Shoreline property owners are reaching into their wallets to help email activist Gary Tripp’s new political action committee.
Common Sense Bainbridge, the political action committee set up earlier this month by Tripp, has pulled in $7,500 in donations during its first week.
The political action committee has received donations from eight donors ranging from $200 to $2,500.
All eight donors are shoreline property owners, according to records on file with the state Public Disclosure Commission and the Kitsap County Assessor’s Office.
Tripp helped lead opposition to the city of Bainbridge Island’s work to update its Shoreline Master Program, the state-mandated program that requires city and county governments to adopt regulations to protect shoreline habitat and wildlife while restricting development that may be harmful to the environment.
The city’s new Shoreline Master Program is currently under review by the state Department of Ecology, and Tripp — who has said the plan is too long, too confusing and overly restrictive — has asked the state to reject the updated program.
Tripp began fundraising for Common Sense Bainbridge earlier this month, and said his group will work to elect council candidates Richard “Dick” Haugan, Arlene Buetow and Dee McComb.
Haugan, who is running for the North Ward, Position 7 seat against Val Tollefson, has vowed to be a critical swing vote on the council for undoing the work on the city’s Shoreline Master Program.
Donors to Common Sense Bainbridge include critics of the new SMP, including Linda Young, who has written extensively in opposition of the plan for Tripp’s email blasts and has called the SMP unconstitutional; and R. Randolph Devening, another opponent who has raised fears of costly lawsuits because of the SMP update.
Devening was an early skeptic of the SMP, and, like Young, has worried that the new shoreline rules will hurt property values.
“You people are just mounting another effort for a monstrous piece of litigation that will cost the city hundreds of thousands in legal fees,” Devening wrote in an April 2011 email to the planning department.
“I and many other shoreline owners will contribute to funding your defeat as politicians and in the litigations that you are headed for,” he added. “This approach is blatantly unconstitutional as you will learn.”
Common Sense Bainbridge has reported $7,500 in donations so far; the donations were all made Sept. 16, two days before the political action committee filed its first registration form with the Public Disclosure Commission.
The top donor to the organization so far is Bainbridge Island Marina, which has donated $2,500 to Tripp’s committee.
Other donors include Gary Waterman ($2,000); Albert Greiner, ($1,000); Russell Young ($500); Linda Young ($500); Lafe Myers ($500); Robert Crissman ($300); and Devening ($200).
Four of the donors to Common Sense Bainbridge have also contributed to Haugan’s campaign coffers.
Waterman gave $900 to Haugan’s campaign, while Greiner has donated $500, Linda Young gave $150, and Crissman, $50.
