Red Light, Green Light, Mean Light Tween Lights

The city's plan to introduce surveillance cameras in Bellingham intersections has met with strong, bipartisan opposition.

And so it should. It is a sorry reminder of the changing times, where the public is looked upon as a mere revenue source and special interests use government to extract undeserved profits from the governed.

The cynical part is the cover story, this is about safety, when ample alternatives avail themselves for that purpose, but none, perhaps, with the added revenue kicker for the city and its partners.

Intersections would be safer, and fewer side impact collisions would be likely, if the city merely further delayed the interval between red lights and green lights. Rather than one light turning green at the end of the yellow, wait longer, even after the light is red one direction, before turning it green for traffic coming from the other.

But, I know, few tickets would be issued in that scenario. The fact is this is really all about revenue, the city's and their partners.

And what wonderful partners they have chosen. American Traffic Solutions is an Arizona based corporation touting themselves as providers of traffic safety equipment. Perhaps attracted by that concern for the public, in 2008, Goldman Sachs invested heavily in the company and helped take it national; certainly in an honest effort to bring innovative safety measures to every American. That's the philosophy at Goldman Sachs.

Citizens of Bellingham, and passers through, foolish enough to frequent a downtown already plagued by the parking gestapo, will surely be pleased to contribute to the financially beleaguered masters of the universe while simultaneously paying into the police guild who will, ostensibly, have one of their own watching the cameras over coffee and donuts, and deciding if you should make a contribution to their retirement fund.

How any politician with a lick of sense would want to take ownership of such a scheme defies explanation. Perhaps it's just their being possessed by such nonsense that makes it easy for the pitchmen for the Goldman Sachs' franchise to get at the public.

But the push-back from all shades on the political spectrum, from liberals to libertarians and from Republicans and Democrats alike, has come quickly. An initiative to remove the devices is well on its way to certification. And a bipartisan bill has been filed in the legislature to keep the scam from spreading across the state.

But Bellingham's mayor, with plenty of support from the city council, pushes on. They can't seem to get the smell of money out of their noses.

For a guy I once thought had pretty good political instincts, Pike has really lost it on this one; and in an election year nonetheless. How he thinks he will win friends snatching their wallets is beyond me.

Characterizing every distracted mother misjudging intersection timing as scofflaws and public enemies is not the road to reelection.

If the mayor and the council come to their senses they'll run away from this Orwellian nightmare post-haste; at least not implement the program until some formal public support was shown for the same.

If Pike can convince the voters that this is the only way to ensure their safety, and their safety is more important than protecting them from such intrusion by Big Brother; god bless 'em!

Perhaps Franklin said it best, "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

No New Taxes ??

When Mr. Barnum pointed out, “there's a sucker born every minute … and two to take 'em!” could he possibly have foreseen the future relationship between taxpayers and the folks who govern them?

The tax paying public sure is doing their part. And here in Whatcom county, Pete Kremen and Sam Crawford make something of a gruesome twosome.

Particularly entertaining is the legerdemain our pals employ as they trot out the latest budget fiction with its oft lauded tax neutrality.

Having been exposed in their earlier attempt to punish Bellingham while keeping a lid on taxes in the development zone, the latest ploy appears to be a particularly cynical game of rob Peter to pay Paul. Peter being the funds set aside specifically to protect agricultural lands and fund remedial water projects. Paul, of course, being the insatiable beast they created with decades of poor planning and sprawling growth that now sucks unrelenting at county revenues.

I say “cynical” because when the public voted to create a conservation futures fund they weren't told it would also be a slush fund to save developers from paying the costs their projects caused the county. “Cynical” because just last year the county council's neo-cons nearly busted their soap boxes in their fervor to decry tax increases not approved by voters. What a difference a year makes!

And “cynical” because in opposition to the program to raise taxes to fund water remediation and flood control efforts (opposed by Kremen), Crawford called the taxes unfair to county residents. He, and his, swore they would repeal the tax and the program; apparently in the belief that the Lake would cure itself, and we'd seen the end of floods.

Now there is no discussion of repealing the tax. Now it's just gut the program and use the tax revenue to pave for their constituents. No, not you voters; the people who get them elected and reelected.

When you go to the grocery store, and you pick up a box of cereal, shake it and notice that it's no longer full, does it bother you that the price for 13 ounces is the same as 16 ounces used to be? Would you say the price of cereal has gone up, or there's no increase in cost?

Same game with taxes and the budget: fewer services same taxes. So who's hiding the little pea?

When will they get honest about the structural problem in the county budget and take responsibility for putting us in this pickle? Is it lost on the public that their taxes don't buy them services but are just a transfer to the people who finance elections around here?

Pretty soon you'll be wonderin' if the box is half empty, or half full.

Wake up suckers!

The Economics of Environmental Destruction; False Choices

Tony Larson says he feels like an environmentalist because he enjoys hiking and the natural world. 

"But (he says) we've been given this choice: either we preserve and protect the environment or we have a strong economy."

Larson's proposal? We must, "support and encourage people that create jobs as opposed to stifling and choking off people who want to do good things.”

I suppose, if you buy the false choice that is the premise of his polemic, you are stuck accepting Larson's conclusion: sacrificing the environment is a good thing.

Now, when it comes to managing resources, I'm something of a conservative. No, not one of those corporate spinmasters selling the idea that green is the new gold. More of the old school, the don't eat your seed corn variety.

Larson and his ilk are what I call expedient conservatives. Worry about today, and tomorrow will take care of itself. They seem particularly fond of the business model that internalizes profit while externalizing costs; that is increasing their wealth at the publics expense.

All the trappings of practicality and realism aside, these folks need demagogues like Larson to convince the public to take the bitter pill that is their prescription for what ails us. In fact, the result will be another bout of the disease that still infects us. But then demagogues were created to preach unbelievable doctrines to those so slow they will believe it.

And in the present economic environment, with the consequences of unregulated enterprise dragging us into depression, the villains of the piece need plenty of fools repeating the mantra, regulation is the problem

The people who need a free hand to reach into the public purse are quite willing to make the necessary contributions to buy government.

People who would have us believe that creating jobs entails foregoing protecting the environment are not "people who want to do good things." Larson's backers want us to accept, what's good for them financially, justifies the permissiveness they seek.

Larson can be ridiculous in the excesses he uses to mislead the public and pose command of the issues. Recently he made a big deal, yelling and pounding the table, about how BP couldn't get a diesel-hydrogen unit going.

"Why isn't that permit issued?" he demanded. He bragged, "I'll pass a resolution that says that the County and the Clean Air Agency have to get together and get this passed."

Great theater. But after his posturing was over, BP's corporate representative had to explain to Tony that the company had no problems with either the County or the Clean Air Agency. The only holdup was BP itself.

But let's not let the facts get in the way.

As Larson is flushed out, and forced onto the public stage, his limited understanding of county issues becomes apparent. And as he delivers one after another contrived speech, the real purpose of his candidacy becomes apparent: maintain a majority on the council to help Sam Crawford.

They intend to minimize protection of critical areas, forgo preservation of resource lands, and gut regulation of the building industry.

They intend to keep Whatcom county out of compliance with state and federal laws intended to bring reasonable order and conserve our critical resources for the long run.

They will eat our seed corn.

Larson proposes a false choice: the economy or the environment. His program is based on a phony paradigm.

In this election the choice is between expediency and experience.

Party of the Living Dead

Apparently, my recent article on the malaise that strangles the local Dems was enough to raise the political dead.

Local blogmeister, Sam Taylor chose to link to it, and that brought out the anonymosity of perennial partisans, and bellowing from the usual political hacks.

Noteworthy amongst the critics of my criticism were Dan McShane, and his sweet wife, who seems intent on forcing the poor man into political battle until all life is sucked from him for failure.

Lenny Bruce had it right. "Liberals can understand anyone, except someone who doesn't understand them."

