Too much outside funding. Too many planners. Too little local food.

An enterprising grass roots group stirred controversy a couple of days ago. Shoppers returning to their cars parked in the Lakeway Fred Meyer parking lot Saturday afternoon found a snappy advertisement mini-flyer sticky tabbed to their windshields, inviting them to a balloting party. Free food. A free concert. Local candidates on hand to help answer sticky questions. A group dance taking the ballots to the mail box.

Political activist reactions from glee to outrage to the un-politicized urge to simply litter have surely given way to deeper musings. Some one must have a fair bit of cash to throw away in a far away city on parties and short lived friendships. Why the carrots? What is the back game?

Strategies. Goals. Influence. “Almost buying” votes. PDC filing violations.

Facebook pages of political activists these days are crawling with posts, fearing, anticipating, trying to foresee the results of the election in eight days. “These are terrible people…” “I am afraid we have overplayed our hand…” “We need more government—vote for…” “We need less government—vote for…”

Strategies. Votes. Representative candidates. The raw struggle between an increasingly polarized Whatcom County electorate.

A stunningly short planning commission meeting this last week left Planning and Development Staff gasping for air as the Planning Commission tabled their recommended rule changes without so much as a presentation. Was the issue really procedural restraint to protect the appeal over the Growth Management Hearings Board arbitrary water ruling last summer? Was the issue the clarification of impervious surfaces language and regulations in the County Code? Or was the issue the contentious insertion of sweeping well drilling restrictions within the rule changes.

Strategies. Rules. Rulings. Legal wranglings. Environmental precedent settings. Property rights protections.

An article by Ed Kilduff in the fall Business Pulse magazine spotlights the enormously successful Washington Growth Management Act—if measured by the exponential increase in public planners and planner wannabee activists.

Strategies. 1989. Grants. 2013. Large transfers of decision making powers from local to regional, state and federal bodies. An awakening electorate fumbling for their pens and phones and car keys; sharing shock over the reality of gross government over reach, waste and freedom takings; rediscovering public meetings and challenging the swarms of environmental protectionists that hover in the halls of power.

This Thursday, Oct 31/13, food growers, buyers, activists—it’s open to the public—can attend a symposium entitled Recipe for Tomorrow: Climate Change and the Future of Food. A large of slate of presenters representing farm, science, education, tribal and government agencies does not increase my peace of mind. The sponsorship of hardline environmental groups such as ReSources only steels my resolve to probe deeply into—you guessed it—strategies.

Strategies. Climate Change. Pollution. Grants!!! Radical environmentalism grows as long as there are grants for staff projects. Planner jobs proliferate as long as there is grant money to plan. Precautionary environmental protectionism provides an inexhaustible seedplot of grant ready projects. This is a public planner’s heaven. Total job security. An October 24/13 Washington State Commerce Department e-mail advertises, (broader web page here)

”Departments of Ecology and Commerce are offering funding through a competitive grant program for projects that fit under one of the following themes:

“Eligibility: Local governments, federally-recognized tribal governments, and special purpose districts are eligible to apply for all themes. In addition, non-profit non-governmental organizations and academic institutions of higher education are eligible to apply for Theme 3.”

Strategies. People. Food shortages. Family food sustainability. If a man does not work plan, he should not eat.

Retired WWU professor Don Easterbrook has survived the recent gang mugging by current WWU non-climate change experts, and posted a scathing review of both the 2013 IPCC report on climate change and the Oct’13 National Geographic featurearticles on rising seas.

Strategies. Facts. Fears. Politicized science. Media and academic suppression of genuine debate. Free internet speech. Angry embarrassment. Protecting tenured teaching posts.

May I suggest that a much bigger problem than climate change is dependence on non-local food distribution systems. We don’t grow local. We don’t eat local. But, planners and scientists write grants local and do property takings local.

Strategies. Working. Growing with your own hands. Value added locally grown food must be economically sustainable. Farmers will not grow what does not pay. Environmental takings do not grow food. Public planner oversight armies do not grow food.

