A Blaine City Council meeting that started with a proclamation being issued for Good Neighbor Day ended in yelling on September 8.
The meeting represented nearly two years of tension coming to a head between a small group that has been hurling accusations at city leaders, with mayor Mary Lou Steward requesting councilmember Eric Lewis resign out of corruption concerns. No other councilmembers echoed the mayor’s concerns on the councilmember, whose seat is up for election in November.
The kerfuffle stems from an email that an anonymous person or group called “Stronger Blaine” sent to the city of Blaine, the Whatcom Democrats and The Northern Light on September 4. The message contained 23 pages of emails between Lewis’ personal email address and the Blaine Water Coalition between mid-February and early March. In the emails, the coalition instructed Lewis to bring two motions to council that would update the city’s stormwater manual and create a code of ethics for the city.
Lewis confirmed the emails’ authenticity to The Northern Light and said they were a result of a public records request. When asked why Lewis communicated with the group via his personal email address, he told the newspaper, “I was responsive to the public records request.”
The coalition is a group that the city has said it’s been in a misinformation fight with for nearly the past two years and filed a public records act lawsuit against the city in August.
Steward said she would give Lewis two weeks to “do the honorable thing and resign,” or she would put forward a motion to censure him from any executive session discussing the coalition’s lawsuit against the city.
Blaine Water Coalition comprises a handful of people who have accused city officials of malfeasance for nearly the past two years. The group became active, originally calling themselves “Save Blaine,” shortly after city council approved zoning allowing large manufactured home parks in east Blaine in October 2023.
The group questioned how the city researched their development concerns on the zoning proposal, and have subsequently filed numerous and involved public records requests. City officials have said the requests have cost the city tens of thousands of dollars and required a significant amount of staff time. As recently as early August, city manager Mike Harmon said the city was still scrambling to fulfill records requests without a designated records clerk and a barebones budget.
Group members have frequently accused city officials of corruption in emails and during council meetings. Steward banned spoken comment from council meetings in February 2024 after some members didn’t follow meeting decorum. Meetings, which often had Blaine police officers present, were rife with accusations, picketing and occasionally shouting from group members.
The group has since continued to send written comment through emails to the city that contain accusations toward the government.
Lewis joined council last October, a year into the group’s involvement with the city. Tensions reached a high point in November, when then-councilor Mike Hill verbally confronted coalition leader Geoff Baker during a pause at a city council meeting, before being persuaded away from Baker. Baker has used the pseudonym Otto Pointer.
In February, Baker accused the city of being out of compliance with current stormwater standards, as the city’s manual was the 2019 state version. Lewis brought a motion to council in early March to update the manual, but the city maintained that it was already in compliance. During the same March meeting, Lewis requested council consider adopting a voluntary code of ethics after being prompted by the coalition. Council never adopted it.
Also in March, Harmon said Baker had filed a notice with the intent to sue the city and Washington State Department of Ecology over a toxic plume under Hill’s Chevron in downtown Blaine. Baker was concerned that the plume would affect Cain Creek during the downtown revitalization project. Harmon wrote in a city memo that Baker’s notice contained false allegations and disinformation, but out of caution, DOE required the city to take “extraordinary” preventative measures to contain the toxins. The additional measures were estimated to cost the city $50,000.
This summer, Baker filed two State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) appeals for Blaine development and made a July 18 public records request related to those appeals. In early August, Baker filed a lawsuit on behalf of the coalition against the city of Blaine for allegedly not adhering to the state’s public records act in response to the July 18 request.
A hearing on the lawsuit was held in Whatcom County Superior Court in late August, where the judge found Baker, who didn’t have an attorney, had incorrectly cited the law and warned that practicing it in such a way could potentially be a criminal act and risk him being sanctioned by the city. Baker said he is now being represented by Judith Endejan, a founding member of the Washington Coalition for Open Government.
The emails between Lewis and the coalition from mid-February to March show Lewis supporting the group. Lewis told the group that he wants to help them improve Blaine’s water quality because he was a U.S. Marine stationed at a camp in North Carolina that had water contaminated by high levels of chemicals.
Among correspondence, Lewis mentioned sharing a meal and tea with the group in at least one of their homes.
“I will try my best to stand with you and others against evil, including the evil I fight within myself every day,” Lewis wrote. “I feel that we are on a good path right now. Let’s please regroup and coordinate. I feel optimistic that we’re making progress for this city.”
