November 12 - 18, 2020
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Community Newspaper of Blaine and Birch Bay HHHECRWSSHHH Postal Customer
IN THIS
ISSUE
City launches new tourism website, page 2
Blaine schools see decreased enrollment
Program teaches kids barista skills, page 7
How Birch Bay, Blaine and Custer voted, page 15
PRSRT STD U. S. Postage PAID Permit NO. 87 Blaine, WA 98230
Veterans Day at Blaine’s Veteran’s Memorial Park
By Grace McCarthy
(See Enrollment, page 3)
s Veteran Steve Nelson of Custer-based VFW Post 9474 plays taps as fellow veterans stand alongside him at attention on November 11 at Veteran’s Memorial Park in Blaine. Photo by Ian Haupt
Over 200 queens found in Asian giant hornet nest By Grace McCarthy Over 500 Asian giant hornets were found in the east Blaine nest eradicated on October 24, state entomologists confirmed this week. Washington State Department of Agriculture (WSDA) entomologists opened the nest at a Washington State University lab in Puyallup to find hundreds of hornets at various stages in their life cycle. Despite the number of hornets, entomologists think few, if any, queens made it out of the nest to form a new colony. “If any queens had already left the nest, it was a few and very early,” said Sven Spichiger, WSDA managing entomologist, in a November 10 press conference. “We’ll know a little bit more when we measure each cell and make a determination about what a queen cell looks like versus a
worker cell. As far as we can tell, we got there just in time.” The first Asian giant hornet nest found in the U.S. was considered to be small, measuring about 14 inches long and 8 to 9 inches wide, Spichiger said. He attributed the smaller nest to possibly an unhealthy gene pool or the tree’s size constraining the nest’s growth. The hornets comprised 76 queens, all of which are expected to be new queens except for one; 112 workers, 85 of which were vacuumed during eradication; 190 larvae; 108 capped cells with pupae (the cycle of a hornet’s life when it’s between being larva and an adult) that would have become new queens; nine male hornets; and six unhatched eggs in the smallest comb. The nest was located at the edge of an east Blaine property in a tree that the hor-
nets chewed into to accommodate six layers of combs. The combs contained about 776 cells, but Spichiger said this number (See Hornets, page 5)
Letters . . . . . . . . . 4 Seniors . . . . . . . . . 8 Classifieds . . . . . 11 Police . . . . . . . . . 14 Crossword . . . . . . 14 Tides . . . . . . . . . . 14
INSIDE
The Blaine school district has seen a decrease of 75 full-time students enrolled since October 2019. This school year started with 2,076 full-time students in September and then dropped 12 students in October, according to enrollment data. “Hopefully, we will pick up throughout the year and if we have the chance to have more classes in person, hopefully gain some significant enrollment,” said Amber Porter, executive director of finance and operations for the school district, during the October 26 school board meeting. Although all grades lost students, the biggest losses came from 11th grade with 26 fewer students compared to that cohort’s 10th grade class last October. Second grade had the second largest decline with 18 fewer students, and fifth grade trailed with 16 fewer than October 2019. This year’s kindergarten class has nine more students than last year, which is counter to public school trends statewide. Of the 32,200 full-time students statewide who didn’t enroll at the beginning of this year, the Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) data shows about one-third were kindergarteners. Overall, this is a 3 percent yearto-year enrollment decrease, according to OSPI. District officials worry about the impact on enrollment-based funding, known as the prototypical school funding model, from the state legislature. The 2020-21 school budget anticipated 2,199 students enrolled but the October enrollment deficit was 135 full-time students. This means there is a projected revenue shortfall of over $2 million, Granger said. “The budget was healthy enough to cover core operating expenses and retain an ending fund balance meeting board policy,” Porter said in a statement to The Northern Light. “Once schools closed in the spring, the district restricted spending to ensure it could meet financial obligations through 2020-2021.” The last big budget cut to the school district was during the Great Recession in the 2000s, Porter said. The district reduced
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