Strategies. Environmentalist lawsuits. Buying votes. Happy face farm/environment symposiums. Academic muggings. Grants to fuel environmental takings. As Pete Kremen recently said, “Whatcom County is under seige by regulations.” So—when the outside environmental grant money runs out?? When scientists are paid to solve farm to table problems instead of ramping up UN change agency environmentalist hot buttons?? Probably, only then will a reduced roster of public planners figure out how to encourage a simply regulated local marketplace that provides truly value added locally grown food. -- JK

• Balloting Party Flyer
• Whatcom County Planning Commission 10/24/13 – Audio
• Edkilduff: Success Of The Growth Management Act
• Birch Bay Watershed And Aquatic Resources Management District (Sub-Zone 1 Of Flood Control Zone) Invites The Public To “Climate And Change And The Future Of Food”
• Climate Change And The Future Of Food – Agenda 10-31-13
• EPA Grant Money Available Through WA DOE And WA COM
• IPCC Vs NIPCC: Whose Peer Reviewed Climate Change Conclusions Are Based On Facts?
• Don Easterbrook Challenges National Geographic Sensationalism Over Rising Sea Levels (Oct/13 Issue)

Money That Bites

Money. There has been much bluster about outside money in Whatcom County’s 2013 election. The early, high profile, aggressive entrance of environmentalist big bucks from Washington Conservation Voters, and the more recent and quieter arrival of free market big bucks from proponents of the Gateway Pacific Terminal have raised eyebrows everywhere in Whatcom County.

Today I learned of a larger proposed influx of outside money into Whatcom County, $300,000 from the Puget Sound Partnership to “develop a stakeholder process”, facilitating the planning stage of repairing flood control levees. $300,000 for a contractor/facilitator to do something different than campaign against or for a bulk shipping terminal. A larger sum. A very quiet entry. An agreement recommended to County Council for approval. The second coming of the failed WIT / public planner driven process. A mercenary gauntlet thrown down to mock and demoralize the volunteer stakeholder process of the resurrected WRIA 1 Water Planning Unit.

Recently, I saw an interesting infogram. An iceberg was floating in the water. Visible above the surface was a layer labelled “The Exciting Green Marketplace”. The first layer below the water was labelled “Usable Social and Environmental Disasters”. Below that was a layer with three community ideals: 1) Social Equity 2) Public/Private Economic Partnerships, and 3) Sustainable Ecology. Finally, at the bottom was the philosophical foundation layer: eradicate individualism, capitalism and free markets, and implement communitarian groupthink with big government control of everything.

Did you get that last mouthful? Did I lose you there? I hope not.

What will happen in Whatcom County after this election? What is going on under the cover of election noise? Tuesday, County Council is scheduled to look at bill AB2013-335. It is proposed that Whatcom County enter into an agreement to receive $300,000 via the Puget Sound Partnership, the Washington State Governor’s flagship regional non-elected board tasked with “cleaning up” Puget Sound, among other things. Puget Sound Partnership is a regional board. How clean is clean? Who knows? How can voters hold the PSP board locally accountable? Ensure cleanup or “flood control” standards that don’t shift at the ratcheting whim of communitarian puppet masters.

Regionalism. In 2012, Stanley Kurtz published a book entitled, “Spreading the Wealth: How Obama Is Robbing The Suburbs To Pay For The Cities.” An in depth researcher of community organizer infiltrations, Kurtz points out how unelected regional boards are the tool of choice to bring huge social change all across America.

Kurtz also brings to light a new network for White House community organizers. (Not a new network for UN based NGO Smart Growth activists). Traditionally, socialist community organizers have worked closely with liberal church groups to achieve their goals of inner city social upheaval. Recently, however, the newly minted agency Building One America (formed by leaders of the scandalized Gamaliel Foundation) has added a new social change sector—public sector employees sympathetic to the progressive goals of socialist community organizers. The Chicago-Alinsky molded friends of the Obama White house are noisily linking into the network quietly developed by the UN Smart Growth radicals. There will be more big government courting of local public planners. Liberal churches are passe.

In other words, in addition to religious social terrorists like Jeremiah Wright, the USA now will have public planner social terrorists to deal with. (Something Whatcom County has been dealing with for two decades—think multiple Resources lawsuits (Carl Weimer) and Futurewise and its unofficial first review privileges at the County Planning Department.  A key element of this movement is the shifting of governance from local elected councils to regional, appointed boards. Does this sound like Puget Sound Partnership? Kurtz’s book deals primarily with urban/suburban community tax base mingling. A few months ago, in a three part series of articles linked to in today’s news digest, Kurtz pointed out another critical mass development.

