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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.

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