December 8 - 14, 2022
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Community Newspaper of Blaine and Birch Bay HHHECRWSSHHH Postal Customer
IN THIS
ISSUE
Whatcom County Council meeting roundup, page 5
Wrestling starts off strong in Everett, page 6
BCT to debut holiday play, page 13
PRSRT STD U. S. Postage PAID Permit NO. 87 Blaine, WA 98230
Holiday Harbor Lights kicks off holiday season Tanksley announces bid for sheriff By Ian Haupt
(See Tanksley, page 2)
s Blaine students carol during Blaine-Birch Bay Park and Recreation District 2’s 10th annual Holiday Lights Obstacle Dash at Lincoln Park on December 3. The dash was one of many festive events during Holiday Harbor Lights to ring in the holiday season. More photos on pages 8-9. Photo by Molly Ernst
Border economy is a mixed bag By Grace McCarthy Mail Boxes International owner Brant Baron stands in his H Street company’s storage room lined with boxes. Holiday sales have returned to normal this year, which is about 50 percent more than nonseasonal times, Baron says, but overall business is not operating at prepandemic levels. “We’re still not back to where we were precovid,” Baron said. “There’s still a lot of people who haven’t been back to the states since. But we’re hearing more and more people every day saying, ‘This is my first time back.’” Mailbox owners like Baron have had varying degrees of sales and optimism with returning Canadian customers as cross-border travel restrictions have slowly eased this year. Economic recovery in Blaine seems to be a mixed bag. Blaine’s sales tax receipts are looking promising despite the closure of several mailbox stores, but gas tax revenue continues to be hard hit with Canadians not waiting at the fuel pump as they once did. Mailbox stores contribute to the city’s sales tax, which benefits basic city operations in the general fund, while gas stations contribute to the city’s gas tax, which funds street maintenance and operations. “It’s huge,” said city finance director
Daniel Heverling of the missing gas revenue. “It’s really hurting the street fund because the numbers are way down. The sales tax is impacting the general fund but it seems like it’s rebounding.” Sales tax revenues were 0.4 percent higher, or $5,601 more, in the third quarter of 2022 compared to 2019, which Heverling said was an average year. Still, sales tax had a $75,990 deficit during the first three quarters of 2022 and 2019. Gas tax revenue was down almost 74 percent, or $188,000, in the first three quarters of 2022 compared to 2019. Heverling said he didn’t know when the gas revenue could rebound, as he expected Canadians would have returned to Blaine gas stations. He speculated that Canadians could be foregoing Blaine gas for less expensive prices on Lummi Nation’s reservation. “I thought when the border opened they would come back,” he said. East Blaine housing development is expected to cushion the lack of gas tax revenue as well as improve the growing sales tax, Heverling said. Even with optimistic sales numbers, the finance director is hesitant to celebrate too soon. City council sliced the budget in 2020 and has kept it constrained, while restoring some services like police staffing in 2021 and 2022. Heverling planned the
2023 budget, which council passed on November 28, to be tight as national recession concerns loom for next year and 2024. “We’re not cutting anything for 2023,” he said. “We just didn’t add a whole bunch of new stuff. We’ll have a bit of a deficit that will be drawing into our reserves.” Baron said he saw about a 10-20 percent increase in customers when Canada stopped requiring the ArriveCAN app, but the U.S. vaccine requirement still stops some from traveling. Baron began for(See Business, page 3)
INSIDE
Blaine police chief Donnell Tanksley is running for Whatcom County sheriff. The Whatcom County Sheriff’s Office (WCSO) position is up for election next November. Sheriff Bill Elfo is currently serving his fourth consecutive four-year term. He was appointed interim sheriff in late 2002 to replace former state senator Dale Brandland. Elfo served as Blaine police chief prior to being elected sheriff. Elfo did not respond to The Northern Light’s requests for comment. Tanksley said he considered running for sheriff after people in the community asked whether he ever thought about running. He said he loves Blaine and its residents, but thought it would be a great opportunity to serve more people. “I evaluated that, my appreciation for our community and what I believe I could do for the community, together with the community and with the great men and women of WCSO,” Tanksley said. Tanksley has created a website and Facebook page, both named “Tank for Sheriff,” for his campaign. The city of Blaine hired Tanksley as police chief in May 2019, and he was sworn in that June. Over the past three years, Tanksley has implemented data-driven traffic enforcement, suspended use of vascular neck restraints following the death of George Floyd, upgraded department vehicles, implemented a state-required body-worn camera program, restaffed the department and pushed for development of a new police station. Tanksley served in the U.S. military for 21 years. He worked for the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department in Missouri from 1993 to 2014, the last seven of which he served as commander. He moved to Bellingham to become assistant chief of police for Western Washington University for three years and then chief of police at Portland State University in Oregon from 2017 until joining Blaine. As sheriff, Tanksley said some of his top priorities would be reducing and preventing crime through a proactive community-focused approach and breaking the cycle of incarceration and recidivism, or repeat offenders. He would also like to prioritize engaging with WCSO staff and other county departments as well as behavioral and mental health care. He said he would like to work against biases that intertwine homelessness with criminal behavior. Tanksley highlighted the need for a new jail facility that has the capacity to provide services for those incarcerated. He said the current facility does not have necessary services to reduce incarceration and recidivism, as well as providing continuous services to people after they are released. “I don’t believe we should be looking at how to make inmates better,” he said. “I think we should be looking at how to make people better, so that’s the goal.”
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