In your wildest dreams, can you imagine that government planners, highly paid to work on your behalf, would put place to live, human safety, and independent rural life in the bottom tier of “community attributes/values and relative priority”?  Watch your ass, Jack.  That’s exactly what they’re doing. Check out these priorities:

That's a mighty 'progressive' agenda to impose on all plans and the water users of Whatcom County! WE wonder how many people agree with it. It sure doesn't sound like a cross section of interests from across the county to us. So, who might come up with a list like that?  WE can tell you:

• Henry Bierlink, Farm Friends
  
• Clare Fogelsong, City of Bellingham
  
• Sue Blake, WSU Extension Whatcom County
  
• Peter Gill, Whatcom County Planning Dept.
  
• George Boggs, Whatcom Conservation District
  
• Oliver Grah, Nooksack Tribe Natural Resources Dept.
  
• Eric Carabba, Whatcom Land Trust
  
• Kasey Ignac, Washington Dept. of Ecology
  
• Alan Chapman, Lummi Nation Natural Resources Dept.
  
• Bert Rubash, Marine Resources Committee
  
• Treva Coe, Nooksack Tribe Natural Resources Dept.
  
• Rebecca Schlotterback, Public Utility District No. 1
  
• Erika Douglas, Whatcom County Public Works
  
• Marcus Schumacher, CCA North Sound
  
• Barbara Fisher, Lummi Nation Natural Resources Dept.
  
• Wendy Steffensen, Re Sources
  
• Bill Verwolf, City of Lynden/Small Cities Partnership
  

Who would coordinate such a meeting, working up lists like that?  Becky Peterson, an independent contractor working under the business name “Geneva Consulting.”   There's a lot of special interest on the list, innit?

Who would mastermind and pay for this?  The Puget Sound Partnership.  Whatcom County joined up as a "local integrating organization" a while ago.

With our money?  Yes!   They use federal and state tax money, quite a lot of it.

Why are they doing this?  To “restore the watershed.”

Huh?  Restore to what level? What’s going on?  There's all this talk about the Growth Management Act having to protect "rural character" to conserve farms and agriculture. Independent rural living is a zero? Can this be true? Yes!  Government, supposed to protect human rights and safety, prioritizes everything but!

At a meeting held January 31 in Bellingham, these seventeen people met for two and a half hours in their third meeting of the “Whatcom Integration Team” (WIT for short). 

But a handful of citizens heard about this and showed up uninvited, sitting on the sidelines stunned. They could hardly contain shock and awe at what was described as a “technical” planning exercise, and all kinds of other local plans were discussed.  It seems that everything that happens in the watershed falls within their reach, they say - to protect water and fish.   To do that, they'll have to involve themselves in land use, forestry, farming - everything.  Where we live, what we do.

How could “community attributes/values” like cultural be considered technical?  Water rights, baby.  And planning control. To put a finer point on it, to determine which “watershed services” are most important in the big ecological scheme of things - at least according to these government bureaucrats, tribal staffers, and a very short list of preferred special interest groups who live on grants, rent-seeking.

You see, use of water is managed by the state (the Department of Ecology), and that use has to be “beneficial.”  Very few people have documented water rights on paper, stapled to the deeds of their property (property: that thing you used to have free use of).  While the state Supreme Court made it clear that people have a right to use water without permits (many if not most are legally "exempt"), the use has to be beneficial.  Without documents and permits, and even with them, water use has limits.  But the limits are pretty generous.  That may change drastically here in one of the most water-soaked places in the state, if the planners have free rein.

Is your use of water less beneficial than somebody else’s?  That’s the gazillion dollar question.  If you live independently in a rural area,  you're definitely at the bottom of this list, value/attribute =  zero.  How did this water planning business get so far out of whack?

