Week of May 29, 2024: Public art, parking, Viking softball, bears and bike lanes

Editor,

Thank goodness for the 1% for Art program and the great sculpture at the Cordata Parkway/Horton Road roundabout. It adds vitality and variety to the area. An added plus is that it won’t be costly to maintain.

Kate Grinde

Bellingham

Editor,

An article (CDN, May 22, 2024) informs us that our city council and Planning and Community Development director want to eliminate parking minimums in new constructions. This will seriously inconvenience a lot of us who live in neighborhoods with serious parking problems.

The council and planning director probably all have off-street parking where they live, or live in residential areas that have plenty of street parking. Our planning director says we have an “over supply [of parking spaces] … to the tune of about five parking spaces per car.” That may be true in his neighborhood, or Bellis Fair, but it isn’t the case on many residential streets.

A couple years ago, one employee in the planning department, when I expressed my concern that a huge new apartment development next door would cause on-street parking problems because the developer was providing only a limited number of off-street parking places, blithely told me, “You live close enough to downtown that you don’t need a car.” Don’t people who live close to downtown have travel needs in the other direction?

Before eliminating parking space minimums across the board, the planning director and city council should consider the fact that their personal, comfortable situations don’t apply to everyone in the city, and find other methods to meet their goals. One method: Waive the parking minimum requirement only for neighborhoods with “five parking spaces per car.” Another method: provide a much more extensive and serviceable public transportation system.

It is also reported in the article that developers won’t build apartments if they can’t make a profit. Fair enough. But many who are neither developer- nor government-employee-friendly seriously doubt that developers — except for the very few who focus on constructing affordable housing, such as Martin Muoto, founder and CEO of SoLa Impact — are ever satisfied with a reasonable profit.

John Holstein

Bellingham

Editor,

I thoroughly enjoyed following our WWU Vikings as they played exciting, high-quality softball this postseason, and I want to congratulate them on their significant journey, not just to the NCAA Division II World Series semifinal series in Florida, but all the way to the finals!

Indeed, they were the first team from the Great Northwest Athletic Conference to ever appear at this championship level in softball, and their loss in the finals to another excellent team does not diminish their fine overall performance on the field — over a long, grueling season (52-12).

It is great to have our local teams elevate their play and represent Western and B’ham so well. Many thanks for your hard work and talented, spirited play.

Jaco ten Hove

Fairhaven

Editor,

We Americans are free to say that we want our money and resources to go toward life and liberty. It is never moral to bomb hospitals and children, for whatever reason. Period. Israel is using U.S. weapons and the U.S. must refuse to send more and demand withdrawal, peace and justice.

The college students, and everyone standing up with the truth, are guiding the moral way. It is never right to starve civilians. We must go beyond money and systems of power and do the right thing.

Terri Wilde

Happy Valley

Editor,

One line of reasoning I have yet to hear in the debate about relocating grizzlies to the North Cascades is this: What problem does it solve?

I have seen environmental interventions work. I grew up on Lake Ontario, and I remember the lakeshore being 6–12 inches deep in stinking, rotting, slimy masses of dead alewives [silvery bait fish], millions of them, broiled the color and consistency of crude oil with a disgusting crunch underfoot. We couldn’t go swimming until either the summer had baked them dry or stray dogs and seagulls had eaten trails through them. The introduction of non-native coho salmon cleared up the alewives and made my little hometown a minor tourist destination. Problem solved.

So far, the only benefit I’ve heard claimed for the reintroduction of grizzlies is their seed-transporting scat. (Birds aren’t covering that well enough?) If the North Cascades are so unacceptably barren, wouldn’t it be simpler to fly over and drop seeds from a plane? 

Or if there’s some grander scheme at work, then what problem are the relocated bears intended to solve? If it’s simply to reinstate a wild species that used to roam the North Cascades, why stop with grizzlies? Why not woolly mammoths?

I have no strong opposition to grizzlies here in our wilderness. I just think there must be a case to make for the reintroduction that’s practical and grounded, and doesn’t sound like some environmentalist wet dream.

Patrick Mulcahey

Concrete

Editor,

It is with serious concern I write to question the wisdom and planning of the new bicycle lane on Holly Street as it passes through downtown. Why is the new lane between the parked cars and the curb?

I drive that stretch of Holly almost every day between Forest and Bay streets. At Bay, I turn right and then left on Prospect. Making the right onto Bay has become a bit of a nightmare.

Nightmare? As I prepare to make the turn, I check my mirrors and look back over my right shoulder but, most of the time, because of the parked cars and trucks, I cannot see any part of the bicycle lane until I am well into the turn.

With bicyclists coming down the hill at 20 to 30 mph, there is little to no chance of seeing them before they run into my car. At some point in the not-too-distant future, an accident will occur. A cyclist will be injured (or worse).

And, of course, the same situation exists at Railroad, Cornwall, Commercial and all the alleyways in between.

Repainting a few lines on Holly could save one person’s life and another person’s sanity.

Robin K. Mullins

Bellingham

Editor,

Every day, former President Trump and his cult give us all the evidence a fact finder would need to commit many of them to mental health care facilities.

The Don of this crazy blue-suited and red-tie bedecked Reich claims President Biden is seeking to assassinate him, and his mindless horde eats it up.  And yet we are expected to ignore the comments of “killing liberals” dripping from elected Republican legislators. 

The not-yet-finished trial on felony charges of an ex-president, an historic event, has yielded proof beyond any doubt that the MAGA crowd seeks to foment civil war using a plethora of lies, exaggerations and patently absurd tactics to muddy the waters and turn reality on its head. Fortunately, for the half of the country still attached to reality, they are just embarrassing themselves and illuminating how devoid of reason they have become.

It will take decades to stuff these geniuses back in the crazy bottles they call home. It is up to them if it will be a peaceful effort. The position our democracy finds itself in is precarious and hinges on elections this year that will either relegate them to the moldy dust bins they deserve, or our country will slide further into oblivion and chaos. It really is that dire.

Michael Waite

Sedro-Woolley

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).