Good Old Boys

2/7/25 letter to City of Blaine:

We have unmasked the 'good old boy' system of governance in Blaine where who you know and how much dough you have makes you above the law. The 'good old boy' system, exemplified by Blaine City Council member Mike Hill and The Northern Light publisher Patrick Grubb, is apparently longstanding. According to a public opinion poll in 2022, longtime residents of Blaine have learned to not get involved and to keep silent about corruption at city hall in order to avoid retaliation by the 'good old boys' in the form of threats, assault, slander and economic reprisal.

New residents (ten years or less) of Blaine now involved in public affairs and local civics are appalled by this incestuous backwater where uninformed opinions of bullies like Blaine Planning Commission chair Calvin Armerding and council member Mike Hill are routinely given credence on the front page of The Northern Light and factual evidence of official wrongdoing--even accosting citizens at city hall who ask questions about official corruption--is covered up.

Those of you who went along to get along with the 'culture of fear' some like Mike Hill have used in order to profit from the illegal environmental destruction now taking place on the Semiahmoo peninsula and spit and in the Critical Aquifer Recharge Area for our city drinking water are guilty of giving no consideration whatsoever to the economic or environmental impacts of your crimes.

By amending the Blaine Municipal Code to exclude the public from meaningful participation and to allow unlawful Planned Unit Developments city wide 2022-2024, you have violated numerous state and federal laws, and you will pay for that willful neglect. By all accounts, you are determined to run our city government over the cliff, and the courts will sort that out. Blaine City Manager Mike Harmon and Community Development Services director Alex Wenger are the fall guys.

We had pure clean drinking water until you allowed Skip Jansen and other developers to start clearcutting the forest that protected our city aquifer to build mobile home parks. If allowed to continue this pollution of our city water, we will likely need to build a $200 million treatment plant to remove pollution from our tap water. This cost will show up on our utility bills in the future.

You, however, do not consider the future in your land use decisions and railroaded zoning amendments for Alex Wenger's developer friends like Skip Jansen, Mike Hill and Gurdeep Bains. You have only considered how much permit fees you can get in order to pay next month's bills having run our city into the red by your myopic reckless behavior. You have not even managed to show that the city has the capacity to provide water and sewer service to the thousands of homes in the new PUDs.  

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