Whatcom County falls inside a big watershed that was categorized years ago by the state as Water Resource Inventory Area #1 (WRIA for short, sounds like “why-rah”).  Back in 1998, the legislature in Olympia came up with a way for folks who don’t have formal water rights, plus the few who do, to work out watershed planning together.  Whether people drew water from the ground (like, from a well) or from the surface (from a river or stream), they’d all work as something called a Planning Unit.  What’s the bill that set up this process?  It's the Watershed Planning Act, RCW 90.82. Take a look at it.

So, that sounds pretty good.  What’s going on?  Are these people who are coming up with lists like this supposed to be setting goals and  for our watershed?  Big NO. 

Whatcom County Charter says that only council, our legislature, can adopt plans.  In Charter 2.20(d) it says council’s job is “To adopt by ordinance comprehensive plans, including improvement plans for the present and future development of the county.”

When that planning act was passed, each inventory area (each WRIA) was legally obliged to develop its own local plan.  The law said an area’s county government (or governments, if a watershed crossed county lines), plus its biggest city, local tribes if there were any, and the biggest “utility” had a duty to  make sure the work got done.  So City of Bellingham, the Lummi Tribe, PUD #1 and Whatcom County signed a contract to work together, and Whatcom County took the official “lead agency” role.  Then the Nooksack Tribe joined-up.  As a group, these five were called the IG - or “initiating governments.”  And the state paid money for them to get something started called a Planning Unit.  The law said,

The purpose of this chapter is to develop a more thorough and cooperative method of determining what the current water resource situation is in each water resource inventory area of the state and to provide local citizens with the maximum possible input concerning their goals and objectives for water resource management and development.

It is necessary for the legislature to establish processes and policies that will result in providing state agencies with more specific guidance to manage the water resources of the state consistent with current law and direction provided by local entities and citizens through the process established in accordance with this chapter.

So, the local process was supposed to provide the local citizens a real role in planning, not pass it off.  This was supposed to give state agencies guidance, "direction provided by local entities and citizens" not the reverse. Sounds very reasonable.

And a bottom up Planning Unit was formed just as the law required, and County Council approved that in 2005.  This local group (actually, a group of groups called Planning Unit “caucuses” for water associations, cities, the PUD and so on) worked together for four years. The county’s departments would attend, and contractors were hired who were supposed to help determine the water situation. The Planning Unit would review and vote on the acceptability of technical work as studies were done.  Some very extremely expensive work was done by USGS and a university that didn’t go well.  The "current situation" wasn't well understood.  And as time went by, questions were asked that were unwelcome.  By August 2009, the bureaucrats decided to simply “stop convening” the Planning Unit; even though there were protests about it.  But the initiating governments - the big five -  decided to hand over the work to their own staff, called the Management Team.

In short, that’s how so many bureaucrats ended up doing what they’re doing.  After the Planning Unit was out of the picture, they adopted and they're "implementing" a new set of plans on their own.  And at this point does this look anything like what the Planning Act called for?  And the Puget Sound Partnership is directing how other local plans should fit into its own regional "Action Plan."

WE did some poking around, and discovered the “WIT” meetings have been happening way outside the Council's knowledge and view. We can thank the Puget Sound Partnership and the WRIA 1 initiating governments (IG's) for WIT.   They abandoned the council approved process, and departments and agencies have run everything internally. The WRIA initiating governments joined up with the  regional group of governor appointees, the Puget Sound Partnership which brought them lots of grant money.  PSP is an unelected quasi-agency, a bureaucracy with zero accountability to citizens. Geneva Consulting works directly for the PSP as well as to WRIA; very convenient.

With work like this going on, WE think it's good that citizens have gone into "WRIA Watch" mode.  People are meeting at the Rome Grange at 7 pm Friday Feb 8, and there may be another meeting Monday Feb 11, too! 

Write to council right away and call too if you can, if you think this is mixed-up and backwards.  Better speak loudly and soon.   

WRIA 1 desperately wants to hand even more of this over to the PUD next Tuesday February 12 on a one-way trip that will take this totally beyond the Watershed Planning Act.  The PUD only serves water directly to Cherry Point, but they want to take over planning, to develop a "Water Supply Plan" for the whole county.  Sound anything like what the WRIA law requires?  "The powers' are furious that everyday people, particularly farmers and rural people, should try to stop this.  When you explain your concerns, you might want to remind them that...

