Monday, March 23, 2015 -- The Sixth Meeting of the Charter Review Commission

The sixth meeting of the Whatcom County Charter Review Commission was held on Monday, February 23, 2015. This meeting was held at the Lynden City Hall Annex.

The meeting was called to order at approximately 6:35 pm by commission chairman, Ben Elenbaas.

After the flag salute and roll call, the floor was opened to public comments.

Lynden mayor Scott Korthuis welcomed the commission to Lynden. Four people were in line to speak to the commission on various topics. Representation by district received two pro and one in opposition. The diversity amendment (Amendment 4) received negative remarks. Suggestion to address the "scope creep" of the flood control zone district was presented. Concern for rural culture and rural residents' lack of representation and over-regulation was presented.

The commission discussed ways of having more free-flowing discussion before voting on an amendment. The solution was to have "committee of the whole" sessions, without changing the rules.

Proposed Amendment 4 from Commissioner Mutchler, Shall the Charter Preamble be amended to affirm the diversity of our citizens?, was discussed and rejected by the commission 5~9.

Proposed Amendment 8 from Commissioner Mutchler,  Shall the Charter be amended to provide voter education concerning county officials’ election titles by requiring ballots to refer to the Assessor as the "Property Assessor" and the Auditor as the "Auditor and Elections Officer"?, was discussed and postponed to obtain more information from the affected county personnel about how this would affect their ability to campaign.

Proposed Amendment 9 from Commissioner Donovan, Shall the Charter be amended to provide for the election of Councilmembers countywide and by districts from which the candidate was nominated?, was discussed. This amendment is an alternative, but similar, to Amendment 1, representation by district, except that this amendment proposes a different districting scheme. The intention is to provide a way to avoid cutting Bellingham up into three parts, and provide more cohesive cultural representation. Commissioner May presented some sample charts to help everyone visualize how districts could be organized, keeping towns and cities intact, while still retaining equal population per district. (Click images to embiggen.)

Illustration of how districts may be "gerrymandered" for partisan gain.

Our current three-district format.

What a five-district configuration might look like. 

A vote on Proposed Amendment 9 was postponed until more information could be gathered concerning how the redistricting would be implemented, and what the transition process would be for councilmembers' terms, before and after the redistricting.

Proposed Amendment 10, from Commissioner Dow, Shall Charter Section 8.23 be amended to prohibit the County Council from proposing any Charter amendment to Charter Sections 2.12 or 2.13?, which is intended to prevent the county council from changing the way they are elected. This is in response to the council overturning in 2007, of representation by district, approved by the voters in 2005, before a full county council election cycle had elapsed (two county council elections). The amendment was approved, 9~2 with three abstentions. 

Proposed Amendment 11, from Commissioner Langley, Shall the Charter be amended to require that the Councilmember At-Large reside in unincorporated Whatcom County and be elected by unincorporated county voters?, was withdrawn because it may not be legal (probably violates one person, one vote). 

There was some additional discussion regarding commission procedures, and commissioner Mackiewicz proposed an amendment to increase the number of parties involved in redistricting from two to four. The commission accepted the amendment for discussion at the next meeting. 

Here is the audio from the full meeting:



The meeting adjourned at approximately 9:15 p.m.