Monday, October 7, 2013

Who is “Uniting Creatives”? What are “Vibrant Futures”? How big should a mouthful be?


Saturday, an organization called “Uniting Creatives” hosted a conference on “Vibrant Futures” at Syre Hall. Someone had sent us a link to a 4th Request for Proposal Submittal to the Bellingham Port Authority, a late entry from Uniting Creatives. I went to the Uniting Creatives website, and found the conference promo the day it happened, October 5, 2013. Too bad—I had scheduled a client that day.

Looking at the Uniting Creatives RFP document, the word “Utopia” comes to mind. It is everything that everyone wants. Global change. Global leadership. New luxury code. Waterfront trails. Olymic size pool. Green energy. Blue economy (oceanography). Green economy. Toxic clean up strategies. Urban gondola to WWU campus. Global grad school campuses. Incubation of new entreprenuers. Global media complex. Dozens of environmental agency stickers.  All really nice stuff. A breath of fresh air from the no coal drum beat.

Maybe the “jobs first” election campaigns are are beating the “no coal” campaign, and a different tack is needed. Maybe the “handlers” pulled Terry Wechsler out of the GPT debate at the Tea Party so as to promote a carrot instead of a stick. Maybe I should not be so cynical.

Sifting through the layers of the Uniting Creatives website, I found a link to a 5-23-13 Joe Show (KBAI Progressive Talk), where Phylis Joy Gilfilen and Lane Southcott of Uniting Creatives explained their goals and methods. Both are longtime local residents with business success stories and business clout. Joe Teehan interviewed the pair last week as well, 9-30-13. Great ideas. Great enthusiasm. Great energeee.

Uniting Creatives is scheduled to present their RPF submittal to the Port of Bellingham today, Monday, October 7, 2013. I would suggest you look at the draft on their website. See link below.  Note that in the mile long list of collaborative agencies, somehow Whatcom Business Alliance and the Building Industry Association of Whatcom County did not sign on. What issues might they have with “Vibrant Futures”.

So, what does this mean? “Vibrant Futures”  works to get people on opposite spectrums together. breaking down fears, reactive and adversarial patterns. We are to recognize scare stories that snooker and polarize us for lifetimes. We are to see our high intelligence, and go after the bad system. The problems are not with me, and not with you, but… with what we have made together in the past. Lets throw it all out and start over. Cash flow is king. Make whatever compromise is necessary to get the cash moving again. Great ideal. This is also an opportunity to give away the store to the globalist movement. Everything has a price tag!!

Being snookered. Having fears. Why did the thirteen colonies press separation of government powers so far? Was it not to make individual abuse of power more difficult?  Is man always good, just needing the right environment to resolve his problems himself? Progressives declare  the divine spark in man, but then legislate every aspect of life. Conservatives declare a fallen, sinful mankind, and then let the free market spank the miscreants. The Enlightenment in the French Revolution left a legacy of death and destruction. Puritans and Virginian gentlemen gave us separation of powers, which has served the United States very well.

I looked at parts of the three other RFP submittals for water front master plan redevelopers. Solid credentials with past development experience. Organizations that have developed waterfront communities and economies.  Uniting Creatives will need more than chutzpah for a long range master developer role.

The Uniting Creatives RFP submittal rests on a gentleman named Paul Holmes, a seasoned leader in Olympics development, with significant success milestones in his career. And, it is driven by the desire of many locals to “get back in the game”, to put small businesses (500 or fewer employees) in the driver’s seat. SSA’s cooperation with larger natural resource firms supposedly makes them not a small business.  The UC submittal for the local port is so global in its scope that it may ultimately be untenable.

Which brings me to the elections and the Port Candidates. If the ethos of the Vibrant Futures/Uniting Creatives master developer proposal is the “fuzzy goodness” of creativity (listen to the two Joe Shows), we definitely need single bottom line port commissioners who can separate chaff from wheat. I would not vote for either Mike McCauley or Renata Kowalcyk. We do not need commissioners who are “easy collaborative negotiators”, simply echoing the Vibrant Futures applicants.