If somehow you were one of the folks who missed participating in the "extensive community engagement" that the Northwest Economic Council conducted last fall (called the Whatcom Futures Project, a visioning exercise) WE suggest you look at its webpage. Get a load of the comments collected and the vision they drafted.  (There are links to follow down at the bottom of that page.)

After you do, you'll wonder why this exercise would make County Executive Jack Louws or anyone else particularly comfortable with the group's "merger with Whatcom County Council of Governments."   Except - it's so gosh darned exciting.

An announcement was posted by the Herald on December 13th, so this must have been in the hopper a while.  Having seen that latest survey, WE can't imagine why this group would be given a major role in deciding folks' fates instead of being shown the door. 

'Ever heard of them?

The name "Northwest Economic Council" sounds official, doesn't it?  It's had that image a long time.  But it's a private non-profit which has built a nice, job-secure business subsisting on grants for years.  Nobody elects the people who run it.  Those we do elect don't appoint them.  So, like so many outfits in this town, they make a career of inviting decent business people with cachet to sit on their board and the staff gets paid for advising and promoting, and cranking out reports full of hyperbole and boilerplate.

What matters most right now is their "vision" and the expanded planning role they seem to be getting.  Should a private special interest group be that involved in running the public funding  steam-shovel?  This group talks about shaping the community using financial incentives.  What a nice word for... what?  Gifts to the like-minded?  EDI money, which comes from sales tax, is supposed to be used to finance public facilities.  But the fund's use has always been stretched well beyond capital work, contorted over the years.  If this board transition proceeds, WE expect to see a lot more grants landing in the laps of private groups with remote justification.  Beyond that, too much meddling in "economic development" defies the effectiveness of free-market mechanisms that - never forget - are entirely free of cost.

With funding from another special interest group, this self declared "council" held four quick meetings last fall to prove support for their own joint "strategic goals for the community."  By all accounts only about 100 people actually attended - total.  On the strength of that they wrote a 20-year vision for Whatcom County.  Let's put that in proportion.

The events are described on the NW Econ site as “extensive community engagement”, but participation (100/203,000 – which was our 2010 population) was only about a .0004296 sample.  That doesn't even register 0%.  That's mighty extensive engagement.   Now this group, with a straight face, will be mind-melding with the Whatcom County Council of Governments.

(If you're one of the 99.9995704% of the population who missed out on the dot-exercises and donuts, here are the dates, times and places the visioning occurred:

• Tuesday, September 25 – Blaine – Blaine High School – 5:30 pm to 7:30 pm
  
• Wednesday, September 26 – Bellingham – Squalicum Boathouse – 4:30 pm to 6:30 pm
  
• Wednesday, October 3 – Maple Falls – East County Regional Resource Center – 5:30 pm to 7:30 pm
  
• Thursday, October 4 – Lynden – Lynden Library – 4:00 pm to 6:00 pm)
  

In all due respect, a smattering of on-line comments and letters have dribbled in since those four meetings.   But the "input" is a sight to behold.  There's plenty of anti-industry sentiment, big appetites for ballooning government services, and of course the ever-popular bent toward "conservation," which really means diminished rural property use to shoo people into dense corridors.  Let's get on with that buy local, stack 'n pack urban future.   Read the hyperbole - that's exactly what it is.

Jack Louws should advance  paperwork to council about  this EDI board structure, but will he?  If he seeks authorization, it may be in a painful way.  A "CEO" asking for "board approval" is a yukky formality.  Mind you, the transition, as Louws calls it, started anyway last month, with press releases, back slapping, and county website edits that make it appear that all is in order.  Why should we need - like, representatives - thinking and stuff?  "Uh, that's an Executive-appointed board anyhow, and the last exec sure made a lot of friends with that.   And it's only that other money anyway.   Who can say no to the CEO?"

Before it slips into the annals of history, see the current EDI board make-up, created by ordinance, in code at WCC 2.130.  If council allows a change of composition of the board, no more citizens need participate.  Just staff,  lobbying "experts" and officials, public-private partnering.  Imagine the sizzle and dazzle, all that money to dispense, and pitchfests to hold.  Representation always was a farce.

Neither organization has any taxing authority technically.  WCOG has principally been a regional transportation authority, but with a huge budget.  Together, the pair can wreak sweet havoc with their push-poll methods and those special Futurevision glasses.  WCOG can ramp up Smart-Trips and Northwest Economic Council can ramp up the SmartGrowth and we'll all be so happy, with our swell new quality of life!

They're starting with an update of the $600 million+ CEDS list.  Then they can roll up their sleeves and start throwing oodles of money at pet projects and enterprises in the places they fancy.  EDI spending isn't reviewed by the Planning Commission, or a part of the 6-Year Capital Improvement Plan.  While technically County Council must approve EDI recommendations, few recommendations have ever been turned away.

Us?  We the People will keep on paying the sales tax and B&O tax that fills the fund.  It’s more government – without being government.   WE don’t mind having or paying for the government WE choose. But for government to make us pay for its own cheering section – this big extra layer of bureaucracy – no better qualified (and who cares if they were?) – making the most basic life decisions for us, at our expense. It’s unaccountable shadow government that costs us more than money.

Because the feds, the State of Washington and Whatcom County don’t provide much hands-on healthcare service to the public (unless you’re in jail), you may wonder who may be making decisions “on our behalf” now that the Affordable Care Act is rolling ahead.  Who’s putting Obamacare into action here?

The answer is Whatcom Alliance for Healthcare Access (WAHA).  Effective November 30, 2012, its name was updated to “Whatcom Alliance for Health Advancement.”  
Their website says the organization will remain the same, with a new look. 

While WAHA says it’s non-partisan, it has long claimed our medical system was (or is) broken, and WAHA’s issue advocacy has only supported one solution (ahem), Obamacare.  Since last year, WAHA has been directly involved in transforming the healthcare delivery system from the free-market to the new ACO (accountable care organization) model.  Take a look under the hood of the preliminary plan (in particular the "Vision for Payment Reform" on Page 7) to see the sweeping changes in store.

WE did some background dredging to turn over rocks as we generally do, and discovered that Regina Delahunt – this county’s own Public Health Director – is also the agent and president of this non-profit, which is also technically a charity.  As such, WAHA has been doing pretty darned well.  It received a massive multi-year grant from the feds for up to $5.7 million to coordinate work that’s coincidentally tied to Regina Delahunt’s day-job.

WE don’t besmirch, but we do wonder if that pushes the boundaries of "public-private" partnership.  It seems odd and complicated that a public employee, who’s a department head with a direct interest in the county’s relationship with an organization, should also be the organization's official “agent” and “president.”

Delahunt introduced the "Community Transformation Grant" grant, a federal CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) program that was awarded in January to WAHA.  Without question, the federal government is hell-bent on helping "communities implement policies that sustain environmental and systems changes" to  "achieve health equity."  The minutes of the February 7, 2012 “Board of Health” committee meeting fail to mention Delahunt's central relationship with WAHA.

This 2007 report page named Delahunt in the “partner” role:

Given the number of doctors, dentists, labs, and specialty care centers here plus PeaceHealth St. Joseph Hospital which is a first class medical center, who believes that Whatcom citizens have ever been systematically deprived of access to healthcare?

It doesn’t matter.  WAHA is here, it’s Obamacare central, and they say they’re representing you, me, and all of us.  Ever hear of them?  A lot of decision making about what care we should get, from whom, and at what cost will be run through WAHA.

Whether you love it or hate it, the healthcare system seems headed toward something very monopolistic with all this central guidance (that's extremely expensive).

