The first 100 days of Mayor Dan Pike’s leadership will be the topic Tuesday, March 11 when the mayor appears at the Neighborhood Association’s monthly meeting. The 7 p.m. session in the Birchwood Presbyterian Church Chapel will be interesting on many levels including his announced “deep commitment to social services, economic development and public safety.” Not to suggest that Cordatans should welcome his honor in full attack mode, but we do have some questions including one about the City’s 2008 project wish list offered by the planning director. The announcement was heavily-weighted toward southern neighborhoods with Cordata’s problems ignored. Our dismissal came one day after a startling revelation by a Public Works accident systems analyst that 77% of the 239 Bellingham car crashes in 2007 occurred either in or bordering the Guide Meridian/Cordata Neighborhood. The betting here is that the mayor, who ran on a platform high on transparency, will level with us.
The Bellingham City Council’s decision to put the Downtown Library Project on hold, while disappointing to many, is being deemed a wise move in most quarters. Not only is the City looking down the road at a severe case of the financial shorts (waterfront infrastructure will cost $300 million and growth area annexation another $130 million), but there are questions about whether or not Bellingham’s normally generous attitude toward cultural improvements could again prevail.
The truth of the matter is that the Bellingham Library Board of Trustees failed to get their ducks lined up for what is increasingly viewed as a flawed concept. A cohesive public relations program, key to selling the public a bond issue, was nonexistent. More and more it appears a good thing that the board put the public to sleep and, at times, themselves over what became a seven-year itch to building something, well, grandiose. Those seven years found the Board examining 20 different locales only to return to where they began. You don’t want to read those Library Board minutes unless you are out of Lunesta.
When the public did awaken from its slumber during recent months, letters to the editors of various publications are providing increasing evidence that a lot of questions are finally being asked. While many of those questions center on cost ($56.4 million plus $780,000 in expansion salaries are just two), there were others dealing with a parking garage from hell whose stalls have been estimated to cost $39,000 apiece.
There are a number of solutions and all must take into consideration the economy and interest rates. One involves something far less grand downtown with small branch libraries located in city parks. Of many remarkable aspects of the library fiasco is the lack of political acumen exhibited by the Library Board; you simply don’t put a bond issue of such complexity on a ballot in an election year just as you don’t start your ace relief pitcher in a World Series game. At the risk of writing like broadcaster Howard Cosell used to sound, not even New York Yankees pooh-bah George Steinbrenner, whose monumental shortage of sagacity remains legendary, was that lacking in intelligence.
Of inordinate importance to all in our neighborhood is the first in a series of master planning sessions the second Thursday of each month to determine Cordata Park amenities. This is a high priority opportunity for you to have a ground floor voice in the makeup of our park located at the current end of Horton Rd. running west near Aldrich Rd. and north just south of Birchwood Presbyterian Church. The church, a major help in our campaign, will be the logical site of the planning meetings, the first of which will be Thursday, March 13 at 7-9 p.m. Come lend a hand at a cookie infused session. It’s important that we have an impressive turnout to further emphasize our intense interest in Cordata Park.
Asking for money is one of those pieces of tawdriness perhaps best left to politicians and TV evangelists. Your neighborhood association, running on a tight budget, is proud of its accomplishments as we strive to improve Cordata. Items like last year’s 20 question survey took time and effort to prepare; then, there’s the matter of postage. Participation by 156 residents in the survey provided an understandable sense of buoyancy.
People at City Hall, who know about such things, tell us Cordata’s population is approaching 3,500. On the assumption that interest in our organization will continue to increase, the anticipated postage costs alone are daunting if not downright frightening. To those who haven’t paid dues, please do; it makes our work that much easier resulting in fewer graceless reminders. To those who have, thanks.
New Board member is Pat Adams, now nearing five years in Bellingham having moved from Edmonds where she was an educator for 18 years. Born and raised in the Seattle area, she is widowed with three children and six grandchildren. It was after the children were mostly grown up that Pat went back to school and graduated from the University of Washington.
Her Edmonds Community College work as an instructor in the Adult Basic Education Department involved her with English as a Second Language, the General Equivalent Diploma, the Developmentally Disabled and returning students. Pat also taught two different Developmentally Delayed levels. Her arrival in Bellingham has made possible closer relations with two daughters who, having attended Western Washington University, settled here. As the retired educator and decided Bellingham booster puts it, “I couldn’t live anywhere else.”
Pat, a devoted twice-a-week Senior Center walker, attends classes through the Academy for Life-long Learning (ALL) and loves to travel. She’s excited about helping create a better Cordata and has taken on the Hospitality Committee chairmanship.
The Deadline Dash….Reflective of the close relationship developing between your Neighborhood Association and Whatcom Community College is the school’s follow-up to a recent on-campus pedestrian accident. Witness to the accident on a Kellogg crosswalk in front of the Administration Building was VP for Administrative Services Ray White. Before taking the incident to the City, White contacted GM/CNA President Pamela Sorensen for neighborhood feedback. He got it….The Food Bank, coming off its busiest year, needs your groceries and your money. Visits last year numbered 76,951. Created to reduce hunger in our community, the Food Bank is temporarily located at 1511 North State St. Donations, including money, can be dropped off from 8-4:30 p.m. Monday-Friday at the red door around the corner at York St….That was good news the other day about the County returning 8,400 acres above Lake Whatcom to parkland status. The acreage is 25% of the entire watershed area and includes one mile of shoreline….Progress is being made with those seven plus acres likely to be added to our future 20 acre park. The County Property Board will pass judgment later this month….Call it the Chinese water torture approach to public relations but those letters to the editors of print media are paying off. To paraphrase the man on old-time radio, “keep those cards and letters going in.”….The 15th Annual Plant Sale & Expo of the Whatcom Conservation District will be Saturday, March 22 at the Community Food Co-op’s second store site at 315 Westerly Rd. near Cordata Parkway. The 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. fun includes music provided by Felix Sonnyboy and The Muddy Boots. As a comment regarding journalistic accuracy, that one is impossible to make up.
More next time,
Bob Sanders
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