Why does the Bellingham Herald hate Bellingham?

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

WHY DOES THE BELLINGHAM HERALD HATE BELLINGHAM?: In our analysis last week of the failed WTA transit levy, we neglected to note The Bellingham Herald came out early on and strongly against the .2¢ sales tax increase. While acknowledging the opposition arguments were “misleading” in suggesting Whatcom Transportation Authority held sufficient fund reserves to stall immediate service cuts, the Herald’s editorial board nevertheless seemed to buy that misleading argument, reasoning the economy might improve in the future to stall those cuts. Yet no one on the WTA board—whether they agreed with the decision to ask voters to decide the matter, or thought the board should just cut service rather than ask (and there were a few board members in the second camp)—no one believed service cuts would not be immediate and profound should the levy fail. Indeed, the 2011 projection outlining the severity of those cuts was already in print in November. Despite the Herald’s improbation, though, the levy passed overwhelmingly—by more than 64 percent—within Bellingham precincts, a sad commentary on both the Herald’s decayed capacity to influence public opinion and its ability to accurately reflect the values and beliefs of ’hamsters whom the daily newspaper claims to serve and represent.

And while it’s clear Bellingham doesn’t give a rip what the Herald says or thinks, others from outside the community still scan the diminished daily to glean our values and beliefs, believing the daily speaks for the town. In this, they are mistaken.

That last point became amply clear two weeks ago after the governor read an especially churlish and myopic Herald editorial grousing about the state budget that took an incidental potshot—oh, for example—at a $250,000 grant approved by the state to help complete the new Pickford Film Center. The governor’s office saw the editorial and, according to sources close to the governor, made the very reasonable calculation that a community like Everett or Bremerton wouldn’t repay her with a black eye for her support of a community improvement. The governor considered withdrawing her support via a line-item veto of the grant; and only a very serious pubic opinion blitz by ardent PFC supporters paused her red pen.

What the Herald’s teabaggerish tirade failed to recognize was not only the economic stimulus and multipliers that arrive from reviving a mature construction project downtown, but one that also rescues the private investment of many hundreds of thousands of dollars that have already been donated by hundreds of supporters of independent cinema. Indeed, the Pickford’s private fundraising efforts were well underway when the economy collapsed in 2008, trapping or eliminating thousands of pledges that might have finished the project solely through private donation. Faced with waiting for the economy to recover to revive a pledge drive—in effect, doing the work twice—PFC directors instead sought “bridge” capital from state and local sources in order to get economic metrics working on behalf of downtown. Canny local efforts, including those of state senators Dale Brandland and Kevin Ranker, worked loose $250,000 from the state. Another $75,000 arrives from a one-time grant from the city’s lodging tax fund—which supports tourism, the museum and the Mount Baker Theatre—a decision approved by some very forward thinkers representing those institutions that the PFC would return the investment many times over (that decision was made nearly two months ago; the Herald only got around to redlining it this week). Together, these grants will be paired with a contingent, matching community development grant from the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust.

This is an effort that merits scorn from the community newspaper?

The Herald continued its deranged opining last week, choosing to side against the efforts of city leaders to secure a more thorough cleanup of a public park from a federal agency.

“Our editorial board watched a recent public hearing on the issue via the city’s convenient rebroadcast on the city cable access channel,” Herald Opinions Editor Scott Ayers wrote [the Gristle hasn’t seen Scott actually attend a public meeting in more than two years]. “Not surprisingly, most of the members of the public [also, presumably, the majority of Herald readers?] who spoke were for the most expensive option—digging up whatever problem soils exist and hauling them off to a landfill.”

Bellingham City Council supported a recommendation to the Environmental Protection Agency in March that requested a more expansive (but by no means onerous) cleanup alternative for Little Squalicum Creek. The alternative would require removing the more hazardous byproducts of the shuttered Oeser Company’s wood-treatment processes and transporting them to a landfill for disposal—an operation with an estimated cost of between $2 to $7.5 million dollars.

Cognizant of costs, COB offered to accept the least expensive in this category of options. The EPA prefers to cap the toxins in place, a plan only marginally cheaper than the alternative the city supports.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the champions of public opinion, the Herald, supported COB as an initial bargaining position with the EPA? Y’know, rather than dickering against residents in favor of an inferior outcome?

The city doesn’t have much legal standing with the EPA in the decision, period, only to have it further undermined by opinion pieces from the local paper crowing to decision-makers in D.C. that we ought to happily settle for much, much less. We’ll admit, at least, the editorial is consistent with the Herald’s overall opinion of waterfront redevelopment that—regardless of how costs are assigned or recovered— Bellingham ought to be satisfied with the most dismal of options.

Perhaps all this helps explain in part why The Bellingham Herald’s average daily circulation has plummeted from 27,000 in 1998 to 19,000 a decade later, according to figures provided by the Audit Bureau of Circulations: We’re not sure why the Herald hates Bellingham, but it’s pretty clear the feeling is mutual.