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.