Let's try and understand them.

Ever prudish, most were satisfied to merely express sanctimonious outrage at a satirical graphic portraying the county's two highest Democrats in a bed of money; confusing sex with cash.  But hey, it worked.  Never have so many looked at this site.

For his part, Dan (also fondly known as "Mr. Science") otherwise limited his complaining to what he characterized a vicious text, "filled with errors and innuendo as well as a nasty attack on the spouse of an elected official - an individual who has given a great deal of his time to the community."

Dan's sensitivity on the subject of spousal favor seeking is understandable. The second placing candidate in the '07 mayoral race, and runner up in the contest for county council last year, apparently still is waiting for the call from Olympia and his own appointment from the governor's office in return for Susie Q's campaign work for Gregoire.

Notwithstanding the lack of specificity regards actual errors, McShane (and other Democrat hangers on) contented themselves to lament an alleged attack on Linvilles's husband. The article criticized the representative for using her position for personal gain; not her spouse as McShane and others erroneously claimed.

The push back by local Dems, who felt obligated to kiss up to the chair of Ways and Means, really underscores the theme of that horrible article: Democrats at all levels are unable to be self critical, don't expect their elected fellows be democrats, and no matter how they betray the published agenda of the gang, must not be outed, and must be re-elected. 

Democrats are satisfied to have the appearance of a program, which is maintained by having Democrats in office regardless how un-democratic their actual program.

Where to begin?  Has Obama, the constitutional legal scholar, repealed the Bush policies on domestic surveillance?  No.  As a matter of fact, the Obama regime has gone one more and granted themselves even more egregious powers, including murdering US citizens fingered to die without due process or appeal.  These are real "death panels."   Where is the right wing outrage?

Had "W" created such a system the Democrats would rightly be on their chairs screaming.  How much have we heard about it?  Nada.

The ruling class uses Obama like a great Valium cloud to calm the opposition and steadily increase their control in the class war that is America.

Locally, ask yourself why, after almost three years, the City of Bellingham still can not stand up and do something to stop the degradation of Lake Whatcom.  We've got a Democrat in Olympia, who's constituency all drink from the lake, serving as the powerful Ways and Means chair. 

We've got some sort of Democrat as county executive.  But with his pals on the right running a most undemocratic slate in last falls county elections, Pete Kremen (D?) wouldn't endorse any of his fellow party members.  But did endorse the opponent of the only Dem with the guts to criticize him. 

Did the Democrats say booo?  Hell no. 

It has been more than two years since Bellingham's mayor boldly told the executive and the Department of Ecology, Bellingham would formally demand DOE enforce the law, protect its water right, and close the Lake Whatcom watershed to further appropriation of water; thereby bringing a halt to the building and subdividing that is ruining the water supply.  Why nothing?

The simple answer is Linville is more concerned about the interests of the Building Industry in the state, and Kremen's campaigns have been generously funded by local developers and advocates of growth at any cost to the taxpayers.

This leaves the mayor waiting for political permission while the Democrats wait to elect his replacement.

With DOE literally inviting someone, anyone, to petition or sue them for failing to follow the law, who is protecting the builders and developers and standing in the way?

Could it be the two most powerful Democrats in Whatcom county?

Why does Susie Q, who would have you believe she's the Joan de Arc of lake protection, spew bile and support expansion of the Lake Whatcom Water & Sewer District? 

Because without expansion of the water district there can not be more development in the watershed.  If the basin were closed to new water withdrawals, the water district would have no water to provide to developers.

Why did the McShanes throw in with the developers years ago?  Because that's where the money is in county politics, and that makes them the power brokers.  Susie Q and Mr. Science had a plan for themselves, and they needed to tap into the same power that Kremen and Linville so wisely and artfully developed.

But something went terribly wrong on the way to the winner's circle.  Some interloper, named Pike, appeared out of nowhere and stole the show.  Even after all the "tri-angulation" with the BIAW, Bill Geyer and others, the Realtors, and most of the building industry, couldn't forget McShane's old rhetoric, even though Susie Q promised he had changed. 

The Realtors put their money on Pike, who won by default.

Most of the local Dem clique were aghast.  Almost immediately they started the search for their 2011 candidate.  The best they could do was Barry Buchanan.  Meanwhile the opposition watched. 

What they saw was not what they wanted to see.  The new mayor was an impediment to expansion of the land supply, UGAs.  Then he attempted to thwart LWW&SD expanding water and sewer services to them and theirs on the north shore of Lake Whatcom. 

The Realtors weren't getting their money's worth.  While Buchanan quietly offers them his help, they seem to have another strategy: they're testing their own boy out in a race this fall, Tony Larson. 

Should he make it, he'll be in position to move into the office on Lottie Street.  Will Pete endorse the Realtor/BIAW boy's opponent this fall?  Hell no!  Will he endorse Pike's opponent? Hell yes!  Kremen's already on board for Buchanan and Larson.

So where, you might ask, are the democrats amongst the Democrats?  Depressed and disillusioned, they are at home trying to figure out what happened, what went wrong. 

Unfortunately, as the two parties shrink from relevance, they retain undue influence because the independent, by definition, don't market candidates or have a machine like the Republicans and Democrats have built over the years.

Paradoxically, it's just that machine, and the compromising for control of it or favors from it, that makes the parties increasingly distrusted by voters.  The Democrats react bitterly when it is suggested their electeds are excessively concerned with providing for themselves. The sting of the reproach is the truth of it.

Will things change?  How will they change?  When will they change?  I don't know. 

With unemployment growing, it seems curious that so many lusting after our best paid elected offices are un or under employed.  I wonder when some Microsoft millionaire will decide to buy the mayor or executive spot.  2011 is gonna be one hell of an interesting political season.

In the meantime it's the political zombies, who can't be kept in their graves, standing between us and democracy in the republic, and here at home.

Crawford, Corruption & Larsony

It's no secret anymore, Sam Crawford is the man behind Tony Larson.

Apparently, Larson hopes to quickly get hitched with Whatcom county's premier "land use consultant"  (no, not Jack, it's a fact!, Petree) so some of the gravy, grease, graft, or whatever euphemism this current crowd of crooks has adopted, will trickle down to his feeble publishing business, sort of like the fees roll into Sam's little shop of favors. 

If Larson's elected, expect a rise in advertising revenues at his Northwest Business Monthly.  Coming soon, a glossy new real estate section! 

Think I'm joking?  One developer makes a measly $800 contribution to the Larson campaign and, kabing!, NW-BM has a glowing story on how he's saving Whatcom county, starting with Blaine, by bending over one small town at a time. 

Larson laments, "imposing costly regulations on businesses and productive individuals.  Instead, officials should re-examine their priorities and be prepared to make some tough choices."

To wit, Blaine was conned into dropping their impact fees ordinarily required of developers to defray at least part of the costs to the public.  In this case though, it's simple, out of the public purse into Larson's supporter's wallet. 

Can hardly wait to hear what he's got to offer his other contributors and advertisers if he makes it onto the county council.

Am I the only one who remembers when the Alaska Packers Association operated the largest cannery in the world across the bay at Point Roberst, with a shipyard, additional canning facilites and warehousing at Semiahmo, where Syre and Imus will now bring us this "new economy"?

It may only be petty Larsony to scapegoat struggling families, like Tony does, turned out of their homes by predatory lenders, banksters who sold them on mortgages that couldn't survive a housing bubble; but for Tony, the victims are responsible for bringing down the financial system and propelling us into a depression. 

That's just the kind a guy he is.  Who needs to kiss babies when there are big, fat, rich asses available?

But it's gotta be grand Larsony, or some kind of fraud, to put a sign in your yard that says We the People and then go to work for the landed gentry we the people are taxed like serfs to enrich; all to keep their real estate schemes going a little longer.

