Please Protect Public Participation

3/19/25 letter to Whatcom County Executive:

Dear Whatcom County Executive Sidhu,

Public participation is the cornerstone of the 2025 Comprehensive Plan update under the Growth Management Act (GMA). As the governing document that determines our environmental protection policies for the next ten years, public participation is essential to its validity under the law. The Whatcom Comprehensive Plan update page on your website has a public comment archive by month, which I have used extensively since October 2024. 

One of the requirements of GMA is two-way communication, so that public participation is meaningful, not just something to pay lip service to. Unfortunately, lip service is what we get from Whatcom County government, as I have not received a single reply from the County Council, you, nor the Whatcom County Prosecutor about the strategic undermining of public participation by the City of Blaine in planning our future.

Our volunteer citizen group Blaine Water Coalition sent speakers recently to the Whatcom County Planning Commission and to the Whatcom County Council only to discover county officials are clueless about official corruption in Blaine, despite my many letters on our group's behalf. A recent investigation by the Whatcom County Sheriff's Department of an assault on one of our members by a Blaine City Councilman was also ignored.

Please read BLAINE TOXIC COVERUP for an overview of what we face here in Blaine. 
My letter to the Whatcom County Prosecutor a year ago received no response.

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