PART 1 of 2: Stephanie O’Day: ‘The Pendulum is Out of Balance’

Tuesday, June 25, 2024 at 2:55 a.m.
Written by Jeff Noedel
Video directed by: Jeremy Tyler

A CNL2 VIDEO IS AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS PAGE

Stephanie O’Day is running for the position of San Juan County County Representative from Residency District 1. She visited the CNL2 Studio for an interview with me at 11:00 a.m. of Monday, June 24. Our interview lasted approximately 45 minutes.

Viewers tell us they enjoy our interviews, but some believe they are too long. We get that. So we have begun a new policy of parsing the longer interviews into segments approximately 20 minutes in length, and publishing the parts in a series over a two- or three-day period.

Why not just have shorter interviews? Because the “gold” — the things you want to hear from the people who seek to lead and make rules for County life and commerce — comes when interviewees relax and open up in longer interviews. We get to more truth. And we learn more about them as people. To understand a leader’s personality is to be able to predict how they will govern. So we will continue with long-form interviews, but we will serve them in sections, spread out over two or three days.

The interview begins with Stephanie explaining that she feels one of her opponents is enlisting the support of “the Democratic machine” here. She feels that is inappropriate because County Council elections are nonpartisan. She says it is hard to campaign in “the whole community is polarized on different issues.”

At approximately 3:00 minutes into the conversation, Stephanie is asked, “Who you will represent?” Her answer starts with, “I’m not going to be a land use lawyer anymore…”

At 4:30, she says of the County government, “We’ve got the environment covered” and “The pendulum is out of balance.”

(5:15) Stephanie is asked, “Is our emphasis on tourism out of balance?”

(6:00) Washington State Ferries is “absolutely in crisis.” She said WSF is another example of how the emphasis on environment (by Washington State Government) has distorted the core service it provides. The state of ferries “is atrocious,” she adds. She is open to discussing privatization of ferries.

(9:00) Her primary objectives for her campaign for County Council Rep include to “level the playing field for the people who live here.” One example would be to improve the County building code and permitting process. She said the County’s planning and permitting department is “unhinged.” She said land use affects so much; it affects contractors, the entire construction industry here, as well as homeowners. She called it “a vicious horrible circle.” She indicated she is open to farming out the land use planning review process. “It’s just not working here,” she said.

(11:30) Stephanie O’Day was asked, “Do you know how it (long delays in construction permitting) got to this?” She said “critical area regulations” are voluminous, and that — for example — shoreline regulations conflict with other sets of regulations. She alleges that “most of staff in DCD are ‘scientists,’ not planners, (who) don’t know anything about planning.” She said this is a different from way planning from past.

(15:45) She said the work of hearing examiners are becoming more like trials. Of the slow-moving permitting processes, she said, “It affects housing; it affects everything.” She said the solution requires just tweaks in the code, not a rewriting of entire codes.

(18:00) Stephanie is asked is she believes there is intent in the planning department to slow growth in the County.

(20:00) She says, “I’m the only one (of all six County Council candidates) who has the experience in this,” apparently referring to the intricacies of navigating land use policy for clients.

Part 2 of the interview will be published tomorrow (Wednesday, June 26, 2024).

This CNL2 video is approximately 24-3/4 minutes in duration.