Mayor of Bellingham

Dan Pike

Dan Pike is proud of his record, achievements

By Tim Johnson · Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Cascadia Weekly: What are your proudest achievements as mayor? What will you work on in the next four years?

Dan Pike: I think the greatest achievement, honestly, is delivering a balanced budget without stripping the core capacity of the city.

When the budget went south, we made a commitment to maintain most of our funding to our nonprofit partners in order to provide for social justice and the social safety network. I believe in the first year we cut 10 percent, 10 percent in the following year, and we will remain flat this year and next. By comparison, the county the first year cut these programs by 50 percent, and by the second year pretty much eliminated them.

Frankly, one of the reasons the city employees union are mad at me, they asked me to cut those partnership before I cut any city jobs. But in some sense these are the programs people in the private and public sectors turn to when they are out of work.

With what is happening at the state and federal level, as these social programs continue to be slashed, it feels even more important that Bellingham should commit to these programs. We’re set on a downward spiral, and it means that cities are going to have to pay a lot more attention to what they’re doing and how they’re doing it.

CW: There’s obviously been lost opportunities as a result of economic downturn. What are those, and can they be recovered in a next term?

DP: It’s a rare opportunity that is forever lost.

There certainly are opportunities that have been stalled. One that comes to mind is the urban village plan. We were very close at one point to how we were going to move forward in Old Town that would have reinvigorated that area, but would have provided some positive development pressure on the waterfront.

And of course the waterfront is another thing that has been delayed—the lack of a cleanup underway certainly contributes to that. But even if the cleanup had been completed, the financial turmoil, the lack of predictability of financing for projects of any scale, means things will continue to move slowly.

There’s been some benefit to slowing down, though. The original plan offered by the Port of Bellingham called for 6 million square feet of development. I never bought into that, being able to do the math on how long it has taken downtown Bellingham to develop that level of buildout, but was acquiescent at least to a plan that called for 4.5 million square feet.

We’re rebuilding Central Avenue, which is a key piece to redevelopment, but I will only commit to infrastructure that lends itself to immediate development opportunities. We’ve permitted tearing down some of the buildings we’ve agreed to should be torn down, and I want to stress that that comes at no cost to the City of Bellingham. Other commitments must wait for commitments by the port for cleanup.

CW: Documents are coming forward by the end of the year that will reach the Bellingham Planning Commission early next year. Could these documents of agreement have come forward earlier? Did we lose a year?

DP: You don’t deliver unfinished drafts to the planning commission. Once you start that process., you need to have a fairly complete template of what the parties agree to as a starting point. otherwise, you add to the cost, you add to the turmoil, as drafts cycle back and forth.

I doubt there are two parties in a development of this scale that have such different psyches as the port and city.

What was illustrative to me was when the city sponsored a series of meetings on the proposed street grid, the port commissioners and staff seemed to become aware for perhaps the first time that the larger community of Bellingham did not value their vision. The community wanted a different vision, one that grew organically from downtown outward, not a Bellevue-esque sort of development.

But despite a lot of gains since then, I feel there is still a cognitive dissonance about how to move forward. The port is not engaged with the full conversation with the broader community to the degree the city is. And I think there may still be some sense within that organization that they can get back to that narrower view by supporting a change in the mayor’s office. I don’t believe that’s true, and that the issues go much farther than the personalities seeking the mayor’s office.

CW: On the city’s portion of waterfront cleanup, there’s been criticism of the handling of the RG Haley property at the foot of Cornwall Avenue. What’s your position on that property?

DP: We were pushing the owners to clean it up, having identified that as a key component of creating public access to the waterfront. Without that, we have the potential for a city park next to a Superfund site. Yet, the city does not have a very large stick to make a private property owner clean it up. The owners had sat on the property for 19 years, without meaningful movement.

Ultimately, we were able to acquire the property for the liability, in an arrangement similar to what the port agreed to with the larger and adjacent Georgia-Pacific property. What the port agreed to was on a much larger scale.

We thoroughly examined that liability; we have a lot of geotechnical work going in the area. And we’ve studied the intrinsic value of that property once its been cleaned up. Ken Hertz, a former mayor and successful property owner, serving on the board of the Public Development Authority, and whose opinion I’ve come to trust, assures me its value cleaned up is perhaps in the $10 to $15 million range.

CW: Do you see any potential for conflict of interest in Ken Hertz’ role on the PDA, his friendship over the years with the property owner, and the fact he is a potential developer of certain properties adjacent to the RG Haley site?

DP: We did. Ken wasn’t involved in the negotiation.

We did not take the property owner’s first offer. We kicked the tires. It wasn’t just Ken saying it was worth this amount of money cleaned up, other folks in the city did the appraisals.

On top of that—thanks to Kelli Linville, and others—we had half of the cost of cleanup paid for through MTCA [state cleanup funds].

The cleanup costs we identified were in the $3 to $5 million range, and the people the city routinely consults with were confident the amount would be considerably less than $5 million. Even at the outside range of $7 million, we’re looking at a $10 to $15 million piece of property. The cleanup would have to triple, before that public investment would really be endangered.

I take my fiduciary responsibility very seriously. I do not pay too much money for property. Perhaps that’s why so many property developers are supporting Kelli. [laughs]
Seriously, that property uncleaned damages our investment and the port’s investment around the rest of the waterfront. This parcel makes everything else work much better, almost as a keystone property.

CW: How will the city finance its portion of cleanup of the RG Haley property?

DP: We’re putting funds into reserve to do our match.

Some of our sources come stormwater funds, some from solid waste. The latter is the largest funding source.

