In the Media
The Port of Bellingham has received four proposals on what to do with the Boardmill building near Waypoint Park, reflecting a wide range of ideas that could dramatically change the look of the Waterfront District.
The proposals, which were obtained through a public records request, are currently being reviewed by a committee that includes Port of Bellingham staff as well as representatives from the city of Bellingham, Bellingham Regional Chamber of Commerce and Bellingham Whatcom County Tourism.
The committee is in the process of gathering additional information about the proposals and doing reference checks, but expects to have the review completed by the end of July, said Elliott Smith, director of real estate and asset management for the port. Port staff plan to make a recommendation to the three commissioners at a Tuesday, Aug. 9, meeting.
Unseasonably warm weather is expected across Western Washington next week, with an outside chance that temperatures will approach triple digits.
High pressure building over the Pacific Ocean means there’s a 50-50 chance of daytime highs above 85 degrees starting Tuesday, July 26, according to an online briefing from the National Weather Service in Seattle issued Tuesday, July 19.
“A significant ridge begins to build offshore Sunday and into early next week, a period of temperatures much above normal for much of the Pacific Northwest,” meteorologist Jake DeFlitch said in the online forecast discussion.
Whatcom County returned to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “medium” community COVID-19 risk level, but for the first time in three months, no region within the county would receive a “high” rating.
After one week in the “low” range, Whatcom County’s rate of reported COVID-19 cases crept up enough for the CDC to give Whatcom the “medium” community rating when new data was released Thursday, July 14, marking the sixth time in the past eight weeks it has received a “medium” grade. But The Bellingham Herald’s analysis of the latest location data released Thursday by the Whatcom County Health Department showed that the regions covered by the Bellingham, Blaine, Lynden and Mount Baker school districts would receive “low” ratings if the CDC drilled down to that level.
The Ferndale, Meridian and Nooksack Valley regions, meanwhile, would received “medium” rankings, The Herald found, marking the first time since mid-April Whatcom County had not had at least one of its seven school district regions with a reported case rate or hospitalization numbers that would earn it a “high” rating.
Despite being closed for the Independence Day holiday, the Bellingham Food Bank set a record for the number of families served during the first full week of July.
Spurred by increased demand as more Bellingham residents feel the impact of recent inflation, the Food Bank helped approximately 3,300 families July 3-9, Executive Director Mike Cohen told The Bellingham Herald. That is the highest weekly number in the 50-year history of the Bellingham Food Bank. That’s not just a one-week spike. Business has been accelerating in recent weeks, Cohen said, after the Bellingham Food Bank helped approximately 2,000 families a week during COVID.
“We are seeing steady increases for, really, the last year, and the latest bit of inflation is certainly adding another push,” Cohen told The Herald. “Our Food Bank is about twice as busy as we were right before COVID started, and we saw big increases start at the turn of the calendar year when some of those pandemic benefits were ending, like the child tax credit. “As summer has progressed, we have been getting increasingly busier.”
One suspect is in custody and another is still at large following a shooting in downtown Bellingham early Sunday morning that left two victims hospitalized.
Shortly after midnight Sunday, two groups of people were fighting near The Underground Nightclub, Bellingham Police reported. Officers were alerted to shots being fired in the downtown area and immediately responded.
Suspect Gawain Orcutt, 23, of Mount Vernon, retrieved a handgun from a nearby SUV, fired in the air, then shot the first victim, 42, striking him in the foot and causing a non-life-threatening injury, a police release stated. He continued to shoot several more rounds at people, damaging a car.
The initial investigation revealed Orcutt shot the 42-year-old man, then fired rounds at two other people, a 30-year-old man and a 25-year-old woman, and then fled the scene, the release stated.
Further investigation and witness accounts revealed a second suspect involved in the fight also retrieved a gun and began firing into the crowd, hitting a 20-year-old man in the leg and causing a serious injury. The two victims, the 42-year-old man and 20-year-old man, were taken to the hospital for further treatment.
The Bellingham Pride Parade, organized by Rumors Cabaret, Sunday, July 17, started at Waypoint Park on the waterfront and ended at a festival at Depot Market Square. The Whatcom Pride organization continues celebrating the LGBTQIA2S+ community with a pop-up parade at noon Saturday, July 30, that starts at Depot Market Square and ends at a resource fair and block party from 1-4 p.m. at Kulshan Trackside Beer Garden, 298 W. Laurel St. on the Bellingham waterfront.
he number of new coronavirus cases reported worldwide rose for the fifth week in a row while the number of deaths remained relatively stable, the World Health Organization reported Thursday.
In the U.N. health agency’s weekly review of the COVID-19 pandemic, WHO said there were 5.7 million new infections confirmed last week, marking a 6% increase. There were 9.800 deaths, roughly similar to the previous week’s figure.
Earlier this week, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the pandemic still qualifies as a global emergency and he was “concerned” about the recent spike.
“The virus is running freely, and countries are not effectively managing the disease burden,” he said during a Tuesday press briefing. “New waves of the virus demonstrate again that COVID-19 is nowhere near over.”
In the last two weeks, cases of COVID-19 reported to WHO surged 30%, driven largely by the hugely infectious omicron relatives, BA.4 and BA.5. The two omicron subvariants have shown a worrisome ability to re-infect people previously vaccinated or who have recovered from COVID.
Omicron’s BA.5 subvariant continued to tear through Washington state in June, more than tripling its share of the state’s sequenced COVID-19 cases and contributing to high levels of infection in King County.
As of the week ending June 25, BA.5 constituted 37.3% of sequenced COVID cases, up from 9.8% during the week of May 29, according to the most recently available data released Wednesday.
The BA.5 variant is now the dominant version of SARS-CoV-2 in the country, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And while it’s hard to get an exact count — given the popularity of at-home testing — there are indications that reinfections and hospitalizations are increasing.
In King County, rates of COVID community transmission remain high — higher than they were during the peak of last summer’s delta surge, but still far from January’s omicron-wave levels, county health officer Dr. Jeff Duchin said in a Thursday news briefing.
As of Thursday, the county counted an average of about 941 daily cases, compared to about 620 daily cases in mid-August last year.
Starting July 16, people in mental health crisis will have a new way to reach out for help. Instead of dialing the current 10-digit National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, they can simply call or text the numbers 9-8-8.
Modeled after 911, the new 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline is designed to be a memorable and quick number that connects people who are suicidal or in any other mental health crisis to a trained mental health professional.
"If you are willing to turn to someone in your moment of crisis, 988 will be there," said Xavier Becerra, the secretary of health and human services, at a recent press briefing. "988 won't be a busy signal, and 988 won't put you on hold. You will get help."
The primary goal of the new number is to make it easier for people to call for help. But lawmakers and mental health advocates see this as an opportunity to transform the mental health care system and make behavioral health care easily accessible everywhere in the United States.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) promoted Harmit Gill to serve as the Blaine area port director at the end of March. The Northern Light sat down with Gill to discuss what he hopes to accomplish in his first year, how he’s improving transparency within the agency and his background growing up in Blaine.
Gill moved from California to Blaine in sixth grade and attended Blaine schools before earning his bachelor’s degree in computer science at Western Washington University. He worked as a systems analyst at Microsoft in Seattle before returning to Blaine to start his career at CBP. Previous to his new role, Gill worked as chief of staff for CBP’s Seattle Field Office since 2019.
As Blaine area port director, Gill oversees 17 ports and stations on the border of Washington state and B.C. as well as a general aviation facility and seaport operations in Bellingham, Anacortes and Friday Harbor. He is in charge of 700 employees who process over 17 million travelers and $20 billion in commercial trade annually.