Blaine Confidential

TO: Whatcom County Planning Commission  FROM: Otto Pointer, Water Planning Matters  DATE: February 26, 2026  RE: East Blaine UGA Industrial Rezone – Wetlands, Flooding, and Infrastructure Deficiencies  Major deficiencies in the East Blaine industrial proposal   The Planning Commission has already found that the land Blaine proposes for its East UGA is “substantially more impaired by Wetlands and Buffers” than the area being de-annexed and that development in this UGA “will require a massive investment to create wetlands mitigation credits.” Despite those findings, the City has not supplied the basic information the Commission requested. Specifically:  1. No current, site-specific wetland mapping has been provided for the full 263-acre rezone area, even though City and County documents acknowledge “forested wetlands,” “naturally occurring ponds,” and “several wetland complexes” in East Blaine.  2. No quantitative summary of wetland, stream, and flood-pr...

Why did Kari Mar publish the clash between the Whatcom County Planning Commission and Blaine Community Development Services over Urban Growth Area infrastructure costs to taxpayers and rate payers in her obscure publication, Salish Current , and not in The Northern Light? Who is Mar protecting? Certainly not the citizens of Blaine who held city officials accountable for misconduct. Mar hasn't yet begun to make amends for what the newspaper she recently bought did to Blaine 2023-25. Apparently, the real estate ads she relies on are more important to her than democracy and the rule of law.

The Northern Light's new publisher, Kari Mar, is asking readers to donate $29.  If Mar was covering the Criminal Justice Training Commission certification complaints against Blaine PD, now being investigated by the CJTC, I might be inclined to do so.  Or if Mar was covering the Birch Point wetland maps fraud by Blaine Community Development Services, or the lack of enforcement of the Shoreline Management Plan by Blaine Code Enforcement, or the self-dealing by former Blaine officials Sam Randhawa and Mike Hill.  Mar, however, is covering none of this.  Mar has all the documentation to cover these issues, but hasn't. Apparently, nothing has changed at The Northern Light. Even the dishonest reporters Grace McCarthy and Nolan Baker who defamed Water Planning Matters advocates are still there. And Mar wants our money to pay them? If Mar had integrity, she would have published a front page apology from her to Geoffrey Baker (aka Otto Pointer) for allowing Nolan Baker to def...

On February 23, 2026, Whatcom County Sheriff Donnell Tanksley--former Blaine Chief of Police --wrote an   op-ed   suggesting that voters recall chiefs of police and sheriffs found by the Washington Criminal Justice Training Commission (CJTC) to have violated the law in their duties, rather than have them step down immediately upon being decertified by the CJTC as law enforcement officers. Current Blaine Chief of Police Rodger Funk is presently being investigated by the CJTC . That is not the way to handle serious breaches of duty that violate the U.S. constitutional rights to equal protection under the law. When police are used to intimidate citizens for political purposes, it's wrongheaded to ask communities to vote on whether they support denying protection to minorities and advocates opposed to those in power. This makes me think Tanksley has Funk's back . Tanksley's department declined to charge Blaine City Councilman Mike Hill when he  accosted open government ...

Rather than allow constituents to ask questions directly at the so-called 42nd District town hall for state legislators Sharon Shewmake, Alicia Rule, and Joe Timmons, the February 21 event was controlled by a gatekeeper who reviewed written questions to decide which were easy to answer and not embarrassing for the legislators. At real town halls, government officials are held accountable by their constituents. What the 42nd District legislators did was a dog-and-pony show. Avoiding accountability by manipulating the public process--in town halls, city council meetings, and public hearings--is what these legislators have in common with the City of Blaine. Their disdain toward public participation is only overshadowed by their devotion to the real estate industry.

