Clark County growth slows dramatically

Clark County isn't growing as fast as it has in the past.

Mere 2.2% population increase in 2006 was half of peak growth of mid-1990s

Clark County's population is growing at its slowest rate in more than a decade, according to newly released federal estimates.

So the population estimates in the 2004 Comprehensive Plan turned out to be relatively accurate. You can quibble about the difference between an average rate of 1.6% and 2.2%, and of course it will fluctuate over time, but the key point is that it was always unlikely that high rates of growth could be sustained over 20 years. It's also a classic chicken and egg problem.

But the county is still going to discard the 2004 plan (a plan that was supposed to last 20 years) because the 2004 population estimates were "unrealistically low," or however it was justified when a new board took power.

So on the major issues of the day, here is where the government of Clark County stands:

• We are blowing out the UGB's and discarding the 2004 plan because we must make room for growth
• We don't like what the CRC is doing about a new I-5 bridge because it would cost too much. But we want to let a lot of houses be built anyway
• You can't build your way out of congestion, so let's just go with congestion
• We don't have adequate funding sources for much of anything and, by the way, you know all those new parks you voted for? There's not enough money for those, either.

The 2008 elections are going to be crucial at the local level in Clark County. So far, there's some scuttlebutt and not much more about Democratic candidates who might want to run, but no marquee names. Hopefully some solid candidates will emerge for the two races in 2008. One will be for an open seat (currently held by Betty Sue Morris, D-BIAW,) with the other race featuring incumbent Republican Marc Boldt. (Democrat Steve Stuart is not up next year.)

Please, Clark County Democrats, please let there be some good candidates. I'm not trying to be critical, because I know how hard it is sometimes to recruit candidates, but we've really got to get some good folks in those slots to help Stuart out.

UPDATE-- The Columbian's Gregg Herrington mentions a name as a potential candidate that I haven't seen publicly mentioned before:

The other is Democrat Bob Dingethal, the local representative for U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell. A 50-year-old, 12-year county resident who is on the city-county parks commission, Dingethal worked for 20 years in the electronics industry and is now earning his master's degree in public administration at WSU Vancouver.

A Ridgefield resident and father of two boys, he says he wants to help make sure we don't follow the example of other parts of the country where "exponential growth ends up as strip malls and housing developments." (He cites Dallas, Texas) He says he's in the talking and learning stage of deciding whether to run and is 50-50 at this point.

Encouraging news, and maybe Dingethal could help shed some light on why the parks district came up short of money so fast, it would be interesting to know more about that.