Rental Licensing Recommended to Mayor, Planning Committee to Discuss Possibilities

BELLINGHAM, Wash. – The city’s Planning and Community Development Committee will hold a work session on Thursday, Feb. 24 from 2-3:30 p.m. at the City Council Chambers to identify and discuss residential rental property program options. 

The work session falls just one week after the Mayor’s Neighborhood Advisory Commission (MNAC) meeting on Feb. 16. Following discussion about rental licensing during the meeting, the commission provided a formal recommendation to Mayor Dan Pike that he support the creation of a city ordinance to implement a rental inspection program in the city.

The recommendation was approved by the commission with a 13-5 vote with one abstention, according to Dick Conoboy. The motion read “in order to maintain a safe, healthy rental housing stock, the Mayor's Neighborhood Advisory Commission recommends that Mayor Dan Pike support the implementation of a self-supporting, effective rental housing licensing and inspection program as soon as possible in 2011.”

The commission gave a similar recommendation to the mayor almost one year ago during its March 2010 meeting when the commission approved a motion to “recommend to Mayor Dan Pike that a rental housing licensing and inspection ordinance be drawn up for review and discussion in 2010 in a public process.”

Conoboy, also known as the “zonemaven,” and a long-time advocate for a rental licensing and inspection program, said that he is unsure whether the recommendation to the mayor will greatly affect whether or not a rental licensing program is implemented.

“The mayor isn’t favorable to licensing and inspections,” Conoboy said.

Jimmy Kelsey, the MNAC representative for the Alabama Hill Neighborhood also said that he is unsure how much weight the commission carries with the mayor. Members of the commission are asked by the mayor to participate in monthly meetings and serve as two-way sources of information for each neighborhood in the city.

 “We are just advisory, we have no powers,” Kelsey said.

According to Kelsey, the mayor has not taken any position on the issue.

“What he’s done is just stand aside on the issue. He hasn’t pushed it himself and he hasn’t taken action that we know of,” said Kelsey, who was one of those opposed to the recommendation. “The fact that the vote was not a unanimous one should give some pause to his decision I should hope.”

Rental licensing is not a new topic of discussion for Bellingham according to Conoboy, who himself has been working on the issue for 6 years.

In 2008 Mark Gardner, the city’s legislative policy analyst put together an in-depth report examining the options that the city had for rental housing licensing and quality inspection programs. Gardner later wrote a memo to the city council in May 2009, presenting the various options in a concise format with a table that presented six options including cost-estimates and the services provided by each program.

“It’s not that they have several options to choose from, they’ve got a whole spectrum to look at that’s pretty infinite in the possibilities,” Conoboy said. “They’re in the stage right now to see what effect certain options might have.”

Among the possible concerns is the method for storing the licensing information. Conoboy said that the council has expressed that it would like to know if the city databases could handle licensing the 17,000 rental units within the city.

As for now, Kelsey and Conoboy both said that a rental licensing program is still not close to being implemented.

“Nobody has written a proposal yet, that’s for the council to decide the next time they meet on this,” Conoboy said.

Conoboy explained that the Planning and Community Development Committee will discuss the issue, and if they decide that it is worthwhile, they would then decide when they would like the city council to consider the options for programs.

Conoboy has provided the council with copies of proposals and ordinances from other cities, like Pasco, Wash.

“There’s no reason why ours can’t look more or less the same as those other ordinances,” Conoboy said.

Wes Dyer of the Viking Community Builders, a Western Washington University club, is working with Chris Chatburn of the the Western Democrats, another student organization, to get students and community members to take a survey about the status of Bellingham’s rental units.

Dyer said that they will continue doing the survey for as long as it takes.

“There isn't really a set deadline; it's more based on the city council's status. When we feel the Council is ready or is about to fully take on rental licensing then we will be prepared to supply the survey results.”

Dyer said that the club intends to release some preliminary survey results at the council’s next meeting on Feb. 28.

When asked for a time frame of how long a rental licensing program would take to implement, Conoboy explained that it would be a long process.

“It’s not gonna happen at the next meeting. But let’s say they did, they say ‘we’re gonna have an ordinance and start inspecting.’ They’re gonna have to develop a list of landlords and send them notes saying they have to come register and pay the fee,” Conoboy said. He then said that compiling the database of licenses could take six months to a year and after that, inspections for the 17,000 rental units would take roughly two or three years just to make it through one cycle.

Aside from concerns about how long the program would take to implement are concerns about the program resulting in higher rent costs.

