July 27, 2010 - Issue of the Week

Breaking News - The UGA Proposal that the Council has wasted months on, shrinks even further and is pulled from agenda.

This afternoon the Council got an email saying that the ordinance that the relatively new Council majority has spent months preparing to overturn the UGA reductions that the previous Council passed has been pulled from the agenda. Seems like the cities of Sumas and Nooksack reviewed comments received in the past few weeks and have decided there is little reason to spend taxpayer money to defend a poorly written County ordinance, when they can most likely get the same results next year during the already planned UGA review. Could Ferndale be so wise?

Now the Council majority has to reintroduce a new ordinance that only includes the expansion of the Ferndale UGA and a small area in Birch Bay, and I'm guessing schedule another hearing. Quite the waste of time from visions of expanding UGAs by thousands of acres - West Blaine, Caitac, Yew Street Rd etc - to swapping a UGA reserve in Ferndale to a regular UGA. How many thousands of taxpayer dollars were wasted on this boondoggle that is already scheduled for next year? Now that's some fiscally conservative planning.

UPDATE - 7/2710 5:45 PM
It appears there will not be an additional hearing on the new reduced UGA expansion ordinance. Legal counsel says we only are required to have a hearing if we are adding additions to an ordinance, but since we are just removing two cities and changing many of the findings that is not considered a substantive change.