Have you noticed how many doctors have changed their shingles lately, and that more than ever say “PeaceHealth”?   WE don’t have a beef with PeaceHealth, but we understand that most small practices and practitioners have had little choice but join-up to become part of an ACO (affordable care organization) just to stay afloat.  Some say a lot of docs will retire soon.  Who knows if that’s true; only time will tell.

Whatever your position, WE thought we’d encourage people to pay attention to WAHA and its relationship with (and within) Whatcom County.  It’s hard to know how “auditable” the effort will be.  Most of what’s available about WAHA is its own glowing hyperbole.  Ever hear of the “Care Transitions Project” or “Project Impact”?

They say they’re providing “a community process.”  Does that mean anything to ya?  Community process, how?   But here's what they show in presentations...

... who are the "community members"?   Mostly insurance companies and provider insiders.  Here’s what WAHA writes about itself at its website (it has a couple versions:  this, and this – take your pick):

Whatcom Alliance for Healthcare Access has wanted only one thing for years – central command and control, and they’ve definitely got the lead seat.  Why would we expect them to write anything but a promising "outlook" as they go forward, spending millions?  Who will hold “affordable health care” accountable to us?

ALERT:  There's been talk that a "special facilities district" could be formed for the purpose of creating a countywide ACO.  Sound tame?  NOT.   Such a district created by council (not a public vote) would potentially (a) have only few token elected public officials on its board, (b) with "operative" appointees filling more seats, and [brace yourself] (c) such a district could have broad TAXING POWERS.   But this is wouldn't be like most special purpose districts.  This would have less citizen control.  Just as for the WTA, citizens wouldn't have direct accountability through the ballot box.   We have real local control over our fire districts, school districts, and water districts - but we wouldn't have it over a healthcare district like this.  A proposal is looming - probably coming early in 2013 by all accounts.

Last council session, on November 20th, the county (WE think wisely) turned down the opportunity to involve us in a demonstration for Washington State’s “Health Path Strategy 2.”  That would have put the county in the position of being responsible for the healthcare choices of people who are eligible for both Medicare and Medicaid (“dual” eligibility).   What other “strategies” will WAHA field and present on behalf of the state and HHS?

WE don't know how WAHA will horse-collar doctors and other providers, or if services will be more or less available through our health plans.  However this comes down, how much transparency there will be as price-setting negotiations occur?   The public should know more about that, but we doubt much if anything will ever revealed about the cost of all the new overhead that provides zero in terms of actual provider service.

There’s a lot about this that promises to be everything WE feared Obamacare would be; a big game of Monopoly with insiders at the helm, managing “Community Chest.”  Pay attention, ask questions, and stay tuned.  Here's WAHA's new look and URL - dig-dig!

This isn't a local story, but it has local object lessons -- and links all up and down the left coast. 

Environmental zealots in the federal government have successfully put another productive family business out of business, as the Washington Post reports:

The Trojan Heron reported on the plight of this family run oyster bed in Marin County, CA in an article entitled Scientific and Governmental Misconduct:

But wait, there's more!

Meanwhile, last week in a left-hand/right-hand maneuver, lame duck Washington State Governor Christine Gregoire invoked an executive order commanding that the state use its powers to reduce ocean acidification to protect shellfish (and shellfish farming operations).   Naturally, it all ties back to everyone's favorite bogeyman, anthropogenic carbon dioxide.  Ignoring all benefits of carbon dioxide, which is necessary for life, the order exaggerates still hypothetical (and permanently non-falsifiable) risks.  Once again our agencies are being pressed by politicians to increase regulations that will curb freedom without objective scientific justification. 

All the talk of "blue ribbon" panels is nothing more than rubber stamps by the high priests of the environmental religion.  And therefrom, real people lose their jobs, and national prosperity diminishes measurably at the hands of these first amendment violators.   These infringements on our freedom are being implemented at all levels of government. 

Rampant environmental hysteria is being stirred up by collectivists, and otherwise sensible people fall for it, with devastating results. Too few people remember what it was like, and what it means to live in a free country. We need to restore those principles back into our education and our media. The environment will be better for it too. 

