January 11 - 17, 2018
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IN THIS
ISSUE
Healthy Youth Coalition to host ‘Teen Night,’ page 3
School board to consider capital projects levy
Development on Peace Portal continues, page 4
Varsity basketball team loses to Ferndale, page 6
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New mayor, city council members sworn into office
By Oliver Lazenby
(See Levy, page 3)
s Blaine City Council’s newly elected members took their oath of office before the first regular meeting of the year on January 8. From l., Alicia Rule, Eric Davidson, Charlie Hawkins and Bonnie Onyon. Council voted unanimously to appoint Onyon as mayor and council member Steve Lawrenson as mayor, pro tempore. Photo by Stefanie Donahue
Eight still in running for county council vacancy By Oliver Lazenby At a January 9 special meeting, the Whatcom County Council narrowed down a pool of 29 applicants to eight for the open county council seat. Among them; Timothy Ballew II, Natalie McClendon, Seth Fleetwood, Patricia Dunn, Alicia Rule, Cliff Langley, Pete Kremen and Carol Frazey. Rule is currently a Blaine City Council member. Those eight will give a three-minute presentation to the council on Tuesday, January 16. On January 18, the council is
expected to appoint one of the eight to the at large position. The term runs until the October 2018 general election. Todd Donovan resigned from the open position last November after being elected to the new District 2 seat. Voters approved new council districts in 2016. At the special meeting, each current county council member was allowed to vote for three applicants. The council clerk tallied their votes and the top five – Ballew, McClendon, Fleetwood, Dunn and Rule – stayed in the running.
Ericksen squashes claims about taking a job at the EPA B y S t e fa n i e D o n a h u e From the floor of the Washington State Capital, state senator Doug Ericksen (R-Ferndale) told reporters that he will not take a job with the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), despite early media reports that he had been appointed to a regional position. On January 5, The Bellingham Herald reported that Ericksen was appointed to senior advisor to the Region 10 Admin-
istrator for the agency’s office in Seattle, citing statements from an executive assistant for Chris Hladick, regional administrator for the EPA’s Pacific Northwest and Alaska regional offices. When asked to comment, Ericksen neither confirmed nor denied the claims. Ericksen remained silent until January 8, the first day of the state’s legislative session. In a statement, he called the report, and others published over the weekend, “erroneous” and “inaccurate.”
This is not Ericksen’s first run-in with the EPA – from January to May 2017, he worked as a temporary communications director for President Donald Trump’s transition team. Opposed to his choice to dually serve the White House and constituents in District 42, voters attempted a recall effort last year. In March, their petition was denied in Whatcom Superior Court. (See Ericksen, page 2)
After the vote, each council member had the opportunity to nominate one additional person for the position. Tyler Bird nominated Pete Kremen, who wasn’t in the pool of original applicants but whom Bird said has agreed to accept the nomination. Todd Donovan nominated Carol Frazey and Barbara Brenner nominated Cliff Langley. The rest of the council declined to nominate anyone. The original pool of applicants included two Blaine residents, Rule and Carolyn Anderson, a Blaine real estate agent.
Letters . . . . . . . . . 4 Sports . . . . . . . . . . 6 Classifieds . . . . . 11 Coming Up . . . . . 14 Police . . . . . . . . . 14 Tides . . . . . . . . . . 14
INSIDE
The Blaine School District board of directors will consider asking voters to pass a $12 million capital levy at its next meeting, on Monday, January 22. The levy would fund a variety of capital projects that the district would like to complete in the next six years. The work that the district wants to do is estimated at about $11 million, but the board discussed a $12 million levy to leave a buffer for contingency costs. With levy money, the district would focus on projects it has already committed to, including replacing or updating the existing grandstand structure and purchasing property for a future Birch Bay school. The district committed to the grandstand in its 2015 bond but cancelled the project due to higher than estimated construction costs. The board passed a resolution in 2014 to buy property in Birch Bay once it could figure out how to fund a purchase. At a January 4 special meeting, the board directed district superintendent Ron Spanjer to pursue placing a six-year levy on the April 24, special election ballot. Spanjer will bring a resolution to the board’s January 22 meeting and the board will vote on whether to send it to voters. The levy would start in 2019 and need a simple majority of 50 percent to pass. Property owners would pay roughly 50 cents per thousand dollars of assessed value at current property values, said Amber Porter, district finance director. After considering three timelines, the school board decided on the most aggressive one, which would allow the district to begin building this year and complete all identified projects in 2024, the levy’s final year. That would require something called non-voted debt meaning the district could go into debt starting projects before it actually has levy funds and pay back that debt once it begins collecting the levy in 2019. “We may want to consider doing that in light of the fact that construction costs have been escalating so quickly,” Porter told the
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