Editor,
There are important issues at stake in the November election that could well determine the survival of our democratic republic.
As critical as those issues are, the election may be decided by a group of voters whose attention is laser-focused elsewhere. Middle-income millennials are frustrated by their inability to buy their first family home, a key step to realizing the American Dream. And yet, political campaigns have paid scant attention to these potential swing voters.
As a boomer who was privileged to have been spared the brutally tight market these young adults now face, I can understand their frustration and obsession. I have witnessed first-hand the futile efforts of my millennial friends who have been out-competed for scarce homes by wealthy buyers with cash, then priced out by high mortgage rates and an insufficient supply of new housing.
The first political party that announces a plan to incentivize homebuilders to build more new single-family homes — and offer other relief for these homebuyers — will have the inside track to wooing these critical swing voters. Their pent-up frustration is at such a high level that unfortunately, however short-sighted, they may be willing to vote for anyone with such a plan, regardless of political party or consequences to our democracy.
Ted Maloney
Mount Vernon
Editor,
The reason I read (and subscribe to) CDN is for your no-nonsense, tell-it-like-it-is editorials.
Keep it up. For those who want nonsense, let them read another newspaper.
Dennis Hayner
Bellingham
Editor,
To Greg Baker, superintendent, Bellingham School District:
It’s always interesting to read the school district’s Inside Schools newsletter.
As you note in your column in the latest edition, many good things are happening in the district, with the “big news” being the opening of the handsome new building for you and your administrative staff.
However, I was disappointed not to see any discussion of how you are addressing important areas reported on the State Superintendent of Public Instruction’s School District Report Card.
According to the most recent report card, less than half of Bellingham’s students met state standards for mathematics and science, while fewer than two-thirds of Bellingham’s students even showed up for 90% of school days (in other words, more than one-third of your students missed at least 10% of their school days).
Bellingham is by no means the worst performing among its Washington peer districts, but it would be more encouraging to read about efforts to do better in basic learning achievement and, even more fundamentally, school attendance.
Roger Collier
Bellingham
Editor,
The traffic problems with Holly Street go deeper than the recently painted bike lanes and may take a bit of a historical rewind to resolve. In not-so-long-ago times, Bellingham was a Mill Town, and 800 workers had to get to G-P, and 800 workers had to leave G-P, three times a day. Thus Holly and Chestnut streets became one-way. Shift changes at the mill have long receded into history, yet the one-way designations remain.
In the 1990s, the predecessor to the Downtown Bellingham Partnership surveyed downtown businesses and found that the vast majority preferred restoring two-way traffic downtown. We found that locals had learned to live with the abrupt and counter-intuitive shift from two-way to one-way traffic on Holly and Chestnut streets, but that non-locals were left disoriented and confused. Our weird traffic flow, as much as lack of parking, was discouraging shopping downtown.
The problem of our oddly-angled intersecting street grid is one we have to live with, but this one could be solved.
George Dyson
Bellingham
Editor,
With regard to all the recent hand-wringing over the new Holly Street traffic pattern: Bicycles are not the problem.
Ian Craigie
Bellingham
Editor,
The City of Bellingham seems to think that creating gridlock and jammed streets of idling vehicles is going to make people stop driving their vehicles. Unfortunately, all it is doing is pushing both bike and car traffic into the side streets. For example, since taking a lane of traffic away, Alabama Street is often bumper to bumper from Cornwall to James streets, pushing cars and bikes to the side streets one block away where cars can move freely.
As a biker, there were gaps between cars when Alabama had more lanes, and you could cross. Now it’s just a steady line of cars with way less gaps. And then you have the drivers that stop to let bikes cross, they make it worse for everyone. The city should go back to bike routes on the side streets and stop putting them on the main routes.
Just wait until the city does the same thing to James Street, that will be another area, like Holly or Lincoln steets, to avoid. The businesses on these streets will suffer. There is always a “workaround,” for shortsighted plans like this, and in this case, it does not involve driving less. We all want safer roads, but is lowering most of the community’s daily quality of life while increasing pollution the answer? How about focusing on solutions that are reasonable instead of making appearance and optics the priority?
Lance Sullivan
Lettered Streets, Bellingham
Editor,
As negotiations regarding divestment come to a close at Western Washington University (CDN, May 31, 2024), and students celebrate their victory and a much-needed return to home, it is tempting to view this day as the end of a monumental movement. But I believe something deeper has been building on campus, something which won’t be going away anytime soon: student solidarity.
Since lockdowns in 2020, many college students have felt the isolation and lack of cohesion present in our schools, and how difficult it has thus become to sustain a movement. Yet the physical example of the encampment, with students crammed together into a self-governing community of tents, showcases just how united students can still become. Students advocating for divestment have formed connections with several student clubs on campus, as well as Western Academic Workers United (WAWU). WAWU, Western’s student workers union, recently had a movement of its own in the form of a strike, which overlapped several times with student divestment efforts.
These fights, which outsiders may see as distinctly separate, are viewed by students as being intrinsically connected. Student rallies for divestment make these connections explicitly, using language of global freedom and solidarity to draw them together. If these connections are as deep as they appear, student movements like the ones we witnessed this past month will not be disappearing anytime soon. Collective student dissent will continue as long as violence and inequality continue across the globe.
Emma Pedro
Bellingham
Editor,
It was a memorable and moving tribute to our community that the conductor David Willetts brought the Kushan Chorus, Sno-King Community Chorale and the Cantabile Choir, together with special guests and the Ferndale High School Concert Choir to our Mt. Baker Theatre for an inspiring and powerful concert composed by Christopher Tin — “The Drop that Contained the Sea.” Each piece was inspired by the power of water to shape the face of the earth.
The program began with a selection of music presented by the Ferndale High School Concert Choir. What a moving, artistic experience for these students to provide a sense of belonging that is beautiful and priceless!
Then a swell of singers filled every inch of the stage. The Ferndale choir returned for a selected performance. The hours and hours of practice culminated in the evening’s performance, and from the first rise of David’s baton, the audience was musically transported by the many layers of water in different forms.
When the last powerful note resounded in the theater, the audience rose in unison in applause. The concert had aroused so many emotions from tears to smiles …
I wanted to write of my experiences and speak of the value of music to our students in Bellingham. Though budgets are constrained, there is a continued need to support music education that reaps value in all areas of academics.
The Assistance League of Bellingham is honored to support Whatcom County public school students by offering merit-based summer enrichment scholarships to middle and non-senior high school students. For information, go to the Assistance League of Bellingham website, Programs.
Helen Moran
Bellingham
Editor,
I see that the CDN has published yet another crackpot letter by Michael Waite (CDN, May 29, 2024). This guy is stage 4 TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome). His letters are devoid of fact, simply hyperbolic, irrational, deeply stupid expressions of his hatred for President Trump and his supporters. It would be better if he focused on the failed Biden presidency. Biden has brought us high inflation, illegal immigrants crossing the southern border, wars in Ukraine and Gaza due to a feckless foreign policy, rampant urban crime and a double-standard justice system.
Rick Hannam
Bellingham
Editor’s note: And with that rejoinder, we respectfully invite the two gentlemen in question to take further friendly discourse to a mutually agreeable alternative location.
Letters to the Editor are published online Wednesdays; a selection is published in print Fridays. Send to letters@cascadiadaily.com by 10 a.m. Tuesdays. Rules: Maximum 250 words, be civil, have a point and make it clearly. Preference is given to letters about local subjects. CDN reserves the right to reject letters or edit for length, clarity, grammar and style, or removal of personal attacks or offensive content. Letters must include an address/phone number to verify the writer's identity (not for publication).
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