ak
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Access to Property Owner
“Tell them to xxxx ooo,” said the property owner when told that some of our readers complain that his new posts are encroaching on beach access from Birch Bay Drive south of Jackson Road. He said that twice more while explaining that he has five permits that took a year and a half to obtain. Hearing his voice louder and seeing his face redder, it was time for your correspondent to depart.
ak
ak
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Optimism for Recreation in Birch Bay
A total of $215,000 for Birch Bay recreation support projects is included in the master plan approved by the Northwest Park & Rec District at a meeting Tuesday evening, May 12. The breakdown:
Upgrade the gym at Bay Horizon Park, $35,000
Sports fields, $140,000
Children's play structures, $40,000
Of course there is no certainty. This is simply a plan, and information that expensive wetland restoration would be required for the area at Bay Horizon where ball fields were expected puts a damper on that hope. (Ted Morse, district president, said he is looking for alternative sites.) Nonetheless, this is good news. See the whole plan at www.nwprd2.org
Commissioners of the district have been frugal. Most of the levy money that came to the rejuvenated district with approval of a levy has been saved. Treasurer Dorothy Robertson has some $275,000 on hand, About $300,000 more will come from this year's property taxes. (The impressive 50-page plan, a necessity in seeking state and federal grants, was created for only $20,000, a bargain considering the number of community meetings conducted by the consultants.)
As expected, the commissioners voted to forego another levy request this year. In light of current economic climate, this is a “prudent decision," said Commissioner Terry Johnson (pictured here) in making the motion. All five commissioners voted yes.
Another achievement by the district is a portfolio of classes that will be available. Those at the meeting were shown a mock-up for a Summer Activities Guide, a catalog of 27 opportunities for children and adults taught by qualified local experts this summer. The catalog will be included in the Northern Light this Thursday, the 28th.
Most of the work in qualifying teachers and assembling the information was done by Linda Roorda, the district's secretary, who is paid for only 20 hours a week. Putting this package together for the first time is a tremendous achievement.
AK
Upgrade the gym at Bay Horizon Park, $35,000
Sports fields, $140,000
Children's play structures, $40,000
Of course there is no certainty. This is simply a plan, and information that expensive wetland restoration would be required for the area at Bay Horizon where ball fields were expected puts a damper on that hope. (Ted Morse, district president, said he is looking for alternative sites.) Nonetheless, this is good news. See the whole plan at www.nwprd2.org
Commissioners of the district have been frugal. Most of the levy money that came to the rejuvenated district with approval of a levy has been saved. Treasurer Dorothy Robertson has some $275,000 on hand, About $300,000 more will come from this year's property taxes. (The impressive 50-page plan, a necessity in seeking state and federal grants, was created for only $20,000, a bargain considering the number of community meetings conducted by the consultants.)
As expected, the commissioners voted to forego another levy request this year. In light of current economic climate, this is a “prudent decision," said Commissioner Terry Johnson (pictured here) in making the motion. All five commissioners voted yes.
Another achievement by the district is a portfolio of classes that will be available. Those at the meeting were shown a mock-up for a Summer Activities Guide, a catalog of 27 opportunities for children and adults taught by qualified local experts this summer. The catalog will be included in the Northern Light this Thursday, the 28th.
Most of the work in qualifying teachers and assembling the information was done by Linda Roorda, the district's secretary, who is paid for only 20 hours a week. Putting this package together for the first time is a tremendous achievement.
AK
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Creating a Birch Bay Community Park Looks Like Hard Work
Stakeholders who could make a community park possible for
·
· The Lions Camp Horizon Foundation that operates a summer program for individuals with special needs is sprucing up the buildings with new roofs and painting;
· The
Last Saturday, May 9, “Friends of 
e prime mover of the Friends is Alan Friedlob, who earned a PhD in health science and was a commissioned officer on the staff of the Surgeon General. (For European vacations, he is able to fly on military aircraft.) The Northern Light publicized the event and volunteers distributed flyers to area businesses and some nearby residents.
The primary reason for the meeting was for folks to express their wishes to Rod Lamb, a county planner and landscape architect, and Lynne Givler, his colleague, who is responsible for building demolition.
