10/09/08

Negotiator enters the fight over location of UW North campus

The state’s Higher Education Coordinating Board has hired a $10,000-a-month consultant to help end the stalemate over the location of the proposed north end University of Washington campus.

Bill Wilkerson is well-known to state leaders. As head of the state fisheries department in the 1980s, Wilkerson helped broker the 1985 Pacific Salmon Treaty and the 1987 Timber-Fish Wildlife Agreement between local tribes, federal authorities and fishing and timber industry representatives.

He also played a central role in the implementation of the 1999 Forests and Fish Law.

His task over the next eight weeks will be to bring together political, community, education and business leaders and try to forge some common ground.

State representatives have been split on the location issue, with several Snohomish County legislators lobbying for the Everett Station location and others from Snohomish, Skagit and Whatcom counties insisting a Marysville site is the better choice.

  

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