January 19 - 25, 2023
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BPD officer receives life-saving award, page 5
Blaine chamber asks for event support, page 6
U.S. lawmakers write letter to USPS, page 6
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Department of New Blaine city manager sworn into office Commerce rejects Birch Bay library scope change By Grace McCarthy
(See Library, page 10)
s Deputy city manager Sam Crawford, l., swears in Michael Harmon as Blaine city manager in council chambers before he started his first day on the job January 17. Harmon previously worked as a chief operating officer of an electric utility provider in Wyoming and former city administrator in Spearfish, South Dakota. Photo by Grace McCarthy
Blaine teachers with 136 years of service retire By Ian Haupt The Blaine school district has four veteran staff members retiring at the end of the school year. Combined, they retire with 136 years of service. More staff members are expected to put in before the end of the year, but superintendent Christopher Granger has previously asked staff to notify the district early if they plan on retiring. The district is in the midst of budgeting issues, and these early retirement announcements will help it plan for budgeting and hiring next year, he said. Blaine school board president Dougal Thomas said during the December 13 regular school board meeting that over 100 years of teaching experience had been put in for retirement ahead of the meeting, which the board accepted. “I wanted to take the opportunity, on behalf of the board, to thank all those people for their service, and [to say] what it means to our community to have people like you, and what it’s going to mean to lose folks like these folks,” Thomas said during the meeting. “[These are] some big shoes to fill. So thank you.” Bob Gray, band teacher and director, 42 years Bob Gray graduated from Western Washington University (WWU) with a
music degree in 1981. He married his wife Dorita Gray that summer and took a job as the music teacher and band director for the Blaine school district in the fall. Blaine’s high school band was mostly freshman and 8th graders with a few juniors and seniors at the time. Bob said the band had only 12 or 13 members his second year teaching. In those days, the pep band sometimes played with nine students while he would cover a trombone or bass drum part. Eventually, after five years, the program started turning around. “I didn’t have any magic answers, just that I kept coming back every day,” he said. “That’s maybe my biggest strength: That I’m just too stubborn to quit.” Bob said he didn’t intend to spend his whole career in Blaine. Part of WWU’s music program indoctrination, and its ties to Woodring College of Education, encouraged graduating students to find small school bands to lead as a stepping stone. But as the band grew, its connection with the school and community did too, so he decided to stay. By the 1990s, Bob said the band was showing growth and, in that time, the school invested in improving what is now the Blaine Performing Arts Center. Bob said the auditorium has the best acoustics of any Whatcom County high school. The
Bellingham Symphony Orchestra, previously the Whatcom Symphony Orchestra, came to Blaine to record a project in it. Today, the school district has a sixth grade band, seventh grade band, eighth grade band, high school jazz band, high school concert band and high school wind ensemble. The pep band plays at all home football games and at five boys and girls home basketball games. Bob said one of his favorite memories was taking the band in the late ’90s and (See Teachers, page 8)
INSIDE
Whatcom County Library System (WCLS) and Birch Bay library supporters are back to the drawing board after the Washington State Department of Commerce turned down a proposal to use an existing grant for a downscaled library project. WCLS can still use the state grant toward the larger library project that had been previously planned or the community can fully fund a smaller project without the grant. Staff told the WCLS Board of Trustees at its January 17 meeting that the department of commerce had denied a scope change request to change the $6.5 million project to a $2.5 million library express. The smaller library was planned to have a small browsing collection, book return, improved parking and an ADA accessible entrance. WCLS executive director Christine Perkins said after the meeting that WCLS wasn’t told why the department denied the scope change for a smaller library. Perkins said WCLS is exploring whether it can come up with a different proposal but is unsure if it can. Birch Bay voters twice narrowly rejected creating a library capital facility area that would have created a taxing district to pay for $4 million of the $6.5 million library project. Voters opposed the district in the November 2021 and February 2022 elections, the latter of which failed the supermajority by only 26 votes. Last June, the trustees decided a $2.5 million interior remodel of the building to create a library express would be the best option. If the trustees pursued the smaller library design without the state grant, Friends of Birch Bay Library (FOBBL) would need to fundraise $2.5 million. WCLS can ask the state to reallocate the $2 million grant for the $6.5 million library but that would mean FOBBL would have two years to fundraise $4.5 million. Perkins said they are not currently considering putting a taxing district before voters. “Raising $2.5 million seems like a big stretch,” Perkins said. “Raising $5 million sounds like even more.” FOBBL president Dianne Marrs-Smith said after the meeting that the grassroots group would ultimately go for the library design that the community wants, but she believed it would be easier to start with the smaller design. FOBBL has raised $236,000 for the library. “We need to be clear on what we want to do. We need to say, ‘This is it. This is what we’re doing’ and we need to go for it,” Marrs-Smith said during the meeting. “We need to be able to say, ‘We’re
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