WE have raised alarm repeatedly that Salazar and the BLM are headed up the coast, our way, swinging a wrecking ball through the San Juans.  Still think their programs present no risk?

WE just received a disk of public records that’s a scorcher.  Having looked through quite a few of these files (there are hundreds - it's good that this came with a list of “finds”) it looks like the county has done its best to evade the reality that significant collateral damage will befall the local economy if the “Lake Whatcom Reconveyance” moves forward.  What’s worse, the files reveal the Park Department’s constant and direct involvement in politics.  A lot of effort seems to have gone into putting direct pressure on elected officials near and far.  Instead of being objective, government has exhibited nothing but cold disregard for casualties on this steady march toward a predetermined outcome.  The disk is loaded with emails that urge secrecy about flaws.  Reading like a pulp fiction novel, tens of emails revealed deal making, back slapping, and surprising hypocrisy about environmental protection.   Unelecteds and officials marched together to take one side, with a few key players leading an orchestrated campaign to drum up public support based on grandiose promises and emotion. 

WE wrote a post on May 17 about this. In short, the “DNR reconveyance” would move 8,700 acres of public land back from the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to Whatcom County, to create what’s described as (drum roll) a breathtaking new park.  Or was that a massive new conservation area?  Or was that a “water preserve”?   Or was that a “forest preserve”?   The promotional scheme that’s been fronted by Parks, the Land Trust, and Conservation Northwest has been a chameleon, changing constantly to tug at whatever heartstrings would deliver a crowd.

Pressing (critical) question #1:  What’s driven this, really?   The need for a park or something else?  Answer: 
             Oct 11, 2011 - proponent Lisa McShane wrote:   “It was at the 2003 tour where Jeff May, DNR logger, said to several of us: "if the people don't want logging here why don't you just reconvey the lands?"

There it is, that said it all.  For all the lip service given by Whatcom County about sustainability and renewable resources, these people don’t want logging here, and they found the perfect way to do it.  Partner with parks.

WE searched this disk, and found no tangible plan for the “park,” only maps showing what should get handed over, and a paper trail of claims that said there could be a regional park.  WE found “recreation” mentioned on cue in numerous talking papers, letters to the state, and emails to reporters.  But there were no trail maps or other plans except a few budget estimates.  So we did extra due diligence and checked the Parks website, but found nothing but the same smoke and mirrors there.  If you can bear the 11.4 megabyte download, look through the adopted 2008 Parks, Rec and Open Space Plan.  You won’t find much except a few statements about “opportunity” and a few blips on maps referring to the already useful trails on working DNR forest land.  There was nothing in the way of a mention of this park in the 20 year or 6 year capital improvement plans except for trail improvements to the working DNR property as it stands.  But “park” is the required legal purpose necessary for the land exchange, so “recreation” and “passive recreation” were injected everywhere necessary - into public notices and glowing narratives - for show.   "Preserve park" is the current one-size-fits-all description.

What WE found instead of a tangible plan was a lot of email about making money.  Reading through these, maybe it should be called a “money park.”

WE found emails estimating how much rent could be collected from cell tower leases (not one, four).  And there was a jaw-dropper about making money from wind turbines, with Convivium Renewable Energy saying there could be up to forty (!).   Huh?   What about the dramatic breast beating that there must be no roads or logging, to protect “our reservoir that provides drinking water for 90,000 people” ?   (It's a natural lake, mind you, not a water tank.)   And what about the urgent need to put a halt to activity on steep slopes that could result in (gasp) landslides?   Whether Convivium has moved on or not, the emails revealed a crass double-standard to exempt lucrative special interests from the DNR’s strict Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP) once DNR and logging were out of the picture.   That was a total surprise.

