Commissioner Patty Lent had better learn to handle the pressures of office or she won’t be back for another term. When she listened to her gut initially and voted for impact fee increases, she was labeled a traitor by her constituents. This seems to be the case whenever politicians don’t do exactly what’s expected of them.

Well, Patty, as the old saying goes, “You can’t make everyone happy.”

Of course, folks involved with development were pleased with Lent’s swing vote on impact fees. Less fees for them mean more potential business. It’s a pretty transparent stance and while they can claim inequity, it pretty much boils down to dollars and cents.

Still, the proposed increases were significant and would have boosted impact fees from their current level of $1,973 to $4,967 in just three years time. That’s a hike of approximately $3,000 — or $1,000 each year. No wonder members of the Kitsap Alliance of Property Owners were worried. That isn’t exactly chump change.

But what of the impact caused by new developments? Claims that the fees are unfair just don’t seem to hold water, after all they haven’t gotten any sort of jump in nearly 12 years. New houses, condos, businesses and the like change everything from traffic patterns and road conditions to class sizes.

They’re called impact fees for a reason.

The board shouldn’t have rushed a vote Monday. Lent should have taken her time and revisited the issue over the weekend before buckling to public pressure. While she appeased developers, she also isolated school districts and others who would have benefited from the increases.

Even so, what’s done is done. Or so it used to be.

We just hope that a common ground can be found on impact fees in the near future and that next time the commissioners take a crucial vote on this, they stick to their guns.