Planning commission, cities clash over urban growth -- Salish Current , February 16, 2026   “They have not identified any source of wetlands mitigation, what it’s going to cost, how much is involved, who’s going to pay for it and whether the cost actually makes the land affordable or unaffordable at the end of it,” Browne said. “Blaine has to be held to account for saying how is this economically viable, how is it going to be funded?”  -- Rud Browne,  Whatcom County Planning Commission  “Our land capacity analysis has already accounted for all wetlands and their maximum buffers remove that area from our land capacity analysis so we can accommodate 20 years of industrial and commercial job growth and not impact any wetlands whatsoever,” he said in an interview. “There is zero wetland mitigation required to meet our employment allocations, and it will cost us that same figure, zero.” -- Alex Wenger, Blaine Community Development Services

February 18 letter to Whatcom County: Blaine Community Development Services is the posterchild for Growth Management fraud. (See  Blaine Case Study  in the September 2025 issue of  Whatcom Watch .)  The City of Blaine never held a single Growth Management orientation for the community to participate in setting priorities for civic center redevelopment, Critical Aquifer Recharge Area and wetlands protection, or the proposed expansion of the city at Birch Point. Instead, the city met behind closed doors with developers to come up with their vision, and after they passed ordinances enacting the developers vision, they sold it to the public.  Part of that sales job was by Ocean Farms LLC, the Birch Point developer who pushed for expanding the Blaine city limits at Birch Point so he could develop under the city's environmental standards, which are significantly lower than those of Whatcom County. Ocean Farms LLC paid for the public relations campaign to influence Bla...

February 16 letter to Ferndale City Council: Using the police to attack their political opponents is one thing Mayor Mary Lou Steward and President Donald Trump have in common. They are both pathological liars involved in criminal misconduct, but it is their intolerance for  open government  and the rule of law--as well as their willingness to use police intimidation--that sets them apart from honest politicians. Ferndale Police Department's involvement (see attached) in helping Blaine Chief of Police Rodger Funk  defame , and use  police misconduct  to intimidate, four Blaine open government activists holding Mayor Steward accountable is now being investigated by the WA Criminal Justice Training Commission (CJTC). Blaine Chief of Police Rodger Funk, Ferndale Police Officer Richard Hart, and Blaine Police Officer Zachary Taxdahl apparently cooked the books on the so-called investigation of citizens opposing financial conflicts of interest by Blaine officials (se...

Thursday was the two-year anniversary of Mayor Steward's ambush of Donna Newman (aka McGaffic), who had exposed corrupt dealings between the city council and developer Skip Jansen. One year ago, I wrote Blaine City Council about this corruption perpetrated by the mayor in an email titled   truth and consequences .  The 2/12/24 ambush by Mayor Steward and Councilman Hill--where they started shouting at Ms. Newman, provoking her to shout back--was planned in advance so that the mayor could have the police remove her. The Northern Light then reported that Ms. Newman had misbehaved, ignoring the official corruption.  The preconceived ambush then served as pretext for the mayor to ban oral public comment at city council meetings. The ban continues to this day. 

The takeover of the City of Blaine by the real estate industry, and the destruction it has caused to the rule of law in the Drayton Harbor/Birch Bay watersheds, could not have happened without the active support of The Northern Light. Under new ownership, The Northern Light is now at a crossroads; will it continue to cater to the real estate industry and defame citizens holding city hall accountable, or will the reporters who helped create this civic nightmare be replaced? So far under the new ownership, nothing has changed.

Covering up crimes at city hall and pollution by crooked developers has been the main purpose of The Northern Light staff 2023-26. For that to change under the new owner--Kari Mar-- Northern Light reporters Patrick Grubb, Grace McCarthy, and Nolan Baker must go. Their dishonest reporting has destroyed democracy in Blaine, and enabled environmental destruction of the Drayton Harbor and Birch Bay watersheds. 

As noted in TNL MISLEADING READERS , and in LTE REJECTED BY KARI MAR , The Northern Light under the new owner, Kari Mar, continues to defame open government activists and to cover up crimes by Blaine officials. We hope this is due to her ignorance of Blaine, as someone who does not live here, but she needs to start doing her homework if she wants us to trust her.  So far, it's two strikes against Kari Mar.

The new owner of The Northern Light, Kari Mar, rejected this letter to the editor: Editor , The January 21  letter to the editor  by former Blaine City Councilman Rhyan Lopez thanks our "outstanding city manager" who routinely defamed Water Planning Matters. Lopez then thanks Blaine Police Department for it's "integrity" even as three Blaine police officers, including Chief Rodger Funk, face investigations by the Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission for violating the   equal protection rights of the mayor's opponents.  Topping off his career on council, Lopez on October 13, presided over the town hall where convicted violent felon David Brudvik threatened to murder four people for holding the city manager, mayor, and chief of police accountable. While Lopez cut off his opponents at the two-minute mark, he gave Brudvik and other friends of the mayor several minutes extra to speak, most notably the Brudvik death threats issued after...

