An Island County Superior Court judge last week shot down the county commissioners’ appeal of an earlier decision by a board of state experts concerning the county’s adopted fish and wildlife habitat conservation areas rules.

Unfortunately, the ruling wasn’t based on the merits of the commissioners’ arguments, which would have settled the actual debate, but rather was issued because the county failed to appeal in a proper and timely manner per state requirements.

In other words, the case was handled incorrectly and summarily tossed.

While there are times when it’s necessary and appropriate to fight for what one believes, in this instance that time has come and gone.

It’s time for the board to comply with Washington state law and the Growth Management Hearings Board’s order.

This case has roots that stretch back a decade. The county’s fish and wildlife habitat conservation areas rules were required under state law to be updated in 2005, but the work wasn’t done until, essentially, forced by the Whidbey Environmental Action Network, or WEAN.

Despite good-faith efforts by WEAN to get the county to complete the update on its own, it remained incomplete until WEAN brought the matter before the hearings board, an organization that specializes in settling disputes concerning the Growth Management Act of 1990.

Given that the update was already years behind schedule, it’s no surprise that the hearings board agreed with WEAN and that the county was ordered to get it done.

Also unsurprising was WEAN’s later challenge of 14 portions of the rules.

Seven were tossed, seven were not.

Regardless of one’s personal opinion of WEAN and its environmentally driven agenda, this dispute should have ended then and there. The hearings board is a panel composed of experts who said that Island County got just about everything right except for a few things.

Instead of simply complying with the order, and effectively ending an issue that should have been resolved 10 years ago, however, the county commissioners decided to drag out the process even longer by appealing, only to have that appeal tossed because it was handled incorrectly.

The board of commissioners can appeal the ruling again, but that decision has yet to be made.

We urge the commissioners not to take this step, and instead comply with the hearings board’s order, putting this matter to rest once and for all.