For those of you who missed it or just want a refresher, here’s a better-late-than-never summary of our September General Meeting.
King Mt. Neighborhood Association held a general meeting via zoom on September 28, 2022. All Board members were present, approximately 70 people from the neighborhood attended. Special guest Nicole Oliver, Director of City of Bellingham Parks Dept, spoke about the development of parks and trails in the neighborhood, as well as the development of the new Community Garden at the Van Wyck Rd. park property. The Board also raffled off a $100 gift certificate to My Garden Nursery. All attendees of the meeting were eligible. Thanks My Garden!
Specific highlights of the meeting:
New school update: Bellingham school district owns property intended for a new elementary school in the neighborhood and has applied for a rezone from the City. The City will be seeking community feedback on application - look for opportunities to give feedback and please give it, likely in October or November. The district will form a committee to help with planning and design and will be seeking representatives from the community. School district hopes to break ground in 2024, open the school in fall 2025. More details and info on our KMNA Schools Blog Post
Traffic update: funding has been secured for northern James St. improvements, the City will be working their way south, James/Bakerview roundabout hopefully in place by fall 2025 school opening. See blog posted on KMNA website, which includes links to the city webpages on individual projects: KMNA Transportation Update.
Parks/Open Space: Nicole Oliver, City of Bellingham Parks Dept, spoke extensively about the upcoming parks and trails projects in the neighborhood, stressing that trail connectivity is a priority, and utilizing developments/developers to build and increase trail connectivity as they are built, including the new school. Currently working on developing and completing a loop around Sunset Pond that will connect to Sunset Drive. There will be extensive trail and open space development in the coming years, including a network of trails on King and Queen Mountains. The Parks Dept is very excited about the development of new park property on Van Wyck Rd., including a new community garden space. The property has a complicated water situation, as the well is unreliable. Tentative plans to install a disk golf course were recently dropped when the Disk Golf club withdrew, citing concerns about the ground being too wet for consistent play. The Dept is currently reviewing the community garden layout/ site proposal. Nicole urged citizens to get out and use the existing parks and trails; the Bay to Baker trail is not getting near the volume of usage it can support, proper and appropriate usage by citizens discourages others from using it inappropriately. In response to some concern, she also offered assurance that most people camping in the woods and along trails present no risk to the safety of other citizens and when there are individuals or groups presenting sanitation problems or criminal behavior, they are responded to seriously by city officials. She thoughtfully acknowledged what a concerning situation houselessness is in Bellingham at large and briefly touched on some of the city’s efforts to address this issue (ex. Lakeway tiny house village).
The following pdfs were shared by Nicole during the meeting and illustrate the existing and intended trail maps for the neighborhood.
Community Garden update: Liz with the PROS (Parks, Rec, Open Spaces Subcommittee) is working on a timeline for development of the Community Garden; she hopes the garden will be open this coming summer and plans to hold a meeting specific to community garden in near future.
KMNA needs your help! The Board is seeking solution oriented team members interested in helping to influence how our neighborhood develops through volunteer time; the neighborhood association acts as a conduit between the neighborhood and city officials and there is always plenty to communicate! We recently sent out a survey about your priorities and found there are three themes many of you would like to see represented that we don't yet have subcommittees for: neighborhood affordable housing, safety for all who live here, and more generally, how development will unfold in King Mountain Neighborhood. If you are someone particularly interested in one of these topics, please bring your positive passion for our neighborhood to the board. Networking (the old fashioned way and the tech way) is also something we can always use more of. If interested go to the website and get in touch: info@kmna.org.
If you are unable to volunteer your time, but want to support KMNA’s work and have the funds, please consider donating! KMNA receives $500.00 annually from the City for being a neighborhood association. This sum keeps our basic website up and allows for minimal other expenses (ex. dry erase markers and flyers). Lack of funding (and volunteers) has, at times, restricted KMNA’s capacity to communicate with the neighborhood. Any support from neighborhood residents is much appreciated and can be done quickly at anytime via the “donate” button on the website homepage.
Thank you for taking the time to read this message and stay tuned for more!