or the emotional distress their lack of integrity and honesty has caused on neighbors, the appellants are prepared to take their hundreds of exhibits to the Hearing Examiner in appeal and later, if necessary, the courts. Careless, entitled developers cannot be allowed to violate the law and misrepresent the truth without making things right.