In the same email, Lewis went on to say, “I feel that your group and compatriots were being bullied (criminally) in the worst way possible (and you were and are) … I can’t tell you to trust me, I have to show it.”
In response to the hearing examiner reopening the record for stormwater standards on an east Blaine development, Lewis wrote, “Excuse my French, but ‘Hot Damn!’ Small victories are great! Good job, Otto and Poppy!”
When asked to keep quiet, Lewis agreed not to mention that another county newspaper had contacted the group for a potential story, in order that The Northern Light wouldn’t run the story first.
The kerfuffle began during the last 25 minutes of the Monday evening meeting in town hall. As the councilors were wrapping up their meeting, Steward began to make a statement that Lewis interrupted, who wanted to make a statement about the emails.
Lewis said he believed it was council’s duty to hear constituents’ complaints before making fact-based decisions.
“I believe that any city councilmember should have an open door policy and be willing to listen and evaluate and confer with any members of the community to hear their complaints, ideas, suggestions or accusations, no matter how right or wrong, accurate or mistaken, pleasant or annoying they are,” Lewis said.
Steward then read an eight-minute speech where she said the coalition has used artificial intelligence to dump public records requests, which has cost the city thousands of dollars that could have gone to the food bank or police department.
“There may be, and there is, a traitor in our city council who has been joining this coalition to destroy the city,” Steward said.
Steward said the emails demonstrated “evidence of collusion between Eric Lewis and the Blaine Water Coalition to destroy the city of Blaine.” In rebuttal, Baker from the crowd shouted, “You’re crazy.” Steward asked Baker if he wanted to be removed from the meeting, and if not, to keep quiet.
Steward said she was concerned that Lewis could have provided confidential information to the group that was discussed during executive sessions on the coalition’s lawsuit against the city. She also voiced concern that the emails contained accusations of city staff engaged in criminal conduct, which could hurt them if they applied to other jobs and impacted the city’s insurance rates. Steward added she was concerned that Baker was attempting to direct city business.
Councilmember Richard May told Steward he believed she was conflating information in the emails. He said he only saw Lewis wanting to adopt a code of ethics and make sure the city’s stormwater codes were updated.
“I just don’t see the connection that you’re seeing on this,” May said. “I don’t think any of those things are a reason for someone to stop being on council.”
May added that Lewis was new on council and likely met with the group to hear their concerns.
“I haven’t seen Mr. Lewis, myself or anyone else on this council be in favor of the legal challenges, lawsuits and the massive Freedom of Information Act requests that are costing a lot of money and taking up a lot of staff time,” May said.
Steward then said she was concerned the group was directing Lewis to bring motions to council, to which Baker yelled that the mayor’s interpretation of the emails wasn’t correct. Steward responded, saying that the police chief could help Baker get out the door.
“You’ve done enough damage,” Steward said.
May argued that it was council’s job to listen to constituents’ concerns, find support and make a motion.
“That’s exactly what we were elected to do,” May said. “To listen to our constituents, not to tell them that they may not speak for over a year.”
Councilmember Eric Davidson said he wanted to go home instead of continuing to argue. Davidson asked if any other councilor wanted to provide a comment, to which none responded.
“The citizens of Blaine will probably be the final deciders on this,” Steward said.
After the meeting, Lewis said he had no plans to resign and wouldn’t sit out executive sessions. He still planned on running in the November election, he said.
“I would like the public to understand that I will listen to them when they bring concerns to me. I would like them to feel comfortable,” Lewis said. “There’s no stupid question, and there’s no stupid comment.”
Harmon said he had initial concerns about Lewis potentially violating the state’s appearance of fairness doctrine by supporting the hearing examiner’s decision to reopen the record for stormwater standards.
“It’s a councilmember’s duty to be fair and impartial when they’re serving over quasi-judicial matters,” Harmon said.
Harmon said there’s no evidence right now that Lewis relayed attorney-client privileged information to the coalition. He added that the city’s attorney has sent an affidavit request to Lewis asking him to affirm there are no additional public records within their personal emails that need to be disclosed. May and councilmember Sonia Hurt were also sent the affidavit.
“This group has done horrendous damage for the city of Blaine,” Steward said. “It’s time the people of the city of Blaine knew what the city is being forced to deal with, and the resources that are going out to our lawyers to defend the city.”
To read the emails between Lewis and the coalition, visit bit.ly/3VIYbtv.
Comments
No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here