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Saturday, October 14, 2006
A rising tide of complaints has pair in hot water
By ROBERT L. JAMIESON Jr.
P-I COLUMNIST
Neighbors will fuss over any old thing.
To the growing list of spats that involve people who live close to one another but do not get along, add this -- verbal torpedoes near Redmond.
The neighborhood peace at Ames Lake has given way to controversy over a wood square in the water.
The platform looks like a float -- one that officials say violates county codes, which prohibit floats on many lakes.
Owners of the platform say that an electric outboard motor attached to it makes it a boat.
 | ||
 | GORMAN FAMILY | |
| Paul Gorman navigates what he calls a boat, and the county says is a float, on Ames Lake, away from his Redmond-area home. | ||
The county doesn't agree. Officials took one look -- actually, they did a double take -- and declared it a float.
This should have sunk all debate.
Instead, it's King County vs. the Gorman Float -- a war of words that has escalated into a complaint pitting the government against a couple who just want some peace and quiet.
Four years ago, Susan and Paul Gorman built the float, which is 10 feet by 15 feet. They tethered it to bushes on the shore near their home, says Susan Gorman, director of New Discovery School, a preschool in the South Lake Union area of Seattle.
The couple said they didn't realize that they had to first apply for a permit. But a neighbor ratted out their float to the county, so they did. The whole thing seemed like a formality, until they were denied.
The county had other concerns -- namely, that a dock or float provides a hiding place for predatory fish such as bass and could affect the growth of aquatic plants.
Faced with this, the Gormans got creative. They decided to make their platform mobile to get it away from the shore. They mounted a small electric motor (gas engines are a no-go), and the float became a boat. They registered it with the state.
When a neighbor complained once more, county officials again wagged fingers. The Gormans tried to tell the county that their float was, well, now a boat.
"A boat has a means of propulsion," they argued.
"A float does not. We have a boat."
They even met with Stephanie Warden, who heads the county's Department of Development and Environmental Services. They were armed with photos.
" 'Yeah, looks like a boat to me,' " Susan Gorman recalls Warden saying aloud.
Warden couldn't be reached for comment, but the county, it seems, changed its mind. The couple were told the float wasn't a boat, because of the way it was secured to the shore, and because it was used as a platform for recreation.
"Doesn't that definition apply to a boat as well?" Susan Gorman says. "You can secure a boat to the shore. You can also use a boat for recreational activities. This is all so absurd."
Yes, absurd -- and more.
Don't neighbors have anything better to do than tattle anonymously on one another?
Then the government gets dragged into investigating such battles -- and silly name games follow -- at taxpayers' expense.
 | ||
It turns out Ames Lake has at least one officially permitted float among dozens of other floats and docks, say the Gormans, who feel picked on.
"We're complaint-driven," responds Joe Miles, a director of the county's Land Use Services Division. "We don't just go out looking, but if someone files a complaint, we will investigate."
The county says those other lake floats may have predated current rules. So, what do the Gormans have?
"Could be a boat," Miles says, "but it's still a float. That someone decides to hook up an outboard motor doesn't not make it a float."
The county says the state declaring the Gormans' float a boat doesn't necessarily mean it can sail past county rules.
The couple plans to appeal to a hearing examiner.
They've also been told that if they don't remove the float by Oct. 31, they could face a sour Halloween trick -- a $180 fine per day.
And if the county also sinks their idea of a boat, the Gormans wonder if it could do the same thing to other people.
They ask: "Does the public really want the government taking away their boats?"
Maybe, if the boat in question doesn't quite pass the float test.
Do you think the neighbors had a legitimate complaint?
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