CW: Getting back to the issue of “playing nice with other authorities,” do you have a sense of how your administration will pursue growth issues with the county, particularly of disputes on the north side, such as Caitac?

DP: Sometimes you have to be very persistent before people hear your message. The message here is, the city is not going to continue growing as it has in the past. We’re not willing to just sprawl out into the county in a way that adds significant costs to our tax base and degrades our environment. And, in particular, is unnecessary at a time when we have low to no growth within the city limits.

We have a legacy of sprawl moving forward, dating back to decisions made in 1994, so decisions—good or bad—last a long time and have serious repercussions.

We, being the City of Bellingham, do not see any need to bring Caitac into the city limits in the next 20 years, our planning horizon. So it shouldn’t come in. That’s a pretty clear read of the law.

Now you have the proponents trying to piecemeal their way into an urban setting, to propose just enough development there to change the character from one use to another. And piecemeal development is similarly discouraged by the Growth Management Act. If you took what they’re proposing collectively, it would not be permitted, so instead they are doing little pieces simultaneously with the same result. The county’s standard for allowing that is different from the city’s standard.

One of the central tenets of agreements with the county, dating back decades, is that in any discussion of putting anything in the city’s urban growth areas, the county would discuss that with the city first. In this case, that didn’t happen. The city made the offer, but honestly the mayor cannot force the county to honor that agreement and have that discussion.

Generally, I don’t think it is the city’s responsibility to help developers be successful. I don’t find that compelling.

Developers are inherently in a speculative business environment. That means, during boom times, they will thrive and make bundles of money. In more challenging environments, which we are in, they need to read the tea leaves right and make wise choices with their investments, or they lose money.
I’m sympathetic to anyone who is struggling financially. But it is harder to be sympathetic to someone that was steering their own ship and didn’t see the reef, as opposed to someone working for a company that went belly up because a company blew it and went out of business.

CW: Perhaps on the subject of financial solvency, we can discuss what happened with Fairhaven Highlands. Not only does the city face a challenge in repaying the interfund loan to purchase that property, there is a growth challenge in reallocating those potentially developable acres as well. Are you committed to having those acres there distributed primarily or exclusively in the Southside, or are you open to distributing that development capacity in other areas of the city?

DP: I want them to—predominantly, at least—be distributed near the area they’re currently in. And the neighborhoods have been supportive of that. I believe they’ve accepted up to 700 of those potential 753 building units as infill, and maybe we can make those other 53 go away for now as we work through this building environment where we’re only building a fraction of the homes we’d anticipated in our comprehensive plan.

CW: Early on in your administration, you’d expressed some hope that the community would be able to find some equitable resolution to Fairhaven Highlands and Chuckanut Ridge, so as to move on to other matters. Do you feel that with the purchase of that property by the city this has happened?

DP: I am proud of that achievement. I also have a few scars on my hide now. It’s simultaneously one of the episodes of my administration I am most disappointed about.

There’s been a lot of misinformation circling about what has been committed to, and what it means for other areas.

A mistake that I made, that I’m willing to acknowledge, is I should have gone to the Parks board and Greenways committee early on and reported, “Here’s what I’m working on.” And acquired their advice. Perhaps that would have alleviated some of the sense the city was operating without consultation and outside input on this.

Outside of that, it’s a crowning achievement—to get under control the entirety of that property at a million dollars less than it was appraised at—that is pretty significant.
But rather than applauding it, you have people saying, “Well, the north side isn’t getting enough.” “It has no value, so why are you just buying a place for vagrants to sleep?” “The timing is for political gain.” It’s being spun for political effect.

But, as you know, we were operating on information from the bank that this property would come available in the timeframe it did. Perhaps if it could have been put off until after the election people would see this as the achievement it is, but that was not an option available to us under the information we had.

CW: Do you have concerns that this purchase may have foreclosed on other opportunities? Galbraith Mountain is obvious, but also perhaps more subtle opportunities in the Lake Whatcom watershed?

DP: No, I don’t think so. The thing that could play a factor, particularly around Galbraith, is the blowback may make City Council more skittish about decisions that involve large areas of land at significant sums of money.

Galbraith, outside city limits, is not intrinsically a city problem or a city opportunity. But we have been willing to be in discussions with the county and with the landowner about its future, perhaps even constructed as a joint acquisition. City Council is not unified on this [laughs]. Chuckanut Ridge in itself has not foreclosed on this discussion, but criticism of council in the way Chuckanut Ridge happened might foreclose upon it.

But had we not obtained Chuckanut Ridge and attempted instead to move on to something like Galbraith, that would have greatly hindered our ability to move forward on either parcel. Whatever criticism I’ve had for buying it would nothing in comparison to criticism I’d have encountered for not buying it.

CW: On the topic of strategic land purchases and opportunities, has progress been made on Lake Whatcom?

DP: Yes, we’re going to sponsor an Asian clam eating contest. [laughs]

Seriously, coming into office I saw a couple of opportunities. One was getting the attention of the Lake Whatcom Water and Sewer District and Water District 7 to ensure we had enough controls over them. Another was looking at the city’s own practices, seeing what was working, what was not working. Finally, trying to get the county to recognize that what they were allowing in terms of development wasn’t appropriate and was going to cost all of us a lot of money in the long term. We’ve not been very successful with that last part.

If I was to give myself a report card on what I actually succeeded in doing? I’d have to say a “C.”

The other kid stole all the library books I needed to do my report, and wouldn’t help with the project.

It’s been frustrating; but what I’d say we’ve been moving up the learning curve on is what works in terms of filtration. We’ve gone from phosphorus removal rates of below 30 percent to up to 70 percent, and potential to move beyond that. Not acceptable, but showing progress.