Who do you think's payin' for those big signs all over the county?  (hell if I know, I can't find an expenditure reporting them at the PDC)  But you can be sure of one thing: somewhere, back there behind the scenes, it's the BIAW crowd puttin' up the plywood for Larson.

If you were active politically around the state, you'd have learned that Kremen County is famous for its foolishness in growth management; pretty much the laughing stock of Washington. 

Not only was Kremen considered the village idiot when he was in Olympia, our anointing him to lead the county, and our inability to unseat him all these years, has left us indelibly marked as the kind of community characterized in such epics as the Dukes of Hazard.

And now, here comes Tony Larson hoping to join such powerhouses as Billy Knutzen and Kathy Kershner in Crawford's club.  All bought and paid for by the least civicly responsible lobby in the state, the BIAW and their hangers on.  I can guarantee you Kremen won't endorse Larson's opponent.

Well, it's a marriage made in heaven; and portends to be a very interesting menage a trois going forward. 

For a group that's primary purpose is misdirecting public attention, Tony's the perfect candidate.  Plenty of experience selling the sizzle without a stake in the action, his business basically manufactures hot air.  So who better to partner up with than the crew that's been puffin' at the publics posterior for decades now.

Larson writes, "The political class has dug an enormous economic hole for us."  (I'm not kiddin!)  It wasn't the fraudsters of finance and their bang up job with the housing bubble economists recognize. 

Given Larson's absolution of the bailout beneficiaries on Wall Street, it's hard to figure who's dumb and dumber, him or the Tea Party folks who can't figure out it's his crap that stinks. 

But they say he's their boy.  I hear they're even puttin' on a "teabate" for him to star in.  And (I ain't makin' this up) it's gonna be at the Building Industry headquarters.  (I swear!  It's true!  That's right, the same place Sam has his barbecues!)

Oh, it's just so precious; the way they keep it all in the family. 

Next I expect Nick Kaiser and his right handpuppet, Brent Bonner (Whatcom dis-Information Center) to ratchet up the rhetoric to make us believe the county council can turn around the jobs market; and without mentioning their boy Tony by name, infer the hypster's campaign propaganda is just the ticket out of this morass.

The only industry Whatcom county government has ever been able to help is the local land use bar.  And that's why Larson will be their boy.  Along with Crawford, Kershner and Knutzen, Larson represents the winning vote for a whole grab bag of policies that will ultimately keep them and their clients face down in the trough for decades to come.

And when Larson talks about "imposing costly regulations" on "productive individuals" he means enforcing land use regulations on the developers that fund him, because that's about the only regulation county government has much of a hand in.  

And when he says, "if we’re going to create jobs, it’s going to require our government officials backing up their rhetoric with action," he actually means, with inaction in regulating building and development.

Trouble is, as job creators go, it's a fraud.  Who's gonna buy these houses everyone's ostensibly going to build?  Helloooooo!  The bubble's burst and the housing market's cratering. 

Larson's rhetoric is completely hollow.  There are no jobs to be created by increasing the land supply for residential development and relaxing environmental regulations already proven inadequate to protect Lake Whatcom; it's just a big favor to the money behind his campaign, and his campaign next year.  Folks still in denial.

The more you look at Tony Larson, the less you see.  My advice to the candidate is don't say any more, and disappear until after the election.  Let your friends buy the election like they did last time.

Gettin' Ready for a Court Date

Barbara Brenner's not as dumb as some think.  In fact, she showed herself to be considerably smarter than council chairman Sam Crawford last night. 

The "spitfire" from once rural north Bellingham, faced down by an overwhelming number opposed to another give-away of their taxes, knew she wouldn't win any popularity contests voting with the developers last night.

Perhaps it was a keener nose for the barnyard aroma of Crawford's program that made Barbara realize this ordinance was no truffle, and a yes vote would not suit what she likes us to believe are populist lips.

But unlike Crawford, Napoleonic and unable to appreciate the purpose of a little foreplay before screwing the public, maybe Brenner was listening.  And my guess is Barbara, suddenly made aware of the scrutiny to come, looked at this cobbled together ordinance, riddled with redactions and covered with the fingerprints of developers, and appreciated, if this pig was going to fly, the ordinance couldn't be passed with all these warts and blemishes. 

So before the new majority turned their ample rears to the pitchforks, Barbara quickly called a time out to huddle outside of public view with the lawyers.  And, probably having her worst fears confirmed, came back and moved to hold the ordinance until some cosmetic work could be done in anticipation of the expected challenge in court. 

Time to drop back and put a little lipstick on this pig.  But just what kind of pig are we dealing with here?

The public hearing filled the council chambers.  Almost sixty took their three minute opportunity to speak. 

There were about a dozen who supported Crawford's attack on past planning decisions; two electeds from small towns, four paid lobbyists for developers, and five or six,  property owners surprisingly interested in becoming recipients of the give-away, struggling to find some, any, general principle to further their particular interest.

The overwhelming majority who came were there to oppose Crawford, and the new council out to undo development regulation and redo the Comprehensive Plan and various ordinances related to planning under the Growth Management Act.

The opposition was largely rural county residents with strong support from Bellingham, including its mayor.

While many spoke to their distaste for urban sprawl, and most articulated objection to being taxed to subsidize a few who would benefit from this largess,  two or three raised the subject that is really central to what is afoot here: corruption.

As such, this ordinance adds relatively little land to the small towns in question.  And in many cases, the land added is either internal or contiguous to the related urban area.  Further, it's true that the increased tax burden these additions entail is relatively small by comparison to others that are in the wings. 

And believe me, there are many more in the wings.  So many that Crawford and company need to change the code so they can bring them, one by one, any time they want, changing zoning and/or the Comprehensive Plan virtually at will, piecemealing the opposition and circumventing truly "comprehensive" planning.

Crawford intends to bring client projects forward at his discretion, and will have a whole new service he can collect for: if you can afford it, you need no longer suffer through the cumbersome process of amending zoning. If you've got the right lawyers, the whole thing can be handled, for a fee, over at his firm, Emerald Lake Consulting.

If you don't think so, then you didn't really watch what just happened. This little ordinance they're going to pass in two weeks is the first of many nicely tailored treats for those with a special interest in favors from the well connected.

No, the words and advice which were to the real issue concerned the corruption of public process and the abandonment of the rule of law. 

Some time back, erstwhile County Planning Director, David Stalheim pushed back against Crawford, the development attorneys, and told the executive, Pete Kremen,

"Staff, as well as property owners, need the certainty of law so that regulations are not implemented in an arbitrary and discriminatory manner.  The suggestion that we have flexibility infers that we pick and choose which development regulations to enforce.  This might mean that the department treats applicants differently, and decisions are made outside of public view or identified standards."

For taking such stands, Crawford and company forced Stalheim to resign.  Obviously integrity is not much esteemed amongst these folks.  The whole process that created the ordinance so many oppose was made entirely "outside public view."

With the new majority, indeed, the animals are in charge.  And Crawford and company will do quite well for themselves on Manor Farm where, "all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."  

Hail Napoleon!  Hail to the pigs! 

Tuesday's Free Lunch

"Land Grab Country" is a clever slogan to mislead voters with; simultaneously frightening those with little to fear, and distracting them while the real folks to fear "grab" their taxes.

And their boy, Sam Crawford, is the face of the threat. 

Tuesday, he will deliver the goods to his pals who pay him behind the scenes as their "consultant."

Crawford and company are out to vest more rights for you to buy back in the future. Pay attention, fellow taxpayers. Once again the usual suspects are posing as populists to get theirs at your expense.

If county residents don't start thinking, they will wake up wondering why the sheriff doesn't show up when they call; asking where the firefighters are while the barn burns; and wishing someone, anyone, would protect the place we love while all the time we pay a landed gentry not to further subdivide the county's farms and forests because this council gave them the "rights" to do so.

