Crime Review

[my 5/15/24 letter to city council]

One year ago, while other cities such as La Conner were brainstorming with their citizens on how to welcome public participation in the 2024 Comprehensive Plan ten-year update, the City of Blaine was conspiring how to keep us in the dark until you could unlawfully rezone properties for major developments downtown. With the help of The Northern Light, you have been largely successful in that.

Since February 12, 2024, Blaine has been the only city in Whatcom County that forbids oral public comment. Imposed without notice by mayoral fiat, the timing coincided with increasing public interest in the process by which the City of Blaine is updating our Comprehensive Plan in violation of the Growth Management Act. 

Were we to have a voice, our community could learn that "early, continuous, and inclusive public participation" is required under Growth Management, and the City of Blaine has intentionally violated the law.

In my letter to the Blaine Planning Commission, I note the highly manipulated process involving financial conflicts of interest and official misconduct in facilitating self-dealing by downtown developers.  As former Downtown Advisory Committee member Glen Pentland remarked, "early and continuous" two-way engagement as promised in the Project Charter and required under Growth Management was never done. 

In my letter to Community Development Services, I observed, "I cannot recall a more egregious example of the intentional subversion of both the letter and spirit of the law by a city than what has transpired in Blaine. Not only did Community Development Services (CDS) fail to convene public participation--as required by law--in deciding how to go about creating a new economic development plan for downtown, but they also predetermined the desired outcome in cahoots with developers." 

By your actions, you demonstrate a disdain for the rule of law.

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