We’ve also made progress in watershed acquisitions, which I think are psychologically important even if they don’t always provide the best bang for the buck. We’ve softened the rules for how we can employ those funds, so that we can pursue the most cost-effective options. If we find the magic bullet, perhaps we can buy it, as opposed to spending that money buying three acres at a time.

CW: Any regrets about coming out rather forcefully at the start of your term in response to the water districts and county policy?

DP: No, not really.

I know the narrative that’s out there that I don’t get along with people or work together to get things done. I don’t accept that.

We have, in every case, started out working in the background, trying to find common ground, agreement that works for everybody.

But there are certain things upon which you can’t compromise. There is only a limited amount of compromise possible on the quality of a drinking water resource. There’s limited amount of compromise on sprawl and other things of potential damage to this community if done wrong.

CW: On that topic, I suppose we should talk about coal trains. I know that you’re position on that is an evolving one. The position of Kelli and her supporters is that you’ve jeopardized the city’s ultimate negotiating position by coming out strongly against Gateway Pacific Terminal as a coal export facility, even working with other communities with similar concerns. What’s your response?

DP: The results speak for themselves. We wrote the county a letter, and they responded positively in areas they hadn’t been paying attention to before. We wrote the governor a letter, and the county responded to that, too—not positively at first, but ultimately in a positive way. You had to wade through a lot of invective, but the county’s request was similar to ours. So I think my response has been of benefit to the people of Bellingham.

CW: Perhaps you can explain how your own thoughts evolved on the shipping terminal. Like many other elected officials, you expressed some favorable support early on. Unlike them, you withdrew your support as details and potential impacts became clear.

DP: I’d say it wasn’t a sudden change. The migration of my thinking started in late October of last year. Two months earlier, SSA Marine met with elected officials around the county with a proposal that would pump money into this community through the construction of a bulk cargo facility. And I think there was universal agreement at that time that that sounded great. I think I may have had a greater understanding than many people at that meeting of rail freight, transportation and shipping issues, the challenges and benefits.

In October, a resolution in support of the facility came before City Council, as it had in other cities around Whatcom County—and I honestly do not recall how that came forward, it was something the [Northwest Washington Central] Labor Council wanted us to consider—but it got pulled from the agenda. And one reason it was pulled was that coal export was now clearly on the table as it had not been before.

Now, with coal being part of the mix, it was clear that we had to be a lot more careful with the discussion. I still wasn’t against it at that point, I simply knew I needed to learn more.

At the end of February, SSA Marine came forward with what is essentially a coal-only facility, the largest such facility on the West Coast, and on the same day they signed a contract with Peabody Energy that would consume much of the shipping capacity that was being proposed. At that point, it became clear the multi-use aspects of the facility to ship other commodities were perhaps being overstated.

By March, I sent out a series of pointed questions saying these questions need to be addressed as part of the process. The response I got back was very clear that the position of the company and the railroad was that “there is no connection between an increase in rail traffic and its impacts in Bellingham and this terminal.” That made me realize that the proponents were not going to yield anything they didn’t have to without a fight.

These projects are like supertankers. If you want to turn them, even by a small amount, you’d better start steering early on, a long time before they get close.
The proponents know that in a community that honors process, they can employ process to achieve their goals. By the time the process officially begins, significant decisions have already been made and the project is essentially underway.

I knew people needed to get ahead of this in order to have a say in what occurred.

That’s the point where I asked myself how I could get involved in a way that would be of most benefit to Bellingham.

CW: The other issue that has electrified Bellingham is the red light camera issue, whether a pilot traffic program of that sort should be enacted here. Do you have regrets about how that has unfolded?

DP: Yes, I do. One of the things we do too rarely as elected officials is say, “I made a mistake.”

I don’t think the mistake was exploring the idea of whether red light cameras can make our community safer.

There were mistakes ascribed to me that are unfortunate. I don’t think people understand fully who is responsible for what. The council authorized me to sign the contract with the surveillance camera provider, so to some degree I felt that I should. In hindsight, I should have pushed back a bit.

Some issues are so contentious that they change the landscape that decision become more than just authorizing a matter of public safety, for example, in the manner these things are usually authorized. This was one of them.

We put a lot of clauses in the contract that gives the city multiple ways out of this pilot project. And we will look very closely at the data provided by this pilot project, and we will carefully consider that as well as how voters react to this item on the ballot.

I hope people in the community recognize that we should look at that data. There’s a belief that irrespective of what the data shows, we should eliminate the program, but I believe that is a conversation we should have after the pilot.

If the pilot shows inconclusive or mixed results, irrespective of revenues collected through the program, I think we will reconsider moving forward with it. But this idea that we’re doing it only for the money—that’s just not true.

I have stated from the beginning that money was certainly part of it. Public safety was also part of it; and we were responsive to a feeling in the police guild that we need more officers in the street. I had an unwillingness to add more officers when we were laying off employees in parks and other departments, and I saw the pilot program as a means to address their concerns while also generating revenues to might help meet their needs.

I have to confess I feel a bit hung out to dry by the police guild on this.

CW: A clause in the contract allowed the company, American Traffic Solutions, to sue petitioners who sought to oppose the cameras, sue them directly, rather than by proxy from someone who might declare damages as a result of the program or ban. Was this an oversight?

DP: In talking to city attorneys, it became clear early on that the company was going to have the potential power to sue no matter what we did. One of the features of contract negotiations is that. If the person across from you is asking for some advantage that they have anyway, irrespective of what you want, you might as well give that up. It can ease other parts of the negotiation that may be more significant in the long term.

