Carl Cozier to Participate in Girls on the Run

Girls at Carl Cozier Elementary in third through fifth grade have the opportunity to participate in a three-month program to improve their physical activity as well as their confidence and mental development.

Girls on the Run is a non-profit organization that teaches young girls in the United States and Canada about maintaining a physically active lifestyle, making good life decisions and improving the girls’ self esteem and confidence in herself.

The program costs $125 and starts on April 7^th through June 7^th. At the end of the three-month course, each girl will participate in a five-kilometer run.

In 2013, 1,800 volunteers helped more than 1,500 girls in Washington participate in the Girls on the Run program. There are currently eight councils, or teams, in Washington, with the closest being the Girls on the Run of Northwest Washington supported through the Whatcom County YMCA.

Program lessons will be held at Carl Cozier on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 3-4 p.m.  

Aside from Carl Cozier, a few other nearby elementary schools participating in the program include:

·      Lowell Elementary

·      Happy Valley Elementary

·      Columbia Elementary

·      Cordata Elementary

Lakeway Center Affected by Closing of The Market

The closing of The Market has brought less customer traffic to Lakeway Center. The Market, a local and natural food store, closed in early 2014 and the loss is making business slower for the surviving stores in the center.  

 The Markets L.L.C. announced in a press release on Dec. 12, 2013 that the Lakeway store would close because the store was not bringing in enough business.

“People really showed up at The Market when the closing sales started,” Michaela Davis said, employee at Emerald City Smoothie. However, the cheaper prices and the overall closing of the store may have attracted an unwanted crowd that is harassing other customers.

“It has been slower around here and there has also been a change in the type of customers coming here,” Davis said. “I don’t want to say “sketchy”, but some of the people who hang around the stores can be questionable.”

In January, when The Market was having its closing sales, Emerald City Smoothie employee Jennifer Gonzales also noticed a change in the crowd coming to Lakeway Center.

Police were called to Lakeway Center at least two times in January because of a man harassing people outside of Emerald City Smoothie. Another call to police was about a man who entered the smoothie store insulting a man for being a homosexual, Gonzales said.

There has been an increase in police patrol in the area, Gonzales said. There are sometimes creepy guys walking around at night and I usually see a cop walking around too, she said.

Because of the harassment issues, David said she is afraid when she is working alone in the store at night.

Other businesses in the shopping center relied on the customer traffic brought in by The Market and are impacted by the loss of the store.

The biggest change around here is the lack of foot traffic we get in our store, Galen LeBlanc said, Radio Shack employee. It is most definitely slower here, he said.

The center is a lot quieter during the day without all of the shoppers coming in and out of the grocery store, LeBlanc said.

Popular with college students, Crazy Mike’s Video still gets as many customers as it had before The Market closed, Kevin Lindsay said, Crazy Mike’s employee.

Busier stores, like the movie rental, are not experiencing a decline in customers but notice a decline in traffic to Lakeway Center, he said.

“There is definitely a lot more parking than there used to be,” Lindsay said, employee at Crazy Mike’s Video. “The parking lot used to be full and now it is not even close.”

More people shopped at Fred Meyer than The Market since Fred Meyer is cheaper than The Market’s expensive organic food, Lindsay said.

The Market at Lakeway closed shortly after the remodeling of Fred Meyer on Lincoln Street. The Sunset Costcutter, another The Markets L.L.C. store closed after the addition of Winco on Meridian, a store that also offers lower prices.

The Lakeway location was the last Market store in Bellingham after the Sunset location closed in 2013.

Elementary Students Raise Salmon

Students at Carl Cozier Elementary are becoming young scientists while raising salmon at the school. Kids from kindergarten to fifth grade are learning about the lifecycle of the fish and how they grow in a protected environment to strengthen their science skills.

Raising the salmon in a protected environment offers a better chance for salmon survival during the development phase from egg to fish. In the wild, salmon can lay up to 3000 eggs and only about 10 or 15 will survive. The elementary received 200 eggs from the Nooksack Salmon Enhancement Association and only one egg has been lost so far.

The salmon will be raised in a 144-liter tank at the school until they have developed enough to be released into Whatcom Creek.

