Third Party Rebuttal to Wilcox's August 13th Cascadia Weekly LetterAs luck would have it, a letter appeared in the Cascadia Weekly today that is a rebuttal to the Ken Wilcox letter just posted above. The rebuttal letter is by Mitch Friedman, a conservation activist that currently works for Conservation NW. Mr. Friedman makes several valid points and his letter merits reading because it tells more of the CMPD story than what Ken Wilcox wants the public to know.
Mr. Friedman's letter, posted below, spells out the implausible naiveté feigned by Wilcox, et al, as well as the potential harm his inept group has done to legitimate conservation efforts in the area. Ironically, Mr. Friedman tries to paint the NSC as a Franskenstein, so either he didn't "get" the Skagit Valley Herald's cartoon, or he is taking a swipe at the NSC, you be the judge. Regardless of that point, Mr. Friedman does a pretty good job in highlighting some of the CMPD follies and ill-will they have created throughout the community.Mitch Friedman Letter in the Cascadia Weekly 27Aug2008 http://www.cascadiaweekly.com/pdfs/issues/200835.pdf CMPD FAILURE THREATENS BLANCHARDI was disappointed by the letter from Ken Wilcox regarding his proposed Chuckanut Mountain Park District. I have a lot of respect for Ken. But it’s time for the community to be aware that the CMPD campaign is going poorly. Ken’s letter covers up that reality while casting blame in every direction but his own.
We all love the Chuckanuts, with superlative ecological, scenic and recreational values. These are threatened by a mix of logging and urbanization. I think the answer is to protect key areas like the upper slopes of Blanchard Mountain and the steep areas of the Lake Whatcom watershed, while working with timber interests on the remainder to both prevent development and find more acceptable logging methods.
A progressive community like Bellingham should support production of wood products near town, just as we support local farming. Otherwise timberlands are fated to become either parks or subdivisions, mostly the latter, and timber demand pushes logging into remote wild areas and the
Third World.
When Ken’s CMPD group came along, I was a bit unclear about their goals and somewhat skeptical of their strategy. Still, I have admired the audacity of their vision and been interested to see how the effort would progress. It seemed they started off well and had an impressive petitioning effort, but the campaign has since stumbled badly.
The effort catalyzed a counter movement: the North Sound Conservancy arose to oppose the tax involved with the CMPD. A key principle of any campaign is to mobilize support
without inciting opponents to mobilize. We don’t need a panel of Olympic judges to score how NSC has outperformed the CMPD. By any measure—attendance at public hearings, comments to online blogs, letters in newspapers—NSC backers are more motivated and better organized.
After the NSC vastly outnumbered the CMPD at a meeting of the Skagit Boundary Review
Board, I was alarmed to hear Ken claim his group didn’t expect that process to be political. As implausibly naïve as the excuse seemed, it was obsolete when the ordeal was repeated before the Whatcom Boundary Review Board at a hearing in Bellingham, where CMPD supporters should have easily been mobilized. Both commissions consequently voted unanimously against the CMPD.
The latest blow came when a judge ruled for NSC, invalidating the CMPD’s petitions. Ken’s letter to the Weekly explains how that ruling is the fault of the press, county prosecutors, Karl Rove, and perhaps even underage Chinese gymnasts. When Ken wrote that the CMPD was never notified of this-and-that and was misled at turns, I had to agree with his characterization of all this as “strange.” I’ve been through a lot of court cases and know the system operates according to well-established rules. Some just play better than others under those rules.
While CMPD advocates are admirable in their volunteerism, they don’t qualify for the slack we often give to young, idealistic activists. Ken has been involved in conservation for longer than me. In activist terms, we’re old growth. In dog years, we’re as hoary as McCain.
If the CMPD overreached in their ambition or underachieved in their execution, the damage could go well beyond their own demise. Let’s hope the NSC isn’t a Frankenstein’s Monster that will oppose conservation measures long after it has killed the master who summoned it.
CMPD leaders, including Ken, have been critical of, and even filed a lawsuit against a balanced agreement that was negotiated for Blanchard Mountain State Forest. That agreement, which I was party to, protects the roadless heart of Blanchard Mountain and most of its old forests and trails, while also protecting surrounding forest land from development.
Another key principle of campaigning is to avoid holding something good hostage in pursuit of perfection. And if you do, never kill the hostage! Ken’s Blanchard lawsuit blocks the state from spending $4 million to expand the Blanchard State Forest. It also blocks advocates like me from asking the state Legislature to budget $8 million more for that purpose. The loss of that $12 million means a lot of land that would have become state public forest may now remain at risk of development.
I can understand Ken and others being dissatisfied with the Blanchard agreement. But if they kill the benefits of that agreement while bungling in their attempt at a grand CMPD, lame excuses will not answer.
Ken claims the CMPD is not dead. Maybe it will rise like a phoenix from the ashes. But odds are set based on performance, such that Michael Phelps is a better bet than, say, Iceland’s beach volleyball team. And unlike Olympic medals, the forests with which Ken’s group is gambling are of great value to us all.
—Mitch Friedman, BellinghamAs you can see by Mr. Friedman's letter, the CMPD group has bungled on so many levels, that the CMPD proposal and its proponents have lost much, if not all, credibility in the community. They should quit wasting tax payers' money on this ludicrous proposal of theirs and leave the people that do the real conservation work alone.