Just as Tea Party troops nationally have been tricked into believing "regulation" and "government" are our biggest problems, local voters, frustrated by the growing pressures that followed the financial collapse, are being convinced zoning regulation is the problem.

But in fact, it's fat cats and special interests who have taken over government and are (and plan to continue) milking us like their own little herd.

And with the local building industry folks, chamber of commerce crew, and the rest of the country club set controlling county government, while they butter their bread they want you to believe regulating them costs jobs.  They want you to think regulating them is not only economically unwise, but unconstitutional and downright un-American.

They may not like it, but again just this year, writing for what is unquestionably the most conservative Supreme Court majority we've known, Justice Scalia explained that property rights are not anything more than the rights granted by the States.  They are not some divine legacy.

Scalia wrote for the majority,

“The takings clause only protects property rights as they are established under state law, not as they might have been established or ought to have been established.”

 And following Lucas v. S.Carolina Coastal Council, Scalia continued,

"a regulation that deprives a property owner of [even] all economically beneficial use of this property is not a taking if the restriction inheres in the title itself, in the restrictions that background principles of the State's law of property and nuisance already place upon land ownership." [emphasis added]

In the state of Washington, the restrictions that inhere in title to its lands include the protections created by the Growth Management Act. 

Notwithstanding the decades long battle by property rights true-believers opposed to this legislation passed in the early '90s, and their use of political connections with the county administration to vest alleged rights to subdivide and build; because the county has refused to follow the law, Whatcom county is routinely defeated in this effort to avoid the law. 

All this will place future county governments in the unattractive situation of having to unwind the wrong doing in the face of angry citizens unwilling to give up windfalls created by extra-legal means like the effort you will witness Tuesday.

You see, the problem with government is it's been taken away from the people by the very forces that government was meant to regulate to protect the people.  And those forces have one thing in mind, profit themselves while leaving us with the costs and/or getting government to tax its citizens and pay them. 

To that end they want to make believe their title to some land puts them above the law, or that the law abridges some right or freedom they allege is being violated.

Again, in our state, the whole sorry thing started years ago with passage of the Growth Management Act, intended to safeguard farmland, forests, critical areas and other resources necessary to conserve and protect the traditional industries that rely on them; industries that had long supported real jobs.

In Whatcom County the law was met with disdain by politically influential landowners grown accustomed to converting these resource lands, at great profit, into sprawling residential developments uncharacteristic of the rural county; often replacing pastures and cropland with golf courses surrounded by what have come to be called "McMansions" given their similarity to the ubiquitous structures elsewhere polluting the landscape wherever we go.

The landed gentry immediately got control of the zoning process locally.  The upshot? Instead of protecting lands as the Act intended, the landed gentry managed to gerrymander the zoning map and set themselves up for the future. And they elected themselves a county council that became notorious in the state as reactionaries.

Basically to get around the law, these folks created excessively large areas for more intense development in forests and farmland, including a nice little piece for our current county executive. 

They designated other resource lands, near the county's cities, for urban growth to the great satisfaction of landowners, many of whom had acquired the land speculating on future growth, that was now to be protected under the new state law.

Relevant to the giveaway planned for Tuesday, the state board created to interpret and rule on matters related to growth found the areas the development community created around smaller cities to be excessively large and would lead to sprawl inconsistent with preserving the rural character as the Act mandated.

As a consequence, the county's planning department was sent back to the drawing board to re-size these urban growth areas. After months and months of work, the areas were better planned and the county council, after much debate, approved that plan.

Of course the landed gentry challenged the zoning decision, and of course they again lost in court.

But the building industry, and landowners left out, didn't give up and invested heavily in electing new council members who would see things their way.   Succeeding at that, their new council appointed planning commissioners that could be counted on to rubber stamp policies and proposals put forward by the land speculation community.  And they lobbied Kremen successfully to drive out the planning director and give them free reign over the department.

Now, this group and their representatives on the council, plan to undue the work ordered by the state and enlarge the zones once again without any effort to rationalize their scheme to the Act or allow meaningful public process.

Next, the developers' council will be re-writing the Comprehensive Plan in an attempt to redefine rural character so they can retain the zoning densities in rural areas the state has already objected to and ruled against.

Besides making us something of a laughing stock around the state, this persistent, feigned ignorance of the law costs us hours and hours of human resource time to undo and redo staff work. Which work has little or no chance of meeting approval beyond the representatives of the local development fraternity.

But the real losers in this will be Whatcom county taxpayers.  The developers haven't really got any immediate plans to build anything.  But they are in a hurry to vest the rights to do so.  For you see, the free lunch these fat cats are after is getting in line for the hand out of development rights taxpayers will be forced to redeem for years to come.

The time has come to understand the difference between a public relations campaign and a public outcry. The main course at Tuesday's free lunch will be your taxes re-directed to the propagandists.

Buddy, Can You Spare a Development Right?

Is everyone in Whatcom county speculating on building lots?  Do taxpayers want to pay every Tom, Dick and Mary to protect the county's forests, farmland and water resources?

The county council must think so.  They happily pass out development rights like Rockefeller handing out dimes; but hide under the dais if anyone even says, "downzone."

Trouble is, they're not dimes, it's actually tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars.  It will cost us millions.  And it's just the same old game you saw, different in scale but not in kind, when cowardly politicians bailed out a small but influential minority on Wall Street and stuck it to the rest of us.

And while the price of this kind of planning will be paid in different ways by different folks, most of us will pay more in taxes, all of us will share the loss of those things that make this the place we live.

And pay we will.  Most of these development rights will probably never turn into buildings or new residences.  That's because the market will not, for a long long time, need new homes.  But before we get there, we will be forced to comply with state law.  And when that happens, all we will hear from the electeds who put property rights ahead of taxpayers interests is why we have to buy back these development rights. 

Let me translate that for you.  You will pay taxes to the people who got these development rights.

So, why are none of the council members (save Weimer) willing to stop the give-aways, particularly around the reservoir in the Lake Whatcom watershed where we're already hard up against laws that restrict growth?  Why are they cooking the books to get around their mandate to preserve rural character and keep increasing the number of development rights taxpayers will someday have to swallow?

The newbies, of course, ran on some fantasy rural voters' property rights were under attack.  (and of course the equally erroneous corollary, they should have the discretion to damage critical areas and pollute the public's lakes, streams and groundwater.)

The electorate took the bait, apparently unable to foresee the switch in store from paying taxes for government services to paying taxes to the folks financing these simple messengers.

Even Ken Mann, who fashions himself a protector of the environment, is compelled to coin rights for property owners rather than accept the implications of growth law, and let the chips fall where they will.

Perhaps fearing unpopularity with a few outspoken landowners, he prefers an unspoken, but erroneous, view of the legal doctrine on takings to rationalize the give away. It's like he's bought the "land grab" rhetoric himself.

Barbara Brenner continues to do what feels good even if, in the long run, it will hurt the average county taxpayer.  She ignores the land speculators who will benefit from this eventual transfer of wealth, preferring to focus only on people she can give a hand.  She seems unable to see the future costs to the rest of us.

And of course there's the gang of four: Knutzen, Kershner, Nelson and Crawford.  Who we should thank for that majority is the subject of an article itself.  Suffice to say the big players who will benefit most from the give away are pretty smug.  Their $60,000 investment in the last election will pay off in spades.  The gift Bob Kelly gave them was just a bonus.

Mann seems unhappy to be in the company of these folks, but he's the one who dedicated himself to giving their pals development rights in the watershed.  Mann says, "the blunt instrument of a downzone is not one I am ready to take at this time. If the TDR program fails then we have other tools that can dedicate funds solely to purchasing development rights in the watershed…"

Translation: if the trasnfer of development rights program continues to be a failure because we won't force the people who drive development to play, then we will purchase development rights.  The "other tools" here are the taxpayers.  He might have said we have "other fools that can dedicate funds solely to purchasing development rights."

