FORUM – Kathy Berg on Incorporation Feasibility

Here is response from Kathy Berg, chair of the Birch Bay Steering Committee and Governance Sub-Committee on Alan Friedlob’s comments:

With the incorporation feasibility study showing that Birch Bay could be a viable city, the question now is, "Do we want to keep the majority of our property taxes here at home to spend as we choose/prioritize locally or do we want to continue to subsidize all of Whatcom County at the expense of needed projects here?" It is about self-determination and home rule.

The Birch Bay community and Whatcom County Council determined back in 2004 with the adoption of the sub area plan that low impact development standards would be a high priority for maintaining a clean Bay. Those kinds of standards have yet to be adopted for the Birch Bay urban growth area (UGA) or anyplace else in the County.

Whatcom County declared Birch Bay an urban area where development should be concentrated back in 1997 but still calls our roads "rural" and continues to design and build them accordingly. The fire district considers only certain areas of the Birch Bay UGA as "urban" with their goal of providing an "urban" level of service (LOS)/response time goal. The rest of the UGA is considered "suburban" and all areas outside the UGA are "rural" with commensurately greater LOS/response time goals.

Counties are set up and meant to take care of the rural areas while cities are set up and meant to take care of the urban areas. Frankly, Whatcom County does not know how to take care of an urban area nor is there any indication that County has any intention of learning how or is willing to provide staff to treat urban areas differently with higher, urban levels of service. The notion that Birch Bay should have an urban LOS for it's roads was immediately and soundly thrown out back in 2004.

County does not now, nor has it ever in my experience, enforced with any consistency or timeliness it's existing codes such as, "WCC 20.80.540 Non-permitted storage... in Residential and Commercial Zone Districts." I consider it highly unlikely that Whatcom County would ever adopt, let alone train staff to administer, the "Birch Bay Design Guidelines for Commercial Development" published in June of 2007, since it is so far behind in the enforcement of existing code complaints.

How important is it to have public servants responding in a timely manner with sufficient local knowledge to deal with the situation appropriately? Taxes will go up as taxes always do, no matter as a city, in the county or in special districts. Would you like to have more, or continue to have less, control over the amount of your taxes and the spending of same? That is the question.”

More comments are welcome.

FORUM – Alan Friedlob on Incorporation

Two weeks ago, members of the Governance sub-committee of the Birch Bay Steering Committee met for the last time with the consultants who produced the incorporation feasibility study. At the end of the meeting, the question asked was: “What’s next?” So far, no one is coming forth to circulate petitions that would put incorporation to a vote.

In our article published last month in the Cascadia Weekly three paragraphs were devoted to Alan Friedlob’s reasons for being unwilling to vote for incorporation now. Previously a commissioned officer in the U.S. Public Health Service, Alan has been active in this community over the past several years. Following is the full text of the memo he provided to us as we were working on the article:

"Having participated in the smaller group which has worked closely in the design and conduct of the financial feasibility study, we must realize that this analysis does not, and will not address whether the citizens of Birch Bay's quality of life will be better off if we incorporate. I for one believe that we do not have to incorporate to enhance the high quality of life we treasure here. My experience over the last five years leads me to have guarded confidence that we can continue to collaborate with the County and our elected officials to achieve those outcomes which will enhance and sustain Birch Bay as a unique place to live. In my opinion these outcomes are:

1. Clean water quality in Birch Bay so that we can continue to enjoy the Bay's bounty and beauty for generations to come. The efforts to establish the Birch Bay Watershed and Aquatic Resources Management (BBWARM) District is the way to go in this regard as its efforts will take in all of the Birch Bay watershed, not just the UGA.

2. Revitalizing the Birch Bay Central Reach through designing and implementing environmental sustainable and people-friendly public places, including a walking and biking path on Birch Bay Drive that we can be proud of, and that will attract persons from throughout the County to Birch Bay. To this end, the Country appropriated $400,000 to do the design work for managing Birch Bay's Central Reach shoreline. [Editors Note: At the sub-committee meeting, Kathy Berg held up a report she had just received for this project that provides cost and time estimates.]