What we got was a series of “outs” that allow us to end the contract under agreed terms. They don’t have any say in the timing of our cameras. Our officers have the power to review every ticket issued. And if we don’t generate sufficient revenues through the pilot program, we’re not on the hook for any failure to meet the threshold of lost revenues.
I think those things are important, and they were worth negotiating for.

One of the things that I do acknowledge missing on this particular topic is the important symbolism it holds for people. The symbolism of cameras taking pictures of people, of their cars, is a lot more important to other people than it is to me. I acknowledge that.

Comment »

 

Mayor of Bellingham

Kelli Linville

Kelli Linville’s three R approach

By Tim Johnson · Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Cascadia Weekly: Perhaps because of your background in education, you’ve adopted the Three Rs as your campaign mantra. Only in your case it is Respect, Relationships and Results. Let’s start there, and why you feel Mayor Pike has not performed satisfactorily in those areas.

Kelli Linville: As you campaign you learn things and some things become clearer as you campaign. Those three things have come into focus because, while I think Dan Pike has been good at many things, he has not been good at those things—using respect to strenthen relationships so you can more people together to achieve results.

My buzzword for Dan has become “The Dog Ate My Homework” because it always seems to be someone else’s fault when unfortunate things happen.

As I’ve gone into into issues in this campaign, I’ve encountered things that really aren’t a matter of policy or style, but are actually just inappropriate actions in City Hall. One or two of them, maybe you can look the other way. A pattern of that really raises alarms.

CW: How does your approach to government differ from Mayor Pike’s?

KL: The mayor has demonstrated that he is a poor negotiator in the public’s interest, whether it is with the Port of Bellingham, Whatcom County government, red light cameras, adjoining smaller cities—or even banks, in the instance of Chuckanut Ridge. I have a lot of experience negotiating very tough deals in very tough times, often with people with whom I strongly disagree and with whom there is often little chance for agreement.

You don’t put your bottom line out in the newspaper. You don’t disregard or misrepresent someone else’s interests. As long as those interests are out there and understood—as well as the public’s interest—there’s no reason some agreements can’t be reached. The mayor doesn’t have to be the victor in this.

Dan has described himself as experienced, effective, inclusive mayor to lead the town that understands governing. The first job of the mayor is to manage the staff and the budget. I think he has failed on those two critical elements.

CW: Have city staff communicated their concerns as you’ve campaigned?

KL: There’s some of that. Obviously, the police guild filed a complaint of unfair labor practice, and I think that is unheard of in city history. You don’t threaten workers with job loss in order to get them to do what you want them to do. That’s an unfair labor practice, and that’s what drew the complaint.

CW: Do you believe the concerns of the police union could be accommodated, given the constraints of the budget and city priorities?

KL: If you look at priorities of government, you look first at services you must provide. We do not have a lot of control over whether to employ federal and state mandates; we do have a lot of control over how we do it.

Things Bellingham City Council would like to adopt by policy are at the bottom of that priority list; and I say that not because I don’t like or appreciate City Council, but because those are expressed preferences. Those are items we have the option to pursue, a wish list. Much of what is in the city budget is mandated and essential.

I think there are a lot of things we can do better and more efficiently, but we’re prevented from doing that because so many city departments are compartmentalized in silos.

Are private/public partnerships available to leverage city goals? Are private entities better equipped than the city to perform work in the public’s interest? There are lots of examples, the streets among them. Much of the work there is contracted out to private companies.

The role of government is, we have to be expert regulators. We have to be expert enforcers. We have to be experts in public policy.

CW: Obviously, the economy is a major factor and influence on city budgeting. What are your thoughts there?

KL: Look at all the empty stores north of Bellingham! And I don’t see a lot of planning or interest on what that future might be or look like. There is no relationship with the county or port or merchants to get that discussion going.

Having vision is not the same thing as getting things done.

I have not seen any big investments that would have increased the economic prospects in downtown Bellingham. And I am increasingly concerned about the future of Costco and WalMart.

We get more revenues from Costco than all of Fairhaven put together, and the rumblings about Costco’s future in Bellingham are increasing rather than decreasing. Will we force big-box stores out into rural areas? Will we lose that revenue?

Ferndale Mayor Gary Jensen and I have already had conversations about potential revenue generation, similar to concepts underway in Bothell. Our conversation has revolved around how Bellingham can retain some of its revenue while Ferndale doesn’t have to absorb all of the infrastructure and regulatory costs should these stores decide to move there.

I believe those conversations stalled out between Gary and Dan when Dan expanded the focus and scope of the discussion to include the cities’ downtown cores. I want to keep that conversation focused on the very real challenges and opportunities as these big-box stores plan for their future expansions.

CW: On the subject of relationships, you appear to have strong supported from Port of Bellingham commissioners. What’s been wrong with that relationship and how will you address that as mayor?

KL: A year ago, according to documentation by the port, the city could have submitted a subarea plan to the Planning Commission and we could have started talking about this.

Why did the mayor spend $400,000 looking at a road grid for a plan that had not even been developed at that point?

The waterfront unfortunately has been stalled since Dan Pike was elected mayor. I believe the port is frustrated by the fact that a lot of these documents and agreements have to be approved before funding for waterfront cleanup and redevelopment can be approved.

CW: Yet the city is moving forward ahead of the port on the RG Haley property adjacent to the waterfront. You’ve criticized that. Why?

KL: It may not mean a lot to many people, but that strikes me as the most egregious decision that has been made for a variety of reasons—primarily on the principles and precedents it establishes: We didn’t pollute the property. Why are we taking the liability?