So, how might downzoning become a tool if the taxpayers are going to get stuck paying for these alleged rights first?  If not now, when?

Now, having stood for property rights over the public interest in the watershed, poor Ken is swallowing hard as the gang of four re-write the rural element of the Comprehensive plan to vest even more rights, countywide, for the benefit of their patrons.  Even Futurewise is afraid to challenge the "no regulation without compensation" gang.

The gang of four aren't conservative.  Real conservatives, first and foremost, are about conserving our common wealth and maintaining traditional economic activities like forestry and farming.  They're going to protect the historical character of our community; not cave in to a few people who can make a fast buck subdividing.

Real conservatives are offended by people buying influence, and manipulating policy to enrich themselves at the expense of taxpayers.  Real conservatives understand what it means to make sacrifices, do the tough stuff, and be responsible to the future.

It seems, everywhere we look these days, someone wants to profit at the expense of the public.  You don't have to look as far as Wall Street and Washington to find special interests with their hand in the public purse.  And few we elect locally can articulate this reality to voters.   Perhaps they're afraid to, given the effectiveness of special interests in subverting the discussion with slogans and scare tactics.

No, the gang of four are scoff-laws who delay and dissemble to allow special interests time to vest more and more alleged rights to a bailout from Whatcom county taxpayers.

The bottom line?  Fiscal responsibility in Whatcom county requires ending the plans of landowners and developers to get around laws, intimidate public employees and elected representatives to profit in the short run while leaving us to pay for decades to come.

Same Old Newspeak

In 1984, Doublethink was the ability to know what should be said while carefully circumventing the truth with cleverly constructed lies. 

Yesterday, Sam Crawford led a discussion of zoning changes in rural areas in anticipation of completing work to, after almost two decades, bring Whatcom County into compliance with the Growth Management Act as ordered by a state judicial board after much of its rural zoning was deemed urban sprawl.

Listening to this discussion was strange and a little shocking.  You'd think one would be a bit more circumspect when basically undertaking to re-gerrymander the zoning map to avoid compliance with the law. 

But in fact, Crawford and his clients, and their attorneys, had given the left-overs at the Planning Department orders (and a rationale) for rural zoning that would not sacrifice the old carve outs for friends and clients. 

Sitting there, as slide after slide illustrated rural areas around the county, I couldn't help but wonder how many of Crawford's clients had interests, ownership or options, in land in one or another of these areas.

And it was particularly amusing when old Sam indulged in some very transparent theatrics, pounding the dais and pronouncing, "I wasn't elected to downzone my constituents,  I'm here to protect their property rights."  Right on Sam! High fives all 'round.

Were there qualms about supporting state laws or ignoring oaths to do the same?  No, for Crawford and company, the whole exercise was a search for any loophole, or any, even the thinnest, excuse to ignore the broad purpose of the laws to regulate growth; find cover of any color-able exception, and search for the least obnoxious, though uncompelling, interpretation of rulings in other counties.

Time and space do not allow a complete account of this absurd side-show.  My favorite moment, though, was when Sam, Barbara Brenner and Bill Knutzen seized on an idea to get around the law's requirement that zoning preserve rural character.

After honestly designating resource lands, GMA only mandated two things.  First, protect those designated resource lands, and second, preserve the rural character of our state's rural counties. 

In Whatcom county in the early '90s, however, this process entailed creating commissions of landowners, insiders, and others keen on profiting from prospective regulations, most of whom were entirely self-interested.  The result was huge amounts of resource lands zoned rural, and even more blatantly abusing the intent of the Act, some resource lands were even designated for more intense suburban development where no rationale in the law existed.

The upshot, large amounts of forest and agricultural lands were zoned rural for special interests.  And to further add injury to this insult to intelligence, most of these newly ruralized areas were allowed to develop at the highest possible density under the law.  Five acre tracts, and even less, as far as the eye could see was their idea of rural character.

This instead of a rural element as described in the Act: where the natural environment dominates over the built, and there are a variety of lot sizes, 10, 20 and 80 acres.

So, now the council is trying to redo, but not undo, zoning the Hearings Board has rejected. They announced they will accomplish this légère de la main in large part by tailoring the meaning of "rural character" to suit their desire to maximize developable lots thus minimizing the impact of the Act. 

Each of the areas earlier mis-zoned will be redefined to have their own, unique rural character.  Like beauty and the eye of the beholder, the idea here is that rural character will mean different things in different places. 

Sort of like "moral virtue" meaning something different depending where you are or who you're with.  In Lynden it might mean a chaste and charitable woman in the church choir.  But if you happened to be in a local bar or brothel, moral virtuousness might be the bar fly or care-giver free of venereal disease.  

Or, you could say, like pornography, Sam, Bill and Barbara know sprawl when they see it, and this is art.  The law should be flexible.

The council will apply this new and unique concept (we'll call it "rural relativity") to the problem and, wallah, black is white, old is new, sprawl is rural character, and the Hearing Board's ruling is oldthink.

Another skill of doublethinkers is the ability to hold two contradictory beliefs simultaneously.  I of course have always enjoyed property rightswingers complaint that Futurewise, or other opponents, suits challenging county excesses are an abuse of taxpayers, but when their own lawyers sue us, they are silent. 

Obviously this hypocrisy is the result of goodthink, ideological exceptionalism in the name of orthodoxy. 

But even more remarkable doublethink is the blind faith (maybe better described as "blinded" faith) or groupthink, which holds they can create ever increasing demands for costly government services by planning more sprawling, scattered, far flung development, and simultaneously claim we should cut taxes and defund government, all the while decrying planning as an evil enterprise, a socialist plot, meant to enslave us.

You could call this doublespeak, but listening to Sam Crawford, all I hear is the same old double talk half-baked demagogues customarily leave us with; like a horse ahead on the trail.

But it's nice that the newly ordained high-priests and priestesses of gobbledygook are making headway on one critical problem in the community, employment.  Too bad, though, when they submit the same old zoning densities in their brand new wrapper, the only jobs will go to lawyers.

The Two Commandments

And who are they that will deliver the children of mammon the promised land? 

None other, of course, than the high priest of the almighty dollar himself, and his acolytes on the county council too dishonest or deluded to acknowledge the illusion at the heart of the creed.

Their two commandments seem to be thou shalt not tax and thou shalt not regulate.   To understand the delusional nature of such a simplistic ideology, one has to consider the faith in the context of overall un-enlightenment, particularly the current disillusionment.

Following the financial disaster and the spectacle of the affluent most responsible for the situation being bailed-out, the rest of the citizenry was left to their own devices, forced to watch the resurrected bankers foreclose on their neighbors and wonder when the wolf would reach their door. 

As the economy contracted business credit evaporated and bankers redirected their attention to safe and simple government borrowing as joblessness swelled to depression era levels.

For all of us emotionally invested in the great American illusion, rugged individualism, it was like being outed.  No fooling ourselves anymore.  We are anything but independent.  We will hang together or hang separately. 

Unfortunately, many lacking the capacity to deal with this reality, deep in denial, could only react in anger.  Thus an exploitable political mood and a political movement to exploit this anger inducing disillusionment. 

And those with the most to lose, if we hang together, have certainly proven adept at convincing many to believe again in an illusion, another fantasy, that we can and should return to some mythic era where, like lone rangers, we roamed free on the lost frontier.

Really, same as it ever was, again, it's those who would in fact be taxed or regulated who have convinced the people who'd benefit or be protected from the unregulated greed of a few that we will all be ensnared in any safety net. 

And unsurprising, it's the least productive members of our political-economic system, the parasites of finance, insurance and real estate that live off labor and industry, the so called masters of the universe, who cry the loudest.

Locally, the usual suspects obscure the relationship between spending driven by the uncompensated costs of poorly regulated growth, the realistic expectations of the public for government services, and the shortfall in revenues and fees to provide the same.  All this cloaked in cynical rhetoric, in affect suggesting we don't really need what we want, or want what we need.

