EXERCISE IN DECEPTION

September 26 letter to Blaine City Council:

The 2025 Blaine Comprehensive Plan relies on 1) perjury by City Manager Mike Harmon (regarding adoption of the 2024 Department of Ecology Stormwater Management Manual), 2) self-dealing by Blaine officials Mike Hill (city councilman), Gurdeep Bains (downtown developer), and Sam Randhawa (realtor and city planning commissioner), and 3) fraud by Community Development director Alex Wenger [altering public records]. Like the deceptive Proposition 7 titled Reduction of City Limits that is intended to expand the city limits, the comprehensive plan is an exercise in deception. 

The ordinances amending the Blaine Municipal Code that reduced shoreline setbacks on Cain Creek, Dakota Creek, and Drayton Harbor (to financially benefit commissioner Randhawa) in violation of the State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) and Clean Water Act also increased the values of these commercial properties. The building height increases and parking reductions in the Central Business District, unlawfully voted on by Bains and Hill in violation of the Ethics in Public Service Act, compound the deception.

The numerous proposed and approved Planned Unit Developments that would double our population and utility bills were not preceded by a single Environmental Impact Statement. Public participation--a requirement of the Growth Management Act--was non-existent. Cumulative impacts of these illegal developments on the Dakota Creek/Drayton Harbor estuary (Waters of the United States) violate the Marine Mammal Protection Act (orcas and seals), the Endangered Species Act (chinook salmon), and the treaty rights of Lummi Nation (ancestral major village at Semiahmoo Spit).

Jay Taber, Blaine Water Coalition

Chair, Voters Pamphlet Committee Against Proposition 2025-07

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