July 13 - 19, 2023
FREE
Community Newspaper of Blaine and Birch Bay HHHECRWSSHHH Postal Customer
IN THIS
ISSUE
Downtown Blaine zoning changes, page 3
County sees increased tourism, page 15
New food truck at The Vault, page 16
PRSRT STD U. S. Postage PAID Permit NO. 87 Blaine, WA 98230
Jazz festival offering concerts this week Voting opens for August 1 primary election By Grace McCarthy
(See Election, page 4)
s Blaine Harbor Music Festival’s first free noon-hour concert of the week kicked off at G Street Plaza on July 10 with artistic director Nick Biello on saxophone, Christopher Woitach on guitar, Larry Holloway on bass and Julian MacDonough on drums. For more opportunities to catch a free show, head to G Street Plaza at noon through Friday or attend an evening show around town. Find more information on the Blaine Harbor Music Festival website at blaineharbormusicfestival.org. Photo by Madisun Tobisch
City council reaffirms six-month manufactured home park moratorium By Grace McCarthy Blaine City Council voted 5-2 during its July 10 meeting to uphold its decision to enact a six-month emergency moratorium on processing manufactured home park building permit applications. Over 20 people spoke during a public hearing before the vote while others brimmed the council chambers to listen. City council approved the moratorium May 22 to allow time for city staff to clean up code inconsistencies. The underlying zoning code allows for manufactured home parks but the planned unit development
(PUD) code does not. Manufactured home parks that are five acres or larger are required to be developed as PUDs. Blaine city code only allows manufactured home parks in east Blaine’s planned residential zone, which runs east of 15th Street to city limits and from the U.S./Canada border to H Street Road. Manufactured homes can be built on individual properties within city limits. The debate on whether to allow manufactured home parks in Blaine began after east Blaine developers Skip and Katie Jansen met with city staff in fall 2021 to discuss building a manufactured home
Blaine school district spending cuts to lower anticipated deficit to $2 million By Ian Haupt The Blaine school district released a draft budget for the 2023/24 school year July 10 that spends nearly $3.5 million less than last school year and reduces the district’s anticipated end of year deficit to $2.1 million. Last year, the Blaine school board adopted a budget for the 2022/23 school year that included a budget forecast where ex-
penditures exceeded its revenues to a point that, by 2026, it would have a $14 million deficit. As state law requires a district to balance its budget before each upcoming school year, the district is now taking steps to manage its future fund balance. The reduced budget comes after the school board passed a reduced education plan in April that would allow district administrators to remove a maximum of 65.2 positions this summer to address budget
shortfalls. Blaine school district superintendent Christopher Granger has since said the district will be eliminating 59.5 positions, which would include 50 layoffs. The other positions were eliminated through employees who were retiring or otherwise leaving the district. The eliminated positions have allowed Granger and district finance director (See Budget page 6)
park on their East Harbor Hills property, between The Ridge at Harbor Hills and Grandis Pond. Skip Jansen said city staff pointed out the PUD conflict during the meeting and encouraged the developers to apply for a text amendment request, which required going through the public process. Skip Jansen previously said he believes the code inconsistencies originate from code changes in the 2000s. East Blaine residents strongly opposed the text amendment request and raised concerns of homeownership, property (See Moratorium, page 5)
INSIDE
The mailing of Whatcom County primary ballots has started the countdown to the primary on Tuesday, August 1. The race for Whatcom County Executive is the most contested with five people challenging Satpal Sidhu to lead the county. The top two finishers in each race will move on to the November 7 general election. Races that have two candidates or are uncontested will not be in the primary, such as several Blaine school board positions and all of the Blaine City Council seats. Below are the positions up that will most impact Blaine and Birch Bay residents: • Whatcom County Executive – Misty Flowers, Alicia Rule, Satpal Sidhu, Dan Purdy, Barry Buchanan and Sukhwant Gill • Whatcom County Council District 4 – Mark Stremler, Kathy Kershner and Katherine Orlowski • Whatcom County Council At Large Position B – Atul Deshmane, Jon Scanlon, Hannah Ordos and Jerry Burns • Blaine school board – Tana Perkins Reneau, Ben Lazarus and Dean Berkeley The Whatcom County Auditor’s Office mailed primary ballots to registered Whatcom County voters on July 12. Registered voters can start voting immediately by mail, drop box returns or in-person at the auditor’s office after receiving their ballots. The auditor’s office asks voters to contact the office if they don’t receive ballots by Wednesday, July 19. The office can replace lost or damaged ballots. Ballots must be returned in a drop box by 8 p.m. August 1 or ballots returned by mail need to be postmarked by August 1. The auditor’s office does not recommend mailing ballots after Tuesday, July 25, according to its website. There are 21 drop boxes in Whatcom County for the primary, including at Blaine Public Library, North Whatcom Fire and Rescue’s Birch Bay station and Custer Elementary School. Whatcom County residents who want
TheNorthernLight
Coming Up . . . . . 14 Classifieds . . . 11,12 Letters . . . . . . . . . 4 Police . . . . . . . . . 14 Tides . . . . . . . . . . 14
@TNLreporter
@TheNorthernLightNews
TheNorthernLight.com
ThisFLYERS Week’s
FSI Save