Our next general
meeting, to be held Tuesday, November 10, will feature a talk by Ted
Carlson, City of Bellingham Public Works Director. Carlson, six months in his position, is
making a timely appearance as dramatic changes in our Neighborhood are either
being made or considered. Public Works,
a department of 240 employees whose focus is enhancing our quality of life, has
a highly significant impact upon the community.
Composed of 15 units, Public Works is charged with many responsibilities
including the building of City roads, the protection of health and safety and
the provision of efficient quality services.
Included are such disparate subjects as water recycling, parking, and
yard waste disposal. Carlson’s 7 p.m. appearance on the 10th
will be at Birchwood Presbyterian Church, 500 Meadowbrook Ct. See you there.
New Neighborhood
boundaries have been conceptually approved by the Bellingham Planning
Commission. Yet to be completed is a
boatload of legal and technical work although final borders approval appears quite
likely and soon. The most significant
aspects of the re-working will be the loss of Guide Meridian and the retention
of West Bakerview Rd. The latter reflects opposition by your GMCNA
whose desire to keep all of Whatcom
Community College and the
Whatcom Transit Authority sub station should
be realized in what will be re-named the Cordata Neighborhood. The new one will be bordered on the south by
West Bakerview Rd. Western limit will be
Aldrich Rd.
with the east border running north from Kellogg Rd. along the backside of the
storage units and passing short of big box stores including Costco. The re-designed Cordata Neighborhood thus will
have been transformed from a mixed light industrial/residential Neighborhood
into one almost exclusively residential.
The only exceptions will be businesses on West Bakerview Rd. and Cordata Parkway.
Our newest board
member is Linda Trentman who, with husband Jon, lives in The Reserve @
Cordata. Having resided in Vancouver, B.C. and Southern California where she held positions as a
technical account executive and a regional account executive in the disclosure
business, Linda brings excellent communications skills to the table. She also holds real estate licenses in California and Washington. Her work in the latter provided insight into
such subjects as neighborhood developments, home builders and contractors. Linda’s interests include internal design,
travel, boating and marveling at the beauty of such local sights as Cordata Parkway—particularly
on a fall day. Great to have you with
us, Linda.
Deadline Dash….Candidate
Night, sponsored by your Neighborhood Association, found 18 of 20 candidates
participating in the October 20 event held at Birchwood Presbyterian
Church. Its success probably can be
summed up by a comment of one of the attendees: “It was so good I changed my
mind about three of the races”….The nearby Hilltop Restaurant on Guide Meridian
will soon acquire Blarney Stone West, according to owner Tom Kilpatrick. It’s being created from 50 tons of one
million year-old olivine rock obtained from a Twin Sister Mt. and will be ready
for this winter’s Olympic Games.
Kilpatrick quotes in the Bellingham Herald strongly suggest he has been
within kissing distance of the original stone in County Cork….Julie
Guy represented us at a recent Public Works open house held in regard to the
roundabout to be built in front of the auto dealership at I-5 & Northwest
Rd. at the Jerry Chamber dealership. Preliminary
work, begun today, will continue through Nov. 20 with major construction
scheduled for spring. Working hour flaggers
are now in place to make sure pedestrians have proper area access as the
Neighborhood Association monitors the complex site. A word to the wise: shop very early or late
at Fred Myer….That’s excellent news about extension plans for Cordata Parkway
whose fall height of beauty was, again, a total delight. Developer Ted Mischaikov (he will build South
Springs west of a Cordata Parkway
extension) will re-institute the medium strip so thoughtlessly rejected by the
departed DR Horton. Mischaikov has also
hired Earth-First Lawn Care as his project plans become even greener….Should the
City of Bellingham O.K
.the highly controversial Fairhaven Highlands project (a.k.a. Hundred Acre
Wood), the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) will actually make the definitive
call. That’s the word from Bob Simmons,
writing in Crosscut Public Media on October 31.
The problem is locally owned Horizon Bank whose partnership with
developer David Edelstein, combined with a lagging economy, raised red flags
difficult to dismiss since an FDIC major responsibility is to prevent bankers
from venturing into wild financial territory.…And now it’s time for a
commercial message. This organization
would not be possible without your support.
With the new year around the corner, it’s time for us to ask of you more
than your time. Membership dues are $10
per year. Think of us along with other
do good organizations like the Girl Scouts of America (we, too, are
cookie-prone serving them often at meetings) and participatory walkathons for
causes thus begging the thought that attending meetings is far less exhausting.
More, later
Bob Sanders, with a thumbs up for Micah Caucutt
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