“Will somebody have to pay? Yeah. And it’s gonna be the renters,” Conoboy said. “But if they don’t, then the only thing is for students to live in hobbles at their own risk. It might push the city to push incentives to get more affordable housing.”

Olympic Pipe Line Company Emphasizes Caution for Alabama Hill Residents

BELLINGHAM, Wash. – In November 2010, Pam Brady, a representative for Olympic Pipe Line Co., which is operated by BP Pipelines (North America), visited the Alabama Hill Association’s quarterly meeting to remind residents of the hazards and safety protocols associated with the Olympic Pipeline, which runs through the neighborhood underneath Vining Street.

The association presented further detailed information about these safety concerns in its Jan. 18 newsletter, which was largely devoted to the safety protocols provided by Olympic Pipe Line.

Brady was invited to the meeting by Larry Nicholas, the current AHA chairman. Brady said the purpose of the meeting was to meet with pipeline neighbors and provide useful information to those who live along the pipeline corridor.

“Many people are well aware of the pipeline, but some people are new to the neighborhood, or haven’t given much thought about the role they also have in keeping the pipeline safe,” Brady said.

Among the protocols discussed is the mandatory one-call system. Residents who are planning any type of project that will require them to dig deeper than 1 foot are required by Washington State Law to contact the state one-call center by dialing 811 at least two business days before digging. After calling, the utility company will send a worker within two days to mark buried lines in the area, at no cost to the caller.

“Third party damage the leading cause of pipeline accidents, so we really can't emphasize enough the importance of utilizing one-call,” Brady said.

More than 11 years after the pipeline explosion that killed three in Bellingham, residents were reminded in the newsletter that even “a small scrape, gouge or dent requires repair as it could subsequently lead to corrosion,” encouraging anyone who witnesses or causes damage to the pipeline to call Olympic immediately.

The 1999 accident was determined by the National Transportation Safety Board, in a report issued in 2002, to have been caused by damage done to the pipe by IMCO General Construction Inc. during a 1994 project, which may have caused the pipe to later corrode. The report also placed probable cause for the accident with Olympic Pipe Line Co. for not inspecting and testing the pipeline adequately during and after the project.

The Olympic pipeline transports nearly 300,000 barrels of fuel each day through a 400-mile network that spans from Blaine, Wash. to Portland, Ore. and is the sole provider of jet fuel to SeaTac Airport, according to Olympic’s website.

The pipeline safety precautions were revisited during discussion at the Alabama Hill Association meeting on Tuesday, February 2, 2011, raising concerns for some, and reminding others of the 1999 tragedy.

Chris Suczek, a geology professor at Western Washington University, was present at the meeting and voiced her concerns about the potential harm to the pipeline that would be associated with an earthquake.

“From a geology perspective, the major danger would be an earthquake,” said Suczek, later explaining that earthquakes are not the only potential geological event to be concerned about. “A landslide, even a landslide moving at a couple of centimeters a year, could have the potential to distort the pipeline.”

Doug Bestle, the past chairman and editor of the AHA’s newsletter, said that he recognizes the dangers posed by high-pressure pipelines, but he prefers the pipeline over alternative methods of transporting the fuel.

“I guarantee you the pipeline is millions of times safer than trucking [fuel] down the I-5 corridor,” Bestle said.

Bestle’s comment was made in reference to a statistic reported by Olympic Pipe Line, stating that “alternative modes of transportation would require the equivalent of 1,200 tanker trucks a day on Interstate 5. That's approximately one truck every minute - 24 hours a day, seven days a week.” The company explains on its website that trucking the fuel through highly populated areas would expose the public to greater risks, and argues that the pipeline is the safe and superior method of fuel transportation.

Nicholas, was reminded of that day, more than 11 years ago, when he, along with others, waited at his son’s baseball game, wondering where was Wade King, one of the victims of the explosion, and a fellow teammate on Nicholas’ son’s baseball team.

When asked how that day affects his stance on living so close to the pipeline, Nicholas said that he doesn’t often think about it.

“Most people who live near the pipeline, even those who were closer to the explosion, don’t think about it much,” Nicholas said. “Even the parents who lived right next to the explosion didn’t move.”

More information about pipeline safety and Washington State’s “call before you dig” protocol can be found online at olympicpipeline.com and washington811.com. 

Changes to Kindergarten Schedule, Some Consider Alternatives

BELLINGHAM, Wash. – In a presentation to parents at Roosevelt Elementary School’s PTA meeting on Thursday, Jan. 20, Dr. Greg Baker, the school district’s new superintendent, explained some of the problems that the school district is trying to work on with the new schedule.

