July 2018
Cordata Neighborhood Association monthly news & updates
  • Keeping the Cordata Neighborhood informed about what is going on in our neighborhood.
Upcoming Events
Please remember, there won't be any monthly neighborhood meeting in July and August, 2018. Meetings will resume on September 11, 2018. Have a wonderful summer and see you in September. It will be held at the Birchwood Presbyterian Church, 400 N. Meadowbrook, Bellingham, WA 98226 at 7PM.
CNA September 2017- June 2018 revisited.
Our Board of Directors would like to give you a review of our busy year. We felt it would be useful to highlight its meetings of this past year.

In our meeting that kicked off the monthly meetings in September 2017 , our guest speaker was Greg Winters, Executive Director of the Opportunity Council. Mr. Winters spoke of his agency’s 50years of a broad scope of services that address immediate needs (food, emergency, shelter, eviction protection) to longer-term programs that promote self-sufficiency in our community.
For the October meeting, we hosted a “Meet the Candidates Night.” Each of the candidates running for an elected position for County Council District 2, County Council At-Large, Port of Bellingham District 1 and 2, two positions for the Bellingham City Council At-Large, and the Meridian School District were given an opportunity to briefly speak, seeking our support, and helping us decide who would be best qualified to represent us in city and county government.

 In November , we had two speakers, Karen Bade from Bellingham Technical College and Karla Koplizer from Whatcom Community College talk about the Washington State Running Start program. This program is intended to provide students in grades 11 and 12 a program option consisting of attendance at certain institutions of higher education and simultaneous earning of high school and college/university credit.
No meeting was held in December (as is the norm due to the holiday season) in December

Your CNA started January of 2018 off with guest speaker and new Bellingham Chief of Police, David Doll. Also, the 1 st Ward District (includes the Cordata Neighborhood) City Councilwoman April Barker spoke to the meeting attendees.

February the invited guest speaker was Addie H. Candib, Community Engagement Manager of the Whatcom Dispute Resolution Center. Unfortunately she was unable to attend. However, your CNA Board of Directors conducted a Town Hall meeting with the panel being made up by members of the board. Also, new Board member Pat Lynam was introduced. Cordata neighborhood residents expressed their concerns about traffic in the area and new development underway.

For March , a full agenda of speakers including John Gargett, Deputy Director, Whatcom County Sheriff’s Office, and Mr. Gargett spoke about his global experience with disaster and recovery. He also spoke about Tsunamis and how one would affect our Whatcom County. The new officers of your Cordata Neighborhood Association were announced.

In April, our guest and only speaker was Bellingham Mayor Kelli Linville. Mayor Linville gave us an update as to what is going on in Bellingham from a city government viewpoint, discussing such topics as library concerns for the Cordata neighborhood, jail update , homelessness problem in Bellingham and traffic congestion.

In May, we had speaker, Rick Sepler, the Director of Planning for the City of Bellingham. Mr. Sepler oversees all building plans and permits in the city. He also, answered many questions from the audience on how the city will deal with the large number of housing and commercial units that are in the works in the north end (the Cordata Neighborhood.)

One of the primary motives in forming the Cordata Neighborhood association was due to the fact there were no parks and trails in the Cordata neighborhood. In the years since its formation we now have Cordata Park and trail and the building of a new park on Cordata Parkway between Stuart Road and Horton is scheduled to break ground in 2019. Pictured below is the Cordata Park Trail that was opened in 2010 as a result of CNA campaigning for it.
Cordata Park Trail 2010
Building of the Cordata Park Trail
  • COMMUNITY GARDEN NEWS
The wonderful Cordata Community Garden is flourishing and there is expectation that it will be able to donate and deliver about 1000 lbs. of fresh produce to the Bellingham Food Bank!

  • The Stuart Road and Cordata Parkway Round-About News.
The latest information we have concerning the building of the promised Stuart Road Round-About is still scheduled to begin anytime from now until this FALL.

WELCOME TO NEW CNA BOARD MEMBER Paul Kratzig.
T he CNA Board of Director's are pleased to announce the addition of our newest member to the board, Mr. Paul Kratzig. Paul is currently the President of the Meridian Public School Foundation and brings to the board a wealth of community organization skills and knowledge. Welcome aboard Paul!
WELCOME to OUR Junior and youngest CNA Board Member
We are also very happy to announce the addition of current board member Marisa Ellis giving birth to a new baby boy recently. Congratulations, Lisa and Hubby! My only question is will baby Ellis be able to take part in our next board meeting?

Continued from first column.

The June 2018 meeting closed out the 2017-2018 year of meetings set up and presented by your Cordata Neighborhood Association, and like all previous meetings we had a very interesting and informative speaker Rob Fix. Mr. Fix is the Director of Operations, Port of Bellingham. His responsibilities include the waterfront and the airport. Mr. Fix told us of the progress being made at the waterfront and future plans for the Bellingham Airport. He was pleased to say that the Port of Bellingham has and provides many living wage jobs and is landlord to many successful water related businesses.

Other CNA landmarks and exciting news about your Cordata Neighborhood Association, while not mentioned in the above, but were often talked about at the meetings was our supporting food donations to WCC Orca Pantry program. This program raises money to provide easy meals and snacks for WCC students that often have to choose between paying rent or being able to buy groceries. 
 
The Cordata Neighborhood is very proud to be the only neighborhood association that has a scholarship for a WCC student who has contributed in some way to the benefit of our local community. One of our board members, Bev Jacobs initiated this fund with unanimous board approval. Bev is also our Vice President and director of program planning for our neighborhood meetings and you can see from the run-down of this past year’s meetings she does an over and beyond call of duty job in getting our speakers.

And I don’t want to forget about our Community Garden available for those that want to have a garden plot. The garden plots are rented by the gardeners on land donated to us by builder Caitac. All plots are rented for 2018, so if you are interested in gardening you should plan early for 2019 to get a plot.

Lastly, in November of 2018 the Cordata Neighborhood Association became the first and only organization of this type to have a book published by Village Books about the history of our organization. The book is entitled A Beacon of Community Development, authored by current CNA President Ralph Myers in collaboration with and narrated by one of our Co-Founders Julianna Royal Guy. It old out at Julie and Ralph's book evenst held in March at Village Books in Fairhaven.

Now you can see, I believe, the value to this community provided by the Cordata Neighborhood Association and we hope you will join us at our first meeting of the 2018-2019 year at the Birchwood Presbyterian Church to be held on Tuesday, September 11, 2018 at 7PM. The guest speaker will be announced.
Cordata Neighborhood Association 4559 El Dorado Way #226, Bellingham, WA 98226
Email: rftmbiz@gmail.com

The Cordata Neighborhood Association is an all volunteer, non-profit 501 (c) 3 organization. This newsletter and other association activites are funded primarily from membership dues which are $10 a year per residence. We also gladly accept donations which, like the membership dues, are tax deductible. We encourage your participation and support.
Board of Directors, Mike Brunt, Carol Dukes, Marisa Ellis, Julie Guy, Bev Jacobs, Paul Kratzig, Pat Lynam and Ralph Myers