I’ve been told by City Council members their understanding was the city was looking at perhaps a $3 to $5 million cleanup, of which the owner was paying nothing. I then talked to port officials and learned the agency had already performed an analysis of the site and were uncertain there was a public benefit in owning it. Their cleanup estimate, due to the kinds of contaminants and the sediments and groundwater issues, was $7 to $10 million.

contaminants and the sediments and groundwater issues, was $7 to $10 million.

The same type of site, with the same type of pollutants. on a smaller scale cost $30 million to clean up in Anacortes. What if we’ve actually taken on a $30 million cleanup, with no way to pay for it?

Well, there’s a way to pay for it, which is through the city’s solid waste fund.

So, my concerns here are no public, independent cleanup estimate. Even if they’d used the port’s, that might have provided a differing view of the city’s purchase. Secondly, if Ken was the chair of the Public Development Authority, having tried to find a buyer for this property over the years, he probably should have recused himself just to maintain a sense of propriety and perspective. You cannot have confidence in the city’s decisions when decisions are made like this.

But more than any of this, my biggest issue is taking on the liability with no plan to ask the polluter to pay.

CW: Is it your opinion that there was an inappropriate relationship between Mayor Pike and former Mayor Ken Hertz on the purchase of the RG Haley property at the foot of Cornwall Avenue?

KL: I don’t think there’s necessarily an inappropriate personal relationship. Ken is one of the city’s most successful developers and he is a major campaign contributor to Dan’s campaign.

However, I’ve learned that Ken has been trying for years to get the city to buy this property, often through the use of Greenways, on behalf of the owner of the RG Haley property. I believe the history of this property is that the company purchased the property with the idea that the Alaska ferry terminal might be sited there. I’m told by the Port of Bellingham there are significant environmental concerns there, and I believe the original idea was that the property would be cleaned as a part of the site preparations for the ferry, a minor expense for a project of that scale. When the ferry did not go there, the landowner was left with significant liability and a need to sell the property.

Ken gave me a tour of the site when I was in the Legislature when there was an idea MTCA [state cleanup] money might be available. At that time I had no idea that the company wasn’t paying for any of the cleanup.

When the mayor took this on, he took it on with all the liability, I managed to obtain about $2.2 million in MTCA to clean it up in the understanding that it was part of the whole bay cleanup, not understanding that this was a separate action being considered by the city independent of the port.

CW: What’s manifestly different about this deal than the Port of Bellingham taking on the Georgia-Pacific property and liability for the cost of cleanup?

KL: The port had a clear idea about how much liability they were willing to expose themselves to, based on an analysis and on an estimate from Georgia-Pacific. That amount was $120 million. They had a significant amount of guarantees from the state. They obtained cost overrun insurance for additional protection.

I think the biggest difference is due diligence. The port did due diligence on the GP property. I don’t believe the administration did the same due diligence, figuring it out for themselves.

Second, the insurance policies. On the GP site, we know at the end what our exposure will be. On the RG Haley property, we might go from $3 to $30 million with no end in sight.

CW: I imagine the city could just fence the property, but it seems they’ve compounded the issue by planning an extension of the Taylor Street boardwalk to terminate at that site, meaning the site must be cleaned.

KL: Absolutely.

This really gets into the weeds of how decisions are made and integrated with Greenways and Parks plans. Do we really understand what we’re doing when we integrate projects, or are we operating on the assumption that every bright idea is best and whatever comes next we do? I don’t see the plan.

That became very clear on the issue of Chuckanut Ridge.

CW: Let’s discuss that.

KL: I have no interest in belittling the mayor on every decision he’s made, but had I been in his place, and this was a purchase I thought was important, first I would not have blurted out to the newspaper, “I’ll pay $8.23 million for it.”

The mayor said that was the cost of it. But that’s what the bank said! That’s not what the market said.

There are not a lot of developers lining up waiting for that property. It was likely to sit there until the bank had to unload it. Instead, we took the whole thing, and on their timetable. The city is not responsible for the bank’s timetable or for outside pressures on the bank.

I probably would have seized the bull by the horns earlier and had the planning department look at the appropriate levels of development there.

We needed two key pieces of information we didn’t get before the city made its decision to buy. First was an independent appraisal of the property that could question certain assumptions by the bank. Second was a commitment from the neighborhoods about where these 700 undeveloped or undevelopable parcels might go so that the impacts are shared along with the benefits to the Southside.

Not only did we use the bank’s appraisal, the timeline was dictated by them. Again, the public’s interest was not fully served.

CW: Are these issues correctable at this point, or are we as a community stuck with them?

KL: RG Haley I believe we may be stuck with.

I don’t know if there’s $30 million in the solid waste fund to cover the potential liability of this site. I don;t know that the solid waste fund is not better suited, or dedicated, to other uses. That is a big black hole.

CW: My understanding is a portion of the solid waste fund is already dedicated to expansions of the wastewater treatment facility at Post Point.

KL: Whatever conversation the mayor wants to have about balancing the budget, I will challenge him on the tradeoffs. Did we do fund transfers? Are there items in the budget that are not fully disclosed that can put it out of balance?

When I was Ways and Means chair in the Legislature, I had about one year to cut $5 billion out of the state budget. And the way we got there was we established some principles that allowed us to prioritize. It wasn’t easy, but those principles made it easier.

When you get a budget full of tricks, you can’t fix it in a year. My goal is to make sure in Bellingham, we use priorities of government, we use performance-based budgeting, we have accountability measures, so we can get more services for the people who are paying taxes. That’s an attainable goal!

CW: What are your concerns about the Post Point expansion?

