November 21 - 27, 2019
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Community Newspaper of Blaine and Birch Bay HHHECRWSSHHH Postal Customer
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Increase in property tax revenue authorized, page 2
Shellfish harvest expands in Drayton Harbor, page 6
Judge restricts device searches at border, page 15
PRSRT STD U. S. Postage PAID Permit NO. 87 Blaine, WA 98230
County awards $8.7 million for berm construction By Oliver Lazenby
(See Berm, page 2)
s Blaine Elementary School’s students, staff and parent-teacher group held their annual “Stuff the Bus!” food drive from November 1 to 12 to benefit the Blaine Food Bank. The food drive brought in 3,600 pounds of food and $1,700 for the food bank. The top three classrooms were Ms. Kirby’s fifth grade class, Ms. Shultz’s fourth grade class and Ms. Brouillette’s third grade class, and they will get to go on a field trip to the food bank.
Photo courtesy of Kelly Brown
Gateway businesses question stormwater project costs By Jami Makan Businesses that own pieces of the Gateway parcel, also known as the old municipal airport site, are concerned about the rising costs of a stormwater pond project that they are being asked to help pay for. At the Blaine city council meeting on November 12, a public hearing was held concerning the Gateway Regional Storm Facility, a stormwater pond that is currently under construction between Boblett Court and Pipeline Road near the truck route. At the meeting, councilmembers voted 5-0 to form a Local Improvement District (LID), a method by which property owners within a defined geographical area can finance an improvement benefiting their property. The property owners who own pieces of the Gateway parcel and will be affected by the LID include Yorkston Oil Company, Mercer, Chuckanut Bay Foods and IK Truck Repair. Prior to the vote, representatives of some of these companies expressed concerns about the rising costs of the stormwater pond project.
The total cost of the project is currently estimated to be $3,426,520. To help pay for it, the city of Blaine received a grant from the Whatcom County Economic Development Investment (EDI) Board in the amount of $883,333 and a loan in the amount of $1,766,666. The cost of the improvements not covered by the grant, estimated to be $2,543,187, will be assessed against the property owners, some of whom feel that this amount is too high. “Boblett Properties objects to the formation of the LID due to the new cost estimates that we are being forced to bear along with the other property owners,” said Heather Wolf, an attorney with the Bellingham law firm Brownlie Wolf and Lee, which represents Yorkston’s Boblett Properties LLC. “We believe there are a number of errors in the city’s methodology for computing the costs for the LID.” Wolf continued: “We believe the total amount of $2,543,000 is too high. We haven’t received a lot of explanation as to what costs and why they are included in the overall estimate. But per the information presented tonight, it does appear that the
city has included some costs that unfairly burden the LID property owners.” As an example, Wolf pointed to the inclusion of the city’s land costs. “This land was not acquired specifically for this LID and we do not believe this cost should be imposed upon the property owners per state statute,” she said. “It has been (See Gateway, page 3)
INSIDE
Whatcom County announced that it awarded Granite Construction with an $8.7 million contract to build the Birch Bay Drive and Pedestrian Facility project, commonly called the berm. Granite Construction, a California-based company with a Bellingham location, made the winning bid out of 11 total. According to a preliminary schedule, the company plans to begin work on the south end of the 1.6-mile project site, near Lora Lane, in January. It will be stockpiling gravel until then – the project requires about 210,000 tons of sand and gravel to be placed on the beach to “renaturalize” the beach and protect from storm surges. According to preliminary plans, Granite will construct the berm over two years, with a break for summer 2020, as requested by the Birch Bay Chamber of Commerce. Construction will start at the south end of the project site at Lora Lane and progress to the project’s north end at Cedar Avenue. Construction will happen mostly overnight. “There will be a high presence of trucks on the roadway starting in the evening, and finishing up in the early morning,” county public works staff said in an email. “There will be construction noise on the beach at the gravel placement site (moving north to south) during the night time hours that coincide with low tides.” Granite Construction hopes to place approximately 80,000 tons of gravel on the beach by February 15, 2020, when it can no longer work in the water due to spawning herring. After that, it will continue to work outside the water on other aspects of the project, which include bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure and landscaping, until May 31. Construction stops from June until after Labor Day for Birch Bay’s summer tourist season. County public works staff cautioned that this schedule is preliminary, and not something the contractor is bound to yet. Granite Construction and Whatcom County public works will meet in the following weeks to work on a more detailed construction schedule, public works staff said. Weather will also affect construction.
Letters . . . . . . . . . 4 Classifieds . . . . . 11 Coming Up . . . . . 14 Sheriff . . . . . . . . . 14 Tides . . . . . . . . . . 14
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