 Whatcom County may be over regulated, but creative anarchy would be worse. There is a reason why capital investment loans require collateral. We need master plan developers who are in this for the long haul. Peace makers eventually run up against stake holders, and must have the grit to endure the hail of resistance and the droughts of desertion. Good feelings and vibrant futures are only secured with significant personal sacrifice. It will be up to the commissioners to choose the master developer. I will vote for highly stable candidates, not the ultra flexible ones.




12 comments:

  1. Looking at the Master Developer RFP responses, it appears the Williams/Dame & Assoc. proposal stands well above the rest in terms of real-world experience and credibility.

    That said, it's disappointing there wasn't more interest in and response to this RFP. One option the Port might consider is a re-issuance of the RFP with advertisement directed at the many west-coast firms that have experience in this type of redevelopment.

    Meanwhile, on the Port's RFP page, they don't provide a link to the Uniting Creatives proposal, so hopefully it's not even being "considered".

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    1. Hey Sam,

      Same process as the county uses, so it's being considered and it's being treated with the exact same vetting as every proposal.

      We do the same thing with our bids, if you follow the rules of submittal then you go through the process as equals. The process will reveal any flaws, you know we can't prejudge

      Hope to run into you out at Westside soon. :-)

      Mike McAuley

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  2. I am surprised at the not so subtle cynicism and "downing" of the Uniting Creatives RFP. Comments that only research has been a brief perusal of a website. Is that how opinions are made by the authors of this blog? The Uniting Creatives (UC) proposal is about what will bring the best use of the Waterfront properties as Marine Trades Development AND development of the downtown, AND creating a space on the water that is not just another retail trap for residents to hope that "if they build it they will come." The other proposals are about making a profit from prime waterfront real estate, they are not about bringing a sustainable system of idea generation and intellectual property development for the area that will supply thousands of jobs for decades and give the community tools to become world leaders in building the "new economy" sustainability, recognition of our earth as a precious partner in enhancing life for all of us. The UC proposal has Four Pillars: 1) Academic education programs with evolving curriculum 2) Business curriculum with evolving curriculum 3) Incubation Centers for semi-established and beginning stage entrepreneurs and 4) a Uniting Media Center to do online curriculum and information distribution. All of these programs can begin being implemented by using the empty buildings in Downtown Bellingham to house the "campus" (much like WCC began) which will put money, cash, operating capital, into the local building owners hands which they can use for improvements and expansion, will bring people into the downtown walking around buying food and goods, WHILE the construction at the Waterfront is going on. Get the flow going NOT JUST put money in the pockets of real estate developers. This is a plan that should be embraced by the community. The goal is to make Bellingham and Whatcom County the global destination for change: new technologies development, systems studies and organizational strategies, nimble structures, business development in sync with life systems sciences... I would challenge ANYONE to talk to the folks at Uniting Creatives to find out the full story, not just rely on what can be gleaned from a just developing website from only an initial concept proposal and a few paragraphs about the Vibrant Futures Conference Series, of which by the way a third in the VFCSeries is scheduled for March 1, 2013.

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    1. I'm sure that you meant to write that the 3rd VFCS is on March 1st 2014.

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    2. Some points I'd like to ask:

      The proposal from Uniting Creatives seeks to buy the entire waterfront and all of the empty buildings/spaces in the downtown corridor, or lease them if not willing to sell them. Is this true?

      The proposal from Uniting Creatives has a lot of dollars coming from not only outside of the County, the State, but also the Country. How does this retain local control of our community?

      The proposal seeks to insert itself into the curriculum of our public schools, technical schools, colleges and universities. Will the residents of Whatcom County have the ability to see this curriculum beforehand and veto it if they do not want this taught to their children? Will we retain local control of our schools at all anymore?

      The Uniting Creatives proposal seeks to create hives or incubators of creativity, setting them up with everything they need to develop their ideas. What's in it for Uniting Creatives? Will these individuals have to sign a lifetime agreement if their ideas bear fruit?

      The proposal seeks to bring mass transit buses and gondola's to connect the downtown, waterfront and university. Does this mean that downtown Bellingham will be even less available to personal vehicles?