Participants, most of whom expressed the need for recreation facilities for youth, got a cold shower of reality:
· While the county has money for demolition, site planning and a few amenities such as gates in the fences that now keep neighbors out, there is not much else. Lamb, who is preparing the site plan, reported that significant wetlands will require expensive mitigation;
· The Lions Foundation, which is supported by 64 clubs in
Don Webster, the president, is a sweet guy who obviously took his congeniality pills before coming to the meeting. He expressed concern about traffic that could cause accidents and the effect of visitors on the special needs campers who range in age from eight to 80. Pointedly, he noted that the Foundation is spending $100,000 on improvements to the buildings this year and 50 volunteers – twice the number of community people at Saturday's meeting – have put in 6,000 hours of labor. And he offered to rent the facilities, such as the 
gymnasium, to the community. At the end of the meeting, after participants had seen restrooms in buildings that looked like they could be opened when needed, he warned that there are now no public facilities;
· When we campaigned and voted for the Park & Rec District 2 levy, we talked about playgrounds and ball fields at 
ative location for ball fields. (Pictured are a few existing swings, and, in the background, an old tire jungle. Also, a short distance away, the
While the some-time libertarians who write this blog respect contracts, the rule of law, etc., it seems niggardly that an organization whose motto is “We Serve” would tie up a natural community resource for 11 months of the year. For example, if a group of young men wants to play basketball in the gym on Monday and Thursday nights from December through March – should they need to pay rent to the Lions? Wouldn't modest dues to cover light and heat be enough? Similarly, do the Lions need to keep toilets out of reach if Friends are willing to pay for upkeep?
On another side of this issue, the nearby residents need to decide if they want to do what is necessary to establish and maintain a community park. They will need to contribute and solicit money to develop the ball fields and playgrounds; they can't expect the money to fall out of the County Council. And they need to volunteer to help build and maintain those facilities.
Scott Dobson, who represents the D. B. Johnson homeowners in Bay Crest, says, “It is relatively easy to build something, it is a lot harder to maintain it.”
The Friends and the county plan three more public meetings.
ak & rah
Monday, February 16, 2009
Birch Bay in 30 Years?
Seeking Comments: Of the blogs we read, the most interesting attract a lot of comments. We note that many of those who respond do not use their real names. Heretofore we’ve had a policy of discarding anonymous messages. That’s ended. Use your name of you wish, but don’t hesitate to use any name or names you like. No limit on comments.
Whatcom officialdom is going through a process of determining where the expected number of future residents should live. It is estimated the county’s population will grow to over 251,000 by 2031. That’s approximately 60,000 more than present. (We round these numbers off to emphasize they are estimates, whereas the county’s calculators use numbers like 60,490.)
The state’s Growth Management Act requires counties to create their own growth plans, allocating expected growth to particular areas. Whatcom County is behind and losing out on six-figure state grants. A Growth Management Hearings Board told Whatcom to catch up by June 30. So last fall the County Council formed a Growth Management Coordinating Council to advise on deciding how many of the expected new residents should go where. That group consists of two county council members and the mayors of the seven cities in the county, but not representatives of the two unincorporated UGAs, Birch Bay and Columbia Valley.
The county planning department then began a series of community meetings with an informational website and questionnaires. Thursday, February 5, the Birch Bay Steering Committee sponsored a meeting with Gary Davis and Kate Koch of the planning department. Among their maps was one showing what land the planning department views as available for building.
Informed members of the community found these maps wholly inaccurate. Bill Grant was outraged, citing his own and other properties colored as vacant that are approved and platted for development. Lisa Guthrie, who represents Homestead, was relaxed but nonetheless critical.
Koch and Davis were not devastated. Such happens, they explained, and kept smiling, passing out colored pencils for participants to mark up the large maps arranged conveniently on tables.
In a conversation a week later, Kate Koch (pronounced cook), when asked what medication she used to maintain equanimity, said, “Green tea is enough”.
She said that a few days after the meeting she went back to Birch Bay with staff and the map-makers to look at the questioned properties. Guthrie, as the representative of Homestead, seems to know all the available land in the UGA. She wrote to Koch in an e-mail that, “I do not feel we have near the physical capacity of density that has been assumed.”
If you split the difference between two annual growth rates used by the planners in this exercise (7.5 percent and 4.8 percent) to 6.2 percent and compound out 10 years from the estimated Birch Bay population last year (5,292), you come to 9,094 by 2018.
But this subject is akin to a white glove inspection of a platoon’s barracks before the soldiers ship overseas – purposeful but relatively insignificant because of uncertainty. What is important is that this exercise confronts the Birch Bay community with the need to decide its own future.
