KARI MAR CULPABLE

In the January 21, 2026 Northern Light article Ferndale officer issues clarification on Blaine investigation report by Pat Grubb, Ferndale Police Officer Richard Hart implied that Donna McGaffic "and associates"--who had complained about government misconduct by Mayor Mary Lou Steward and Chief of Police Rodger Funk--was involved in unspecified "criminal conduct" despite her not being charged with any crime. This defamatory article was published on Kari Mar's watch as the new publisher of The Northern Light. 

Richard Hart, along with Rodger Funk, are both currently being investigated by the Washington Criminal Justice Training Commission (CJTC) for allegedly violating the equal protection rights of Donna McGaffic and three other Blaine open government activists. None of them have been charged with any crime, but The Northern Light chose to portray them as "deliberately disruptive to the effective governance of the city of Blaine." On November 4, 2025, four of these open government activists received civil protection orders in Whatcom District Court after the mayor's friend David Brudvik threatened to murder them for holding the city accountable over repeated self-dealing by city officials.

Mar has yet to apologize to the open government activists her paper defamed. Instead, in her introduction as the new publisher at The Northern Light, Mar expresses her "enormous respect" for her predecessor, Pat Grubb, (who led the 2023-25 demonization campaign against open government activists alongside his editor Grace McCarthy and reporter Nolan Baker). The current CJTC investigation of Hart and Funk, initiated on February 25, 2026, has yet to be reported in The Northern Light. Nor has the self-dealing by former Blaine officials Mike Hill, Sam Randhawa, and Gurdeep Bains that led to this civic conflict.