Voices of Reason

BLAINE COMMUNITY FORUM

Ending the Culture of Exclusion at Blaine City Hall

The primary focus of the DAC [Downtown Advisory Committee] became one of voting on downtown zoning recommendations...and not writing a report to support those recommendations. Only 7 members of the DAC participated in the June 6, 2023, meeting and voted on the Downtown Zoning Code change options provided by CDS [Community Development Services]...when the Committee’s scope is reduced, and the main purpose of the committee is to vote on sensitive and important zoning code changes, a higher test to represent the community appears to exist, and personal conflicts of interest become relevant and important...The appearances of conflicts of interest are significant and bring into question the validity of the DAC’s recommendations...

In the summer of 2022, CDS selected candidates for the DAC committee and the applications of these candidates were provided to City Council for review and approval on August 8, 2022. It appears City Council and CDS directed DAC committee members to participate in voting on June 6, 2023, when they would have known that some committee members appeared to have conflicts of interest. No efforts appear to have been made to request members appearing to have conflicts of interests to abstain from voting...

The Committee appeared to become a public relations ploy to help “sell” height increases and parking requirement decreases to City Council, the Planning Commission and the Community.

--report to Blaine City Council from former DAC member Glen Pentland, 1/15/24


It is concerning that the City dismissed alternative methodologies and took the opportunity to discredit a concerned citizen in a publicly recorded city council meeting where any form of response and dialogue is no longer allowed, only submitted questions. This is yet another example of the councilmembers and the city staff undermining public trust and discouraging constructive dialogue on crucial issues. Furthermore, councilmembers’ attempts to misrepresent my analysis as "disinformation" and claiming a two-to-three-year timeframe for population doubling is demonstrably “false“ seems to be a tactic to distort the information for their agenda which is to prevent citizen investigations and questions of city stewardship of resources, code of conduct, and accountability.

--letter to Blaine City Council from Otto Pointer, 2/13/24


When governments remove citizens from the legislative process and lean on flawed reasoning like it being in the “best interests of our community in mind“ or inaccurately stating that it’s what the neighboring communities are doing, this should be a warning sign. Clearly, this city council writes their own rules, can operate outside of societal norms, and will justify their actions by trying to sell the community that they are removing citizen input in the best interest of the citizens...Town halls are important as they are the only forum where citizens can ask questions of their government and get real time answers. In a typical city government meeting, the governing body sets aside time for “public comments” where citizens have a specified time to speak about whatever is on their mind – typically issues of concern to the community. This mayor refuses to have town halls and now has banned the only voice that the people have in the governmental process. We have been told that if we want to have input, to simply write to the city council. While written submissions are a valuable component of civic engagement, relying solely on them, to the exclusion of oral public comments at city council meetings, significantly diminishes the effectiveness and richness of democratic participation. Oral public comments offer unique advantages that written submissions cannot fully replicate, underscoring why their removal poses a threat to the fabric of local governance.

Moreover, oral comments foster a sense of community and collective engagement. The exclusion of oral public comments represents a significant step back from the ideals of participatory democracy, where open dialogue and direct interaction between citizens and their government are key to effective governance.

--letter to Blaine City Council from Madame Watchdog, 3/15/24

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