All comments are welcomed.
ak
Whatcom officialdom is going through a process of determining where the expected number of future residents should live. It is estimated the county’s population will grow to over 251,000 by 2031. That’s approximately 60,000 more than present. (We round these numbers off to emphasize they are estimates, whereas the county’s calculators use numbers like 60,490.)
The state’s Growth Management Act requires counties to create their own growth plans, allocating expected growth to particular areas. Whatcom County is behind and losing out on six-figure state grants. A Growth Management Hearings Board told Whatcom to catch up by June 30. So last fall the County Council formed a Growth Management Coordinating Council to advise on deciding how many of the expected new residents should go where. That group consists of two county council members and the mayors of the seven cities in the county, but not representatives of the two unincorporated UGAs, Birch Bay and Columbia Valley.
The county planning department then began a series of community meetings with an informational website and questionnaires. Thursday, February 5, the Birch Bay Steering Committee sponsored a meeting with Gary Davis and Kate Koch of the planning department. Among their maps was one showing what land the planning department views as available for building.
Informed members of the community found these maps wholly inaccurate. Bill Grant was outraged, citing his own and other properties colored as vacant that are approved and platted for development. Lisa Guthrie, who represents Homestead, was relaxed but nonetheless critical.
Koch and Davis were not devastated. Such happens, they explained, and kept smiling, passing out colored pencils for participants to mark up the large maps arranged conveniently on tables.
In a conversation a week later, Kate Koch (pronounced cook), when asked what medication she used to maintain equanimity, said, “Green tea is enough”.
She said that a few days after the meeting she went back to Birch Bay with staff and the map-makers to look at the questioned properties. Guthrie, as the representative of Homestead, seems to know all the available land in the UGA. She wrote to Koch in an e-mail that, “I do not feel we have near the physical capacity of density that has been assumed.”
If you split the difference between two annual growth rates used by the planners in this exercise (7.5 percent and 4.8 percent) to 6.2 percent and compound out 10 years from the estimated Birch Bay population last year (5,292), you come to 9,094 by 2018.
But this subject is akin to a white glove inspection of a platoon’s barracks before the soldiers ship overseas – purposeful but relatively insignificant because of uncertainty. What is important is that this exercise confronts the Birch Bay community with the need to decide its own future.
All comments are welcomed.
ak
Monday, February 2, 2009
Birch Bay learns from Lummi Island
In the 1980’s, one of the big geological questions was, “Is the Cascadia Subduction Zone magically greased?” The issue was, would it slide smoothly or stick dangerously, Brian Atwater told a large assemblage at the Lummi Island Grange Hall. Atwater is a geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey’s Earthquake Hazards Team.
“It’s a detective story, with the earth giving the clues”, Atwater said, as he showed a slide of a 2005 dig where layers of sand indicated when tsunamis had occurred in Sumatra, one about every 600 years. Forces at the epicenter in the Indian Ocean, stuck for hundreds of years, broke loose in December 2004 and created a 9.0 magnitude earthquake. Through uplift and subsidence, a series of immense waves wreaked havoc and devastation on millions of people. Had that geologist made her discovery a few years earlier, those people may have been warned of the possibility.
Ancient writings and trees rings solved another detective story. In 1700, Japan experienced an “orphan tsunami”. Six writings preserved from Japan described the “orphan tsunami”, the only one from 1536 to 1995 that could not be associated with perceivable “shaking” in Chile or Peru. However, dendrochronologist David Yamaguchi, working with Atwater at the University of Washington in 1997, proved through tree ring analysis that a massive earthquake occurred in the Cascadia Subduction Zone in 1700. The force was sufficient to explain the Japanese tsunami of the same year.
Following Atwater’s presentation, Terry Terry, chair of the Lummi Island Community Association that hosted the event, introduced Stacy Fawell, from the Department of Natural Resources of the Lummi Nation. She outlined the earthquake/tsunami preparation and mitigation steps taken by the Lummi Nation. Their multihazard mitigation plan, created with assistance from FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency), identifies and strategizes necessary efforts. They established and mapped tsunami evacuation routes with the help of the State Department of Natural Resources and posted evacuation route signs. They purchased and installed a tsunami warning system consisting of three siren towers.
To discuss the Lummi Island emergency preparations, Terry surprised John Granger, the director of Lummi Island’s emergency management activities, with an invitation to take the floor. He said he had observed the small villages outside the major cities affected by hurricane Katrina had to wait a long time for help. He asked Fire Chief Duncan McLane if Lummi Island was prepared for a similar event. He reports that Chief McLane said, “No we’re not, why don’t you take care of that?”
