Blaine Confidential

My 6/24/24 letter to Blaine City Council and Community Development Services : When the dust settles from your skullduggery, the lasting impression of the top brass—Mayor Steward, City Manager Harmon, and Development Director Wenger—will be one of bullying responsible citizens who dared to ask questions out of concern for the city's financial, environmental and social well-being. Someday, when you are all replaced in public office by upstanding members of our community, we will look back on this time as when these responsible citizens stood up for democracy by exercising our right to participate in planning our future. For the rest of you, let your conscience be your guide.

My June 20, 2024, letter to Blaine City Council and Planning Commission : As your unlawful land use scheme unravels city wide, and outside agencies bring the rule of law to Blaine, you will likely look for a "fall guy" to take the blame for your official misconduct. Now that City Manager Mike Harmon has gone off the rails mentally, he is the logical choice.  

My June 11, 2024, letter to Blaine City Council and Planning Commission : When my caregiver took me shopping this morning at IGA, we were loading my groceries in her car when I noticed Mike Harmon sitting in the truck next to us--staring intently--before pulling out. My caregiver said, "What a weird person." I said that's the Blaine City Manager we are opposing, and she told me that when we were in the bakery department Harmon put his arms in front of his two kids shielding them from me while telling his kids, "Safety first, safety first."  I was busy shopping and did not see his performance, but my caregiver says he did it again at the checkout area. Not knowing he was my adversary she did not mention it until we were in the parking lot where she saw him do it again. My caregiver thought he was mentally ill observing him in the store. You might want to start looking for a new city manager ASAP.  

Going along with small-town corruption that has been the norm in Blaine for generations is understandable in a community severely misinformed by their city government and local newspaper. Having never experienced democracy or meaningful public participation in planning for their future, Blaine citizens have over multiple generations become a city of beggars unversed in self-reliance. You can see it in the pimping of public properties and the routine whitewashing of BP Cherry Point crimes by The Northern Light and local non-profits taking BP money for their silence. This community has no code of ethics for its elected officials because ethics is a foreign concept to longtime residents. It is a shameful legacy that would embarrass most communities.

My 6/18/24 letter to Blaine City Council, Community Development Services and Planning Commission: Recent acts by the City of Blaine in creating a land use czar and upzoning properties on request create a hybrid autocracy/aristocracy government. As a city-state unbound by state and federal laws, the fiefdom of Blaine—on behalf of developers--is free to trash the Sumas Aquifer (our drinking water), pollute Drayton Harbor, destroy downtown commerce, and end free speech in Blaine. The Republic of Blaine was poised to become a world leader in how to subvert democracy without anyone noticing—until now.​ Stay tuned. 

My June 16, 2024, letter to Blaine City Council and Planning Commission : One year ago, when I still thought of you as honest but inept public officials, I recommended you hold town halls to brainstorm a civic center master plan for redeveloping the public holdings around the library. This would be more competitive in applying for state grants than piecemeal projects.  I did not realize at the time that you were not interested in being public servants but had already decided to be privatization pimps—selling off public parking to private developers—and killing downtown commerce in the process. Looking at the City of Mt. Vernon, which is nearing completion on their new library and community center with a parking garage over it, the contrast couldn't be more pronounced. The entire structure was financed by state, federal and private grants. Meanwhile, Blaine is going bankrupt while you wait for your marching orders from developers who have corrupted our city government and threaten o

My June 14, 2024, letter to Blaine City Council and Planning Commission : While I singled out Mayor Steward on my "recall" sign at your meeting Monday, both Councilman Hill and Councilwoman Higgins deserve the same fate. While Hill's financial conflicts of interest are more extensive, Higgins' are no less serious. As an attorney working for the State of Washington, Higgins should be familiar with laws governing conflicts of interest and self-dealing by public officials. All fourteen of you have been complicit in allowing this to continue on your watch. There will be consequences.

My June 13, 2024, letter to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington Department of Ecology, Whatcom County Council, and Blaine City Council : I am unable to get my mind around how Washington Department of Ecology (DOE) and the U.S. EPA allowed the City of Blaine Community Development Services (CDS) SEPA official to issue a DNS for the Planned Unit Developments in the Critical Aquifer Recharge Area (CARA) for our municipal drinking water when the laws DOE and the EPA purport to uphold unequivocally require an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) that thoroughly examines the cumulative impacts. When your agencies fail to uphold the law, as you have done in our community, this burden unfairly falls on the shoulders of citizens of Blaine to hold our local government accountable. Due to the deep corruption at CDS, and financial conflicts of interest of two city council members who did not recuse themselves when approving the CARA rezone to increase development density, the threa

My June 13, 2024, letter to Blaine Community Development Services and City Council regarding the proposed Creekside development: You will need to do an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) in order to protect the critical aquifer recharge area (CARA) and public drinking water wellhead from pollution caused by this development and others in the CARA. The EIS must, under state and federal laws, include an analysis of the "cumulative impacts" of the zoning and development proposals for the entire CARA, which is basically the City of Blaine's Urban Growth Area (UGA) overlaying the Sumas Aquifer.  No development in the CARA can legally proceed until an EIS is completed and subjected to thorough public review.

Civic minded people will continue to come together and change our city for the better by holding city hall accountable. Nothing positive, though--such as a community art center or views preservation--can happen until the official corruption is stopped.  Others will eventually follow where we lead. We live in a community that wants to believe everything is OK in their little fantasy world of Blaine, which is now known elsewhere for its bigotry and corruption. This largely depends on getting Seattle media help to educate those kept ignorant by The Northern Light. When the state and feds intervene due to our formal complaints against the city, the fantasy world of Blaine which sees no bigotry or corruption will implode. That's when new leadership can emerge.

My June 11, 2024, letter to Blaine City Council and Community Development Services : It was interesting that Community Development Services director Alex Wenger in presenting development options for the property behind Starbuck's at the June 10, 2024, Blaine City Council meeting did not refer to it as Councilman Hill's property. Maybe that was disclosed after I left prior to the vote on parking text amendments. Did Hill recuse himself? Hill has never, to my knowledge, recused himself before when developer-requested changes to downtown zoning and development regulations that would financially benefit him were unanimously approved by the council.  Same for his properties adjacent to the Planned Unit Developments that due to corruption by Community Development Services threaten the city aquifer.

My June 11, 2024, letter to Blaine City Council : As an example of ethically unconscious government officials, you serve a useful purpose in educating the youth of our community about the need for citizen oversight in a democracy of our elected and appointed officials that Community Development Services has actively thwarted since 2021. Maybe you could host Blaine Middle School social studies students to explain this to you.

My June 11, 2024, letter to Blaine City Council : Blaine has grown accustomed to its small-town corruption where those who inherit wealth and property think they are above the law. Fortunately, the laws of Washington State and the United States do not end at the Blaine city limit, which apparently comes as a shock to those who used their inherited privileges to corrupt our elected and appointed officials and to deny the rest of us a voice.  When the laws they are now violating with impunity are someday enforced by outside agencies, this small-town corruption will come crashing down along with the reputations of these rich kids turned adult delinquents. Their Blaine fiefdom is coming to an end.

My June 10, 2024, letter to Blaine City Council: It was difficult to listen to Community Development Services director Alex Wenger lie to you and us at this evening's meeting. He has been lying about the Central Business District (CBD) planning process for over a year, since Community Development Services (CDS) conspired to break state and federal laws and even its own CBD Project Charter in order to prevent public participation. CDS did the same thing, with your support, in the department's unlawful designation of DNS rather than an EIS for the Planned Unit Developments above our aquifer.  As Wenger introduced the parking amendments options for downtown, he observed that his department decided how they wanted downtown to develop and moved their vision through the planning commission on behalf of developers without public input. And you did not question this. In fact, despite knowing it was corrupt, you happily went along with the law breaking. By intentionally violating the Cl

If The Northern Light had been reporting the crimes committed by Community Development Services over the past two years rather than covering them up, we would not need to be requesting intervention by the U.S. EPA Civil Rights and Environmental Justice division to restore the rule of law in Blaine. The Northern Light chose to discredit community activists who were attempting to protect our city aquifer, and to ignore the blatant violations of state and federal law by the City of Blaine. By betraying the public trust, The Northern Light joins Mayor Steward, City Manager Mike Harmon, and CDS director Alex Wenger.

Blaine Water Coalition's letter to Washington Department of Health requesting intervention to protect the City of Blaine aquifer and formal complaint about the SEPA process , as well as Glen Pentland's letter to Blaine City Council recommending they reject entirely the downtown parking amendments highlight this week's still one-way correspondence with city hall.

In January 2024, I attempted to find pro bono legal counsel using my connections from when I was part of a statewide network that established Growth Mangement legal precedent before the WA Growth Management Hearings Board and Washington Supreme Court between 1994 and 1996. I was told by the Seattle law firm that represented us back then that the pool of pro bono GMA attorneys no longer exists, so I gave up on that remedy for returning democracy to Blaine. I was also a plaintiff in the 1990s before the WA Shoreline Hearings Board and WA Court of Appeals where we won our case to protect Lake Whatcom, which cost us $50,000 out of pocket. Later, our GMA litigation forced me into bankruptcy. That's all in the public record under Whatcom Falls Neighborhood Association of which I was president, Watershed Defense Fund (the 501-c-3 we set up to fund litigation), and Whatcom Environmental Council of which I was the unpaid executive director. __________________________________________________

Psychologists say new ideas have to be repeated many times before they sink in. In Blaine, new ideas now emerging are civic ethics, government accountability, and the rule of law. The barrier to these ideas erected by The Northern Light, the mayor, city manager, and city council is being breached by citizens committed to restoring integrity to Blaine City Hall.

Ray Leone calls on Blaine residents to take a stand Monday June 10  against the downtown parking fiasco .

On February 8, 2024, Blaine Planning Commission unanimously approved the Downtown Advisory Committee 50% parking reduction recommendation for west side of Peace Portal developers at the behest of Community Development Services (CDS), but after citizen opposition the commission reversed itself and unanimously opposed the 50% reduction in parking developers wanted. The commission left open the possibility of the city selling on-street parking to developers which would kill downtown businesses whose customers would no longer have a place to park.  This illustrates the importance of the planning commission's role in citizen oversight and government accountability that CDS is now attempting to eliminate by shifting their power over major land use decisions to a single unaccountable hearing examiner. Blaine City Council is expected to continue giving developers what they want no matter the cost and harm to the city.

[my June 2, 2024, letter to Blaine City Council] The unanimous rejection by Blaine Planning Commission of your harebrained plan to privatize public parking downtown and the Blaine Water Coalition letter to the Washington State Health Department about your reckless incompetence failing to protect the Blaine city aquifer should give you pause to think about the consequences of your official misconduct that led to these responses.  I am hopeful, but not optimistic, you will finally smell the coffee and end your 15-month lawless rampage that is pushing our city into bankruptcy.