## Meeting Overview On the morning of March 25, 2025, the Whatcom County Council convened in an unusual format — a Committee of the Whole meeting conducted entirely in executive session, closed to the public. Council Chair Kaylee Galloway called the hybrid meeting to order at 8:31 a.m. in the Council Chambers at the County Courthouse, with all seven council members present: Barry Buchanan, Tyler Byrd, Todd Donovan, Ben Elenbaas, Galloway herself, Jon Scanlon, and Mark Stremler. This was no ordinary council meeting. The entire agenda was designed around two sensitive matters requiring closed-door deliberation: ongoing collective bargaining negotiations with county employee unions, and a complex code compliance issue involving Petrogas, a company whose operations had apparently drawn significant legal and regulatory attention. The presence of multiple attorneys — Christopher Quinn and Kellen Kooistra from the Prosecuting Attorney's Office, plus Dennis McLerran from the outside law firm Cascadia Law — signaled the gravity of the discussions ahead. The meeting was scheduled to conclude no later than 9:45 a.m., giving the council just over an hour to navigate these delicate matters away from public scrutiny, as permitted under specific provisions of Washington'…