County Council Experience

• 2 years as Council Chairman

• 3 years as Chairman of the Flood Control Board of Supervisors

• 2 years as Chairman of the Whatcom County Health Board

• 3 years as Chairman of the Council's Natural Resources Committee

• Council's Health Committee

• Council's Planning and Development Committee

• Council's Finance and Adminstrative Services Committee

• Developmental Disabilities Board

• Drayton Harbor Shellfish Protection District

• Economic Development Investment Board

• Whatcom County Marine Resource Committee

• Mental Health Advisory Board

• Portage Bay Shellfish Protection District

• Solid Waste Advisory Committee

Other Work Experience

•  Executive Director of the Pipeline Safety Trust from 2004 to present, which came into being after the 1999 Olympic Pipeline tragedy in Bellingham Washington. Has testified to both the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate on pipeline safety issues, organized four national pipeline safety conferences, pushed for stronger pipeline safety legislation on the national and state level, runs the national Safe Pipelines and LNG Safety listserves that include over 700 people, and regularly serves as an independent source of pipeline safety information for news media, local government, and citizens around the country.

- Member of the U.S. Department of Transportation's Technical Hazardous Liquid Pipeline Safety Standards Committee.

- Member of the Steering Committee for the U.S. Department of Transportation's Pipelines and Informed Planning Alliance.

-  Member of the Governor appointed Washington State Citizen Committee on Pipeline Safety.

*  Executive Director of RE Sources for Sustainable Communities, a regional environmental education organization, from 1991 to 2004. In that time RE Sources grew from 6 employees to 42 employees, and won numerous local, state, and national awards for their innovative programs. During that time Carl started the RE Stores in Bellingham and Seattle, the North Sound Baykeeper Program, and the Whatcom Watershed Pledge Program.

- Served as the environmental representative to the WRIA 1 county-wide watershed planning effort.

•  General Manager of Vangard Northwest, a manufacturing business in Ferndale that employed severely disabled individuals, from 1985 to 1991. Carl juggled social service contracts for training the disabled along with manufacturing contracts with companies such as Hewlett Packard, Physio Control, and Alpha Technologies.

•  Before 1985 Carl spent ten years working for various federal natural resource agencies including the National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, and U.S. Forest Service.

- 5 years as a backcountry ranger in Olympic National Park

- 2 years mapping jeep trails in the Great Salt Lake Desert, Utah

Education

• Degree in Natural Resources from the University of Michigan.

• Degree in Industrial Electronics Technology from Peninsula College.

• Teaching certificate in environmental education and social science from the University of Michigan.

Accomplishments while on the Council

Here are a few of the accomplishments that Carl can reasonably take a good deal of the credit for in the past 3.5 years. It takes 4 votes to get anything done on the Council so no one individual can take total credit, but these are some of the things Carl has spearheaded.

* Increased funding through the Flood District to generate nearly a million dollars of additional money per year to address mandated water quality improvement programs, with much of it targeted in the Lake Whatcom Watershed.

* Worked with residents on Lummi Island to kill the County's plan to spend millions of dollars on a new, bigger ferry and associated dock improvements. This would have drained county funds, and would have made it difficult for low and moderate income people to continue to live on Lummi Island.

* Took the lead in working with the citizens in Birch Bay to create the Birch Bay Watershed and Aquatic Resource Management district. Through this effort the people in Birch Bay asked us to tax people within the watershed to pay for needed stormwater improvements and education to protect the health of Birch Bay.

* Led the effort to update the County's Shoreline Management Plan which is now a model for other counties looking for ways to implement programs necessary to protect endangered species and clean up our fresh and marine waters.

* I provided the needed legal analysis and back up information, which led to $100,000 being awarded to the Food Bank in this time of need.

* Joined with Council Member Caskey-Schreiber to push through nearly $3 million/year in additional funding targeted at keeping people with mental health and substance abuse problems out of jail. Prevention programs are consistently less expensive than incarceration, and with the County faced with spending tens of millions of dollars on a huge new jail such alternatives are not only the right thing to do, but also the only fiscally responsible thing to do.

* Passed ordinance to require regular inspection and maintenance of septic systems throughout the County. Before this passed the County had no such requirements, and didn't even know where thousands of septic systems were located. Failing septic systems are a known contaminant of local waters.

* Pushed through enhanced funding to address education, compliance , and enforcement of the County's Critical Areas Ordinance regarding farm planning for small (hobby) farms. Included additional county staff, and a contract with the Whatcom Conservation District to provide free farm planning assistance to provide regulatory flexibility.

* Joined with Council Member Ward Nelson to institute a sophisticated prioritization system for the hundreds of proposed water programs to allow the Council to ensure that we spend our limited dollars where we will get the biggest bang for the buck.

* Led the effort to fully fund the Conservation Futures fund when the County Administration recommended significantly reducing it. This fund is the major source of funding to purchase development rights to protect farmland.

* Joined with Council Member Barbara Brenner to draft and pass an ordinance to allow small residential wind generation in the County for the first time.

* Worked with the Developmental Disabilities Board to reduce the diversion of a high percentage of money from direct services to those with disabilities to a catchall "administrative cost allocation."