Read clips from this email:  
             Oct 13, 2011 - David Wallin, WWU Huxley (who provided supporting "return to nature" reports) wrote to Park Director McFarland and Conservation Northwest’s Mitch Friedman:    “It seems that the reason this hasn't been done already on DNR lands is due to DNR's HCP.  DNR has taken the position that they are unwilling to even consider wind power on any of their west-side lands.  As I understand it, when the HCP was negotiated back in the 90s, they included lots of provisions to allow incidental environmental impacts from a variety of non-forestry related activities (gravel mining, cell phone towers, etc.) on DNR lands.  Unfortunately, no one thought to include wind power generation as an allowable non-forestry related activity.  DNR is concerned that if they try to re-open the HCP to modify it to now allow wind power, they could lose the entire HCP.  However, as I understand it, after reconveyance, the HCP would no longer be an obstacle to considering wind power.  Not sure if putting wind power on the land would compromise the reconveyance itself.  Can we have wind power in a park?  Apparently, we can have cell phone towers in a park so I don't see why we couldn't have wind power.”

            Then Mitch Friedman from Conservation Northwest writes back in the same thread:   “Very cool. Though we need to think through what it means to meet Hinkley's insistence that the HCP continue to apply to the reconveyed land. Maybe there's a way exempting the ridge tops?”

Did you get that?   The habitat conservation plan would be an obstacle?    While loggers would be put out of business because roads pollute and ridges may slide, special interests can do what they want.  It doesn't matter that foresters have been toeing the line and following the Landscape Plan.  After the land is transferred and logging is stopped, the county could write its own exemptions from the rules.   (Maybe we've got that wrong, you figure it out.)

WE saw a lot of emails penciling out how much money this “park” could make for the treasury, and silence about those being put out of work.   Council seemed concerned about the loss of taxes to some “junior taxing districts,” there was a lot of chatter about that.  (Remember that the council vote changed when a "gift" of $500,000 caused the Mt. Baker School District to switch its position to support?)   No numbers were found in these records about the loss of jobs in the woods, or impacts to all the businesses like Hardware Sales, General Chain Saw, Yeagers and  others that supply and repair forestry equipment, mill lumber, and so on.   That’s just wrong.

What else is on the disk?   There were some emails talking about the need to keep things quiet.  WE saw things like this: 
          Oct 8, 2011 from Conservation Northwest’s Friedman to Lisa McShane, Rand Jack at the land Trust, Parks director McFarlane and Con. NW’s Seth Cool:  “Heads up. This is confidential, so please do not share or let others know you have this. (We can’t ask DNR questions.) And yes, it sucks to have this land right before the hearing. But this slide will be in DNR’s presentation."
         DNR is downplaying its significance, saying its just a guess and that future decades play out differently. Nonetheless, it could be an opening for somebody to make trouble if they want to. Basically, value shifts from Common school to State Forest Transfer. WE don’t even know what the latter category is! (Maybe the new name for Forest Board?) Any thoughts on significance or what we might say to offset any concern?”

What was going on here WE can hardly guess.  But the intrigue continued:
             Oct 9, 2011 - Rand Jack at the Land Trust to Mitch Friedman and Seth Cool at Conservation Northwest, Lisa McShane, and Parks director McFarlane:   “I agree that we can't give up at this point, but I am not at all clear what we can do to neutralize the effect if the staff doesn't do so.  I think we need to try to find a way to force the DNR staff explain this.  Is there any way to go back through the channels that got this slide to us to try to bring this to a head before the meeting?  I suspect that Tom Westergreen* has this crisp, bright slide in his pocket and may even have made the slide.  If it does not derail the BNR, it will make getting this through the county council somewhere approaching impossible.  The whole premise of the intertrust exchange is like for like equity.  This slide devastates that premise in its most vulnerable spot.  Well before this slide, Pete has been afraid that BNR would reject the intertrust exchange and that  Tony Larson would hammer him for having wasted the money.”

Has this political kabuki been in the public interest?   People have asked, "Why wasn't something this big ever run through Planning?"  The more a person looks, the stranger it all seems.  WE said the records read like pulp fiction; they do.  WE couldn’t guess why groups like Conservation Northwest and the Land Trust would steer so many people so hard, and crush honest objection with such passion.