Think about it.  Don't be distracted by in-genuine slogans about "affordable housing" and protecting your "property rights."  They're not worried about you, they're worried about themselves. 

"Whatever the market will bear" is the rule to remember. 

Impact fees cut into developers profits.  Property taxes cut into what mortgage lenders can get out of you in interest payments.  What you can afford is a function of your income.  If they want to make homes more affordable, raise incomes. 

No, they prefer to cut fees and cut taxes because it keeps their incomes up.  If that means fewer firemen or policemen; fewer parks or fewer buses; so what.  They can always hire private security, enjoy resorts wherever they choose and, hell, they wouldn't be caught dead on the bus anyway.

The bottom line for the bankers and developers is maximize their profit potential by passing off as much of the cost associated with their projects on the public while minimizing the likelihood of government getting between them and our money.

If you require realistic impact fees or require the purchase of development rights for upzones or subdivision you don't make houses more expensive, you make land less valuable.  If you raise property taxes you ultimately lower the price of homes because mortgage lenders have to figure the tax burden into what you can afford, and sellers can't charge more than the market will bear.

But in the present political climate, in the midst of the great disillusionment, the rent seekers of finance and real estate are having a hey day with the poor fools who they've once again convinced that government is the problem.  Chances of this council taxing the landed gentry are slim to none.  And that is what impact fees, TDR programs and the like really mean: taxes and regulations.

No, the public will keep paying the price for growth and protecting the environment from the landed gentry.  People who won't face up to this, and instead hide behind proposed schemes with a long history of failure, don't get it. Tax us or tax them. When you pass the buck, don't think we won't get it. We've been greenwashed before.

Believe me, Crawford, Nelson, Kremen and their cronies get it.  I actually think the newbies are sufficiently clueless, like most of the public, they probably haven't connected the dots.  It won't be till the bills come rolling in, and the revenues continue to fall short, that they might start to get it.  Growth is taxing.

But it's sneaky.  It's indirect and down the road.  And often it's paid, not by straightforward levy on the public, but by similarly obscure and indirect costs that fall regressively on the politically weakest.  Bus riders, school children, water drinkers; in the reduction or abandonment of services and safeties that make us a community.

 So what if the libraries close? The country club's still open!

This county council won't tax or regulate the politically powerful who threaten Lake Whatcom.  And forget the self serving recollections of past councilmembers. They had the chance to downzone in the watershed. They had the votes to protect the reservoir. They lacked the courage because they were afraid the powerful would run them out of office.  Well, they got run out anyway.

The only way to protect our community, the lake, farmlands, forests and our water resources is to make it unambiguously clear: if you're not for it, you won't be elected or reelected. 

Fool us once, shame on you.  Fool us again, shame on us.

Who'll Stop the Machine?

Last Tuesday, the county council had a chance to show some courage and take a small step to protect Lake Whatcom by ending further subdivision of its watershed.

With state and federal agencies waiting for a plan, watching for any sign of a serious effort to reverse the deterioration of the lake that serves as the water supply for tens of thousands, the county showed they remain a bunch of cowards more afraid of offending "property rights" zealots than failing to protect Bellingham's reservoir.

So now the battle lines are drawn. Whatcom county emasculates growth regulation, disregards state law, and ignores state agencies demanding action to rehabilitate Lake Whatcom. Alone at the ramparts, is the city of Bellingham.

With Sam Crawford initiating a blitzkrieg on the watershed before his reign of terror comes to an end, an army of lawyers, representing land speculators around the lake and elsewhere, attack the county planning department to weaken enforcement of regulations on residential development.

Simultaneously Crawford mounts a campaign to cut the funding for water projects that could contribute to protecting the reservoir.

In a rear guard action, predictably, Lake Whatcom Water & Sewer District's plan is in place to assist development all along the north shore by increasing withdrawals from two wells and expanding the delivery system, allegedly put in place just to serve the Lake Whatcom Residential Treatment Center.

And the coupe de grace; the council, with the exception of Carl Weimer, voted against prohibiting further sub-division of the watershed and left the moratorium on the same to expire at the end of August.

If things go as I expect, LWW&SD will claim to have water for any of the new lots, clusters and subdivisions that can't rely on unpermitted wells, though their own sources are closed to new withdrawals. And the county will allow developers to vest alleged "rights" after the moratorium expires.

Opposing them we have little more than a scrappy mayor and a dedicated council, all quite aware of what's at stake.

They have few allies on the county side, and the council members not for out and out development in the watershed are either confused by flaks or push naive proposals to compensate speculators for rights they don't even possess. 

While councilwoman Brenner makes sounds like she would put the lake ahead of private interests, given the opportunity, she could not bring herself to vote to protect the watershed because she isn't sure of it's boundaries. Apparently she's only for protecting the lake if its watershed boundaries fall in the right place.

And Ken Mann, when push came to shove, voted with Crawford, ostensibly planning to lead an effort to create development rights for landowners who, in fact, lack a source of water to develop.  Given that similar programs to protect farm lands largely rely on taxing the public, this approach promises to be little more than a transfer from the many to enrich a few.

And Bellingham has no allies in the administration or county attorney's office. The county executive and legal officer refuse to respect state laws and rules that would prevent more development in the lake's surrounding watershed. They turn a blind eye to allow the landed gentry to build and subdivide where they know water is unavailable.

At this point the city stands pretty much alone in the effort to address the demands of the state to protect the lake. It was unfortunate that county residents dedicated to the stewardship of our resources relaxed prematurely, and allowed the county council to be captured by a group in the service of special interests.

Now Crawford's council takes its direction from attorneys representing property owners anxious to cash in while they can; land speculators hoping to expand urban growth areas, maximize areas allowing denser development outside urban centers, and in particular, developers interested in vesting rights around Lake Whatcom and escaping regulations intended to stop and reverse degradation of the water supply.

So egregious and mistaken is the thinking of these newly elected council-members, they actually believe the taxpayers should pay people who are prevented from damaging the water supply; compensate them for infringement of some inalienable property right to pollute and build even where water is unavailable for new development.

The rush is on to create new rights for a clever few that the rest of us will be required to purchase simply to have safe water to drink. Ultimately, we will have to choose between more lakeside McMansions and the water supply. If they can't build, at least they'll be able to pass off their losses on us.

It is indeed time for conscientious citizens to get involved and add their voices to the mayor's and the city council-members who fight this travesty. Above all else, it's time to fix county government and stop the machine.

Why Are You Smiling?

It's hard to know where to begin.  Take a modest turn on Upton Sinclair, and say it is difficult to get a man to understand something when they prefer not to think about it; or maybe Tom Paine's, a long habit of not thinking something's wrong creates the illusion that it is right.

And so it goes with our freshmen (and women) on the county council who are unable to transcend the cliches currently popularized by so called conservatives: 'property rights, first and foremost' and 'taxes are a four letter word.'

The inherent contradiction that emerges when you put this complex philosophy into practice seems beyond our county council (save one) and something more than most the public understands.  So lets unpack the paradox and see if they can get it.

A naive belief in unfettered discretion by property owners to make use of their property seems appealing until your neighbor gets the idea of collecting junk cars or rendering dead livestock in their backyard.  It doesn't take much to appreciate that the need to protect another's property (and rights) is equally important.

None would take seriously a demand from a property owner that they be reimbursed for not being able to put a junk yard in your neighborhood; or for that matter, being stopped from dumping industrial waste in a lake or stream.

But last night six jokers on the county council refused to say no to developers hoping to clear the forests around Lake Whatcom, build as many new homes as they can squeeze in, and let the people of Bellingham deal with the consequences, irrespective of the city's right to clean water from the lake.

And what is their reasoning?  They just, "hate down-zoning property without compensation." 

