While a member of the county park board, we provided the Orcas Rec program with a minimal budget. The last one for me was in 2007 for $72,000. Didier, the director, did great with it and got many individuals like myself to contribute to his programs. Bob Eagan, a Park and Rec District commissioner, came to a luncheon group and said that they want to take over Buck Park for which we have paid school taxes to fix the fields and put in a water system. He also wants to put in toilets. I pointed to the Village Park toilets that were done on my watch as chair for over $190,000 due to the county, state and Eastsound Sewer requirements.

He was totally unaware of the problems. I suggested that they could use two to four sanicans for many years before spending $190,000 plus the interest that money could earn.

The Rec District overhead projections for office and salaries appears to be very generous in these times of austerity by its tax payers. What they do with the $280,000 is very important. The editor of this paper points to fixing the hard assets when the entire budget should be program oriented.

Join me and many others who will say no to this poorly thought out program.

Dick Evans

Olga