REJECT BLAINE COMPREHENSIVE PLAN

September 18 letter to Whatcom County:

The City of Blaine Comprehensive Plan process--characterized by official perjury, self-dealing, and fraud--is a Case Study in Regulatory Capture, a system designed to undermine public participation in order to serve special interests, in this case, the real estate industry. In a scheme to do an end run around the requirement for "early, continuous, and inclusive public participation throughout the planning process" under the Washington State Growth Management Act (GMA) and State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA), Blaine set about vigorously pursuing back room deals with developers that culminated in a blitzkrieg of Planned Unit Developments and expanding Urban Growth Areas without a single Environmental Impact Statement. 

No public orientation to the 10-year comprehensive plan update was ever done, and the retaliatory free speech ban on oral public comment at city council meetings--imposed by Mayor Steward on February 12, 2024 and continuing to this day--made sure that the City of Blaine would not have to listen to any dissenting voices by the public. When challenged by citizens seeking a voice, the response by Mayor Steward and City Manager Mike Harmon has been to intimidate them through defamation and demonization, on the record, and in the press.

Most recently, Mayor Steward threatened to censure Blaine City Councilman Eric Lewis for speaking with our group, Blaine Water Coalition, about adopting a Code of Ethics for Blaine officials, and about reinstating oral public comment at city council meetings. We had brought to his attention the repeated self-dealing by Councilman Mike Hill and downtown developer Gurdeep Bains, that undermined public trust and made Blaine's comprehensive plan invalid. 

The many rezones fast-tracked by Blaine Community Development Services 2024-2025 included financial conflicts of interest, SEPA fraud, incomplete applications approved, and variances handed out to realtors, by a Blaine Planning Commission that the city council had stacked by appointing three realtors to the commission. Some of the rezones reduced critical area protections and shoreline setbacks by half that of county standards. 

Blaine's comprehensive planning should be rejected by Whatcom County and investigated by Washington State for official misconduct. This is a lesson in the need for civic reform from top to bottom. No community should have to endure the trauma of official corruption and thuggery aimed at its citizens while county and state law enforcement turns a blind eye to ongoing crime at Blaine City Hall.

The aforementioned official misconduct by Blaine officials demands a special investigation by the State Auditor, Secretary of State elections division, and Washington Attorney General. Comprehensive planning in Blaine must be taken over by the county in order to fulfill the mandates of GMA and the county's responsibility to oversee the process countywide. Whatcom County has failed miserably in its responsibility to the citizens of Blaine and Birch Bay, to Lummi Nation, to our environment, to our drinking water, and to the orcas, salmon and oysters in Birch Bay, Drayton Harbor and Semiahmoo Bay. 

If the county wants to avoid liability, it will no longer dismiss our pleas for help and treat us in a condescending manner, brushing aside our concerns for public health and official accountability. I won't repeat my voluminous submissions of detailed documentation of corruption--directly related to Blaine's comprehensive plan--to Whatcom County over the past year, because it is unnecessary. The strategic undermining of public participation by the City of Blaine is sufficient to remove Blaine's comprehensive plan for special investigation, in order to not taint the entire county plan under judicial review.

Jay Taber, Blaine Water Coalition, waterplanningmatters.org