It is always interesting to watch as people display their most heartfelt sympathies.  It is instructive to learn, when push comes to shove, what their priorities are.  This policy entails more than just choosing between the public interest, in this case Bellingham's right to clean water, and private interests' freedom to damage the lake.

For these so called conservatives it's about who will profit from policies, the public or the private interests; and who will pay. 

The choice made by the council clearly will transfer benefits to a few at the expense of many.  The future taxes, costs of water treatment and sickness will fall on the many,  the developers will take their profits and move on to do it again, somewhere else where they can get pliable officials to see things their way.

In all candor, what do these folks think they are conserving?  They are not defending the average citizen from an overreaching government trying to steal our "rights."  They are not trying to protect us from future costs and the inevitable need to raise taxes and fees to cover them. 

They are conserving the status quo in which the fortunate can become more fortunate before the less fortunate realize why they are unfortunate.

So what's the proverbial bottom line?  In this instance, as in most, failure to adequately control growth will mean new and growing burdens for the bulk of us.  It is not about "down-zoning"  it's about protecting the public from the powerful.

But these jokers want you to cheer up.  They won't regulate development where it damages the rights of others.  You won't have to reimburse the victims.  And if anyone tries to stop you, we'll make sure they have to pay you not to be victimized.

Get used to it. Good fortune for a few, tough luck for the rest.

If that program doesn't make you happy, why are you smiling?

The Divine Right of Property

County Council woman, Kathy Kershner,  not long after a discussion of pirating taxes earmarked by voters for the protection of farmland to feed the growth beast, recently announced, at the conclusion of a fruitless effort to permanently end further subdivision of the watershed surrounding Lake Whatcom, that she didn't support reducing any landowner's property value without compensation.

Huh! 

Every time these folks increase the land supply for residential development they effectively reduce the future value of every current homeowner's holding in the county.  Their help inflating the local real estate bubble, and abetting the overbuilding in rural areas, has certainly created an oversupply situation that exacerbates the decline in home values.

And every time they stretch an urban growth area into resource lands strategically purchased in anticipation of the same, they enrich someone with little or no thought of even requiring the beneficiaries of all this largess not burden the public for turning their empty land into fields of gold. 

While the idea of taxing these windfalls to reduce the tax burden on an apparently inconsequential public seems anathema to the representatives of the landed gentry, certainly they can't, with a straight face, be suggesting we create still more.

No, Kathy's a graduate of that divinity school that believes property rights are god given, and that we, the un-landed gentry, must never interfere in the holy process of converting the common wealth to their personal satisfaction. 

And somehow, if occasionally we should, certainly the sons of god, our founders, must have provided for such untoward outcomes in that great secular bible; it must be a "taking" and the public must atone for the sin.  Unfortunately, the faithful are presently in the majority.

Kathy has an interesting way of laying it out there -- not always the way she thinks it will be received.  We had the famous faux pas, the distinction without a difference between protecting the lake and protecting our drinking water supply.  To those who call it their reservoir, Kershner complained, "this phrase serves as a fear tactic and stops a truthful discussion about what we really need to do to protect our Lake's health." 

So, not even facing up to the dilemma of dealing with residential development that should never have occurred, but rather just contemplating the prospect of preventing more of the same; charged by the State of Washington with fixing the problem, Kershner and that crowd's first concern seems to be how to compensate the landed gentry for the anticipated profits that would have resulted from their god given right to destroy the watershed.

The real rub for these true believers, what seems entertainingly ironic to the ungrounded observer listening to their prayers for due process, is the fact that way back in 1926, the U.S. Supreme Court held that zoning based on comprehensive planning was a proper exercise of a state’s power to regulate the use of private property to protect the health, safety, and welfare of the community.

The court found that the public good is more important than the private property rights of individuals who own property. The power is referred to in law as the “police power" that is, the power of states to exercise reasonable control over people and property within their jurisdiction in the interest of the community’s security, health, safety, morals, and welfare.

What must really gall the right-wingers who usually stand tall on their soap boxes to sputter and orate on "states rights" is that this police power is accepted as one of the powers reserved to the states under the U.S. Constitution, and cities and counties are creatures of the states.

What seems to eternally frustrate the landed gentry with their blind faith in the sanctity of property rights, even as they would manipulate the county government, is counties are not only creatures of the state, but they must follow state law. And recent history is the story of their public embarrassment in the state's courts as they are unwound from their twisted interpretation of the laws.

No, what the landed gentry are attempting to do here is create new property rights for which the public will subsequently be forced to compensate them. Put plainly, Kershner, Crawford, Nelson, and probably Knutzen, would like to see subdivision of the watershed proceed. Then, when the county and city have to solve the problem of residential development around the lake, the lucky beneficiaries of this largess will have something to sell.

If these landowners are not allowed to increase the number of residences possible for them to build, they can only sell the development rights they have at present.  What policy would be in the best interest of the public seems obvious.

Kathy does like to go on though about "takings."  If she were to learn a bit more, she would drop that argument.  It is long established that only regulations that so restrict the use of property as to leave really no use to its owner amount to a taking for which payment of just compensation is required.  To be able to build one house, as opposed to ten, hardly leaves one with no use.

And under the takings clause of the Fifth Amendment, which allows the exercise of eminent domain for a public purpose, even those who might not care if they disaffect the public drinking water supply can be prevented from the same.

I'm sorry, but how much sympathy must we marshall for "investors" unable to foresee the impact of their dreams of development on the public water supply?  Can we ignore the moral hazard of compensating speculators, active or passive, who failed to exercise due diligence and bet wrong on the state exercising its police power to protect the public interest?

Or have they simply shown blind faith in their ability to buy local elections and perpetuate business as usual ad infinitum, ad nauseum.

For example, Nick Kaiser, a local conservative politico who manages Muslim investments particularly fond of real estate, who also is Brett Bonner's financial patron, contributed $20,000 to Kershner's campaign; approximately half her contributions. 

So egregious was the appearance of this unseemly effort to buy Kershner a seat on the council that the state legislature found it necessary to place limits on campaign contributions.  "I think they should name the bill after me," Kershner quipped.

Add her contributions from others in the development community and you have a council member almost as captured as Sam Crawford, a paid lobbyist for the building industry.   Few are as candid as Barbara Brenner, perhaps the most independent member of the council, who has admitted, "that's the one area of the county that I've supported downzoning."

Crawford doesn't want to extend the prohibition on new subdivisions or construction in the watershed around the reservoir. Crawford belittles the threat, telling us many of the potential homes will never be built because of the high cost of the roads needed.

But I'll bet that won't stop anyone from demanding top dollar for any development rights he succeeds in creating. Another case where, to err is human; but to benefit from one's error is, indeed, divine.

Not unlike our national scandal, where the fat cats of finance captured their would be regulators, and raided the public treasury; here we go again, back to the old days and the old ways, with the landed gentry locally setting things up for another score.

So how will we save Lake Whatcom without breaking the taxpayers and water users?  Who will say no, no more, to the landed gentry?  Who will stop this death by a thousand cuts: road cuts and cutting the forest canopy around the reservoir?  To those on the county council, we ask, what's the plan?

How we will compensate the few who feel a divine right to profit is not even an interesting question.  They can seek their reward in heaven.

So Many Questions; So Few Answers

Whatcom county's ethics code prohibits its elected officials from engaging in certain activities.

You might think this would prevent special interests from installing a lobbyist on the county council.

Unfortunately, you'd be so very wrong.

While the ethics code prohibits a county official from using their position to secure privileges or exemptions for themselves or others,  on at least a dozen occasions, according to recent public disclosures, Sam Crawford apparently has tried. 

It's his business, you know!

The ethics code prohibits county officials receiving compensation in any matter connected with their service.  Nonetheless Sam Crawford somehow makes a living doing just that.

The ethics code prohibits any county official from engaging in business or  a profession that might have them disclose information acquired through their privileged position. 

