Letter to Planning Commission

5/7/2024

You have a right and duty under the Washington State Growth Management Act (GMA) to refuse to recommend comprehensive plan text amendments for downtown zoning and development regulations due to the unlawful and unethical conduct of Community Development Services (CDS), the mayor and city council in bringing the parking and building height proposals before you. Under GMA, the process is everything, and the City of Blaine has intentionally violated the process.

You have the opportunity to set a new standard of official conduct in Blaine despite the lack of a code of conduct. You can say that the highly manipulated process that began with two planning commissioners improperly voting on text amendments as members of the downtown advisory committee (DAC) that was unlawfully transformed into a quasi-official voting body is not acceptable. 

That body was in turn manipulated by the mayor, city manager, and CDS director who told them what to do. Then, without any town hall meetings to engage "early, continuous, and inclusive public participation" as required under GMA, DAC voted 5-2 to recommend the text amendments now before you. Two of the five had direct financial conflicts of interest and another two* of the five were planning commissioners improperly stepping outside their roles.

This whole mess began at the 3/24/2023 Blaine City Council retreat at which the city manager was told to instruct DAC they were being changed into a voting body in order to recommend the comprehensive plan text amendments requested by downtown developers. On 6/4/2023, DAC complied with the instructions provided by the city manager and CDS. The DAC recommendations in turn formed the basis of the 7/10/2023 city council Resolution 1923-23 forwarding the DAC recommendations to the planning commission.

Railroading these unlawful and unethical major changes to Blaine's 2024 Comprehensive Plan ten-year update, on 2/8/2024, Blaine Planning Commission recommended the contrived DAC amendments. On 2/12/2024, Blaine City Council adopted Resolution 1940-24 sending the amendments to the planning commission for final review.

Since the 2/12/2024 city council meeting, oral public comment has been banned. Without the opportunity to hear what others have to say, no learning can take place. Judging by the misconduct of the mayor—who publicly lied about Blaine not being the only city in Whatcom County that bans freedom of speech—this is the way she likes it. You, however, can dissent from this reprehensible attitude.​

*Correction: One (not two) of the voting DAC members, Kevin Owens, is a planning commissioner. Another DAC member (not present for the vote) was city council member Eric Davidson, who has raised no ethical concerns since the 6/4/2023 incident. The names of DAC members present for the vote and how they voted were withheld for eight months by CDS until pressured to release them on 2/9/2024.

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