November 5 - 11, 2015
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IN THIS
ISSUE
Veterans Day special section, page 6
Results of the 2015 election, pages 10-11
PRSRT STD U. S. Postage PAID Permit NO. 87 Blaine, WA 98230
Halloween photos, page 13
Borderites close out their season Blaine and Bellingham score biggest tax benefits from pot By Steve Guntli
s Anthony Ball, number 88, tackles a Lynden opponent at the senior game October 23. Blaine lost 37–14. See story on page 7. Photo by Janell Kortlever
Jail tax too close to call as election results come in By Steve Guntli The first votes have been counted, and the proposition to increase the sales tax by .2 percent to pay for a new Whatcom County Jail is too close to call. With 40,518 ballots counted, Proposition 2015-1 is still up in the air. Early returns show 19,701 votes (50.75%) in favor and 19,122 votes (49.25%). Those percentages are certain to change as more ballots are counted. On Wednesday, County executive
Jack Louws told The Northern Light it’s still too early to comment on the vote. “We presented an option for voters to consider, and it appears we’re going to have to wait a day or two to find out,” Louws said. “Obviously, I will respect whatever decision the voters make.” Also too close to call is the race for Whatcom County Council district 2, position B. The first returns show Kathy Kershner with 19,332 votes (50.02%) and Satpal Sidhu with 19,318 (49.9%). Louws handily defeated challenger Joy Gilfilen in the race for county executive.
Man robs Blaine bank, waits for police to arrest him By Steve Guntli A man robbed the U.S. Bank on H Street, but then waited outside for the police. On October 29, Gregory Jason Walker, 49, walked into the bank at 280 H Street and handed the teller a note asking her to hand over cash. Upon receiving it, he took the money and the note outside, but waited around the area for Blaine Police to arrive.
Police found Walker sitting outside the bank, waiting to be arrested. Walker was not carrying a weapon and didn’t threaten the teller with a weapon. Walker told police he had been in the bank and then handed over the cash. He was arrested and booked into Whatcom County Jail. He is being charged with suspicion of first-degree robbery. The case is unrelated to a similar string of
robberies in Bellingham, the most recent of which occurred November 2. In that case, 65-year-old Richard Kenneth Gorton handed a note to a teller at a bank on Meridian Street, and then waited outside for police to arrest him. This was the third such robbery Gorton has committed since 2014. In each instance, he told police he was about to lose his housing and preferred to be in jail rather than on the streets.
Louws won 25,508 (71.2%) of the votes, and Gilfilen took 10,311 (28.8%). In the race for Blaine school district board of directors, Joan Lotze won over challenger Russ Schutt with 1,779 votes (68.3%) to Schutt’s 825 (31.7%). Three other candidates, John Freal, Charles Gibson and Todd Berge, ran unopposed. Blaine native Bobby Briscoe defeated former Ferndale mayor Gary Jensen for a seat on the Port of Bellingham commission. Briscoe won the seat with 20,575 votes (54.9%), compared to Jensen’s (See Election, page 5)
INSIDE
Washington state is distributing tax revenues from marijuana sales with counties and cities, and Whatcom County is one of the biggest recipients. In the two years since Initiative 502 legalized recreational marijuana, Whatcom County has raked in $267,396 in tax revenue. That number puts the county fourth highest in taxable pot revenue, with projected yearly receipts of $160,438. The county is behind King, Spokane and Snohomish counties. The amount jurisdictions receive is based on their taxable sales and will be distributed quarterly. The first payments went out in October. Bellingham took the lion’s share of the county’s tax revenue and received $102,286 for 2015, the sixth highest total for individual cities in the state. Blaine is the only other city that received tax revenue, albeit a much smaller amount: $4,672. Blaine has one retail marijuana store in operation, Evergreen Cannabis on Peace Portal Drive. This June, Governor Jay Inslee approved a pot reform bill that would allow the state to share tax revenues with counties and cities, something that wasn’t addressed in the original language of I-502. The pot reform bill changed the tax rate to a 37 percent excise tax for marijuana at the point of sale, as opposed to separate 25 percent taxes at each level of production. The state will distribute about $6 million for this fiscal year, which began July 1, and another $6 million in the next fiscal year. Beginning in 2018, if statewide tax revenue on marijuana exceeds $25 million, 30 percent of the revenue over $25 million will go towards counties and cities where retail stores are located, and the remaining 70 percent will go towards cities and towns on a per-capita basis. However, areas that prohibit state-licensed producers, processors or retailers are not eligible for tax benefits. According to state law, the tax revenue must be used for funding marijuana law enforcement and public safety measures, but neither of those terms is clearly defined.
Letters . . . . . . . . . 4 Sports . . . . . . . 7, 11 Classifieds . . . . . 14 Police . . . . . . . . . 17 Coming Up . . . . . 17 Tides . . . . . . . . . . 17
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