      The RFP showed a proposed $4B in spending from 2014 -2017. That is a lot of money which would obviously buy a lot of influence in the city/county. Where exactly is $4B dollars coming from? Who is buying up downtown Bellingham and the waterfront?

      An inquiry to the Port of Bellingham discloses that Uniting Creatives paid them $3M to accept this RFP master plan proposal. Is that true and where did the $3M come from?

      While $4B buys a lot of influence, there are a lot of questions that need to be fully vetted and disclosed to the residents and tax payers. This will either be a huge success that would change Bellingham/Whatcom County forever, or a huge flop. Is it too big too fail? Who will be left to pick up the pieces of a proposal so large and to my knowledge has never been done before?

      Bellingham/Whatcom County needs to be bold and ask themselves if they want to retain local control, because I do not see this how that could be possible once and if this proposal were to reach full build out.

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    3. Thanks to Whatcom Works for taking the time to read through our proposal and to actually write about it. I appreciate this, even though it seems that you have a very cynical approach to a truly local movement that could have some solid legs under it.

      What if this was for real? What if it actually is locally based? Would you still shoot it out of the air on its first flight?

      What if, with your support rather than your disbelief, it could really gain some altitude? What if you actually gave us some time to gather endorsements, rather than speculating that people we have not talked to already said no?

      I invite you to honestly come interview us. Look at the logic, the common sense and the achievability of it. Look at the ripple effects on the community...especially if the community got behind it. You might be surprised at how solid it is, and at how fast we could turn around the economy, and get people working again.

      To the Anonymous person…no, we did not buy off the Port. It is simply illogical, and not true. If you actually understood and read the proposal, you would see that we are looking for solid citizen local support to anchor the core of the project, so it does not go askew and off into the ethers of big interests. Yes, we do need to have some big investments to hold the education arms into place...but the goal is to keep that money recycling in our community so that we have the multiplier effect benefits; and we are planning to help local people spin off many local small enterprise companies.

      In fact, this is a briliant economic stimulus project for this community...and I hope a few of you who understand that small business is actually what provides the economic base for the community will speak up. Big business doesn't do it, government bureaucracies don't do it, and laziness doesn't work.

      Tiny people, with passion, vision and guts are what changes economies, changes the future, and makes a difference. That because we understand the bottomline: Local involvement = local control. Give it away and it is gone.

      For any of you...whether sceptical or intrigued...I invite you to come check it out. I am the person who envisioned the original Vibrant Futures conference to invite new ideas. Before that I did the Community Visionaries Conference, and before that the Social Media Conference, and before that...many other things. A long time ago I did the Fairhaven Task Force project...and I have given and given and given to this community. Layne has given back, Scott has too. And Paul is simply brilliant, and is a gift to us with alot of really large successes to his credit.

      Maybe one of you might cut us some slack. It is possible this could be a winner, and you might just like the results. Feel free to contact us at 360-510-9757 or Friend us on Facebook.

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    4. ...I had over 4096 characters, so this will be in segments... Segment1

      Hello Anonymous! Is this “V” I am talking with? ";-> Verily a verisimilitude of vivacious veracity!

      Glad you are asking questions, amazing the rumors that you are either fabricating, perhaps just propagating or even maybe just heard and are passing on. Perhaps you are writing these statements so that you can claim "Hey someone wrote that:..." But of course you are Anonymous, so no one knows who you are, you have no accountability and are literally hiding behind a blind... so I should probably ignore the statements you have made and move on... Regardless, I can also sense a glimmer of hope for the community that this may just be true and honest and above board, and so... Let me take this paragraph by paragraph: Oh, Yes, I meant March 1, 2014
      Please be aware that this is a very complex process, so I will have to abbreviate, we will be launching a website in the next few days that will begin to address what our hopes and dreams are for our community www.bellinghawaterfrontproject.com. Keep in mind that this is a Waterfront AND Downtown development, cause dude, we need the work.

