The Gristle
Expansion, and retraction
EXPANSION, AND RETRACTION: In May, the Port of Bellingham agreed to place a citizen’s initiative on the November ballot expanding the number of port commissioners to five. By early June, without any public notice, commissioners clawed back their original agreement and replaced the public’s proposed ballot measure with one of their own. Their reconsideration was reportedly based upon a reading of state law that a proposed initiative “shall not embrace more than one subject, and that shall be expressed in the title.”
Commissioners and their legal counsel argued that in expanding the commission, voters would simultaneously assign them as at-large representatives of the countywide port authority, thereby violating the “single subject” rule. But their concern apparently has more to do with a misplaced apprehension of Bellingham playing too large a role in representing the port that carries the city’s name.
At their creation early last century, the state’s port commissions were drawn along the county lines they serve. Commissions were established with three members. In Whatcom County, each was drawn from one of three voting districts, apportioned as are county elected positions. But importantly, once they’re elected commissioners represent the entire countywide port authority.
Population increases and the growing complexity of port activities led state lawmakers to provide opportunity, whether through petition or legislative decision, for communities to expand their commissions from three members to five.
If you simply wanted to add two additional commissioners, then the default and de facto reality would be that the additional members would not be bound to any particular voting district—since you have not created any new districts. They would be, default and de facto, representatives of the port authority at large.
The governing statute to increase representation is unambiguous:
“In port districts with five commissioners, two of the commissioner districts may include the entire port district if approved by the voters of the district either at the time of formation or at a subsequent port district election at which the issue is proposed.”
Citizens can add commissioners. They can increase districts. They can add commissioners without increasing districts. They can add districts at a later time. They can deem that all commissioners are elected from the county at large. They can reverse any of this in a later election.
A second section of the governing statute explains:
“In a port district with five commissioners, where two of the commissioner districts include the entire port district, the port district may be divided into five commissioner districts if proposed pursuant to a resolution adopted by the board of commissioners or pursuant to a petition by the voters and approved by the voters of the district at the next general or special election.”
Removing any confusion, the state Supreme Court has ruled (twice) on the single-subject rule, finding that—yes—a single ballot referendum can authorize multiple actions if the actions are tightly and conceptually bound. “There must be be some rational unity between the matters embraced in the act, the unity being found in the general purpose of the act and the practical problems of efficient administration,” justices noted.
The court explains the single-subject rule is designed to provide transparency, and to prevent citizens from being forced to vote for what they do not want in order to approve the things they do want.
Ignoring examples provided by the high court, commissioners introduced their own ballot measure. Their proposal also attempts two actions at once, expanding the commission and authorizing the port to redistrict to five districts. Mercifully, commissioners did not encumber or confound the question more than that, however it is no less fraught with embedded subjects than the original proposal; and one can argue that it is less clear than the original in what it proposes. The original was largely silent on how commissioners would be apportioned.
Even if enacted by voters, the port can stall redistricting for 120 days after the election is certified—perhaps longer—eliminating the possibility of adding commissioners in a spring election or before the end of 2013.
More troubling in the longer view is the insistence of the current commission preference that new Port of Bellingham commissioners shall not, and may not ever, be drawn from Bellingham.
When county voting districts were originally drawn, a slice of Bellingham was wisely given to each, providing the county seat and population center with a piece of each county election, but also restricting Bellingham from organizing in a way to dominate any county election.
In a letter to nodding commissioners, Whatcom’s Caucus of Small Cities wrote, “expansion, if done by keeping three current districts from which port commissioners are elected, then adding two at-large members, could mean that all five members reside in the City of Bellingham.” Horrors. It could also mean none of the five commissioners reside in the City of Bellingham! But what the commissioners are contemplating is something entirely different, that new districts by intent and design would specifically exclude the representation of Bellingham.
Yes, Bellingham has provided a supply of port commissioners over the years. Some were maritime giants, mighty men with careers spanning decades. But can the case even be made that Bellingham’s willing supply of port commissioners produced a limited, narrowly focused commission?
The peculiar anxiety and dysfunction of the port that has led many to believe it needs reform might now pointedly deny Bellingham representation on the commission at the very moment city residents are being asked to pony up tens of millions of dollars for waterfront and airport redevelopment infrastructure, the agency’s two costliest major projects. The notion is more revolting than revolutionary.
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