Ebey's Landing Administrative History

Chapter Seven:
ADMINISTRATIVE OVERVIEW

Herb Pickard believed that the chairman should be attuned to change, and by October 1987, he felt that the board had changed enough that he should resign the chair. The board selected Vicki Brown to succeed him, setting an informal precedent for the vice-chair to become the chair.

Vicki Brown had years of experience on local land use planning committees. [25] She set a new tone on the board that stemmed in part from an outspoken approach to issues and in part from what she perceived the board should be. Brown was determined that the NPS should let the trust board leave its "apprenticeship" behind. A few trust board members have recalled that her take-charge style sometimes precluded teamwork, particularly because she and Dick Hoffman often worked in tandem. But they also note that Brown appropriately focused the trust board on particular goals. She sought primarily to gain specific commitments from both the NPS and Island County, and then to establish the trust board's autonomy. She and Hoffman agreed that the trust board should soon assume full control of EBLA, and other trust board members credit her with kicking into high gear the transfer of authority. Like Dick Hoffman, Vicki Brown saw the trust board's role in relatively narrower terms than her predecessor. To her mind, the board's core mission was to uphold scenic easements. Projects such as trail installations---aside from the trail at Ebey's Prairie--would require expenditures that the trust board could ill afford. Nor had the trust board the authority or the need to be involved in issues such as the preservation of historic structures, which the Coupeville and county historic advisory committees could handle, or the problem of noise from Navy jet landing practices near Smith Prairie. Although she felt that the board's role was limited, she nonetheless believed that it should be the board, and not the NPS, that was the most visible in reserve affairs. [26]

Brown developed a rapport with some of the Island County commissioners who, like her, wished to keep EBLA under local control. Yet she and the other trust board members believed that the board should have autonomy from the county commissioners as well. One way to do this was to retain control of the reserve budget. The board had considered channeling its bills through the county auditor; however, this would give the Island County commissioners review authority over every check the board issued. Preferring to avoid local politics, they turned to the fire district model. Fire districts have authority to spend without commission oversight. The trust board would have to pass a motion in order to spend, but at least it would have the autonomy it desired on such fiscal matters. [27]