Blaine Hiding the Ball

A second follow up letter to the Attorney General:

Two of the Downtown Advisory Committee members voting on the redevelopment plan for Blaine's Central Business District don't even live in Blaine. Scott Meaker is a builder from Lynden. Greg McHenry is a port employee from Bellingham. What are they doing deciding our future? 

Committee member Kevin Owens is a Blaine Planning Commissioner. What is he doing voting on a recommendation that goes before the planning commission? 

Only seven people voted on the amendments to the Blaine Municipal Code that dramatically changes downtown Blaine. Two were from out of town. Two had direct financial conflicts of interest that were known by the Blaine City Manager who appointed them. Two of the seven dissented, appalled by the blatant corruption.

That leaves five people, two of whom are from out of town, two with conflicts of interest, who decided our fate.

None of them, to my knowledge, were even aware of the existence of a toxic waste site in the Central Business District, despite prior knowledge by the City of Blaine and Washington Department of Ecology (DOE). How can they plan redevelopment without addressing the toxic waste first? Why did Community Development Services not inform them of this? The cleanup site at Hill's Chevron is documented by DOE (Cleanup Site Identification #9280).

The extent of the groundwater contamination from Hill's Chevron was mapped by DOE in 2022. The contaminated groundwater has migrated west toward Drayton Harbor. (See Hazardous Materials Memo.) Project excavation activities there "should be expected to encounter contamination."

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