KL: This seems another big boondoggle. We have an opportunity to take another look at this expansion and have an independent evaluation. The company that performed the evaluation the city is responding to is the same company who is designing the expansion.

Bellingham is committed to using the oldest technology, we will continue to burn our sludge and add chemicals to our treatment. New technologies offer less chemical treatment, and would cost $20 million less to implement with better environmental results. And would last longer.

CW: An observation by some members of City Council has been that if the amount of inflow and infiltration (I&I) could be reduced, expansion might not be necessary at Post Point.

KL: I believe that’s true. And actually that issue—control of infiltration—has application in Lake Whatcom.

Instead of focusing on things like Silver Beach, reengineering everyone’s yard, we need zero-discharge goals. That is how we addressed the issue of dairy waste entering the Nooksack River. It has been effective.

Of course, you don’t build more there, either, and I think the city’s efforts there have been appropriate.

CW: Do you feel the city’s emphasis on property acquisitions has been appropriate for Lake Whatcom?

KL: It has to be a policy prevention and restoration. Acquisitions help that.

Our largest challenges in the lake are addressing the portions that are already developed. Can we restore back to the quality standards of, say, the Seattle watershed? No. They selected that as a water source first. We selected ours as a water source second.

Our goal over time is zero discharge.

But before we sue the county and water districts, we have responsibilities of our own to address. the city is responsible for urban runoff in portions of the lake that are within city limits.

CW: We’ve talked about a lot of issues, but we’ve not talked about coal and coal trains. Many people appreciate that the mayor has been so bold on these issues. You’ve expressed frustration in this campaign with how your views on the shipping terminal at Cherry Point have been portrayed by supporters of Dan Pike. What are your views on coal?

KL: I supported, and continue to support, a smaller, multipurpose pier, as originally proposed. If it is a single-purpose coal terminal, or even one with a primary purpose to ship coal, I do not support it.

I have been consistent from day one. I do not support exporting coal or any other non-renewable natural resources. I do not now, nor have I ever, supported a coal terminal at Cherry Point. I have worked against exporting and burning coal for many years. I will vigorously ensure that we are engaged in the scoping and permitting process from beginning to end to ensure our interests are represented.

I personally believe that if we permit the construction of a coal terminal, then we as a larger community are making a big mistake. It is a stupid federal energy policy, it is a stupid state decision, and a stupid county decision, if all we want to do is allow the export of cheap coal to Asia.

I think the mayor has taken a very simple position on a complex topic while a lot of the facts about the proposal are unclear. Yet the mayor and his supporters have not actually put forward a resolution to start the process to scope the project, that seems a basic step. And, yes, I do think that the mayor’s statements have harmed the city’s ability to engage in a robust discussion of coal and its impacts on Bellingham.

He scored political points that may get him elected. But, if elected, can he be effective in the discussion?

CW: We had talked earlier about private/public partnerships and the need for efficiencies in mandates like public safety. Given those earlier statements, what are your thoughts on the issue of red light cameras?

KL: In my first exposure to the issue, I was questioning similar initiatives for traffic cameras in the Legislature in Olympia. What I learned is that, where they have been installed the longest, they are starting to be taken down—either because the citizens wanted them to, or they weren’t achieving revenue and safety goals.

That information was available, and I’m sorry the city didn’t look more deeply into that information before they inked this contract.

I believe the mayor inappropriately told police that he would address their personnel concerns by creating this revenue source—as he assured firefighters he would address their concerns through annexations and the construction of new fire stations. Police were split on this, but I think it is disingenuous to say this was about safety when safety was only an afterthought.

Dan prematurely signed a contract with the company that allowed the company to sue challengers directly should those challengers place a measure on the ballot to test public support for these cameras. In other communities, the company had to wait until there was an actual plaintiff complaining of these cameras before they had standing to sue.

I don’t believe the city should make it easy for corporations to sue citizens.

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County Executive

Jack Louws

Lynden mayor, businessman wants to be county CEO

By Tim Johnson · Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Sometimes what goes around comes around.

Jack Louws saw what it took to be county executive up close as a young man. His father, John, was Whatcom County’s first chief executive in 1979 when the county switched to home-rule governance. John’s son Jack, 53-year-old Birch Bay businessman and former mayor of Lynden, has built up a tremendous base of support in his bid for the position, with campaign signs peppering yards in the northern county.

A proven negotiator and project manager, as Lynden’s mayor Jack helped shepherd a number of capital facilities improvements, including a new library, police station and city hall and upgraded water, sewer and stormwater systems. He also served on key county boards and committees, including the Whatcom Council of Governments and Growth Management Advisory Board, as well as boards of Whatcom Transportation Authority, Economic Development Initiative Council and Emergency Medical Services Advisory Council. His knowledge of county issues in play is deep and broad.

Louws is endorsed by the mayors of Blaine, Ferndale, Lynden, Nooksack, and Sumas, as well as Port of Bellingham Commissioner Scott Walker and former Lummi Nation chair Darrell Hillaire. He has not sought party endorsements.

“It means a lot to me to have been endorsed by five of Whatcom’s seven mayors,” Louws said. “I believe they’d say they respect my ability to work with others to achieve results. I have not sought endorsements by either political party because I don’t think politics really has a place in the executive’s office. I try to leave the politics at home.”

Cascadia Weekly: Residing near Point Whitehorn, you’re at ground zero to the impacts of a proposed major coal export facility planned at Cherry Point. What are your thoughts on this project as county executive?

Jack Louws: The neighborhood does have some concerns with noise, rail impacts and ship traffic. And, yes, I do have personal connection to them and that area.

The terminal is on everybody’s mind in Whatcom County, it is a big deal. It’s something we need to pay special attention to.

