Rather than answer several emails individually, this post will clarify a couple things. First, why is yesterday's post by John Watts that I praised any different from his late July post that I criticized. Two big differences. Now he gives us a lot of information and suggests where this is going whereas in July he posted a short accusation. Second, we have over seven weeks till ballots are mailed whereas then we had only a few days. Now the people who are the subject of his post have time to deny, explain, and counter. In late July there was no time.

John suggests that several people have been working in concert and behind the scenes to make a land swap of immense acreage take place near Lake Whatcom. He further implies this may be rushed to make it happen in October to help Pete Kremen and Dan McShane in their campaigns. John is directly or by implication suggesting that others involved are David Syre, Lisa McShane, Mitch Friedman, Pete Kremen and several other state and local government agencies. If John's suggestions are in error then any or all of them can openly tell us that his post is wrong. So far I have only heard that I and/or John are conspiracy nuts and acting irresponsibly. No denials - even in email from one of the named persons.

Open public dialog is the method for letting the truth find its way to the open light for all to see. My goal has always been for open dialog. There is a lot of hiding of information in our area and the powers in Olympia have long had a practice of benign neglect towards Bellingham and the county. Thus it is very hard to get reliable information. The Herald has for decades gone along with governments to not report with information it has in return for easy inexpensive access to public officials for mundane reporting. The Herald brings in young reporters who learn the basics and then transfer to larger markets where they can make a decent living. The ones who stay do so because they like it here and take a lower career path - and learn to protect governments from any serious reporting.

The weekly papers and the Internet provide us with healthy public dialog. With John Watts getting going on his website we have two sites that are trying to seek out and post original information that is valuable to citizens in this county. Yes, there are other sites - and I link to them - but they are narrow in focus or haven't posted anything new in weeks or months. They start and they stop. I hope John Watts continues. And lets hope he posts more about this land "reconveyance" process that may or may not be in our best interests but that should be in the news so we can follow the process.