Students at Harvard recently “pressured” the administration to divest Harvard of the stocks of fossil fuel industry corporations. The uber progressive Harvard administration cheerily complied. Seattle mayor, Mike McGinn has also jumped on Bill McKibben’s bandwagon, instructing the city of Seattle to avoid holding these stocks as of now. Gas and oil stocks are hot commodities, and such actions will really do little to harm these corporations at this point.

BUT—and this is important, a generation of college students are practicing “killing”, imagining the death of industrialized society—studying fossil fuel stock divestment on their i-pads, texting about it on their i-phones, and dreaming about it while flitting about in their parents’ Toyota Prius cars—industrial enabled conveniences. At some point, “the mother of all dialectic struggles” will begin, and the industrial complex will be carved up and redistributed by a matured generation of millenials.

I finish with a nod to another recently released book, “This Town”, by veteran DC reporter Mark Liebovich. “This Town” humorously and cynically profiles the “Beltway Club”, bloated by both Republican and Democrat lobbyists, making fabulously huge salaries in K Street offices on the backs of tax payers. Has K Street come to Whatcom County in the form of PSP funded facilitators? Is the end of local volunteer government at hand?

Am I cynical? Yes. Is there a path through all this? Yes. “Let him that stole steal no more, but rather, let him work with his hands, that he may have to give to him who has need.” Will you or I learn to work and share from public planners whose environmentalist consultant/facilitator friends feed off planning grants from Puget Sound Partnership? Probably not. Could we learn to work under the tutelage of outside fossil fuel interests running at an environmentally sound bulk shipping terminal at Cherry Point? That would be more probable.

Even better, learn the ropes and start your own business. Avoid the philosopher king urge to “kill the masters” that give us lights and communications and wheels and wings. Question the establishment environmentalists. And, learn to appeal regional board grant driven power grabs. In the event of failed appeal, graciously hold your nose and work the bridges. Remember the hidden hand. All hard work brings a benefit.

And, please vote. Vote for candidates who will deprioritize the group think zoned high density urban globalist university talking head enclaves. Vote for candidates who will support work ethic building clean heavy industry and the sweat of the brow value added agricultural farmer (not just farmerless Ag land). Vote for the choice to work local and live local—in the whole county, not just in Bellingham. --JK

Candidates Who Support Farmer Sustainable Value Added Agriculture

The New Peasant Farming Communes Of Global Warming Prophet Bill Mckibben. To Get There? Divest Now Of Fossil Fuel Stocks.

City Of Seattle Blacklists Energy Stocks

$300,000 Grant Through PSP For Whatcom County Flood Control Planning. Should Big Money Legitimize A Regional, Unelected,Environmentalist Board?

Mark Leibovich Unmasks The D.C. Beltway Lobbyist Culture In This Town. Does Whatcom County Have A Consultant/Lobbyist Problem?

The WRIA 1 Planning Unit Meets. Who Is The Agricultural Water Caucus?

Last night a breath of fresh air blew in Whatcom County. Between seventy and eighty people gathered for the first meeting of the WRIA 1 (Water Resources Inventory Area One) Planning Unit since June, 2009. Don’t be fooled. Getting people to work together is complex, yet the primacy of water is simple.

Water is the stuff of life, and access to water is a death or life issue. He who controls water rights (and land/property rights) controls people. Free people work out their own water allocations. Captive people are dictated to. Recent Washington Growth Management Hearings Boards judgments treat Whatcom Citizens as their captive subjects. Even the Lummi and Nooksack tribes should be suspicious when state and federal governments play favorites. This is important stuff!!!

Civil, thoughtful, funny, testy—the discussion was productive and forward moving. The full meeting notes should be posted on the WRIA 1 website in a day or two. Some water caucuses were notably absent. Both tribal groups. The environmental caucus. The fisherman’s caucus. The purse seiner’s caucus. Diking and drainage. I also did not recognize very many of the recent WIT consortium in the observation seats. It was an evening meeting though, and paid government staff are often grudging about giving up their recreational time.

An interesting piece of theater was the body language of Doug Allen, Department of Ecology in Bellingham. He stood in the back for the first part of the meeting, then quietly went and took a place at the table. Do the major political stakeholders WANT local (water planning unit) governance to succeed? I have large suspicions that the planning unit is seen as an undesirable placenta that will challenge current recipients of federal and state grants, monies that largely undermine citizen governance concerns.

