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Community Newspaper of Blaine and Birch Bay
December 7 - 13, 2023
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IN THIS
ISSUE
NWFR considering levy lift, page 3
City council without remote meetings after ‘Zoombombing’
Survey open on Birch Bay roundabout, page 5
Winter sports start strong, page 7
PRSRT STD U. S. Postage PAID Permit NO. 87 Blaine, WA 98230
Holiday Harbor Lights starts winter in Blaine
By Grace McCarthy
(See Zoom, page 3)
s Hundreds gathered for the annual tree lighting celebration held at G Street Plaza during the Holiday Harbor Lights festival on December 2. The festivities spanned across Blaine, and included live music, vendors markets, an obstacle dash, train rides and Santa Claus. Photo by Ruth Lauman More photos on pages 10 and 15.
Lyden appointed Blaine Municipal Court judge By Grace McCarthy Thomas Lyden has been appointed Blaine Municipal Court judge. Blaine City Council confirmed city manager Mike Harmon’s appointment of Lyden on November 27 to fill the position left vacant after judge Michael Bobbink died in September. Lyden will take over the remaining term ending in December, and then start a four-year term in January that expires at the end of 2027. “I am truly honored to serve,” Lyden said. “It’s a really nice community. I take
service to heart and I’m looking forward to integrating further. I know there are challenges, but I also believe there are a lot of opportunities for things to change for the better.” Lyden earned his law degree from the University of Idaho and was admitted to the Washington State Bar in 2007. He later was admitted to the Federal Bar Association of the Western District of Washington. Starting his career in the public sector, in 2009 Lyden became supervising attorney for misdemeanor defense attorneys
Outage leaves downtown Blaine without power By Grace McCarthy A faulted underground cable near Peace Portal Drive and Boblett Street left the majority of downtown Blaine without power on December 4. Gary McSpadden, operations and maintenance manager for Blaine Public Works Department, said an old cable burned out and shut down the grid about 5:30 p.m. December 4, one block east of Peace Portal Drive, in an alley off of Boblett Street. While public works doesn’t know what
caused the cable to fail, McSpadden said it wasn’t due to inclement weather or nearby construction. Public works crews immediately responded to the call but it wasn’t until about 11 p.m. that they located the faulted cable. A few residents near the outage remained without power, and were hooked up to a generator the morning of December 5. “Crews were on site shortly after the call but unfortunately an underground failure takes a while to find and diagnose,” McSpadden said.
A second outage occurred about noon on December 5 that lasted about 15 minutes and impacted downtown Blaine. McSpadden said a bad spot in the wire just south of the faulted cable caused the second outage. Public works finished its final repair on the cable about 7:30 p.m. December 5. The train crossing was down at Marine Drive just before the power outage on December 5, preventing people from leaving Marine Drive for about an hour. McSpadden said he wasn’t aware whether the power outage impacted BNSF Railway.
in Whatcom County. Lyden founded a private practice focused on DUI defense in 2011, which later became Keating & Lyden LLC. Lyden expanded his practice to include appeals, debtor/creditor rights, landlord/tenant litigation and business law. Lyden already has some familiarity with the Blaine community, having worked since 2018 as judge pro tempore at Blaine Municipal Court. Bobbink appointed Lyden as presiding judge pro (See Judge, page 3)
INSIDE
The remote portion of Blaine City Council meetings has been suspended as a preventative measure after a ‘Zoombomber’ spouted racial slurs during its October 23 meeting. Mayor Mary Lou Steward made the decision in mid-November to immediately stop remote meetings, and deputy city manager/city clerk Sam Crawford said he anticipates city council will vote on how meetings are conducted in the future. “[In-person only meetings] worked before,” Steward said. “There shouldn’t be any problems if we don’t have Zoom and people can still get in touch with us.” City staff have been unable to determine who caused the disruption at the October 23 meeting, when an anonymous Zoom attendee(s) loudly repeated the N-word slur during a public hearing. City staff quickly muted the account, but the disrupter joined again under a different username and unmuted themselves to continue repeating the slurs. Crawford, who oversees Zoom participating during council meetings, reported the accounts’ hate speech to Zoom, and Zoom concluded in an email that the issue was resolved in early November. While there are still a lot of unknowns around the disruption, Crawford said the incident could be connected to other public meetings in Washington state experiencing ‘Zoombombings’ from AI-generated bots shouting hate speech. According to the Walla Walla Union Bulletin newspaper, College Place City Council had a similar incident during an October 24 public hearing on property tax revenue. Officials believe an AI-generated bot appearing to be a virtual speaker gave a name and address before spouting antisemitic language. After the speaker was kicked out of the meeting, another speaker gave a name and address before
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