Blaine Confidential

Since moving to Blaine in December 2016, I've been instrumental in securing housing for low-income seniors, initiating the local art exhibition program at Blaine Public Library, and exposing Blaine School Board member Laura McKinney for her corrupting influence as director of operations at Whatcom Business Alliance--a BP Cherry Point oil export lobby led by Tony Larson, who played a pivotal role in the Anti-Indian Tea Party network . With the help of Northwest Justice (Legal Aid of Washington), Bay View Plaza Tenants Association stopped Diamond Management and corrupt USDA officials from illegally evicting 30 low-income seniors in violation of the contract between them to maintain the complex as subsidized housing until October 2032. Our victory in U.S. District Court was presented to the Washington Legislature, which responded by purchasing seven complexes like ours in danger of being lost to privatization around Washington state.

The Washington House of Representatives has passed a tribal curriculum bill that now goes to the Senate. Sponsored by Debra Lekanoff of Skagit County, the bill requires all school districts to incorporate a tribal sovereignty curriculum into their social studies curricula, including the history, culture, and government of the nearest federally recognized tribes. “Erasure of Indigenous history and culture in education denies Indigenous people of space, resources, compassion, and understanding,” said Lekanoff.  “Inclusion of Indigenous history and culture allows for greater historical transparency, celebration of culture, and increased Indigenous representation.”

 The UW Friday Harbor Laboratories land and waters acknowledgement is historically instructive.

In his March 1 op-ed , Cascadia Daily News editor Ron Judd notes that CDN has managed to avoid a common fatal trait in modern media: tailoring coverage and principles "to meet the silent or vocal business interests of owners and advertisers." As he observes, the CDN model is a civic service, not a cash machine, which Judd says is the exception, not the norm, in the modern media universe. It helps to explain why we never read anything about crimes of BP in The Northern Light, which has been all too happy over the years to publish full-page ads extolling the virtues of BP Cherry Point.

In my February 15 letter to the editor of Cascadia Daily News, I observed that the BP Cherry Point marine terminal is implicated in the Tar Sands Holocaust perpetrated against First Nations.