      Q1) “The proposal from Uniting Creatives seeks to buy the entire waterfront and all of the empty buildings/spaces in the downtown corridor, or lease them if not willing to sell them. Is this true?” Reply1) Purchase of property; the Port is only offering 11 acres to begin this project, (not the entire waterfront) they need/want to sell this to fund the cleanup, it is the POB's responsibility to supply a "clean" building site, the contractors responsibility to build, so the POB gets the money from purchase of the land, the money goes into cleanup supplemented by gvt matching funds from Dept of Ecology (DOE), this will take 9 months to a year before the ground is even ready to build on. Architects need to design, building permits issued (and some of us know THAT drill) and then that starts, so 18 months very optimistic, probably 24-30 months to actually begin building. However, we want to get the juices flowing for Bellingham sooner than that, so the plan is to initiate one of the Four Pillars [ Four Pillars: 4P1) Post Graduate Academic Pillar 4P2) Business Curriculum Pillar 4P3) Open Spaces Business Incubation Pillar, 4P4) Uniting Media Center] to begin, we start up 4P3, the Open Spaces Business Incubation Pillar or Entrepreneurial Incubation Hives, this portion of the business plans can be rolled out the quickest, 6-8 months from GO, the plan is to begin a flow of money into the hands of local building owners by leasing out space for the Hives in Downtown Bellingham. If you look up stats from Small Bus Assoc (SBA) you will learn that 65% of ALL jobs in the US over the last 17 yrs came from Small Business, NOT giant corporations, so let's maximize that potential.

      Q2} “The proposal from Uniting Creatives has a lot of dollars coming from not only outside of the County, the State, but also the Country. How does this retain local control of our community?”
      Reply2) Ahhh Yeeaaaah, who in Whatcom County has $4B to long term fund something like this? It has to come from somewhere else. We have a solid line to a company that has done major Real Estate Developments around the world, they built the Ficher Plaza(Seattle), Seafirst Financial Plaza (Seattle), Daytona Laguna Campus (Redmond) and literally thousands of other quality sites... They already had money set aside for a “Educational Focus Sustainable Development” that went sideways down in CA, as they want to help support sustainable practices and LEED buildings and promote other leading edge development standards into the future. We spoke with them about using local building contractors and suppliers and they WANT to do so as much as possible with the best engineering factors and capabilities of local building professionals.

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    5. ...Segment 2...
      Q3) “The proposal seeks to insert itself into the curriculum of our public schools, technical schools, colleges and universities. Will the residents of Whatcom County have the ability to see this curriculum beforehand and veto it if they do not want this taught to their children? Will we retain local control of our schools at all anymore?
      Reply3) What? ... The 4P1 Post Graduate Academic Pillar is for the best of the best of POST GRADUATE academia. This is course work outside of the existing schools and colleges. The plan is to have an evolving curriculum, short courses of 3-6-9-12 weeks that enhance the local educational institutions with cutting edge education opportunities after graduation. Note that there will also be “life experience certification” so people that may not have a college education can still take the courses. We want the profs and departments of the local colleges, WWU, WCC, Fairhaven College, Bellingham Technical Institute, Huxley College, all to have a hand in developing the curriculum. Did you know that this is how many teachers supplement their incomes? By developing curriculum and getting a royalty from the use. We want to put dollars in the hands of local people to help develop the curriculum. This program will also make available the best minds from around the world to come in as guest Profs, Speakers and Educators, both on the teaching end and the student end. The 4P2 Business Curriculum is about developing curriculum for businesses from around the world, again an evolving curriculum where we learn from the people taking the courses the same time as we teach them and incorporate new technological and business stratagems into the next version/offering of the course.