Then WE saw the golden egg - a draft conservation easement written (actually negotiated) just before the New Year that would give Whatcom Land Trust immense control of the whole 8,700 acres of this public land forever.  That was a bigger jolt than seeing no mention about lost forest jobs and business, that there was no tangible park plan, that so much focused on money, or that people would talk about about environmental exemptions for untold land uses, but still call this land a “park.”

Read the draft conservation easement yourself.   Any citizen can follow it.   Basically this (1) would apply to the whole reconveyance; (2) the county would have to maintain the land to the Trust’s satisfaction or it could be sued (bearing that cost), (3) the county - meaning the public - would have to pay all the expenses of upkeep and maintenance, and (4) did we mention the agreement would last forever?    Small wonder the proponents would do anything - absolutely anything - to see this reconveyance go through.

With that easement could the state - the DNR - or the people of this county ever see this public land productive again, under those terms?  Did the Board of Natural Resources know about the draft conservation easement?   That's entirely possible, given Public Land Commissioner Peter Goldmark's tight relationship to so many politicians and proponents.  It looks like Pete Kremen knew about this, it was run through county legal; Dan Pike, Kelli Linville and Clare Fogelsong (Bellingham environmental director) were negotiating those terms.  Did our council know?  We the People haven't had an inkling.

This post is so long (and there’s so much more to still to see) we’ll have to issue a Part II.   There are more questions to ask, that's for sure.

Below is a chart that shows just a fraction of the players who have been involved and how many have been connected in emails.   Whether a person considers himself a “liberty-type” or not, you’ve got to admit there’s been a lot more to this “reconveyance” business than  expected.   WE thought it was a shill and bad news, and still do.

*By all means, read this plea from Tom Westergreen.  Take an interest.  Write a note about your concerns to council right now (click here).    Then speak up and loudly at the public hearing on September 11 before the shoe drops, as it very well may.   These are powerful people, and they don't like anyone messing with their plans.

UPDATE:  Aug 6, PM - WE just learned, thanks to the Bellingham Herald Politics Blog, that Bellingham City Council dropped this proposal during its afternoon session.    Of course this could pop back up (per eco-diva Lisa McShane's comment at the Herald blog.)   Keep an eye out.   It's a mighty wacky town.
 

Alert!   Bellingham residents should be aware of what its City Council is busying itself with today and tonight (here's the agenda).   WE see this anti Gateway Terminal item on the daytime committee agenda from 1:20 to 2:25 PM today, and this could possibly be voted  during the evening session at 7:00 PM at City Hall:

AB 19642
     4.  ** A RESOLUTION RELATED TO THE GATEWAY PACIFIC TERMINAL PROPOSAL SEEKING A NONBINDING ADVISORY VOTE IN THE NOVEMBER 6, 2012 GENERAL ELECTION.

It looks like Bellingham City Council wants to use their bully pulpit and the political process to promote what its left-wing loon constituency aches for - that Bellingham should badger and control what it has no real right to, the private sector.

Advisory votes have a very useful purpose when government asks the public to weigh-in about government business - taxes, services, etc.    But that's not what this advisory vote would be about.   The communitarian utopians want city government to domineer the private sector and even commandeer it, as they did with the "bag ban" that's just hit us.

The proponents of this advisory vote want to forge a hammer to pound on other governments and agencies.  A big "oppose the shipment of coal" vote would be used to badger the county ceaselessly.

Proponents want to block the legal transportation of goods over the rail system.  Today the left doesn't like coal.   Tomorrow some faction may not want strawberries or tee shirts from somewhere else moved through town.  WE think public mandates like this are a slippery slope.

It's odd and ironic that this resolution would be proposed when city government just won a legal ruling to keep the bizarre and over-reaching CELDF "No-Coal Community Bill of Rights" initiative off the fall ballot.   The proposed ballot question would be framed with this very leading statement that lists the utopians' worst fears:

WE suggest you attend council TODAY/TONIGHT and follow the deliberations if you can.   Sorry about the short notice - WE just heard about this, ourselves.