Last night's Bill Mize forum was very informative - as it is each year. It was also great Americana at the rural Rome Grange hall on the Mt Baker highway, the non-airconditioned old building, the cookies and cold drinks in the basement that were prepared by the Grange ladies. The candidates all attend this forum and the format allows for a lot of questions from citizens at the microphones. It was broadcast live by KGMI radio and is apparently now available for listening online. We have links at the bottom of this post to the full audio at KGMI.

The Herald was there but now their deadline is so early in the evening that even with a 9 pm forum ending there is nothing in today's paper. And as of this writing, nothing online at the Herald either. You know, they are fading step by step from being a daily newspaper. And their reporters don't even talk with citizens and candidates anymore. Sam Taylor is more of a recording secretary of the meeting than a reporter of what is really happening. I don't blame Sam as much as the lack of older reporters at the Herald to mentor young cub reporters and teach them how to really report. Sam arrives at a forum, sits and waits for the proceeding to start, opens his notebook, types rapidly during the speeches and question, and, with the last closing remarks he closes his computer and quickly leaves.

So, it is more and more up to us citizens to inform each other. I have a business meeting this morning and have little time for this post. But I will get this started and hope some others who were there last night post up comments about what they learned.

Here are my first remarks. I'll add comments later.

I asked Scott Walker to explain - defend - the Port awarding $180 million in low interest, tax exempt bonds to his employer, BP Refinery, over the past 10 years while allocating only $13 million to all other businesses in Whatcom County. He had no explanation. He said they gave the bonds to those "who asked for the money". He said it had "nothing to do with where I work". He tried to go sideways by saying it was a "State program".

This is corruption. This is good old boy favoritism. Those numbers were never supposed to be discovered and were only stumbled over by Ham Hayes in his research on Port finances. Even then they were provided by a very new employee of the Port who admitted he did not realize the impact of those numbers. Now, I may be the only one to speak of this and if so then this will go nowhere. The Herald, via the reporting of John Stark, has ignored this. Scott's best tactic is to diss my concerns and say little. But this is corruption that Scott has had a chance to explain and he did not.

This alone is enough to throw Scott out of office. Do not expect our State Auditor to look at this as their expertise is how coffee funds are mismanaged, not multi million dollar abuses of power. They completely missed the KAP scandal of 1990 - the very scandal that allowed Scott to defeat the incumbent Port Commissioner and win office. I uncovered that scandal and the Herald tried for months to ignore it. Scott asked my help in his campaign then and I helped. It is sad to see public officials go bad but it happens when there is no press reporting on their activities.

Vote for either Ham Hayes or John Blethen - the two challengers to Scott. Each is qualified in different ways. Lets hope in the general election we have a choice of Ham or John and that Scott loses out. The guy has his hand in the cookie jar and is staring at us saying he is just cleaning the jar.

On other races, I found Bill Knutzen to be a refreshing breath of air. The guy is running for County Council At-Large against Laurie Caskey-Schreiber and Dave Pros. Bill spoke common sense and showed a keen mind. I did not expect to like the guy as I'm liberal and he is obviously conservative. But he will get my vote in the Primary Election that starts next week. I want him in that General Election race so I can learn more about him. In particular he knows and understands how laws impact our rural residents. Laurie is a space case liberal who has no idea how her ideas impact farmers and small towns. Dave Pros is good but he will not be able to win over Laurie. So Bill Knutzen is our hope for bringing a representative to the council who will represent our north county neighbors. I encourage all to vote for him. Let Laurie and Dave split the liberal vote.

OK - anyone else who was there last night? I hope we get some more comments.