by Tim Paxton. He posted this to the Lake Whatcom discussion group and has given permission for posting here. I phoned the city attorney's office and asked the name of this attorney in Tim's report. They told me he is C. Thomas Moser of Mt. Vernon.

Here is a guide to the acronyms. UGA is the Urban Growth Area. SVCA is the Sudden Valley Community Association. CWA is Clean Water Alliance, which is Tim's group of environmental activists.

City Hires Outside Counsel To Assist On UGA Appeal!
(This news should make the County and SVCA happy.)

The City Assistant Attorney (Perry Eskridge) who was working on the City's appeal of the Urban Growth Area designation of Sudden Valley unexpectedly quit the City. Another City attorney was on medical leave which brought down the City's legal staff to about 9 people reportedly.

The City Attorney suddenly realizes that they are gonna need some help to keep in the appeal. The official copy of the UGA appeal record is now up to about 2,500 pages of legal documents. So! What to do? Hire an outside counsel. Voila!

Instead of hiring CWA's expert Land Use attorney who is already familiar with the case and its 2,500 pages of documents, the City Attorney goes out and finds an attorney who is already currently working against CWA's attorney (i.e. reportedly pro-development, anti-environment) in not one but TWO other land-use cases in Snohomish Superior Court.

So, now protecting the City of Bellingham's interest is a well-known reportedly pro-development, anti-environmental attorney with some land-use background. (This attorney also holds optional prayer sessions with clients as a bonus, according to his web site. So I am assuming an assist from an un-named deity is possible at this point.)

It is now probably going to cost the City months of attorney time for the new attorney to get up to speed on the case. It may be likely that since this person is already opposing Gerald Steel (CWA's attorney) in other cases, they may be precluded from speaking and working together.

This is in addition to the Mayor's legal genius gag rule which apparently allows the City to work with SVCA's attorney but not speak with co-appellant CWA board members.

Thus the City can be assured of continuing to not be able to work with their co-appellants and originators of the challenge to the County's UGA. AND, it will probably cost the City twice what it would have if they had just hired CWA's attorney. Shall we guess a cost of $40,000 now? (About what SVCA budgeted apparently.)

Does anyone know if potential prayer sessions between the City's new outside UGA Counsel and City Staff are subject to the Open Meetings Act? Just asking.

Is anyone shocked that the Mayor found a pro-development attorney who has an anti-environmental record to "work" for the citizens of Bellingham?