      Q4) “The Uniting Creatives proposal seeks to create hives or incubators of creativity, setting them up with everything they need to develop their ideas. What's in it for Uniting Creatives? Will these individuals have to sign a lifetime agreement if their ideas bear fruit?”
      Reply4) What's in it for UC? We get a piece of the pie when a company is successful, 17% or 19% or 22% or whatever is negotiated in a contract. Fair enough. There will be a minimum 18 month incubation investment period where we will provide a place, counsel, mentoring, office supplies, training...usually an entrepreneur is only good at two or three things out of the twenty they need to do to have a successful business. SBA says success rates of new biznesses are 18% without help, that jumps to 46% with SBA help, imagine what the success rates will be with a custome designed support program for each business? Different levels of start-ups will be able to come in, some may have good product and system but just need help with the next level of success, or they may have product but no distribution set up, or they may just have an idea. It only will take one Google, or one Visio, or one Barron Heating, or one Alpha Technologies, or one Anvil, or one Saturna Capital to make it worth it in the long run...that is what INVESTMENT is all about.
      ...to be continued...

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    6. ...Segment 3...
      Q4) “The Uniting Creatives proposal seeks to create hives or incubators of creativity, setting them up with everything they need to develop their ideas. What's in it for Uniting Creatives? Will these individuals have to sign a lifetime agreement if their ideas bear fruit?”
      Reply4) What's in it for UC? We get a piece of the pie when a company is successful, 17% or 19% or 22% or whatever is negotiated in a contract. Fair enough. There will be a minimum 18 month incubation investment period where we will provide a place, counsel, mentoring, office supplies, training...usually an entrepreneur is only good at two or three things out of the twenty they need to do to have a successful business. SBA says success rates of new biznesses are 18% without help, that jumps to 46% with SBA help, imagine what the success rates will be with a custome designed support program for each business? Different levels of start-ups will be able to come in, some may have good product and system but just need help with the next level of success, or they may have product but no distribution set up, or they may just have an idea. It only will take one Google, or one Visio, or one Barron Heating, or one Alpha Technologies, or one Anvil, or one Saturna Capital to make it worth it in the long run...that is what INVESTMENT is all about.

      Q5) “The proposal seeks to bring mass transit buses and gondola's to connect the downtown, waterfront and university. Does this mean that downtown Bellingham will be even less available to personal vehicles?”
      Reply5) The Waterfront parking will be designed so that less cars will glom it up and both the Waterfront AND Downtown have MORE accessibility. The City of Bellinghan WANTS the plan to include different modes of transportation. We are proposing to build parking garages around the perimeter of the waterfront to act as sight, sound and safety buffers from the railroad tracks. Because of their location this will also serve to give more affordable parking for downtown. If you work downtown you are well aware of THIS need! The combination of serving the downtown and the waterfront both will enable WTA or whatever mode is used, electric vans, electric bicycles, pedi-cabs to increase the frequency of transport mode, a critical component of successful “people moving.” We have opened conversation with WTA to discuss ideas and considerations.
      ...to be continued...

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    7. ...Segment 4...
      Q6) “The RFP showed a proposed $4B in spending from 2014 -2017. That is a lot of money which would obviously buy a lot of influence in the city/county. Where exactly is $4B dollars coming from? Who is buying up downtown Bellingham and the waterfront?”
      Reply6) Already answered in Q2. Oh, “buy a lot of influence” bit, well yeah money talks, but the $4B is not “spending” between 2014-2017. A BIG chunk of it, probably half goes into an endowment fund, of which the principal does not go away, is not “spent” Operations are carried out from the money made on the interest generated from the endowment. Other portions are used for land purchase, underwriting (investing) in the Open Spaces Pillar, building and development. It is amazing how when you start adding things up $4B sounds like a “ton-o-money” and it is lots, but it has to be divvied out responsibly and imaginatively to make all the pieces work, on the grand scale for a project of this size it is enough but not an exorbitant amount.

      Q7) “An inquiry to the Port of Bellingham discloses that Uniting Creatives paid them $3M to accept this RFP master plan proposal. Is that true and where did the $3M come from?”
      Reply7) Ahhh, No. Not true. That would be illegal and incredibly stupid.
      We are working to RAISE $3M locally to show that the community is behind this endeavor. Our community needs to show that they have the WILL to get behind this project, Margaret Mead quote here: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”
      ...to be continued...

