EXERCISE IN DECEPTION

September 26 letter to Whatcom County Planning Commission:

The 2025 Blaine Comprehensive Plan under the Washington State Growth Management Act (GMA) 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 Councilwoman Bains husband), 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 illegally 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 for his clients at Freeman Real Estate. 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 Blaine Comprehensive Plan cannot come into compliance with GMA until Blaine City Council repeals the included self-dealing ordinances. The September 30 open house does not offer opportunity for oral public comment on the record. GMA community orientation is to be at the start of comprehensive planning, not the end.

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. "Early, continuous, and inclusive public participation throughout the planning process"--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).

To learn how the City of Blaine turned Drayton Harbor into a cesspool, see the cover story BLAINE CASE STUDY in the September issue of WhatcomWatch.org, and the 7-minute video at WaterPlanningMatters.org

Jay Taber, Blaine Water Coalition
Chair, Voters Pamphlet Committee Against Proposition 2025-07

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