If environmentalists don’t want the land-use deck stacked against them, they’d better get to the table early – and help write the rules of the game.

Now, however, Bainbridge greenies may have found their ace in the hole: the recent rise of a vocal pro-environment contingent on the city council.

“It’s rare for elections to be decided by the candidates’ views on the environment,” said David Bricklin, a land use lawyer and keynote speaker at Saturday’s Bainbridge Environmental Conference.

“But if it not the issue in this community, it is one of the top.”

Bricklin, a founding member of the growth-management advocacy group 1000 Friends of Washington, headed a list of speakers at the conference, which drew 80 citizens to the Bainbridge High School LGI Room. The event was co-sponsored by the Association of Bainbridge Communities and other local organizations.

Bricklin offered a sober assessment of the influence that “development interests” can have on government decisions.

The large financial interests at stake, coupled with strong legal protections for property rights, makes it difficult for citizens to alter the outcome of land use decisions that are perfectly legal but damaging to the environment.

The only real recourse, Bricklin said, is to get involved in the decision-making process early – when comprehensive plans and the zoning regulations are being crafted – and to be active in the choice of decision-makers.

It was the theme sounded by nearly every speaker at the conference. In the first of two panel discussions on how citizens can help government protect the environment, Kitsap County Commissioner Chris Endresen asked islanders to be particularly active at budget time – and not just at home.

“We need your participation county-wide, not just on Bainbridge Island,” she said.

“Every one of us as a citizen is in a sense a special interest when it comes to interacting with government,” said state Rep. Phil Rockefeller.

“To participate late in the process is increasingly less effective,” he said, urging citizens to express their views to lawmakers even before a legislative session begins.

As Endresen put it: “The environment is political – we can pretend that it isn’t, but it is.”

City department heads, including Stephanie Warren of the planning department and Randy Witt of public works, urged participants to use the forums for public input that the city provides.

Warren announced the creation of a new city web site that will focus on environmental projects like the Wildlife Corridor pilot program, and related planning processes, including upcoming updates of the Shoreline Management Master Program and the critical areas ordinance.

Despite such assurances, city departments came under fire from attendees frustrated by the planning process, which was widely viewed as dictatorial and exclusive of public opinion – “running through a constricted pipe,” as one audience member put it.

Mayor Darlene Kordonowy acknowledged that the problems with the planning department were being looked at. Kordonowy said she hopes to improve communication with citizens and within government itself by creating an interdepartmental Environmental Task Force to review such issues.

Members of the city council were less sanguine about change under the system. In an afternoon session on the role of neighborhood associations, Councilman Bill Knobloch suggested that if problems persist, the council might have to take the “drastic last step” of denying funding for key staff positions.

He and Councilwoman Deborah Vann also urged the group to go to key council committee meetings like Land Use – regularly attended by the development community, Vann said – where they intend more of the business of the council to be accomplished.

“We will get the changes, because we have the power – we are the council,” said Knobloch. “We set policy, and city hall follows it.”