Yet Sam Crawford's provides just this sort of information to his clients, notwithstanding the code's clear requirement to avoid circumstances where that could even possibly happen.

So you might ask yourself, how does he sit in council chambers, executive sessions, even at public council meetings, tapping out messages on his cell phone and receiving instructions from his clients and their attorneys?

It might make you wonder to see him stroll out into the public during and after council meetings and even sit with attorneys and parties suing the county. 

As council members and planning personnel have exclaimed to me, "I swear he's got Jack Swanson on speed dial!"  Makes you wonder if Belcher-Swanson has Crawford on retainer. (myself, I always suspected he was carrying water for Langabeer & Tull)

Would such things be those "separate financial relationships" the ethics code refers to? 

Would it matter if the compensation came from attorneys rather than the people who benefited from zoning changes, expanded UGA boundaries, larger LAMIRDs, shoreline exemptions, boundary line adjustments, variances and assistance in avoiding compliance orders.

I guess since attorneys benefit whatever the outcome, a lawyer would probably argue, if they made payments to, say, a consulting firm, it wouldn't need to be disclosed? That would be a really separate financial relationship!

Hey, people pay lobbyists all the time to lobby the state or congress.  Would we object to congressmen or state legislators being lobbyists?

But according to the ethics code, in matters that even indirectly affect the county, elected officials may not participate in reaching decisions in which they have or may receive compensation from anyone who will benefit from the outcome of the matter, even if the compensation is as little as a $100, without fully disclosing the same.

Now would a payment from a lawfirm that went into an undisclosed bank account of a consulting firm owned by an elected official, with just one "consultant" (who just happened to be the elected official), need to be disclosed? 

If an elected official wouldn't disclose payments into that bank account, would it be consistent with the county ethic code's requirement to"fully disclose" their affairs?  (Now don't waste any time asking the county prosecutor, ethics isn't his department)

This is an interesting question, you see, because Sam Crawford does his lobbying and consulting under the fictitious name, Emerald Lake Consulting.  It's Sam's alter ego.

And if folks send money to Emerald Lake Consulting, Sam probably thinks he doesn't even have to mention it, and can get round that "fully disclosing" requirement. 

And if no one person (or firm) gives him more than $10,000 per year, he doesn't have to report it to the state either. 

And since the bank account isn't in his name, he doesn't have to report how much is in it, no matter what.  (hey, politicians pay attorneys big money to come up with these loopholes)

Now when this all started, Sam must have been a little flustered, because at first he said he understood that, "your underlying concerns are reasonable as a voting citizen" regarding his, "nearly eight years of land-use application involvement."

Sam said, "I am and will remain very receptive and openly discuss any aspect of my business in a general nature that does not compromise my client's appropriate entitlement to privacy"

But then the attorneys must have gotten him by the scruff of the neck and taken him to the woodshed, because, when asked to come out from behind the technicalities and share how much money he has received as a consultant since gaining office, Sam had nothing to say.  And it has been "Silent Sam" ever since.

Even when it was proposed he keep his clients completely secret, and just disclose the payments he has received, his response has been continued silence. 

It seems a little in-genuine to hide behind his clients' privacy, and then, in response to a public disclosure request, supply a list of cases he has lobbied for the last 18 months; like no one could associate their numbers with his clients' names.

It's time Crawford developed at least a rudimentary respect for the ethics code and explained his relationships or recused himself from deliberations where he has a prima facie conflict.  He needs to be challenged on the record.

If he wants to be a lobbyist for these folks, go sit out in front and enjoy your three minutes to speak.

Sam Crawford has put himself in a position unlike any other member of the council.  He has chosen a profession that places him in a situation that, if it isn't categorically prohibited by the ethics code, demands extraordinary transparency.  But he resists requests to disclose any details of his financial dealings.

Given his chosen career, it is almost impossible for him to participate in decisions affecting land use planning, and inappropriate to lobby Planning & Development Services.

For as much as he would like to hide the connection, all his lobbying for developers and special interests from his seat on the council, and his intercession for favors and exemptions at the planning department, drives business to Emerald Lake Consulting.

And even though he doesn't disclose how much he pays himself out of Emerald Lake Consulting, it is a significant part of his income.

Perhaps in Sam's mind, what's good for Emerald Lake Consulting's good for Whatcom county. But I don't think the ethics code was written with that outlook however.

It is the right of the voters of Whatcom county to elect whomever they wish.  But no one should expect that right to exempt their favored representative from the ethical requirements of office. 

The governing principle of the ethics code is to charge all elected officials of Whatcom County with a duty to hold themselves fully accountable to the highest ethical, professional and legal standards, at all times, while holding office and conducting the public’s business.

So Tuesday, when Sam continues lobbying to extend the growth boundaries out to Smith Road for the folks at CAITAC, and he pushes some convoluted argument that wherever water lines now run, we should allow developers to sprawl out to their hearts' content, let's see if anyone on the council asks him if has gotten a hundred bucks (or might in the future) from someone who will benefit from these outcomes ...  maybe their lawyers ... or maybe from Emerald Lake Consulting.

And if any have the courage, isn't it about time to investigate council-member Crawford to determine if he's engaged in activities prohibited by the ethics code?

In particular, if he has participated in quasi-judicial proceedings without disclosing the substance of ex-parte communications with outside attorneys; pursued exemptions from compliance orders and shoreline regulations for clients; sought or received compensation in matters related to his official position; and if he is engaged in a business that might, or has had him disclose information gained in his privileged capacity.

Unlikely the new majority would take umbrage at one of their own shilling for the developers and making a buck in the two oldest professions around.

Sam Crawford should realize, given his profession, the burden's on him to put these questions to rest.

Until we start getting some answers, on matters of growth management and planning, it would be best he remain, Silent Sam.

g.h.kirsch: Let's Shoot the Messenger

The word's come down from on high: Planning Director David Stalheim can't seem to get the message right. And so, you can expect Pete will have to send him packin' like poor old Hal Hart.

You gotta feel sorry for David. He's really stuck between the proverbial rock and the hard place.

On one hand, he tells Pete's pals what they want to hear and looks like a fool to his peers in the planning profession. Or, he feigns ignorance and gets blamed when the county gets called for gaming the system.

Remember the little business where Pete had Planning draw that big ole LAMIRD on Squalicum Mountain to include his property and finesse zoning? That went over real good!

I still remember Pete squealin' when it was caught; how it cost him a million bucks. Then he bragged how he'd get reelected and make up for it. I didn't realize it then, he must have already figured out the tricky little move that got him that big raise.

To his credit, Stalheim has pulled the Planning Department back together after the last shooting. They are actually getting things done. But he's been unable to tell the guys who count what they want to hear. So, Pete and Dewey are spreading the word, season's open for planning directors.

Now I confess, after the Hart massacre, I heaped a lot of derision on Stalheim. But heck, it was pretty obvious Pete and his pals went shoppin for someone who'd get the message right.

Trouble is, that's what they got! It's just hard to find anyone who can read who's gonna tell 'em what they want to hear.

The really rich part, is watchin' all these local land abuse attorneys takin' money from these fools who believe, just cuz they can buy the county council, and buy the county executive, they're supposed to have it their way.

These scissorbills got a pretty good thing goin'; keep tellin' these fools to sue and send the checks. Seems there's a sucker born every minute, and a whole bar ready to take 'em.

So now these guys have told their boy Pete, in no uncertain words, to get the message to Stalheim.

But ya know what kinda takes the humor out of the whole thing? How much it's costin us to defend ourselves from these greedy bastards.

It's a real double bind. We eat the legal expense, and time for county employees to respond to all these lawsuits they cook up; or we end up eatin' all the costs of providin' the infrastructure and services their little projects entail.

It's almost more than a simple fella can comprehend.

Well I guess the best we can do is minimize our losses, and just say thanks to Pete's pals the only way we can. I say it's open season on county executives.

Let's shoot the messenger.