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Screwed up city bureaucracy is exposed
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. T
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. T
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?
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Screwed up city bureaucracy is exposed
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. T
Northwest Citizen is firmly for Howard Dean
for President. The most important single reason is that I think he can beat George Bush. I’m independent, never having belonged to either party. Some of my best liberal friends insist I’m a closet con
The second issue of The Town Crier is out
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Posted mid January at bottom of home page
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Find your way - and please use it
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Did you feel the earthquake at 4:11 pm
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Does FoxNews lie and distort the news
to fit their conservative agenda? Yes. On a daily basis. Here is a nice example.
“Dean Attack on Kerry Farm Vote Backfires” reads the headline of a Jan 2 article suggesting Dean has accused Ker
The dismantling of civil liberties
I see the Bham Herald has taken to printing US war dead on the back pages. Maybe some directive came down from Gannett headquarters telling all 80-some Gannettoids to print this awkward bad news in th
Check the War and Peace links
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The capture of Saddam Hussein today
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If your reaction to reading those words is “dahhh” then pause a moment and consider what you thin
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I urge you to visit the independent websites that report on events in Iraq. Independent being those not owned by US corporate media, such as CNN, Fox, MSNbc, etc. The independent War and Peace sites a
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Lack of environmental enforcement
of some local developers is plain to see in this photo essay at the Lake Whatcom website. The WA Dept of Ecology has enforcement folks tooling around in their spiffy pickups, but no enforcement for th
Suspicious activity
Today’s Herald has a human interest story about Greg Grant who hired sniper John Muhammad for yard chores a year ago - just a couple weeks before his rampage of killing. This past week, Greg testified
New weekly newspaper - Northwest Independent
- is out and on racks throughout Bellingham and Whatcom County. Pick it up. Give it a chance. It is actually going to try and report local news - city hall and the court house and the issues that affe
The Port has reversed itself
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An analysis of the election results
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Paul runs the Public Good website and is active
A fun ‘Dean for President’ event
It was all fun, very brief, and is how big things get started. Of course they enjoyed the cake after, even without Dean.
The Northwest Independent News,
a weekly newspaper based in Bellingham, will start publication next Thursday, Nov 20. It will strive to report local news. Amazing. It will be a tabloid and be distributed throughout Whatcom County. Y