Amongst these problems is the issue of school start and end times, which were changed for the 2010-2011 school year. Baker explained that the district will be considering another time change for the 2011-2012 school year, adding 15 minutes to both the beginning and the end of the elementary school day to allow for 45 minutes in between school releases for bus routes.

At the moment, the middle schools release students at 3:00 p.m. but the elementary schools release students at 3:30 p.m., which has not given the buses sufficient time to make their routes and arrive at the elementary schools on time, according to Baker.

Baker recognized that some parents have expressed that they would prefer if school start times could be closer together.

“Currently, we have to keep the schedule the way it is because of the number of buses that the district has available,” Baker said. “We need to maintain 45 minutes between school start times for those buses to be able to deliver kids to school on time.”


If the schedule change is approved for the 2011-2012 school year, this would be the second consecutive year of school-day time changes in the district. 

In February 2010 the Bellingham Public School District announced that due to budget cuts on the state level, the school district would be forced to change scheduling for some schools in the area, according to a news release on the school district’s website.

In March 2010 the district announced the new schedule on its website: middle and high school schedules would remain the same (8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. for middle school and 7:45 a.m. to 2:15 p.m. for high school) but with some larger changes at the elementary school level.

It was announced that for the 2010-2011 school year all elementary school children would meet for the same amount of time, from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., meaning that students in kindergarten through second grade would be given a half an hour more instruction time per day than they had previously, but also that students in third through fifth grades would be given half an hour less instruction time per day.

With this announcement also came some large changes in the structure of the school day for kindergarteners. The school district decided to switch from a half-day every-day schedule to a full-day every-other-day schedule. Kindergarteners this year either go to school Tuesday, Thursday, and every other Monday, or Wednesday, Friday, and every other Monday.

One of the parents at the meeting, Tiffany McNutt, said that she feels lucky because the schedule works fine for her life as a stay-at-home mom. McNutt sympathized with other parents who were not in the same position.

“It’s really difficult for parents who have to work full time to find care for their kids in the mornings, in addition to full time care every other day,” McNutt said.

Under this system, students have the option of opting into full-day every-day kindergarten, but because the state of Washington only pays for part time kindergarten for every student, tuition is required on a sliding scale, from $1,000 per year to $3,500 per year.

At the meeting, Baker recognized that the later start time for elementary school may be causing difficulties for many parents with finding before school day-care for their children. He also expressed his concern with the full-day, every other day system for incoming kindergarteners.

“There are a lot of parents who are looking for other options, and deciding to put their children in private kindergarten,” Baker said. “But I am concerned that we will lose a lot of those kids, because they may not want to come back to the public school system after starting out in a private school.”

In Baker’s “Entry Plan Report,” released on January 27, 2011 on the district’s website, he expresses his concerns with the current kindergarten system creating inequalities and inconsistent learning experiences for children, as some students are taking kindergarten every day, while others are only taking it every other day. Baker says his goal is to “provide full-time kindergarten at no cost for all or as many district families as possible starting in fall 2011.”

Kristy Knopp, the mother of two Roosevelt Elementary students, expressed her feelings about the situation, as the mother of a child who will be enrolling in kindergarten next year. Knopp has put both of her older children, now in first and second grades, through private kindergarten at Bellingham Christian School.

“Bellingham Christian is a great school,” Knopp said. “They offer full-time Monday through Friday kindergarten, and the school is very small, family-oriented, and everybody helps look out for each other.”

Knopp said she appreciates being able to have personal relationships with her student’s teachers at the private school, which she feels is something you have to go out of your way to maintain in the public school system.

For Knopp’s family, the number one reason for returning to the public school system after kindergarten is the cost of private education. But also, Knopp explained that public school offers some benefits that private school does not.

“I do like that there is a lot more diversity,” Knopp said. “It’s great to have everybody in the same neighborhood because you really get a better sense of your neighborhood and the other people in it.”

The school district is currently taking input from parents, students, and community members through an online survey on the district’s website.

The survey presents the main issues the district is facing, including Dr. Baker’s proposal to use levy money to sponsor full-day every-day kindergarten for all students, tuition-free.

Another issue presented to survey takers is the schedule change, which would change the current elementary school start and end times from 9:30 a.m. to 9:15 a.m. and from 3:30 p.m. to 3:45 p.m.

Along with the issue of start and end time changes, survey takers are asked what their preference is for start and end times amongst the different age levels, allowing for the option to move the existing start and end times between school levels.

Baker challenged those at the meeting, along with anyone who reads his entry plan report, to “share a better no-cost or low-cost solution” to the current scheduling problems.