Lake Whatcom Reconveyance: When the Going Gets Weird

Via Sam Crawford on Facebook.

The issue is the Mount Baker School District Board was concerned about forest revenue from State Forest Board Lands in the Lake Whatcom watershed. As they should be. Whatcom County is considering a reconveyance from State control to County control of Forest Board lands in the Lake Whatcom watershed lake-whatcom-reconveyance. A donor through the Whatcom Land Trust made a donation to the school district that far exceeded the revenue that the Lake Whatcom Forest Board lands would have provided.

The school board's charge is to do what is best for the students. The Mount Baker School Board has actively opposed forest board land restrictions and have been very open advocates for logging to generate money for schools. They have actively lobbied for a different means of logging revenue distribution. Rural school districts in forest rich areas are very often allies with timber industry interests, and Mount Baker School District has consistently been a logging advocate. But the motive is not logging per se; the motive is revenue for education. To attack a school board for making the fudiciary responsible choice points to other motives and a willful disregard of facts. 

The Lake Whatcom reconveyance will be up for a hearing this evening (Tuesday, September 11) before the County Council. The Council members have been blitzed with a campaign in support and in opposition. The opposition has tried many angles and one is illustrated above. Hunter S. Thompson provides a line that might best describe the theatrics of the reconveyance opposition, "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro".