Blaine Confidential

Regarding The Northern Light September 10, 2025, story  about Mayor Steward's unhinged attack on Blaine Water Coalition,  there's a clue in the alleged anonymous letter in the part about city employees accused of crimes by us not being able to get jobs elsewhere. As the person who defamed us several times on the record and in the press, Blaine City Manager Mike Harmon is the most likely to be sacrificed as the fall guy when the truth about Blaine becomes known. Harmon knows how precarious the city's finances are, and can see the writing on the wall with the UGA Swap--city hall's salvation--likely to go down in flames before the county planning commission as well as Blaine voters. Harmon has access to emails, and he has a lot to lose. Motive + Opportunity + History of Retaliation = Prime Suspect There are only two city staff who could lose their jobs for misconduct exposed by us: Mike Harmon and Alex Wenger, director of Community Development Services. Revenge for my can...

September 11, 2025, letter to Whatcom County : Blaine is holding a comprehensive plan open house on September 30, after all the land use decisions for expanding the city limits and rezoning properties for Planned Unit Developments without a single EIS have been enacted by the city council without any public participation. This is completely backwards, and violates the basic tenet of the Growth Management Act of "early, continuous and meaningful public participation throughout the planning process."  The Blaine Comprehensive Plan is invalid due to blatant violations of the State Environmental Policy Act, Clean Water Act and Growth Management Act. The rezones passed by the city council in 2024-25 reduced critical area and shoreline setbacks well below the minimum county and state standards. Most of the rezones involved financial conflicts of interest by Blaine officials, which were covered up by the development director, mayor and city manager.   Jay Taber, Blaine Water Coaliti...

Top 10 Rules Playbook: A Blaine Case Study is the cover story in the September issue of Whatcom Watch.

September 11 letter to Whatcom County : Blaine's UGA section looks like it was written by realtors to maximize their commissions at community expense. This is not surprising, given that Blaine City Council appointed three realtors to the Blaine Planning Commission. Due to the takeover of Blaine's city government by the real estate industry, the UGAs are an expression of costly urban sprawl at its worst, without regard for critical aquifer recharge areas and associated wetlands that should be conserved for the future drinking water needs of Blaine and Birch Bay, and without regard for the degradation of the Drayton Harbor estuary and Birch Bay--both waters of statewide significance, with endangered species and tribal cultural resources throughout.   Jay Taber, Blaine Water Coalition Chair, Voters Pamphlet Committee Against Proposition 2025-07

September 11, 2025, letter to Whatcom County : It wasn't the fact that Blaine City Councilman Eric Lewis made motions to 1)  reinstate oral public comment  at city council meetings, 2)  adopt a code of ethics  for Blaine officials, and 3) adopt the WA State Department of Ecology 2024 Western Washington Stormwater Management Manual (as required by state law) that  infuriated Mayor Steward ; it was the fact that she was responsible for a)  ending free speech  in Blaine, b)  neglecting to prevent self-dealing  by Councilman Mike Hill, Planning Commissioner Sam Randhawa, and Downtown Advisory Committee member Gurdeep Bains (husband of Councilwoman Sarbie Bains), and c) allowing Blaine City Manager Mike Harmon and Community Development Services director Alex Wenger to  lie under oath  at a city council meeting saying the 2024 manual is optional. The fact that all three motions by Councilman Lewis were  rejected by his fellow council...

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 g...

Mayor Steward has lost her mind .