Bringing together the NGOs (non-government organizations), churches, water districts, and other community residents, several members attended a State Emergency Management Conference. There they learned about the Map Your Neighborhood concept. They decided on a three-step process for their island: first organize, then create maps and do table top exercises, and, finally, do a full community drill. He says they have been working on step one for three years, but actually, a large percentage of the island is mapped.
The group has identified: landing zones for sea and land planes; special hazards on the island such as the water reservoir above a residential development; Red Cross shelters (the Grange Hall being one, with an emergency kitchen); healthcare providers able to serve during an emergency; equipment and medications needed for a “push package” from the Wasjington State Department of Emergency Management. First Aid Training is going on now, and they are considering CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) training.
The Fire District leads Lummi Island’s Emergency Management program and they recommend every individual maintain a seven-day emergency kit of food, water and necessary supplies.
Kathy Berg, chair of the Birch Bay Steering Committee; Doralee Booth, vice-chair of the Steering Committee and chair of the Public Safety and Transportation Subcommittee, and Ruth Higgins, leader of the Emergency Preparedness Task Force attended at the invitation of Ms. Terry.
rah
“It’s a detective story, with the earth giving the clues”, Atwater said, as he showed a slide of a 2005 dig where layers of sand indicated when tsunamis had occurred in Sumatra, one about every 600 years. Forces at the epicenter in the Indian Ocean, stuck for hundreds of years, broke loose in December 2004 and created a 9.0 magnitude earthquake. Through uplift and subsidence, a series of immense waves wreaked havoc and devastation on millions of people. Had that geologist made her discovery a few years earlier, those people may have been warned of the possibility.
Ancient writings and trees rings solved another detective story. In 1700, Japan experienced an “orphan tsunami”. Six writings preserved from Japan described the “orphan tsunami”, the only one from 1536 to 1995 that could not be associated with perceivable “shaking” in Chile or Peru. However, dendrochronologist David Yamaguchi, working with Atwater at the University of Washington in 1997, proved through tree ring analysis that a massive earthquake occurred in the Cascadia Subduction Zone in 1700. The force was sufficient to explain the Japanese tsunami of the same year.
Following Atwater’s presentation, Terry Terry, chair of the Lummi Island Community Association that hosted the event, introduced Stacy Fawell, from the Department of Natural Resources of the Lummi Nation. She outlined the earthquake/tsunami preparation and mitigation steps taken by the Lummi Nation. Their multihazard mitigation plan, created with assistance from FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency), identifies and strategizes necessary efforts. They established and mapped tsunami evacuation routes with the help of the State Department of Natural Resources and posted evacuation route signs. They purchased and installed a tsunami warning system consisting of three siren towers.
To discuss the Lummi Island emergency preparations, Terry surprised John Granger, the director of Lummi Island’s emergency management activities, with an invitation to take the floor. He said he had observed the small villages outside the major cities affected by hurricane Katrina had to wait a long time for help. He asked Fire Chief Duncan McLane if Lummi Island was prepared for a similar event. He reports that Chief McLane said, “No we’re not, why don’t you take care of that?”
Bringing together the NGOs (non-government organizations), churches, water districts, and other community residents, several members attended a State Emergency Management Conference. There they learned about the Map Your Neighborhood concept. They decided on a three-step process for their island: first organize, then create maps and do table top exercises, and, finally, do a full community drill. He says they have been working on step one for three years, but actually, a large percentage of the island is mapped.
The group has identified: landing zones for sea and land planes; special hazards on the island such as the water reservoir above a residential development; Red Cross shelters (the Grange Hall being one, with an emergency kitchen); healthcare providers able to serve during an emergency; equipment and medications needed for a “push package” from the Wasjington State Department of Emergency Management. First Aid Training is going on now, and they are considering CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) training.
The Fire District leads Lummi Island’s Emergency Management program and they recommend every individual maintain a seven-day emergency kit of food, water and necessary supplies.
Kathy Berg, chair of the Birch Bay Steering Committee; Doralee Booth, vice-chair of the Steering Committee and chair of the Public Safety and Transportation Subcommittee, and Ruth Higgins, leader of the Emergency Preparedness Task Force attended at the invitation of Ms. Terry.
rah
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