February 10 letter to City of Blaine: To comply with state law,   Blaine must repeal the Urban Mixed Use rezone Ordinance No. 25-3028 , which unlawfully reduced creek setbacks and other protections in violation of the Blaine Critical Areas Ordinance, as well as financially benefitted then planning commissioner Sam Randhawa and his employer,   Freeman Real Estate   (see attached complaint to U.S. Department of Justice).   Randhawa and Freeman should not profit from crime , and the comprehensive plan is invalid until this ordinance is repealed. Blaine must also repeal the June 10, 2024  reduction of parking requirements in the Central Business District   Ordinance No. 24-3014 , and the November 25, 2024  increase in building heights in the Central Business District  text amendment , which were both voted on by then Councilman Mike Hill, who owns numerous commercial properties in the Central Business District, and did not recuse himself as state law ...

February 7 letter to Blaine City Council: "Power corrupts" may be cliche, but it explains how the real estate industry took over Blaine's government.  Relying on the power to control what information the public is allowed to know about--exercising the power of  public records gatekeeper  and advertising contracts with The Northern Light news--Mayor Steward began establishing totalitarian control. With Northern Light reporters Patrick Grubb, Grace McCarthy, and Nolan Baker  covering up official crimes  and defaming her opponents, Steward then marshalled Blaine Police Department against her political opponents, leading to  death threats  and protection orders for her opponents by Whatcom District Court Judge Angela Anderson. Three Blaine police officers, including Chief Rodger Funk, are currently being investigated by the WA Criminal Justice Training Commission (CJTC) for violating the equal protection rights of the  open government  activists ...

Washington State opened the flood gates to environmental devastation when state agencies stopped enforcing environmental laws, shifting that burden to the citizens at their own expense, leaving the environment at the mercy of the real estate industry. Mesmerized by real estate lobbyists in Olympia, legislators are oblivious to the massive damage now being done by the tsunami of wealthy retirees moving here in droves to gated communities.  This illegal pollution of the Salish Sea and its freshwater tributaries is irreversible, and will turbo charge salmon extinction. Whatcom County and the Washington Department of Ecology have ignored the problem.  

Remember Mayor Mary Lou Steward's September 8, 2025 meltdown , accusing Water Planning Matters (WPM) of costing the city hundreds of thousands of dollars for public records requests, according to city manager Mike Harmon? Turns out, for the entire year of 2025, there were a total of 157 Public Records Act requests for Blaine documents. This attempt to discredit WPM was in order to interfere with the city council election , in which 1) Harmon attempted to persuade the council to appoint Sarbie Bains to fulfill the remainder of Councilman Mike Hill's term, without allowing any other applicants, and 2) Steward defamed candidate Lewis in retaliation for introducing a code of ethics for Blaine officials. The City of Blaine  public records controversy  did not happen in a vacuum; it happened due to three years of intense attacks by city staff on citizens holding city hall accountable to the Growth Management Act, State Environmental Policy Act, and the Clean Water Act, while the cit...

As   executive director of Salish Current News , Kari Mar noted that her acquisitions of La Conner Community News and The Northern Light are for " charting a new path forward for local news — one grounded in transparency, accountability and community trust." At the same time, Mar says she will retain local news staff at these publications, which is contrary to her mission, as TNL staff (Pat Grubb, Grace McCarthy, and Nolan Baker) all defamed Water Planning Matters and covered up crimes at city hall.

Geoffrey Baker's February 5 letter to the editor of The Northern Light (see below) corrects the erroneous record by The Northern Light on Water Planning Matters and the Avista SEPA appeal. The Editor: I am writing to request corrections to the January 28, 2026 article, “Blaine City Council denies SEPA appeal for Avista at Birch Point development.” The article describes me as someone “who leads Blaine Water Coalition, the activist group that fought for the SEPA hearing.” While the SEPA appeal was filed under the name Blaine Water Coalition, this is not an organization and BWC in name has not existed since September 2025. Despite my explicit clarification of this detail as documented in the meeting transcript, the reporter got this wrong. I volunteer for WaterPlanningMatters.org (WPM). WPM is a regional unincorporated organization operating as an affiliate of Bellingham’s non-profit Responsible Development. Additionally for at least five times now,  The Northern Light  has misl...