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The situation downtown has deteriorated to the point the mayor has had to close city hall and the library for the sake of everyone’s safety. For a long time now, these people have been harassing city workers who now need police escorts to and from their offices. Victims of theft living in the nearby neighborhoods have been seen confronting campers, demanding to know who’s been breaking into their stuff. There’s been tent fires with propane tank explosions, graffiti, and physical assaults involving hatchets and baseball bats which left two in the ER. Whatcom Scanner Report is now saying someone laying in the street was hit by a car.
This has been in the making for a long time, and thinking adults saw this coming from a mile way. But every time we’ve voiced our concerns, we’re ridiculed and called a bunch of “conservative curmudgeons.” Yeah, I’m looking at you, “Bartonizer.” Newsflash: it’s not just the conservatives who are pi$$ed our downtown core is becoming Pioneer Square.
I’m disgusted by all of this. I’ve mentioned before that, for me at least, the urban lifestyle here no longer appeals to me. At all.
The situation downtown has deteriorated to the point the mayor has had to close city hall and the library for the sake of everyone’s safety. For a long time now, these people have been harassing city workers who now need police escorts to and from their offices. Victims of theft living in the nearby neighborhoods have been seen confronting campers, demanding to know who’s been breaking into their stuff. There’s been tent fires with propane tank explosions, graffiti, and physical assaults involving hatchets and baseball bats which left two in the ER. Whatcom Scanner Report is now saying someone laying in the street was hit by a car.
This has been in the making for a long time, and thinking adults saw this coming from a mile way. But every time we’ve voiced our concerns, we’re ridiculed and called a bunch of “conservative curmudgeons.” Yeah, I’m looking at you, “Bartonizer.” Newsflash: it’s not just the conservatives who are pi$$ed our downtown core is becoming Pioneer Square.
I’m disgusted by all of this. I’ve mentioned before that, for me at least, the urban lifestyle here no longer appeals to me. At all.
You seem to miss my point completely on these threads- which has been that quite often, the same people complaining (the curmudgeons I've mentioned, can be on the right or left) act like issues occurring throughout the state, region, and country are somehow limited to Bellingham, or act as if living in this city is terrible because there's a homeless population around downtown. You seem to fit into that category, and make it sound like issues like escalating real estate prices, traffic, homelessness, and petty crime simply don't exist elsewhere.... You often mention anecdotal crimes to scare people away, as if someone from Boulder or San Fran or Atlanta or anywhere else has never heard of a bike being stolen.
So I'm sure that you and the other Bellingham haters on C-D salivated at the news coverage we received over the last few days. Not to make light of it, but the "downtown situation" is mostly limited to city hall and the library. I agree that it was starting to get out of hand, though my wife and I walk by daily and have not feared for our safety. In fact, usually it feels somewhat like the camping area at a large music festival. We have gone over there numerous times and handed out food, as well as gloves, socks, handwarmers, etc. and not felt threatened, though there are clearly a lot of people suffering from mental illness and I'm sure some of them dealing with addiction.
Several of my friends work in city hall, though, and recently they started getting concerned about how close everyone was getting on the lawn...No matter, they've finally been given an ultimatum, so the camp is being swept this Friday. The city has created several housing areas, and it's time for them to move on. Unfortunately, there was some safety at first in the city hall setting, now many will probably go back out of sight and on to trails.
As to your other comments, saying downtown is becoming Pioneer Square makes me think you don't actually spend time or money there. Or you just live in total fear of an urban construct. Two or three blocks away, restaurants are humming and there are plenty of people walking and biking around. And I actually live and own a house in the adjacent neighborhood (Sunnyland) that you and several others constantly reference when talking about how bad Bellingham is. We're an urban, semi-industrial but close knit neighborhood where we have several watch groups online. But your portrayal is hilarious. It's also extremely walkable, home to five breweries, a Trader Joe's, trail and downtown access. You're far, far more likely to get bumped into by a jogger or run into by someone on a bike towing their child than you are to get accosted by an "undesirable."
Speaking of dangerous confrontations, I think that the optics of homelessness are what really scares some people on these threads. I certainly don't like the fact that it's a problem, and I'm sure- like many West Coast cities, it has a lot to do with some common characteristics- high housing prices/low paying jobs, low housing inventory, mild climate. From what I've experienced it's a trade off- many Western cities have higher homeless rates- but not entire dangerous areas that you'd never visit, which is commonplace in the East. And overall crime rates aren't dramatically different. Maybe it's because out of sight is preferable? After all, you constantly inquire about living in other places like Greenville, SC where the violent crime rate is over 2x Bellingham's. Somehow that doesn't seem to concern you as much as a relatively small area where the homeless are concentrated. Personally, I've mentioned my concern for the homeless and the homeless situation numerous times, and my thoughts would likely surprise you. I absolutely don't like that it's going on, but no one on either side seems to have a perfect solution. Just locking everyone up isn't going to help, and just ignoring problems won't make them go away. The city is investing in alternative housing, though I think that they should do anything they can to accelerate the process, and be firmer in general with law enforcement.
