Hello Everyone-
Almost a year has passed and here we are again: ready to submit comment on yet another design of the proposed Chevron gas station adjacent to Bethany Lake. In the good news department Bethany has seen a 10% increase in registered electric vehicles since last year.
Read on for details on both!
The public comment for the Chevron near Bethany Lake application is now open. The land use case is L2200199. While writing your comment please be polite to the County Land Use and Transportation staff reviewing the messages. And feel free to use primary source references, data, and perspectives from our site.
If you submit a comment now, your comment may get a response from Washington County Staff as they have not yet published their Staff report on this application.
Good comment advice: the most effective public comments will compare the requirements of the Washington County development code against the applicants documents. However, not all of us are experts in land use laws and regulation. So, feel free to make your voice heard by Washington County Staff. And consider citing your specific concerns and your desire for Staff to develop gas station restrictions like the ones proposed by our petition.
Please also consider emailing your comment to me: brandon@nabgas.com. In the past the Staff has only included a summary of public comments instead of the entire comment. And I would like to save all of your comments for our continued campaign.
If you drive around the Bethany area you will see many residents are making the transition to electric vehicles. And one of the arguments we have made to County Commissioners is that this rapid uptake in EVs will quicken the inevitable insolvency, foreclosure, and tax payer funded cleanup of gas station infrastructure.
According to Oregon DMV records the 97229 and 97006 zip codes now have seen 3,509 registered electric vehicles (source). Last October we reported there were 3,134 vehicles. So, we are looking at a 10% increase of 375 electric vehicles in Bethany in one year!
In those two zip codes in 2019 (the best data I could get at the time of this writing) there were 89,694 vehicles (source) so electric vehicles now make up roughly 4% of total vehicles registered in the area.
To put it another way Bethany has nearly 7% of the 52,033 EVs registered in Oregon. And nearly 32% of all EVs in Washington County.
October 20th, 2022 at 10:00 a.m is the date for the Hearings Officer Meeting. At this meeting a third party lawyer, the Hearings Officer, will evaluate the Washington County Staff’s report on the latest Chevron application from Robert (Bob) Barman. You can listen in or participate using the call in information in the announcement or Zoom link.
If you wish to make a comment you may but please keep it short and polite. Also, if possible, please avoid covering ground someone else has already covered.
If you find this data interesting consider forwarding this email to neighbors or share our site, nabgas.com on Facebook, Next Door, or other platforms your neighbors read.
Thank You,
Brandon
P.S. Fall is here but I hope you didn’t miss the wild roses growing along the Rock Creek Trail! Please share any photos you have taken of the natural beauty of our Bethany Lake area that I could include in future emails.