Progress

President’s Report

Why is Growth a Four-Letter Word?

by Ken Oplinger

There are many things that have surprised me about Bellingham since I arrived. Some of them, like the beauty of Whatcom County and the friendliness of most people, have been positive surprises. Others, like the animosity of the recent election and its fueling of a growing polarization of our community, have been disappointing surprises.

The greatest surprise of all has been an attitude by many that growth is a word that should be placed in the same category as all those others that, when used, were invitations for your mother to wash your mouth out with soap.

How we have gotten to this point is a topic for another day, and frankly, of little consequence. What we must do now is figure out how to extricate ourselves from this situation. We cannot move forward with building and maintaining viable communities in Whatcom County until we find ways of having congenial dialogue on growth issues, and find common ground.

One way of accomplishing such a goal is to talk openly about what we want to accomplish. With some notable exceptions, most county residents simply want their quality of life to remain the same (or improve), when discussing growth. They want Bellingham’s downtown and Fairhaven District to remain important shopping and gathering areas. They want open spaces and the preservation of our natural beauty. Those are their goals.

You notice that growth isn’t part of that? Whether and how we grow certainly impact these goals, but stopping growth is not the goal in and of itself.

Likewise, those in the development community want to make a decent living for themselves and their employees while providing the homes and facilities which residents of the county demand. This goal does not include paving over paradise and putting in a parking lot. In fact, preservation of the ambience and beauty of Whatcom County is high on their list as well, since the degradation of these qualities will make future development much more difficult.

Once the majority of us can agree to these facts, coming together on ways to preserve our community can be that much easier. We can then begin working towards a quality growth plan, which we have a consensus on, and begin to move away from the divisiveness that this recent election brought to our area.

Will this be easy? Hardly. But the Bellingham/Whatcom Chamber will be at the forefront of finding the path to make a community consensus on growth achievable. As the advocate for the business community, it is incumbent upon us to find a solution, so that we all spend our time and energy working on far more important tasks than infighting and name-calling.

If you’d like to be part of this effort, let me know. The more help we have from our membership to find a sustainable, quality growth program that has a consensus in the community, the better off we’ll be.