CORNWALL PARK COURIER Volume 8 Issue 1 February 2006

Upcoming Events-

Thursday February 16th - 7:00 p.m. - Fountain Community Church Our Next Neighborhood Meeting

Thursday March 2nd - 7:00 p.m. - Barbara Haddad's Home

Our Next CPNA Board Meeting

February Meeting Agenda-

Changes in School District policies have forced us to change the location of our meetings. The Fountain Community Church has graciously offered to let us meet in their facility. They have a large meeting room in the building behind the church that will serve us well. Some who have voted in the area may remember that this location was once used as a polling place. The church is at 2100 Broadway at the corner of Broadway and Halleck Sts. We will enter via the ramp from the parking lot on the east side of the church.

We will be holding our annual elections at this meeting. The postitons to be filled are Vice Chairman, Area 1 Rep., Area 2 Rep., Area 3 Rep. and At Large Rep. #2. As of this writing, no candidates have declared for the postions of Vice Chairman and Area 2 Rep. Richard Qualls, Pastor of the Fountain Community Church, has consented to run for the postion of Area 1 Rep. Incumbents Camille Hackler and Karen-Margrethe Brun are running for Area 3 Rep. and At Large Rep #2. Nominations, with the consent of the nominee may be made at the meeting.

We will be observing a significant neighborhood event in September, the Centenial of the dedication of Broadway Park. Kathryn Brown and Heidi Wassen will fill us in about this event. Jack Haupt will join us to give the latest update on developments at St. Joseph Hospital. We plan to invite a school district representative to inform us about upcoming school levys.

John McGarrity is developing a web-site that will soon be available to provide more information than you normally get in this newsletter. Information will be posted when received instead of having to wait for the next newsletter. He will be reporting on this and other neighborhood develpments at our meeting.

2005 Year in Review. reported by John McGarrity

We were active about neighborhood issues in our seventh full year since incorporation.

St. Joseph Hospital. The association has worked with St. Joseph, City Planning and the Public Works Department to minimize impacts to our neighborhood from the hospital expansion. The construction is on hold and no new building permits (except for parking facilities) can be issued pending the completion of a traffic study. We keep Hospital and City officials aware of our concerns by calling, writing and meeting with them (along with Sunnyland Neighborhood reps.) and by inviting them to attend and occasionally give presentations at our meetings. The hospital is planning another open house for March, but come to our member meeting (see announcement) and get a preview of developments.

Parkview School Field. The Public Works proposal for an extension of Cornwall Ave through the playfield (to accommodate traffic) is dead. We helped turn out dozens of neighbors who told City and Hospital officials that Parkview's playfield could not be violated. Ownership of the playfield was finally (after almost 50 years) cleared up and the City and the School District have clear title. Next on the agenda, get the field upgraded! For starters, the School and PTA are planning the construction of a greenhouse and gardens in an unused area near the play shed. CPNA supports this and is contributing to the effort.

Comprehensive Plan. The plan update that is going to the City Council is without the original language which called for four travel lanes and a turn lane on Cornwall Ave. (York to Illinois), same on F Street, Dupont, Elm and Northwest. CPNA chair John McGarrity, Lettered Streets President Barry Buchanan and Columbia President Andrew Windsor spoke to the City Council, who then took out the language.

Cell Tower. Verizon Wireless proposed constructing a 120 foot cell tower behind 2615 Meridian St. It would have been clearly seen from all of the surrounding neighborhoods. There was a public meeting on Thursday, March 31, 2005 at the main Library lecture room. This meeting was a required one for Verizon's application for City of Bellingham land use permits. Not another word has been heard from Verizon after

100+ neighbors from Columbia & Cornwall Park said NO!

The Fountain District is an area of businesses which adjoins Columbia, Lettered Streets and Cornwall Park neighborhoods. It is being proposed by City planners as an area which can become an "Urban Village". This concept includes denser housing near amenities and services, rather than develop new housing spreading into undeveloped county land. We feel that we have a critical opportunity to begin talking with each other about developing the Fountain District into an area which enhances where we live. On Saturday, June 11, at 10:00 a.m., we held an informal "walk-about" of the Fountain and Broadway Districts, which developed many thoughts, concerns and ideas about the future of the area. Thank you Mitch Friedman for leading the walk.

Broadway Lights. The "antique lights" we had originally requested were installed and the overly tall and bright ones were removed. The "antique lights" look great and we have only heard positive reaction. Thank you City of Bellingham Public Works for listening and getting it right.

DOT Site / Sunnyland Neighborhood Association. CPNA is assisting Sunnyland N.A. in reorganizing. Among other pressing issues there is a sale of the DOT site (next to St. Sophia Church) to Hinton/Dawson Construction. The site is in the Sunnyland neighborhood. It is imperative that our Sunnyland neighbors prepare for development proposals and look into potential public open space uses for the site.

Bug Lake. CPNA phoned Steve Sundin of the COB Planning Dept. to give him our thoughts/opposition about variances which allow intrusion into buffers that protect Critical Areas. We know of two current proposals: Padden Creek and the proposed construction on the north shore of Bug Lake (the north shore of the "borrow pit" on the north side of the

hospital. This project is not associated with St. Joe's.

Association of Bellingham Neighborhoods (ABN). Cornwall Park Neighbor Assoc. Board met September 21 and unanimously voted not to sign a letter that several ABN representatives proposed The letter was concerned primarily with growth management and the Comprehensive Plan update. We had problems with the intent, tone and facts. We have withdrawn from membership in ABN, pending discussions and further review. At our January 2006 meeting, the CPNA board met with Ralph Thacker, the new ABN President, to begin that discussion. CPNA continues to work closely with many of our city's neighborhood associations and participates in the Mayors Neighborhood Advisory Board. Barney Goltz represents our neighborhood at the monthly meetings of the Mayor's Neighborhood Advisory Board, where he keeps track of and influences what's going on in the city.

