Think that the Chuckanut Ridge land debacle is the worst thing that could happen to our community? How about if the Whatcom County Executive and Council take over 9,000 acres of land in the Lake Whatcom watershed? What’d be bad about that, you say? Well currently the land is under the protection of the State of Washington’s, Department of Natural Resources and held to the highest standards of current public land uses. Also, the County receives revenue from this land from managed commercial logging, and the County also benefits from the DNR’s logging roads that act as trails for light impact use by the public. If Whatcom County takes over this property the tax payers will lose a lot of money from tax revenues, and take on the liabilities of any landslides, floods, fires, et al that could occur on this property. The trails will either be removed or very likely reduced in number due to the costs of maintaining them.
The current Whatcom County Executive, Pete Kremen and Whatcom County Council President, Sam Crawford are all in on this one, in fact it’s popularly referred to as “Pete Kremen Park”. Why is it that politicians who spend decades in the political system are only willing to leave after they have some public park, museum, library or facility named after themselves?
Yours in Truth, Shelly
Lake Whatcom land exchange back on agenda at Board of Natural Resources
October 7th, 2011 9 AM PST by john - The Bellingham HeraldFrom Stark
A much-discussed plan to transfer state land around Lake Whatcom to Whatcom County for management as park land is back on the agenda of the state’s Board of Natural Resources on Monday, Oct. 10 in Olympia.
Mitch Friedman, executive director of Conservation Northwest, says a busload of environmentalists will be heading to the capital for the 9 a.m. meeting.
The critical vote on this transfer will be cast by the Whatcom County Council, but before that can happen, the state board must approve a complex intra-state transfer of the land among various categories of state management, to lay the legal groundwork for the transfer of nearly 9,000 acres to the county.
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The illiberal control freaks just keep throwing things against the wall to see what sticks. If it doesn't stick, they just bring it up again later. As preservatives, our job is to keep scraping things off the wall faster than the illiberal control freaks can throw it up there.
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