We do need good jobs; and we need to go through the process to determine whether these will be good jobs, whether they meet our land use criteria, and whether—socially, economically and environmentally—it adds to our community.

CW: Are you satisfied, watching how this process has unfolded to date, that the community concerns you’ve outlined are being addressed?

JL: In many ways, we may be ahead of ourselves, with a great deal of awareness about this project at this early stage. I think Whatcom County made a wise decision several weeks ago in not allowing the scoping and permitting to be added on to the back of the 1997 agreement. It didn’t pass the smell test to suggest what they’re wanting to do now was an extension of that.

Gateway Pacific has stubbed their toes recently [moving forward on their work before permits were in place]. One of things I found in Lynden is when you have development applications come in, through the process you get a sense of whether or not the applicants are willing to work with local governments and the community, whether they’re going to be good partners. Ultimately, I think the level of scrutiny was going to be extremely high on this project, just because of the scope of it, but based on some of the action, the community is going to expect even more from them. And I think the community has expressed valid concerns.

CW: The council has a well-defined role in judging this project. What do you see as the executive’s role in this process?

JL: Process is the exact word. The executive really doesn’t have a decision to make; but the community is not well served if the executive and the administration is not open to listening to everybody and allowing all of the stakeholders to have equal, forthright access to information.

At the end of the day, we have to have a complete document for the Whatcom County Council to act on. If I come into it with a preconceived outcome in mind, that hinders people’s ability to freely discuss their concerns.

CW: Speaking as a businessman, what are your thoughts—in general—about heavy industry at Cherry Point and its influence on Whatcom County’s economy?

JL: I think it’s the glue that holds our economy together. Those industrial-based jobs are our family-wage jobs, and the rest of the economy hinges upon them.

I think there is an opportunity for a deepwater port out there. I would really love to see a facility where we were manufacturing something and exporting that. I’d prefer jobs where we were making something with that resource, either regionally or nationally.

If you look at it apart from the proposal itself, if you look at U.S. energy policy, you have to ask, “Why are we as a community taking something we don’t like and do not use ourselves, exporting it to China to fuel the factories that compete against our industry, and then have that pollution from that come back through the air stream to the United States? Whatcom County Executive is not at a high enough level to articulate those concerns as national policy, other than to communicate those concerns to our national representatives, but I think those are valid concerns.

On the other hand, Gateway Pacific are landowners out there and they have a legal right to apply for a permit under our application process and to develop an environmental impact statement and to mitigate our concerns.

We need to maintain the trust with landowners that we will treat their applications fairly and thoroughly under the law, or we’re not going to see businesses locating or relocating their operations here.

CW: You’ve had experience in developing large scale capital projects in Lynden.

JL: Yes. One of the reasons we were able to accomplish as much as we did in Lynden with as little controversy is we allowed for a very robust public process. We sought community involvement early in all of them—not 100 percent community agreement, but I believe we understood community views about those projects. We were able to make decisions that were then articulated back to citizens in a manner that would allow them to happen.

I don’t have any illusions that this is not going to be a very involved process of getting the community involved in a variety of ways.

To make any venture successful, public or private, you have to empower and inspire people within their areas of expertise. As a manager of resources, I have tried to drive the word “I” out of my vocabulary and talk about “we.”

CW: You delivered an interesting insight at a recent meeting when you described how you were able to achieve high environmental design standards for Lynden’s capital projects at reduced cost by, essentially, being selective of those standards.

JL: The City of Lynden had infrastructure needs and a limited amount of money. I put together a task force—builders who were not going to bid on the project, but with a deep knowledge of industry standards, and other community members, staff and council (getting their early involvement was critical)—and decided one of the things we needed to do right away is orient the projects around LEED standards, as environmentally efficient as we could.

The group decided, let’s do that work internally. Let’s drive it down to its components and not increase costs through architectural fees, and build something we could be proud of.

In some cases, to get LEED certification, you pay 30 to 40 percent extra for the exact same wood that is available from the same forest and same supplier. You’re paying for that piece of paper, the bronze plaque on the side of the building. What’s important over the next 100 years is that you get a final product built as efficiently as it can be. If LEED standards are good, let’s build to those standards.

What we got, ultimately, was a fine building at a reduced cost and without a lot of fuss getting there.

CW: This brings us to the topic of the jail. What are your thoughts there on the construction and siting of this facility?

JL: I think what I did in Lynden, the development of the task force, should have been done for the jail in 2007 rather than 2011. It’s a shame the administration did not seek community input early and often on this. It’s going to take the executive and a couple of council members a lot of time to sit on that task force—not to lead the process but to be able to articulate back to the community what is being discussed.

Really, we’re starting over.

We spent a lot of money on draft environmental impact statement that focused on a narrow set of locations and assumptions. I think the committee will have to expand its search area—not necessary farther away, but to loosen restrictions that give us additional site options.

I firmly believe that we need a horizontal jail, a vertical structure is too costly to maintain. I firmly believe it needs to be expandable, so we get the right-size jail we need now without expending all of our resource capital.

The cost of the building over the life of the structure is probably under half. So we really have to be cognizant of the costs to operate the facility.

Right now, we’re spending a couple of million dollars more out of the general fund than we had originally envisioned for law enforcement services. The general fund budget is unsustainable. We need to look at that very carefully.

CW: Related to public safety, what are your thoughts on unified emergency medical service in Whatcom County. You served on a task force that looked at that.

JL: I’ve been involved in these discussions since at least 2002, so I do understand why Whatcom County Council put notice in that they would terminate unified EMS.