3. Working with developers and builders to promote green building and low-impact development design guidelines. In 2006-2007, citizens and the County invested considerable time and energy in developing design guidelines for a town center and for our waterfront. Such guidelines could be adopted now if we introduce them to County Council, and hold public hearings. What are we waiting for? No city of Birch Bay needed.

4. We just passed a parks levy to support the Northwest Parks and Rec District. Citizens now need to engage in a public dialogue about how these monies should be spent to design and implement recreational activities, especially for Birch Bay's middle school and early teens whose families may not have the resources to provide structured recreational opportunities. In this regard, we need to work closely with the Blaine School District to develop such programming. Let's look at our recreational assets and develop these, such as Bay Horizon Park. Why do we need $1 million a year investment in a Birch Bay police force when we can prevent vandalism by offering recreational outlets.

None of my priorities, which I believe will enhance Birch Bay's quality of life, require that we move forward with an incorporation effort. Maybe the County now wishes Birch Bay to move in this direction so that it no longer has to engage an active citizenry that has been quite effective in recent years in getting the County Executive and administrators to listen to our wants and needs. We do have clout, and let's continue to use our substantial tax base to influence our future. We are doing this now, and it is working."

We’re offering this Forum for others to express their opinions on incorporation and other subjects that are important for the Birch Bay community. Our objective is to start and continue conversations rather than provide final answers.

Faces from the Caucus

Legend has it there were two participants at the 2000 caucus, and 220 in 2004 at the Senior Center in Blaine. Saturday, the cavernous American Legion Hall in Birch Bay was packed. There were so many people and so few chairs that Bob Hendricks, the site manager, was moving so fast the camera couldn’t catch him in focus.

This Blaine High School Track & Field team sweatshirt described the situation. The wearer, Brandon Utter, now studies engineering at Whatcom Community College.

His friend Bobby King, a freshman at WWU, may have been the youngest voter of the few young registrants at the caucus.

The Obama people showed they know how to organize a campaign. Credit Richard May, an Obama field organizer who calls Blaine home. (He previously worked in Iowa, Nevada and Oregon.)

Obama signs lined the roads leading to the Legion. Obama posters studded the Legion’s walls. Standing by this one was the Whatcom Democratic Party stalwart, Bryan Dixon, precinct captain of #303. (Clinton supporters drew a few crude signs.)

One enthusiastic Clinton supporter, Sylvia Rhoads, stood firm. After reading an offered article by Peggy Noonan, an important speechwriter for Ronald Regan, concluding that Obama is “bullet proof“, she exuberantly stuck with Clinton.

Elsie Babcock came to decide between parties. Leaving the building before the vote, she said she had decided to be a Republican. However, “I could vote for Obama in the general election, but not Clinton.”

Hendricks mentioned the party in Whatcom County strives for diversity. We found these two people with distinctive hats. Could they be from Turkey or Finland? No, Chris Camp and Kim Coscarart are from Birch Bay. The hats hail from Nepal, purchased at Fair Trade Haven in Fairhaven. Camp became a delegate.

After the vote, came the appeal for money to support the Whatcom Democratic Party. Our precinct captain, Trudee Smith collected handfuls of contribution envelopes.

Despite being packed in like sardines, with little to do after signing up, most seemed to enjoy the experience.

Mine’ Hakim estimated the crowd at 700. Now a fragrance chemist who makes new leather scents for used car dealers, she previously worked conferences and learned to count in batches of 30.

Would 700 be 10 percent of the registered Democrats in the nine precincts? How will 700 compare with the number of voters in the primary whose vote won’t count for anything but headlines?

Is a Primary vote for Barak worth a 41-cent stamp?

Not if you want your vote to count at the Democrat convention in August. What you’re voting for is a headline after the Primary closes February 19. (We did send in our ballots. When we were packing to move here, we found some old stamps and we're using them up. One of our envelopes had six 6-cent stamps and one 5-cent stamp.)

