Back around 1980 I had a job in the Island County Planning Department analyzing the impact of a proposal to build the biggest supertanker port in North America at Port Angeles on the Olympic Peninsula and to then transport the oil under Admiralty Inlet and across Whidbey Island.

The proponents, a group of real estate speculators, spent $50 million. We spent about $30,000 in grant money from the state Department of Ecology under Christine Gregoire.

To make a long story short, over 85 percent of our findings ended up in the final verdict denying the permit and then the good Republican Governor John Spellman buried the proposal while humming “Bow Down To Washington.”

Afterwards, Island County autocrats sighed in relief twice. They could quickly forget worrying about supertankers and me.

They only had really wanted me to act like I was doing the job, because actually doing something makes waves and that disturbs the brass on the bridge. I discovered that work at the county often involved a choice: Do the job or please your bosses?

Commissioners and department heads insisted on deference whether they were right or wrong — just like, I’ve noticed, some county employees when dealing with citizens.

So, the South Whidbey Record’s rabbit punch on Angie Homola, about how she caused some difficulties while working in the belly of the bureaucratic beast in Coupeville, to me was just another good reference.

Previously, I’d heard her at the Democratic convention. It had been a miserable day spent listening to Grethe Cammermeyer do standup for hours. And then Angie delivered a speech that was inspiring and specific while her fly-boy husband stood in the wings anonymous except for the pride all over his face. She was storming the castle. Did she know what they’d pour down on her?

Like the Record article, which was late, loaded, low and obviously laid out by two incumbent commissioners, Mac MacDowell and Phil Bakke, terrified they might be losing control of their county. Let us consider the sources. MacDowell has been the dominating commissioner in Coupeville for 16 years going on 20; and Bakke, a young man who just wants to get ahead, has emulated Mac’s winning formula.

Now we know that MacDowell has gotten wealthy on the job. Has eight houses. I’m not saying he’s feathered his own nest — maybe he’s one of those rare birds, like Dick Cheney, who does not operate in his own interest.

No, what I’d prefer to direct attention to is the question of competence. Certain facts are indisputable. While Mac’s made money, the county has lost much more than a million on lawyer-consultant Keith Dearborn, tasked with drafting plans to suit MacDowell’s special interests, plans that have been struck down repeatedly by the courts and state review boards.

Similarly, Mac’s protege, Mr. Bakke, was planning director when the permit was issued to place Mr. Montgomery’s septic system on the beach at Greenbank — and both presided when the public’s access was blocked by a stone wall. Since then a neighbor, Glen Russell, has blown the whistle, and now, as Mr. Montgomery has noted, the county’s exposure to him and other Greenbank property owners, because of the county’s incompetence, is in the millions.

The commissioners’ other noted actions fit into the same pattern, like permitting a non-complying McMansion on Ebey’s Prairie and the clear-cutting of wide swaths of forest next to the homes of most of my friends.

Now, place these actions in the context of the commissioners’ never ending assurances, given with hand over heart, that they are committed to preserving the rural character of Island County for future generations.

I’ve seen their future while driving around Oak Harbor, from the Wal-Mart to the shopping strip to their idea of a park just big enough to plant a jet on.

If Angie didn’t fit into their way of doing things, I say hurrah!

You know, male Republicans have dictated this county’s direction for 60 years and we’ve raped nature’s bounty pretty good. I sure would like to see what Angie Homola and Helen Price Johnson could do in four years of mothering it. Isn’t it worth trying?

Thom Gunn

Greenbank