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News Flash - Here Comes The Reconveyance Energizer Bunny, AGAIN!

5/17/2012

7 Comments

 
The county is years behind schedule with the desperately needed jail project, and the budget for truly important public work doesn't look so good.  But we desperately NEED another 8,700 acres of parks in this county that's already 65% national park and forest, with an enviable abundance of public parks and trails?   Nuts!
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The Energizer Bunny "Fairhaven mafia" will stop at absolutely nothing - back room arm twisting,  anonymous cash "donations," and now a bums rush at county council (without a public hearing) - to have 8,700 acres added to the 7,300 acres already in county parks' inventory.

WE're talking about the DNR "reconveyance."   If this goes through there will be more than 16,000 acres of parks in Whatcom County.   For what?   One lame (or loony) excuse has been trotted out after another.

Our community and conscientious elected officials have resisted this bad idea for years, not out of malice but for very sound reasons.  Yet promoters keep beating on the same old drum.

Conservation Northwest, that refers to this as a necessary "preserve," is running a astroturf letter-writing campaign to council at this moment.   Will there be push-back?   WE think there needs to be.

Common sense has got to prevail.  A host of unproven and tortuously conflicted claims purport that the conversion of state managed forest into this huge park will somehow decrease human impacts, resulting in the long term improvement of Lake Whatcom's water quality.  Huh?   That's far from proven.

As for the need to more than double the county's park acreage, even this Futurewise webpage cites, “About 65 percent of Whatcom County is national park and national forest."    Parks just ran over the Acme community pushing the 603 acre South Fork Regional Park forward two weeks ago (with its $1.6+ million pricetag).   That heavily opposed trainwreck pegged Parks acreage up to 7,300.  The expense of this albatross, demanded primarily by Bellinghamsters (not county-folks), will hang around everybody's neck forever.

Last month's $500,000 skid-grease to quiet the Mt. Baker School District didn't settle the general public's valid concerns about lost revenue.   What about the long term loss of timber as a public resource?   What about all the logging jobs that will be lost?

If you haven't followed this, know that arguments "for" have been so weak that even the DNR (this was always hustled primarily by park and trust promoters) distanced itself carefully from this project last fall.    The overall "public benefit" has never penciled out.

Out of the blue, Councilman Carl Weimer initiated County Council agenda bill AB2012-066B just two days ago.   It was quietly slipped onto next Tuesday's agenda - no public hearing desired - bundled up and ready to go.  Talk around the campfire is that council members Sam Crawford and Pete Kremen are ga-ga for it whatever the cost, no matter how lame the case is for public need.  Of course the empire-building county Parks Department writes nothing but sunshine, along with it's partner-in-chief, the lucrative Land Trust that's on a constant campaign to build inventory.

If you attend the committee and council discussion next Tuesday, brace for the predicable schpiel that seems to precede most decision making these days.   You'll hear:  "This project has been in progress for years," "The paperwork is already done," "This is critical for health and welfare," and "It's not a matter of if, only a matter of when," followed by "Just sign here."   It's a nasty modus operandi.

If any or all of this concerns you - as WE think it should - you have GOT to write to council and let them know your objections.   "Just say no" would do, this will only take a moment.  You may email Councilmembers as a group at [email protected]

And if at all possible, WE suggest you go to the council meeting at the courthouse next Tuesday too - 7 pm.   If you want to speak, Open Session is your only opportunity.   The public needs to take a stand, as the brave folks down on the Olympic Penninsula just did.

7 Comments
Karl Uppiano link
5/17/2012 03:54:59 am

The jail comment is an excellent one. I think we need to frame our objections to all of these collectivist land grabs as a priority issue. When all the legitimate needs and functions of county government are met, then, and only then, you can look for ways to oppress the citizens.

Reply
D Dess
5/22/2012 06:47:41 am

It doesn't matter that half the county is the Mt.Baker parklands. That doesn't put water in the taps of Bellingham homes. Lake Whatcom is where Bellingham needs to get water from. Real Estate developers want to put fancy homes in with great lake views, so they tell everyone that protecting the area around the lake will cost maintainance money. Guess how much extra tax you'll pay to get clean water if we don't protect the area around the lake? It will cost much more higher taxes to treat and salvage the water if we don't do this. The maintainance money to have it be a forrest preserve is a fraction of what it would cost to deal with landslides from logging or to reverse chemicals toxicity from construction and lawn fertilizer and failing ceptic systems. Don't be so silly.

Reply
Country Gal
5/22/2012 07:44:20 am

Lake Whatcom is a natural lake, not a water tank. The fish poo in it and the birds poo in it, and the water gets processed by the city no matter what.

All this reconveyance land is already tied-up in forest and trusts. 'Not sure what percentage of this county is headed toward parks and conservation, but locking down half the land in this watershed is absurd. There is neither an environmental crisis nor a drinking water crisis. The bad science and fear mongering that has driven this issue for the better part of twenty years for other reasons is the scandal.

Reply
Karl Uppiano link
5/22/2012 07:58:47 am

The goal here is to take land ownership and stewardship out of the hands of private citizens and put it under government control. Private land ownership is antithetical to collectivists. Collectivism is antithetical to liberty. Environmental concerns are only a convenient tool to make it happen, and you know it. Or you need to know it. This isn't silly, This is about control, and it is dead serious.

Reply
PM
5/22/2012 08:40:38 am

Why turn it to parks, though? How does that help anything except to shift additional cost to the public? That is an expense we DON'T need. It's not as if a park is going to generate much in the way of revenue - certainly not enough to offset the cost of maintaining a playground for the enviro elite. Furthermore, there is the issue of loss of revenue to the Mt. Baker School District. Yeah, sure, some anonymous donor and some unnamed organization bought them off with a lump sum of $500,000. But that hardly makes up for an ongoing stream of revenue from logging. You talk about the cost of extra filtration due to landslides? What about the cost to our public education system? If logging activities do indeed destabilize the terrain and cause slides, then the solution is to have that industry pay for the cost of additional filtration ... not to shut down an entire industry and a community that depends on it.

Reply
D Dess
5/22/2012 04:42:01 pm

The plan is not to have it be like Cornwall park. No basketball courts, no waterpark spray for the kids. The term "park" should be subsituted for "reserve". Which means leaving it alone.

The additional cost to the public to let a forest be a forest is a fraction of the cost of detoxifying water. I would rather drink water than never got dirty in the first place, than to drink frankenstein water that used to be poison but had excessive chlorine or other treatments done to it to make it less toxic.

Reply
Karl Uppiano link
5/22/2012 06:08:24 pm

A bit of perspective came from actually attending the council meeting, in which several council members acknowledged that this wasn't about water purification or recreation. Which left no reason to do it at all, except because they could. I think somebody needs to follow the money. I'll bet it would lead us on a very interesting trail.

Either that, or a hidden agenda. Or both. Liberty, freedom and good government took it in the shorts tonight.


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