WHATCOM WATERWAY CLEANUP - THE LATEST

This one was edited quickly....please bear with me.

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I promised Scott S. that I'd address the adjusted clean-up plan so here it is....although I really, really wanted to make this one about a working waterfront, more on that next time.

While it is seems that from decades past a waterfront plan would be created then eventually built out as the industrial uses moved on, yet that was overly simplistic. There is a natural transition in every city over time. While it is possible to force transitions -- there is not shortage of examples which I will not go into here -- there is a more natural and more likely transition that actually occurs because of market forces.

Cities transform based on many factors so each transformation is unique but at the same time similar. What is similar is that they rarely become what they were before. A perfect example is Greensburg, Kansas. A city completely removed from the map in about 12 minutes. Earthquakes, like that recently in Japan, rarely do what one EF5 tornado accomplished.

Planet Green has a great 4 part series on the process to recreate Greensburg. The city functions the same, has a majority of the pre-tornado businesses rebuilt and many folks moved back to continue their lives. Homes were rebuilt. Many businesses moved back but to locations they'd always wanted to be. Most amazing is the local John Deere dealer led the way with a LEED Platinum showroom and shop; how I couldn't tell ya' but it's that kind of leadership that changes the world.

You are probably thinking right about now, "So what the he*l McAuley, you are WAY off topic." Sort of, but the point here is that not only is change inevitable it's never quite what a person thinks it's gonna be.

Bellingham has a waterfront that will change. Bellingham has no shortage of plans studied, written, vetted and presented for guidance. Does this mean they are all a 'done deal'? Hardly.

When your Port bought the GP property they had piss-poor advice. I've been on the receiving end of poor advice myself so I'm not overly critical on this particular point. The problem when governments follow bad advice, however, is that inertia tends to carry on and changes can be difficult to impossible. But we all know that change happens. In the present case, the change was forced on each and every one of us by an investor class who left us hanging with the debt and walked away to skin the next cat.

Well.....yeah, well? We are either screwed or we aren't. I say we aren't. I was told by a girlfriend a very long time ago, "Michael, stop digging." That was before I had an opportunity in 1991 to dig a huge hole in a far off desert, big enough for six of us to play cards in actually, and learned that it is possible to continue digging but it better be stairs to get out. And that is exactly where the Port of Bellingham is now.

The Port, just like others in this changed economy, has to play a different game. Remember, it's hard to change governments so even though the Port 'can' be nimble -- and, in my opinion must be nimble -- there are plans in motion that can be quite difficult to manipulate for better outcomes.

What you all had an opportunity to see recently was the unveiling of a changed plan given new circumstances.

First, let me applaud your Port staff for working so hard to get a new plan in place that doesn't derail the entire effort. Because of State and Federal regulatory guidelines on certain activities when plans change the entire effort is a 'do over'. In the case of Bellingham's waterfront we absolutely MUST clean it up so it is safe for the critters in the water and the people on the land but we simply can't afford a 'do over' because situations have changed.

Some of you reading this will rightly feel that the Port missed the boat in 2004. But, like Nostradamus, we had to wait awhile to see if the prognostication was correct or just rants. So, even though I inherited this new reality, feel free to invite me out for a beer and gloat all you want, because, if anything I am humble.

While we drink our beer you will certainly find out that this new reality is fiscal challenge. Now, here I want to ask all of you reading this to hang on for just a second....pause...take a deep breath and don't rush to judgment, OK.

All right, here goes....

The cleanup on the waterfront is gonna cost a freakin' fortune...literally. If we took the entire budget from the entire county for a year we could cover it but we wouldn't do anything else. While that may seem enticing I'm not sure how we would get by with no service like police, fire and building permit staff. And to quote the kids of today, "I'm jus' sayin'."

Now that we've established, again, that cleanup along the waterfront is expensive we cannot avoid it. Sort of like a big old meteor aimed straight at our little earth here -- it's gonna come, so what are we gonna do?

What we are going to do along Bellingham's waterfront is clean it. The original plan called for land sales to cover many of the costs of owning and cleaning the area. I've never agreed with that outcome and I still don't. There isn't a single, reputable economist in this entire country who can prove that housing and retail has as big an impact on an economy as do jobs.

For example, retail jobs have just 1/2 of another job associated with each full-time retail worker, whereas, manufacturing workers have 1 to 3 other jobs associated with each full-time manufacturing worker. And housing is even worse because there are only a handful of maintenance workers associated with the entire aggregate of housing available -- present conditions notwithstanding where a lack of new housing starts have pushed many builders into the remodeling market.

What I believe the new reality will force is a waterfront that is more similar to what it was than what many Bellevue planning firms might have guessed it may become. This means land for men and women to show up for work to create something, not just sell something or enjoy the view. This means that we may never have a marina or a some of the nice things our Waterfront Futures Group had hoped for. And that's OK.

To which you now say, "Really, McAuley....it's not OK." And I wouldn't disagree.....much. You, dear reader, are correct, it's not OK. The problem, though, is that nothing we do is free. And there ya' go. It's the bottom line and it has to be OK.

The adjustment we recently made to the cleanup plan is just one of the changes we will have to undertake in order to get the waterfront clean and reusable. It's also the sort of decision that doesn't come easy. I, for one, would love to be able to dig up every last bit of contamination to bury it safely in someone else's backyard for the next couple of millennia (please note my sarcastic irony about us leaving our problem for people somewhere else). The issue isn't what we want to do, the issue is what we can do. Recall my mention earlier about the costs of the cleanup.

So where are we now? Where we are now is a little different than in 2004 so adjustments must be made. Where am I now? Pretty much where I have always been.

It's no secret I haven't felt that the marina would be the most cost effective, long term use of the ASB. In a perfect world the Waterfront Futures Plan would play out and we would have a near over-supply of great public spaces all along Bellingham Bay. I suggest we continue to work toward that eventual reality. In the meantime, however, we do the absolute best with what we have. No more waiting for perfection. No more delay because it isn't quite right.

I have always been a person to act when the time seems right and that time is now. Cleanup is happening this year. We still have access, so I'm told, to tens of millions from the State. We still have the financial commitments from GP and Chartis. Your Port staff remain committed. So the only thing that's changed it the time frame of the original picture that you may be familiar with.

In the end, remember, that the Port is staffed by your neighbors, not a bunch of hired strangers who don't know this community. I will remain committed to a proper cleanup that doesn't break the bank but does set us up for the eventual transitions we will see in the next hundred years of changes.

Cities last for a very, very long time. We aren't in danger here if we don't finish everything as visioned right away so long as we get the bones in place for later fleshing out.