Nerditorial: It's a Code Scrub Code Blue... (Whatcom County Action Alert)

Tuesday, January 28, 2013...

9:30 a.m.

The Northwest Annex (5280 Northwest Drive... which is at the corner of Northwest Drive and Smith Road)

I realize this is not a convenient time for most people, but only a small number of folks are necessary for an impact.

The Code Scrub committee (referenced in a previous post here... [LINK  ] and in The Gristle of the Cascadia Weekly here... [LINK  ]) will be holding its first meeting at the time and place noted above.

This committee will be endeavoring to perform a code scrub of Title 20 of the Whatcom County Code. The ostensible aim of a code scrub is to make the existing code clearer and to remove inconsistencies in the code.

Title 20 is the primary development code of Whatcom County.

There are 49 chapters of Title 20. I took the words (not including tables) and pasted them into a word processor document to do a rough word count of Title 20. (Which probably says way too much about how I spend my time...)

There are well over 210,000 words in Title 20.

That's a lot of code to scrub.

My cause for concern about this committee is the composition of the committee... the people in control of the brush, if you will...

The committee is well represented by property rights interests.

A member of CAPR, a member of BIAWC, and two self-described land-use consultants are appointed, also one member of the ag community.

Additionally, two members of the County Planning Commission are appointed, both strong advocates for property rights.

And two members of the County Council are appointed as well. Ken Mann and Sam Crawford. Sam Crawford brings the count of land-use consultants on this committee to three.

There are also two members of County Planning staff appointed. Mark Personius and Gary Davis.

The only other member of the committee is Kate Blystone... director of Futurewise Whatcom...

...other than Ms Blystone, there are no other clear advocates for the environment appointed to this task.

Please join me in a thought experiment.

I want you to imagine that the Code Scrub committee tasked with scrubbing the development code was dominated by environmental activists.

a member of Futurewise...
a member of ReSources...
someone from NSEA...
lets throw in a member of the North Cascade Audubon Society as well...

two former Planning Commissioners ( such as... Jean Melious and John Belisle)...

two members of Council (with Carl Weimer in place of Sam Crawford)...

and one land use consultant.

How do you imagine that committee would be perceived by the property rights advocates in the County?

I submit that they could be forgiven for being a bit suspicious of the work product that such a committee might generate.

So, in that spirit, I have my own nagging concerns and suspicions about what this committee that is so conspicuously dominated with property rights advocates will recommend be changed about Title 20.

The facilities at the Northwest Annex are cozy... it would not take a huge number of Concerned Citizens to have an impact.

I am asking all spirits who are willing and able to attend this meeting to join me there.