More. We held our annual picnic last August. Lots of food, conversation and political candidates to meet. For the second year in a row, the spectacular picnic committee chair was Jill Trinkaus.

We held three membership meetings in 2005. All the meetings were held at Parkview Elementary School. Our membership meetings are open to all residents of the neighborhood and other interested parties. Meeting notices are published in the Bellingham Herald and in this newsletter. For our September meeting, activists in Sunnyland leafleted portions of Sunnyland to invite Sunnyland to attend our meeting, to help them revive their own organization. About 10 attended, and they have now met several times, have officers and are a going concern.

City Council Members Louise Bjornson and Gene Knutson both attended almost all of our meetings.

We published and distributed three newsletters and one picnic flier to all the residents of our neighborhood. We have never engaged in fundraising because the newsletter is paid for by our advertisers. We thank them (most of whom are on-going, long-term advertisers) and thank members who have solicited ads. We have lost a few accounts recently and could use some help in that area. Thank you, Editor Bill Hadley, for all your work.

We had eight board meetings in 2005. The meetings are well attended by board members. We occasionally have guests to discus neighborhood issues with us. This year we had a Greenways Legacy representative; St. Joseph administrator Jack Haupt; and Parkview PTA leaders Cynthia Lewis and Trevor Van Woerden. CPNA board meetings are open to all association members, and notices for as many as possible are published in our newsletter. If you are interested in being notified about upcoming board meetings, please call Lorraine Kirk, CPNA Secretary.

We filed our annual registration with the Washington Secretary of State and filed our income tax forms. Our reserves are up. Our account balance in January was $1042.16. Thank you, Laurie Prall, Treasurer.

Lorraine Kirk takes the minutes at all association meetings and maintains the records of the association, including the by-laws. Thank you . St. Joseph Hospital Institutional Master Plan Update by Sue Sharpe

St. Joseph Hospital, with support from a Citizen's Advisory Committee and the City of Bellingham is in the final phase of preparing the application for the City of Bellingham Institutional Master Plan which will serve as a 20 year development guide for the hospital's main campus.

Of significant focus has been the need to improve vehicle access to, and within the Main Campus and the hospital has been working closely with the city, a traffic planning consultant and the public to address this issue.

The Institutional Master Plan process includes three public open houses. The first was held last September to introduce the public to the twenty year regional health plan the hospital has adopted and to lay out the process for the more formal city institutional master plan document for main campus. As part of that meeting the public had an opportunity to identify issues and potential solutions to traffic and other development concerns. The Community Advisory Committee further refined the access concepts for study by the traffic planning consultant.

The second open house was held in December where the public had a chance to comment on the initial assessment of an internal circulation and campus traffic plan as well as at least 7 different access and circulation concepts. There was also a chance to provide public input into the scope for the environmental check list that will also be part of the application process. Since then the Citizen's Advisory Committee has reviewed the public input and some initial recommendations for addressing traffic and circulation and other elements of the institutional plan. The group will be meeting with the hospital and the City in early February and March to review the final recommendations and the draft plan that will be eventually submitted to the City.

The third and final open house is tentatively scheduled for Wednesday, March 15th from 5:30 to 9 p.m. at the St. Luke's Health Education Center on Squalicum Parkway. This will be an opportunity to review the plan recommendations and make final comment before the application is submitted to the City sometime in late March or early April. Once submitted, the city will start a comprehensive review and approval process that should be completed in the fall of 2006.

Please refer to the hospital website, www.peacehealth.org/whatcom for up to date information on the process and details on the upcoming open house. Also please feel free to contact members of the community advisory committee with questions or comments about the process. Members include: John McGarrity and Barney Goltz (Cornwall Park neighborhood), Patrick McKee and Hugh Conway (Sunnyland neighborhood), Jim Stevens (general community), Brian Smart (City of Bellingham

Planning) and other main campus property owners and consultants.

GREENWAYS LEVYS

Three alternative Greenway levys have been proposed, Greenways 2006 for $41.5 million over 10 years, Greenway Legacy for $60 million over 15 years and Greenway III for $43 million over 10 years. The big issue relating to the three levys is that the Greenway Legacy proposes spending $13.5 million to purchase the "Hundred Acre Woods/Chuckanut Ridge/Fairhaven Highlands" property while the other proposals provide a more balanced allocation of funding which addresses the significant unbalance in the number of park facilities available in the south versus north side of our community. The CPNA board voted at it's January 26th meeting to endorse the Greenway III proposal, developed by the Bellingham Park Dept. because we feel it best addresses the communities needs.

MEMBERSHIPS ARE DUE

We enter the New Year with a sense of anticipation and renewal. One of the things we need to renew is our dedication to continue to work to keep our neighborhood the wonderful place to live that it is Step 1. The membership slate is wiped clean with the New Year so we must renew our memberships to keep the Neighborhood Association as a strong voice to represent us against forces that might cause unwelcome change. So, except for those listed below, please send in or pay your membership dues at the February 16th meeting.

The following members paid near the end of 2005 so their memberships carry over to 2006 - Karen Bruun, Amy Bryant, Cecilia Danysk, Mitch Friedman, Rob & Trina Funkhouser, Helen Hardcastle, Michael Hilty, Dana McCauley, Mary Mullen, Frank Schmitt, Don & Kathy Smith, Kate Sovell, Dick & Deb Steinkamp, Carol & Tom Torgeson, Seth Vidana.

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John J. McGarrity, Chair

Cornwall Park Neighborhood Association

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