Whatcom County Council reverses vote on Drayton Harbor no-shooting zone

Whatcom County Council unanimously voted 7-0 on October 26 to reverse its decision to create a Drayton Harbor no-shooting zone, just two weeks after the group narrowly voted on the issue. The ordinance had not yet been signed into law, leaving nothing changed after two years of dispute and a pushed vote in county council.
In 2019, the city of Blaine requested county council create a no-shooting zone in all of Drayton Harbor after receiving noise complaints and safety concerns from residents who lived and recreated near the popular waterfowl area. However, Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) officials said during public hearings that the safety issue was unfounded and the agency hadn’t received public safety complaints in at least two decades.
Lummi Nation, which co-manages the Drayton Harbor area with WDFW, would not have been impacted by the hunting restrictions, but feared discrimination if a no-shooting zone was created for other hunters.
In June, county council amended the original motion that would have banned shooting for all of Drayton Harbor to create a 1,000-foot buffer in what councilmembers described as a ‘compromise’ between impacted parties.
Council voted 4-3 on October 12 to expand the existing 300-foot buffer to 1,000 feet away from the high-tide mark or Blaine city limits. Councilmembers Barry Buchanan, Carol Frazey and Todd Donovan were opposed to the decision, which came days before the three-month waterfowl hunting season began.
Buchanan, who serves as council chair, brought the Drayton Harbor discussion before council on October 26.
“This started because I have been convinced by public testimony that the tribes are against any no-shooting zone in Drayton Harbor,” Buchanan said during the council meeting. “I wanted to visit this because I think it’s important. My commitment to honoring not only [Lummi Nation] treaty rights, which obviously we do, but to also honor their request.”
Other than Buchanan’s mention of the treaty rights, councilmembers gave no other insight during the meeting as to what made council, which voted 4-3 during the last meeting, unanimously rescind the no-shooting zone motion.
Buchanan said in a phone interview that he brought the motion before council after private conversations with Lummi representatives.
“I knew they were adamant about not having any shooting zone,” Buchanan said. “They are co-managers with all of the fishing and hunting in the area and there was a clearly defined process that wasn’t followed at all. It was a bit of an overreach, not intentionally.”
Buchanan added, “This has been a long, ongoing process for a couple of years and there has been new information for me.”
Lummi Nation representatives strongly opposed the no-shooting zone during several public hearings, arguing that even though the 1855 Treaty of Point Elliott granted hunting rights to tribes at their accustomed grounds, they feared discrimination if nontribal hunters had more restrictive hunting rules. Frank Bob, a Lummi Nation member and Lummi Nation resource and policy representative, said in a May public hearing that the sovereign nation would challenge the decision as long as it needed.
“I think that was the right thing to do,” Bob said in an email to The Northern Light, responding to the council’s vote to reverse the decision. “I was really glad they did.”
Despite repeated attempts, Bob was unable to be reached for further comment.
The 1,000-foot buffer in the amended ordinance cited Lummi Nation law that prohibited tribal members from using firearms within 1,000 feet of an occupied house. However, the Lummi Indian Business Council wrote in a July letter to the city of Blaine that it could not find any reference to this in its law.
“The Lummi Nation continues to uphold its secure and recognized sovereign rights in Drayton Harbor, and you are strongly advised to not infringe upon them,” the letter read.
Councilmembers, Whatcom County chief civil deputy prosecutor Karen Frakes and county council clerk Dana Brown-Davis deliberated on the legal procedure during the October 26 meeting. Council discussed rescinding, repealing and reconsidering the motion that adopted the no-shooting zone ordinance; the county’s prosecuting office recommended rescinding the motion. Brown-Davis said reconsidering the motion could only happen at the same meeting as the vote and repealing the motion could only happen if the ordinance was signed into law.
Whatcom County law states the county executive has 10 business days to sign an ordinance after presented to his office, and if he doesn’t, it automatically goes into effect. The ordinance was presented to county executive Satpal Sidhu on October 21 and it had not yet been signed.
“If it’s not clear what the process is, then we’re legally within our grounds by following our best understanding of it,” councilmember Tyler Byrd said. “I think that applies here in context that we’ve done a really good job of talking it through with everyone and looking at it from different perspectives. Whatever approach we end up taking would be legally justified at the end of the day.”
Councilmember Ben Elenbaas said he believed council didn’t have to reintroduce the motion because county council had already given the public a chance for public testimony.
“The only thing that’s different here is that we are reconsidering our decision based on prior public testimony that has already happened,” Elenbaas said.
Although some county councilmembers said they previously voted on the 1,000-foot no-shooting zone buffer as a compromise between the city of Blaine, hunters and the Lummi Nation, none of the impacted parties seemed to be in support of the vote.
“It would seem disappointing on the surface but the vote to establish a 1,000-foot zone really had no effect on the city because city limits extend almost 1,000 feet into the harbor,” city manager Michael Jones said. He added it was disappointing county council didn’t enact the entire no-shooting zone and the 1,000-foot buffer would have only impacted county residents living along the harbor.
The city isn’t considering taking further steps at this time, Jones said.
Albert O’Connor, a Washington Waterfowl Association board member, said the new decision didn’t have a big impact on hunters since they mostly shoot from the middle of the harbor.
“I don’t have a problem either way since most of the hunting takes place in the middle of the harbor,” O’Connor said. “I would have been OK with the 1,000-foot rule. It was perplexing they wanted to shut down the whole harbor. I don’t see any benefits in that.”