Our family has a stake in two caucuses represented last night. Agriculture and water associations. We do not have a well. (Well owners should be very on edge over recent events, given the threats to deny new wells in various areas in the county. The well owner’s caucus has probably been the most thorough in organizing for the planning unit re-start, but only about 1% of the 10,000 well owners voted on representation recently).

Was our water association represented last night? Sumas Rural Water Association did not send out any notification to us. Having followed this issue, I have been kept appraised by officials of other water associations or districts. Who takes care of your water? Who represents you in this process?

I am not a little burned over our agricultural water representation. Henry Bierlink sat at the table. He runs Farm Friends, and I am on the mailing and e-mail lists. I received no notification of this meeting. In fact, Farm Friends may send out one or two e-mails  a year. I did not vote for or against Henry Bierlink. Who sent him there? Who does he represent?

Landon Van Dyke was stated to be the ag water caucus alternate if Henry can not be there. He sits on the Whatcom County Agricultural Advisory Council. This council was spearheaded by Henry Bierlink and Chuck Antholt a number of years ago. We have been looking for the dates for the fall series of Ag Advisory Council meetings and they are no where to be found. Recently, Samya Lutz, the Whatcom County PDS staff person working with Ag Advisory moved on. Hello-o-o? Is anybody home?

We have lived here since 1994. We are a “small potatos”, value added, wannabee sheep dairy. We pay taxes and are subject to dictates just like the big guys. I could drill an illegal well and irrigate my dried out pasture in the summer, I suppose, but I have not done so. A neighbor told me that Henry Bierlink did him tremendous service a decade or more ago, in dealing with a very aggressive Ecology staffer, but it seems that Henry Bierlink is only concerned with the big boys now.

In fact, Henry is up to his eyeballs in working with Futurewise and Whatcom Land Trust, the “no land use” activists. I am also NOT sold on the Natural Resources Marketplace thing that Henry is pushing.  He had the gall to start out by saying last night, that he was not interested in participating in something that was not going to have authority. Does Futurewise represent me? Whatcom Land Trust? Absolutely not. Should my water, plant or wildlife property rights be separable from the land I live on? Who DOES Henry represent? Some one world government environmentalist capital funds investor in Stockholm?

The bottom line. Who is the agricultural water caucus? Where is the Soil Conservation Service in this? Whatcom Cattleman’s Association? The dairy and berry people? Who authorized Henry Bierlink to represent me? I would like some answers here.

Maybe Claire Fogelsong, City of Bellingham rep last night, was onto something in suggesting that the caucuses provide documentation of representing and reporting to their members. Henry, are you listening? Do you duly represent the agricultural water caucus? Are you engaged, farmers?

John Kirk, Sumas.

Whose Whatcom County Property Rights?

Niall Ferguson: STATIST PROTECTION (vs. property rights) is not One of 6 "Killer Apps" of Prosperity.
 Over the past few centuries, Western cultures have been very good at creating general prosperity for themselves. Historian Niall Ferguson asks: Why the West, and less so the rest? He suggests half a dozen big ideas from Western culture -- call them the 6 killer apps -- that promote wealth, stability and innovation. And in this new century, he says, these apps are all shareable. 
Watch Niall Speak here.


Is Progressive Economist Robert Gordon Right? Does Chance Explain America? Or Marketplace Freedom?
 “What if everything we’ve come to think of as American is predicated on a freak coincidence of economic history? And what if that coincidence has run its course?”
 Read more here.


Robert McKenzie, Conservative Historian Promotes DIVINE PROVIDENCE in the Traditional American Thanksgiving Story.
The Pilgrims' celebration of the first Thanksgiving is a keystone of America's national and spiritual identity. But is what we've been taught about them or their harvest feast what actually happened? And if not, what difference does it make?  
Read more here.

Obama and SF Bay Area Crush County Governments Under Unelected Regional Boards

The consensus response to President Obama’s Knox College speech on the economy is that the administration has been reduced to pushing a menu of stale and timid policies that, in any case, won’t be enacted. But what if the administration isn’t actually out of ideas? What if Obama’s boldest policy initiative is merely something he’d rather not discuss? And what if that initiative is being enacted right now?

Read more here.