Port of Bellingham commissioners heard public arguments as to why they should grow membership from three to five during a meeting on Tuesday, Dec. 17.
If commissioners agree, a vote on expansion could be held in the new year.
A dozen people spoke in favor of expanding the number of commissioners who oversee economic development, the development of maritime trade and more as part of the Port of Bellingham.
Another two people spoke against expansion, saying that it would make government bigger and could leave the door open for political influence.
The two-hour-long meeting capped off months of debate between the public and port commissioners about whether expansion should occur.
The idea of expanding the commission from three to five members isn’t new. Indeed, the conversation comes up at least annually.
While a majority of Washington’s 75 ports have three-member commissions, six have expanded since 1992, when the state law changed to grow commission membership. Most recently, Olympia voted to expand its port commission. Other expanded port commissions include Seattle, Tacoma, Orcas, Edmonds and Anacortes.
However, expansion isn’t as easy as three commissioners signing off on a resolution, endorsing the idea. Voters must approve expansion in a general election.
No resolution was introduced Tuesday night and no action was taken. After the public hearing, commission member Ken Bell noted that they were taking the information in to understand people’s views on the subject.
“Something has to got to come forward for the commission to draft before we can take any action on it,” he said.
The last time a resolution to expand the Port of Bellingham Commission was in 2012. The public vote narrowly failed in a November election 49.19% to 50.81%.
If in 2025, the port commission were to put forth a resolution, or some enterprising Whatcom County residents were successful in retrieving the amount of signatures needed to put forth a ballot measure to trigger a public vote, the election could tentatively be set for November. That would coincide with two port commission seats up for election. Ken Bell and Michael Shepard’s terms finish at the end of 2025.
Overwhelmingly during the meeting, most people endorsed the idea of expansion, echoing the idea that more commissioners could represent constituents better and help bounce ideas off each other as port operations become more complex.
At the moment, because of the three-commissioner structure, no two commissioners can be in the same place at once or else it could be considered a port commission meeting.
Todd Lagestee, a former Whatcom County PUD commissioner who was speaking on his own behalf, said that increasing the commission wouldn’t be at the expense of transparency.
“It would increase efficiency, especially for new actions and plans,” Lagestee said, adding that small commissions often rely on department staff. “You’d be able to bounce an idea off of somebody else who would directly be voting on that, have collaboration and that wouldn’t get in the way.”
However, Doug Karlberg, a fisherman who previously ran for port commission, said expanding the commission could put it at risk of being influenced by party politics.
“There’s a hidden agenda with some people, and I think it’s a bad agenda,” Karlberg said, encouraging commissioners to put the vote for expansion up if people were screaming for it. “The hidden agenda is that the Democrats in Bellingham … would like to control the Port of Bellingham. It’s a horrible idea. All that animosity that we went through for years with the Port of Bellingham is just going to come back.”
Port commission seats are non-political county-wide elected positions.
The Whatcom County Democrats adopted a resolution in October encouraging the port commission to place a measure on the ballot for expanding the commission.
George Dyson, a long-time port observer, took time in his comments endorsing the idea of expansion to think of the woman who made expansion possible in 1992.
“When we last considered this question, it was May 1, 2012, and Harriet Spanel was sitting in that seat right there,” he said, gesturing toward the front row. “She’s the person who wrote the legislation that makes this possible … She was very much in favor of five commissioners. I think we should’ve listened to her then and we should listen to her now.”
Annie Todd is CDN’s criminal justice/enterprise reporter; reach her at annietodd@cascadiadaily.com; 360-922-3090 ext. 130.
