Neglected Duties

12/8/24 letter to Whatcom Democrats, Rep. Alicia Rule, and Senator Sharon Shewmake:

On February 12, 2024, Blaine Mayor Mary Lou Steward--without notice--closed oral public comment in the middle of a woman's testimony at the city council meeting when she exposed the financial conflicts of interest of council member Mike Hill. Oral public comment has been closed ever since. One year earlier, on March 24, 2023, at the Blaine City Council retreat with department heads, a scheme was hatched to violate public participation required by state and federal law by railroading through land use zoning amendments for developers in Semiahmoo, the Central Business District, and the Critical Aquifer Recharge Area without doing legally required Environmental Impact Statements.

The amendments for the Central Business District were based on the vote of the Downtown Advisory Committee--selected by Blaine Community Development Services--that included self-dealing by two committee members with financial conflicts of interest. The amendments for the CARA were approved unanimously by Blaine City Council despite Mike Hill's failure to disclose his financial interests let alone recuse himself from self-dealing. No city council members said a word.

Under Mayor Steward's reign, the City of Blaine--including Blaine City Council, Blaine Planning Commission, Blaine Development Director Alex Wenger, and Blaine City Manager Mike Harmon--over the past three years has become a criminal enterprise working in tandem with crooked developers who are destroying the city drinking water aquifer, salmon streams, and the Drayton Harbor estuary in violation of the State Environmental Policy Act, the Shoreline Management Act, and the Clean Water Act.

This will all get settled in federal court over the coming years, but you should know that the reason the City of Blaine has become a cesspool of corruption is that the Whatcom County Prosecutor Eric Richey and Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson are too lazy to do their job. State and federal oversight agencies such as Washington State Department of Ecology and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have neglected their duties as well.

At the November 12, 2024, Blaine City Council meeting, council member Mike Hill accosted a citizen who is questioning the legality of Blaine's comprehensive plan due to the unlawful public process designed by the Blaine development director in cahoots with the city attorney to exclude public participation which violates our civil rights.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Letter to County Prosecutor

To Mr. Eric J. Richey, Whatcom Prosecuting Attorney, 311 Grand, Ste. 201, Bellingham WA 98225 I write to you as Whatcom County Prosecuting Attorney in hope you will protect the rights of the people of Blaine from a city government that--due to embedded corruption--is unable to effectively govern and is putting our health and prosperity at risk by their unlawful acts. Your reply requested.  I am told you have the authority to empanel a grand jury to investigate official misconduct and encourage you to do so. I copy my most recent letter to the City of Blaine below. This is the tip of the iceberg, and we have abundant evidence of widespread intentional wrongdoing.   To Blaine City Council, Planning Commission, and Community Development Services As you proceed with the downtown rezone/development regulation items of parking and building heights this month, I remind you that this process was corrupted at the outset when on 3/24/2023 Blaine City Council ordered the Blaine City...
Read more

Letter to Community Development Services

As an observer of Growth Management in Washington state since it was passed into law thirty-three years ago, 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. My Comprehensive Plan Timeline might help you in comprehending the mess you find yourselves in. As I noted in my post Culture of Exclusion , "The significant changes to zoning and development regulations by Blaine City Council—absent from public participation—a​re not just ten-year updates to our comprehensive plan, cumulatively they are a once-in-a-century major makeover of our community. Expediting planning amendments by resolution to build momentum abse...
Read more

Culture of Exclusion

BLAINE COMMUNITY FORUM Ending the Culture of Exclusion at Blaine City Hall As the city of Blaine experienced unprecedented growth over the last couple of years, citizens from Semiahmoo, Salishan and East Blaine contributed ideas on how to protect critical areas (city aquifer, Cain Creek, Drayton Harbor), how to kickstart prosperity at our civic center (new library, art center), and how to facilitate meaningful public participation in planning our future. As these citizens soon discovered, corruption by Blaine officials of the planning process required under the Washington State Growth Management Act put critical areas, prosperity, and public participation at risk. When these citizens asked questions concerning conflicts of interest, self-dealing, and the city conspiring to violate the Growth Management Act, the city council retaliated. Now that the City of Blaine has closed public comment at their meetings—making Blaine the only city in Whatcom County that excludes public participation...
Read more