The ballot you received last week didn’t say this election for the Democrats is only a “straw vote”, but it is. (If you want to vote for Ron Paul, your Republican ballot will count, partially – go to www.wsrp.org for information.)

If you want to help decide who the Democrats run in the November election, go to the caucus on Saturday. Nine precincts from this corner of the county will meet at the American Legion Hall in Birch Bay, sign up from 12 noon to 1 p.m. (or maybe 1:30 by some accounts, but you don't want to be late).

As the Seattle Times explained in a good article on January 28, Saturday’s local caucuses, the first level of a five-step process, will select 33,000 delegates to legislative-district caucuses. On April 5, these legislative-district delegates select 2,000 regular delegates and 1,000 alternates to congressional-district caucuses and the state party convention. On May 17, the congressional-district delegates select 51 delegates to serve as the State Democratic party’s Election Committee; these delegates also go to the national convention. On June 14-15, at the state convention in Spokane, the Election Committee selects 29 additional delegates to join them at the national convention. Also joining the delegation will be 17 “super delegates” – party leaders and election officials. The final step, on August 25-28, finds 97 delegates and 13 alternates from Washington attending the Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado.

Of those 97 delegates, 46 of them, almost half of the total, will be uncommited to the initial voters – no wonder the U.S. loses out to Sweden in lists of “pure” Democracies. This uncommitted factor may be important. As Jonathan Alter of Newsweek explained to Keith Oberman on MSNBC’s ‘Countdown’ Monday evening, “Whatever happens on ‘Super Tuesday’, this thing will go on.”

For now, let us honor our local volunteers. Bob Henricks, whose home is in Blaine, is the site leader for the Democrat caucus at the Legion on Saturday. He’s captain for Precinct #301. Other captains are: #302, Wendy Davis; #303, Fay Adams and Bryan Dickson; #102, Ronda Fleming and Julie Pruitt; #103, Jean Savidge and Alexis Staley; #104, Karen Dolphin, #106, Pat Brush; #107, Elizabeth Ivory; #109, Rick Poitras and Trudee Smith.

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Last Friday evening, we were among 20 guests in the elegant home of Larry and Barbara Daugert, who have a horse farm west of Ferndale. There we had the opportunity to meet Dean Fluker, a field organizer in the Obama campaign.

Most of the guests were committed to Barak. Barbara Daugert said this is the first election since Eugene McCarthy that she doesn’t need to hold her nose. One man with a full head of biblical white hair – a well-aged hippie – spoke passionately about the need to change the direction of the country, to get out of the many military bases the U.S. has in foreign countries and to support other elements of the progressive agenda. (Asked if he has read books by Chalmers Johnson, ‘Blowback,’ ‘The Sorrows of Empire’ and ‘Hubris’, he laughed and said his wife tells him about them.)

We were there mainly to see what an Obama organizer is like, and we weren’t disappointed. Here is a young man – at 23, young enough to be grandson of some of the participants -- who’s been in the state only a few days, assigned to cover five counties. Ten days before the caucuse,s he’s sitting there relaxed as if nothing more is on his mind than the people in this living room.

Two younger women said they were uncertain. One asked many questions, seeking ammunition for arguments with her older sister. Fluker asked the other woman to describe what she wanted in a President. Her answer sounded like she could be Al Gore’s sister. Fluker said, “You’ve just described Barak Obama.” He elaborated a bit but didn’t dominate the discussion.

His most salient point was that the anti-war speech Obama made in 2002 came as he was preparing to run for the Senate; many Illinois politicians said being against the war would be disastrous for his candidacy. Wrong.

This meeting was informational. There was no request for money. When we asked Fluker if he had enough, he said, “I think so but I haven’t checked my bank account lately.” He said contributions should be made via the Internet at http://www.barackobama.com.

Would you want your granddaughter to date an Obama organizer?

“Absolutely,” says Ruth.