NO PUBLIC PARTICIPATION IN BLAINE

September 11, 2025, letter to Whatcom County:

A year and a half ago, I wrote a letter to the editor of The Northern Light observing that despite unprecedented growth in Blaine, the city had yet to hold a single community orientation meeting to the 2025 10-year update to Blaine's Comprehensive Plan. The Growth Management Act (GMA) states that public participation must be "early, continuous and meaningful throughout the planning process." Without an orientation at Blaine Community Center on a Saturday where citizens could view large wall maps, ask questions of experts, and get answers from public officials, public participation never happened, and now we are being asked to vote on a city proposition to expand the city limits when essential information is not even on the city website. 


Telling citizens they can pay $2,500 to contest closed door decisions by the city that clearly favor developers at the public expense--in hearings where the Examiner is paid by the city--or go to court is not what the state legislature envisioned when they passed GMA. 

As the city sets its sights on doubling our population (and utility bills), I'm reminded of the Olympia beer slogan, "It's the water." 2024-25 rezones reduced critical area and shoreline setback protections on Spooner Creek, Cain Creek, Dakota Creek, and Drayton Harbor to half that of county standards. City stormwater regulations are likewise substandard compared to the county.

Jay Taber, Blaine Water Coalition 

Chair, Voters Pamphlet Committee Against Proposition 2025-07

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