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    8. ....Segment 5 of 5... if I counted right, can't see what was submitted until it gets "approved"
      Q8) “While $4B buys a lot of influence, there are a lot of questions that need to be fully vetted and disclosed to the residents and tax payers. This will either be a huge success that would change Bellingham/Whatcom County forever, or a huge flop. Is it too big too fail? Who will be left to pick up the pieces of a proposal so large and to my knowledge has never been done before? Bellingham/Whatcom County needs to be bold and ask themselves if they want to retain local control, because I do not see this how that could be possible once and if this proposal were to reach full build out.”
      Reply8) Good questions. If this is to be it will be a huge success that will change Bellingham/Whatcom forever. And yes this has never been done before, ever, in the world, that is the point. There is no ONE PLACE in the world for people to learn about these subjects, no single destination. We need jobs, income, moolah, livelihood... We want to retain the beauty and freshness of our environment, we want to be a happy healthy educated community. What better way to have all these things for our home town than to support our Marine Trades, build new and innovative business, develop new technologies, be at the cutting edge of sustainable practices (ongoing business without depleting resources), lead the green economy (energy efficiency, new power sources), lead the blue economy (oceanography, marine sciences)... It is being planned as a step by step sensible plan, we are fortunate in that we have a team of people who share the dream of creating a place that can set an example for the world of actually doing a community redevelopment right, well, extraordinarily excellently, it sounds HUGE, but will be manageable if LOCAL people STEP UP and make themselves a part of it. Yes Bellingham/Whatcom, we need to be BOLD, to raise our heads with a clear vision of possibilities and concentrate on what we WANT. We need the people to populate the projects, to create the businesses, to write the curriculum, to provide the services for remodeling the leased spaces, for building the structures, for walking around town and meeting the people from Brazil, India, the Netherlands, Belgium, New Zealand, England, France, Sierra Leone, wherever... We need local people to serve on the Boards of Directors, the Boards of Trustees, the accountants, lawyers, interns... THAT is how we maintain LOCAL control. After all is said and dome folks, this is Bellingham, the City of Subdued Excitement, we have greater intelligence and spiritu of independence per capita than anywhere else in the world, all things are two degrees of separation in Bellingham, and only three degrees separation to the rest of the world, this is BELLINGHAM, grab your dignity, confidence, and let's get to work.

      Again, we will be launching www.bellinghamwaterfrontproject.com in a couple of days, it will be an ongoing rollout with new information being added weekly as we can produce it. We have very limited means at this time and could use lots of help getting a huge variety of tasks accomplished... and funding... so anything you can do to help, we welcome your thoughts, your time and any monetary or human resources you can bring to the table. AwesomenESS! Layne “;-> -- END --

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  3. Dear reader.....McAuley here, my job as a commissioner in the waterfront process is to treat EVERY proposal in the exact same manner. Just because some people like one better or one less doesn't mean I can just dismiss it. In fact, that would open the port up to a lawsuit that a plaintiff could win quite easily. So, each development proposal gets the exact same process and each is treated fairly.

    The author's description of why they won't vote for me reveals a clear lack of understanding of the process as well as the law. So here it is: an RFP based on commission direction and instruction was sent out worldwide by Heartland, they forward the proposals to the port, the port sets up discussions with each proponent and all port senior staff, the proposals are vetted by city staff who are helping ensure the developer understands the port/city partnership, after all of the staff interviews staff will prepare the results of each interview for consistency in adherence to the master plan and ability to perform. Only then, after weeks of vetting by dozens of really smart people, will the commission begin discussions regarding who may or may not be building anything on Bellingham's waterfront.

    If that isn't "stable" then I suggest the author may want to reevaluate their own personal view of reality by actually digging into a story rather than forming deep and longwinded opinions based on half truths, sound bites and headlines.

    I even had a long conversation with local radio journalist Kris Halterman about the process for choosing a developer. Maybe she might weigh in to share our conversation.

    I am always available for interview and deep discussion on these topics. In fact, many journalists, opinionistas and bloggers regularly take me up on that offer. If needed, I have had port staff and even our director in on these meetings because I believe facts and openness are important.

    Feel free to call, email or interview me anytime: 360-201-7199 Michaelm@portofbellingham.com.

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