Kershner Colludes With County Opponents

It should be obvious that once you are elected to Whatcom County Council, your allegiance is to the County and its residents. Apparently, this is not obvious to our Council Chair, Kathy Kershner. She has colluded with parties suing the County to allow urban level growth in the sensitive Lake Padden watershed.

An ordinance restoring Urban Growth Area (UGA) status to Yew Street, sponsored by Ms. Kershner, will be reviewed by the County Council this Tuesday. Yew Street’s UGA status is being litigated before the Growth Management Hearings Board. An appeal was filed by Yew Street developers after the County revoked UGA status as part of its Comprehensive Plan update. Revocation was justified by the environmental sensitivity of Lake Padden, an impaired body of water under the Clean Water Act, and the City’s failure to plan for adequate capital facilities. An ordinance restoring the UGA affects a full concession of the County’s litigation position.

Council Member Kershner is tight lipped about who helped her draft this ordinance. However, it was not drafted in cooperation with the County Prosecutor’s Office, which represents the County in the litigation. It was not drafted in cooperation with the County Planning Department, which issued a memo advising against this action. It was not drafted in cooperation with the Planning Commission, which was bypassed in this process despite County Code requirements to the contrary. It was not drafted in cooperation with the City of Bellingham, which submitted written objections to this action.

The ordinance is, however, very similar to a proposal that was submitted to the County Council on July 13, 2010 by the Belcher Swanson law firm. Belcher Swanson is the same firm representing Yew Street developers suing the County. Connect the dots.

But the procedural problems in the proposal are not nearly as egregious as the substantive problems. Inconvenient information contained in the County Comprehensive Plan pertaining to water quality and capital facility planning is simply deleted. The ordinance incorporates statements of fact that are unsubstantiated or patently false. For example, the ordinance asserts that existing environmental regulations “will protect Lake Padden from the potential detrimental effect of urban development.” Despite repeated requests, the County has failed to provide me with any information to support this claim.

The ordinance asserts that there was a miscalculation in the amount of land needed to accommodate forecasted City populations, again without any proof. The only land capacity analysis that exists is the one that supports the revocation of the UGA status. The most recent Growth Management Hearings Board decision established that the County planned and zoned to accommodate 106% of its projected population increase outside of UGAs, undermining any argument regarding an undersized UGA.

Restoration of the Yew Street UGA is so clearly the wrong decision that, rather than resolve existing litigation, it will most likely trigger more litigation. Our Council Chair appears to have no problem committing public funds to the protection of development interests and remains unperturbed by the recent finding of invalidity and finding of noncompliance issued against the County by the Hearings Board.

If you plan to testify against this proposal on Tuesday, be forewarned that there is no public hearing scheduled and you will need to speak during open session. Just be grateful that another of Ms. Kershner’s ordinance proposals, placing the public’s open session at the very end of the Council meeting, will not yet be in effect. That will also be voted upon at Tuesday’s meeting.