Bellingham Comments from Digital Recorder - EISs for the Proposed ...

GATEWAY PACIFIC TERMINAL EIS SCOPING HEARING VOL. I
COURT REPORTER: GWEN BRASS PROCEEDING DATE: October 27, 2012
Page 20
that.
Thank you.
MS. HULL: Numbers 10, 11, and 12.
THE SPEAKER: My name is Dr. Judy Hopkinson. I am a
retired scientist and associate professor of pediatrics at
Baylor Medicine. I live in the York neighborhood in Bellingham
for the past four years. My husband and I moved here from
Houston to be closer to our daughter and to enjoy the
remarkable beauty of Whatcom County, and we love this area. I
got to tell you, it's not just the beauty but also the people.
You guys are awesome.
And it's clear to me that you and me and my neighbors
and our children and our grandchildren, we need a lot of things
in this community, just like the rest of the country. But in
this community particularly we need good jobs and we need
quality schools and we need a decent jail and we need more
firemen and more police and emergency vehicles. We need a lot
of things. And all of those things require a healthy economy,
a viable tax base, and careful planning.
Now, this proposal for the Gateway Pacific Terminal
include the promise of jobs and some tax revenue, and those are
two things we really need, so I'm very interested.
But I'm no spring chicken, folks, and I'm not
careless, and I believe in fiscal responsibility. We can't
afford to be careless or to allow hidden costs to cripple our