Classes are assigned responsibilities for raising the salmon by their grade level. Kindergarteners learn about the lifecycle of the fish and how they dig holes to hide from predators, second graders check the water quality of the tank and older students make sure the temperature is the right degree.

Kindergarten teacher Erica Wayerski is in charge of the project and says her students are excited about raising salmon.

“They love it,” Wayerski said. “Every day they come in and stand around the fish tank checking to see if they have hatched.”

The students are currently anticipating fish to start swimming around the tank as soon as their yolk sacks disappearing. This allows the fish to be able to be fed by the students instead of receiving their nourishment from the sack.

“Right now the salmon are still fry,” Wayerski said. “They come in as little tiny pink eggs that look like rocks and they slowly start hatching.”

Students will gain knowledge about the lifecycle of salmon that will make the junior scientists, Wayerski said. The kids will learn about different types of salmon, phases of development and parts of the anatomy that help a salmon swim, breath and eat. Lessons also include how Native Americans in the Pacific Northwest depend on the fish for food.

Lisa Conlan is a second grade teacher at Carl Cozier and teaches science lessons to two classes about salmon. Her students have examined what determines a healthy living space for the developing fish.

Using their math skills, Conlan’s students determined each salmon has about one liter of water to swim in.

“We figured out the volume of water in the tank by building a huge model out of our math cubes,” Conlan said. “We’ve had a great time using a four-month calendar to record physical changes and development of the salmon from eggs to alevin to fry.”

While the kids check the tank daily to see if any eggs have turned into fish, the part most exciting to the students is the release day, Wayerski said.

Each kid will get a cup containing one fish to pour down a slide. They send their aquatic friend off with a wish and release them into the stream.

The staff at Carl Cozier has received positive feedback from students on this project and the experience has impacted some students for many years.

“I have kids who were in my class 15 or 20 years ago who still talk about it,” Wayerski said.

Along with Carl Cozier, Happy Valley and Larabee elementary also participate in similar salmon raising projects. 

Bellingham Bicycle Master Plan Open House

If you are concerned about bicycle safety on Lincoln Street due changes from the new development site, you are welcome to attend the Bicycle Master Plan Open House meeting on Thurs. Feb 20 from 5:30-8:00 p.m. at Whatcom Middle School.

The Bicycle Master Plan proposes adding more than 125 miles of bicycle lanes to Bellingham streets over the upcoming 25 years. The purpose of the plan is to design safe bicycle lanes in each Bellingham neighborhood in which experienced and non-experiences bicyclists can access any of part of the city.

Goals of the plan include:

-Promoting bicycling, walking and driving safety

-Encouraging Bellingham residents and visitors to use bike transportation to remain active and improve the environment

-Creating a variety of bikeways that allow residents to access all parts of the city by bicycle

-Making Bellingham a more bike-friendly city and community

Design for the plan has been influenced by public comments from residents and focus groups. The current draft of the plan is now available for public review before the open house.

Residents who wish to voice comments to the city regarding the Bicycle Master Plan must do so before Mar. 7.

New Apartments on Lincoln Street

The Grove apartments, soon to be located at the development site just south of Fred Meyer, are continuing a pattern of development geared toward students for Lincoln Street.

Over the last two decades, the Lincoln Street area has been developed to adjust for the growing population of college students in Bellingham, Martin Kjelstad said, Bellingham Publics Works employee.

Lincoln Street has been adjusted for student use and needs with:

·      The Maple Park apartment project built 20 years ago

·      The drive-in movie theater becoming the Lincoln Creek Park and Ride 15 years ago

·      The Edge apartments built in 2009

·      Southgate apartments

Planned for East Maple Street, The Grove apartments are intended for mainly college-aged tenants just like University Ridge destined for Consolidation Avenue.

The development will include office space, retail space and a parking garage. The site will also bring in more college students with 550 units planned for The Grove.

There has not been much development on Lincoln Street that was not student housing or intended for student use, Kjelstad said.

Currently, 14,833 students attend Western Washington University and 11,000 attend Whatcom Community College. As student populations rise at Western and Whatcom, areas surrounding the schools, like Lincoln Street, will develop to accommodate the number of students living in Bellingham.