KMJC- News and Commentary for Kitsap, Mason, Jefferson, Clallam, and Pierce Counties

At KMJC, we have made the declaration that we would not allow our conservative biases to impact the news that we provide to our audience. We have publicly declared that we will hold ALL elected officials accountable and report, both good and bad, on any elected official that we feel is not faithfully representing the citizens.

In today’s story, we are going to provide critical reporting on Republican Kitsap County Commissioner Oran Root. As you will see in this story, we are not holding anything back and faithfully reporting what we feel is a betrayal of a Republican official to those that he is supposed to be fighting for.

This story is called “Taking Defeat From The Jaws of Victory:.

We’re talking about something that happened right in the Kitsap County Commissioners’ chambers — a story that started with strong public pushback, looked like a win for property owners, and then turned into a textbook case of political maneuvering that left a lot of folks feeling betrayed. It’s the story of how a clear public victory on boundary line adjustments was snatched right out of the community’s hands.

Let’s set the scene.

On June 8th, the Board of County Commissioners held a public hearing on a new code proposal from the Department of Community Development — DCD — to create a dedicated Boundary Line Adjustment, or BLA, ordinance. Kitsap has been the only county in Washington without one, and DCD says the new rules would bring consistency and fix problems like nonconforming lots. But a lot of property owners and real estate professionals saw it differently.

Roughly 40 people showed up — mostly Republican-leaning residents and folks from the building and real estate community. They voiced real concerns about added costs, new layers of government review, and what they called unnecessary intrusion into private property rights. Only one person spoke in favor. The message from the room was loud and clear: slow this down, give us more review, don’t rush new regulations onto something that’s worked under state rules for decades.

Here’s where it got interesting.

Democrat Commissioner Katie Walters said she wanted to refer the whole thing back to the Planning Commission so there could be more public input and a proper review of the processes. That would have kept the door open for the kind of citizen engagement we’re supposed to have.

Republican Commissioner Oran Root took a different approach. He said it would be better to just continue the meeting to the following week and vote on it then. Commissioner Walters agreed. The meeting adjourned. The people who showed up — the ones who took time off work, drove in, and made their voices heard — left feeling like they had won at least a delay and a chance for more scrutiny. Victory, or so it seemed.

But that’s not how it played out.

Between that June 8th public hearing and the next meeting, a workshop was held. In that workshop, the BLA issues were discussed — without citizen input. Only very minor, superficial changes were made. Apparently that was enough to get Commissioner Walters to change her mind and support moving the proposal forward.

Then came the follow-up public meeting. This time, no citizen input was allowed. The commissioners went straight to a vote. It passed 2 to 1. Commissioner Root voted against it. The two Democratic commissioners voted for it.

So the proposal that looked dead or at least delayed after the big public turnout… passed anyway.

Here’s the part that has a lot of conservative residents in Kitsap County — the same ones who showed up in force — asking hard questions.

Commissioner Root had a choice at that first public hearing. He could have agreed with Commissioner Walters to send it back to the Planning Commission. That would have triggered another formal round of public review and input. Instead, he pushed to bring it back for a quick vote the next week. That decision created the opening for the workshop where the public was shut out.

And neither he nor the other commissioners told the people in the room that night that there would be a workshop re-working the proposal before the vote. The public walked out thinking one thing. The process moved in another direction entirely.

That, folks, is what snatching defeat from the jaws of victory looks like.

It’s also why many in Commissioner Root’s own conservative base are calling this a betrayal. He was the Republican voice on the board. The people who turned out to oppose more government rules on their property expected him to stand with them on transparency and more review — especially when a Democrat commissioner was already offering to send it back to the Planning Commission. By choosing the path that allowed a closed-door workshop and a fast vote, the outcome changed.

This isn’t just inside baseball. Boundary line adjustments affect real people — homeowners fixing fence lines, neighbors sorting out minor disputes, families preparing to sell or pass on property. Adding new county code, new permit paths, and new review layers means more time and more money for something that used to be simpler under existing state law. The realtors who spoke up warned about “onerous regulatory layers” on a process that’s worked fine for decades. Those concerns didn’t get the full public airing they deserved after that initial hearing.

It’s the same old story we’ve seen too many times in local government: public outcry, apparent concession, closed-door tweak, and then a vote that ignores the room. The only difference this time is that one of the people who helped set up the maneuver was supposed to be on the side of limited government and property rights.

So what now?

The new BLA code is moving forward. Property owners in Kitsap — and anyone watching in Mason, Jefferson, or Clallam counties who deals with land issues — need to pay attention to how it gets implemented. More importantly, this episode is a reminder that showing up matters, but so does watching what happens after you leave the room.

Commissioner Root had the chance to keep the process open and public. He chose a different route. That choice changed the result.