Sudden Valley contractor charged with forging permits

PETER JENSEN - THE BELLINGHAM HERALD

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A Sudden Valley general contractor has been charged with forging three homes' water and sewer permits, worth a total of almost $30,000.

Jonathon M. Barlean, 34, has been charged with one count of first-degree theft and three counts of forgery.

Barlean, who runs Barlean's Construction Inc., has pleaded not guilty and has a trial date set for Aug. 24.

The Lake Whatcom Water and Sewer District discovered the first alleged forgery in May when the owner of one of the homes tried to have the permit pulled, but the number on her copy belonged to a different valid permit, General Manager Jim Neher said.

Her permit also had different fonts than the ones the district uses, Neher said.

"There were a couple things that keyed us in," Neher said. "Everything about it looked official, except the fonts were wrong and we issued that permit number to somebody else."

According to charging documents filed in Whatcom County Superior Court:

The two additional forgeries were discovered in June when a district employee was driving around Sudden Valley and noticed two new homes under construction that did not have water and sewer permits.

Another employee, William Hunter, contacted the Sudden Valley Community Association, which produced two permits that Barlean had provided for the construction.

Hunter told a Whatcom County Sheriff's deputy that the permit numbers were forged, and the district had not issued the permits given to the community association.

Each permit was worth $9,880. Using one of the forged permits, Barlean drew $19,000, which includes the cost of one of the permits, from a construction-loan account a homeowner had set up through North Coast Credit Union in Bellingham.

According to the documents, Barlean told a Bellingham police detective that he knew the permit was forged when he withdrew the money and just picked a permit number at random without knowing it belonged to a valid permit.

The construction contractor license issued to Barlean's Construction Inc. has expired, according to the state Department of Labor and Industries.