Parallel to that, though, we have to do everything possible to keep emergency response service unified as one operating structure. It is not efficient to do things twice. And I think the people of Whatcom County put together a tremendous unified system a few years back, one that needs to be strengthened, and we need to respect that.

I think we need to take a couple of steps back and figure out our common themes and build from there. From what I’ve seen, a lot of that is already underway and I compliment our fire chiefs and their staffs. I would hope that the unions would continue to work together, as brothers should, and I see promise that they will do so.

I’m upset that we have three County Council members and three Bellingham City Council members sitting down on this without their executives sitting alongside them. Where are our executives in this discussion?

CW: Some of that has to do with friction between those executives. How will you address that?

JL: [laughs] I get along with everybody.

I’ve met personally with most of Bellingham City Council. I think we understand one another, even if we don’t necessarily agree. I get along with Dan Pike very well, and Kelli and I have been friends for years—her husband has been my attorney for 28 years. I focus on issues, and I believe 90-95 percent of what we deal with in local government has nothing to do with being liberal or conservative. I think it is one of the reasons, for example, that I was chosen to be head of the Growth Management Coordinating Council. I don’t let things get personal if they don’t go my way.

I don’t think Lake Whatcom water quality, for example, is a liberal or conservative issue. It just needs to be dealt with.

CW: You’ve opened the door—Lake Whatcom and growth management. What needs to happen with the lake? How should the management team be structured?

JL: We need to be more project focused. We need to turn the corner from spending money on studies and consultants, to put more emphasis on projects on the ground.

One thing I think we can do, that I’d like to discuss, is to direct a portion of our real estate excise tax for those projects and focus conservation futures back into site-specific land acquisitions. We can use real estate excise tax from developments to improve the roads leading to those developments.

I think we also have an opportunity to begin engineering work on some of these projects so we are able to take those projects out for state and federal funding. I’ve found funds become much more available when you can demonstrate work is already underway on projects.

CW: Do you support the Reconveyance of state lands to county management as a component of lake protection?

JL: Well, I had mentioned that the county was spending about $2 million more in the general fund than what we are taking in. The course we’re on is unsustainable. Parallel to that, the county parks department budget has been decimated.

There may be a time in the future when the reconveyance would work, but until then—we own the property. Whether we own it through the state or through the county, it is public land. It’s just a bigger corporation running it under state management than county management.

I would say that until I feel secure as county executive that we’re on a sustainable fiscal course, I do not want to take on additional burdens. I guess ultimately, I do not want to make my job any harder in 2013 to produce a balanced budget for the county.

CW: As mayor of Lynden, you had your own challenges with water. In Lynden’s case, it is a constricted water supply and water right. Let’s talk about water rights as they apply to both economic growth and land use capacity.

JL: That need is probably more significant to the ag community in general than what it is specifically to the City of Lynden.
If I told you I had the solution to guarantee a complete and unrestricted water right to our berry growers, I’d be lying to you. What I do have is a relatively good background and history of what has occurred to date among the stakeholders in the farm community, as well as the tribes.

There is a possibility with Whatcom PUD to transfer back what might be called non-low-flow water that we might transfer back out into the berry fields.

I think what we need is instead of each one of these entities taking a single piece of this to solve it, we need more of a holistic commonsense approach that takes care of many issues at the same time. Maybe our approach should be to get the north county and the ag community there taken care of first, and use that as a model for the remainder.

One thing we did get in Lynden as we worked through this is a letter from Lummi Nation saying this is important, we need to take care of this. Their commitment is very important.

CW: You served early and with some distinction in county growth management issues. How important is it that the county get into compliance with state growth goals?

JL: We’ve got to get into compliance with the state. We have just got to do it!

It’s just unfortunate that when the Growth Management Act went into place in the 1990s that the initial goal, the work that we did, created these huge urban growth areas around each of our cities. And everybody did it right then, they were all approved then. But now we’ve learned that, through this process, we need to be more constrictive. Well, how do you do that?

That takes billions of dollars of value away from people who have an expectation, based on decisions made in the ’90s, that they will not suffer a downzone.

Frankly, you have a lot of people in rural Whatcom County who have lost confidence in their government. We need to be able to start rebuilding that trust, especially as we move toward creating a sustainable economy. People need to have confidence that if they buy a piece of property as a business investment, they are able to see that project through.

One thing I noticed through this last process, it felt like the county was trying to treat each community equally and with the same template. Yet each one of our small cities is individual and unique. The industrial land needs of Sumas, for example, are entirely different from those of Lynden.
The multipliers there are different, as as they are in Bellingham.

Through the next process I would like to sit down with the small city mayors and staff, develop a schedule of what’s involved so we have enough time to plan (that really threw a lot of us off this round), and then get into a discussion with the communities to discover the unique character each of these places offer. The last attempt tried to fit us all into the same mathematical box—it doesn’t work.

But these decisions are really legislative in outcome. My job is to facilitate that policy discussion.

CW: Continuing the topic of economic development and vitality, there are several million dollars in county economic development funds currently unallocated. Might you spend some of that to help jumpstart a project like the Bellingham waterfront?

JL: One thing I would like to present to Whatcom County Council and the EDI board is to use a portion of that money to help backfill small businesses in manufacturing, industrial and agricultural areas. We could, for example, use the money to help offset impact and permit fees, if it is lawful to use funds do so, imposed by cities, for example, to help make the area regionally more competitive.

I would want to make sure some large company could not just come into the area and clean out the whole fund, which is why I’d focus efforts on smaller businesses.

EDI has committed a million dollars to build low-income housing. I think it is just as important to use those funds to get our small businesses, our employers, competitive.

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