Anyway, like several of the other curmudgeons, it sounds like you need to move on and get a change of scenery. I fully understand the frustration you've encountered, now it's time for you to run into many of the same issues elsewhere.
Last edited by bartonizer; 01-26-2021 at 01:10 PM..
I agree that the homeless population has become a lot more visible in recent times with more tents and sketchy people. I hope the city can manage it before it gets worse. It's going to look like Olympia or Seattle if the trend continues. Yeah, it's not as bad as those places now, but both of those cities also went through a time when it wasn't so bad.
In the past week Bellingham, Tacoma and Seattle has made international headlines in regards to protests, police, homeless etc.
A buddy of mine use to work at Bellingham city hall and knew the current mayor. He says mayor Seth Fleetwood allowed the homeless encampment at city hall months back since he has a big heart, but it's backfired on him now that the homeless are refusing to leave. Check out this article, it says 20 homeless people got in and he had to escape from the back door. They're a rough bunch of homeless people and they're not happy having to sleep outside in the elements when indoor accommodations can be made.
Alot of you I noticed are searching for info about Bellingham, and being a lifetime resident of Bellingham I will fill you in. My wife is 27 and I am 31. Bellingham was a nice little town. A skilled trade worker could make $12-$15/hr maybe more and median price homes were in the $140K range. A few years ago some dumb retirement magazine named Bellingham #2 in the nation to retire in. As you can imagine they came in groves from California, Arizona, Florida, and more. Some of them not the best quality of people either. Real Estate prices went thru the roof, and are still horribly high, averaging around $470,000 currently for the homes listed for sale. Very few jobs here are capable of supporting such a mortgage, it's said that 90% of the working families here can't afford a home. There are so many availiable jobs here for that reason, alot of the workers packed up and left because there is pretty much no hope here. The anti-growth attitude of our local government caused a massive price increase of real estate and cost of living. This inflated cost of living is passed down to everyone. We pay more for gas, food, homes, and property taxes, but the worst is that the jobs don't pay anymore than 5 years ago. A co-worker of mine built his own home on the lake in the 80's, cost him about $85K and they paid it off in the 90's. In 2006 it was assessed at $680,000, making his property taxes approx $780 a month on a home he built himself and owns outright! My wife is a Biology teacher with a Master's and I am a jouneyman union structural steel worker, and together we are looking at maybe being able to afford a home if we can get a deal on the lot and build it ourselves. Most of the working people here are stuck in apartments or, like us, living with relatives waiting for this hell to end. Last week some old bag in a big BMW backed into my car in the parking lot and ran, gotta love it. The police won't even do anything and my insurance either has to cover it, or we leave our car with a big dent in it. There's nothing to do here for fun and we have a high crime rate, almost 2x the average. Our police are worthless. Your car gets stolen, too bad. House gets burglarized, too bad. Doing 5 over, you're getting a ticket. I have family here that need us to be here, so I am stuck here unfortunately. Those of you looking to relocate, look carefully. Weigh availialble jobs and average pay with cost of homes, and choose a state that HAS an income tax. Go where everyone else, isn't. Remember our economy goes by "demand and supply". Retiree's are flocking to WA to avoid income tax which is really dumb because we have a nasty 8.5%+ sales tax, almost .50 of gas tax, and some nasty and still rising property taxes. Our medical services are overrun, everyone is short on nurses and doctors, yet doctors can do much better elseware so it doesn't improve. I don't even bother to go to the doctor anymore even with full benefits, by the time I can get an appointment whatever was wrong is gone or maybe one day I'll be dead. Most anywhere in the state will be better than Bellingham. In Seattle/Tacoma/Olypia you have a little bit higher prices but alot more potential for income and certainly alot more to do. The next few years will be very interesting, with so many people moving here to retire, it's creating alot of needs and less business/workers and industry to pay for it.
Anyway sorry to be so negative but in the last 5-6 years it's really gone in the toilet here, unless you're some Millionaire real estate land maggot.
Nice try, but I hear that Bellingham is much more desirable than Seattle, Tacoma, and Portland! Good luck! Biden/Harris promise to make things better for ALL! We'll be "UNITED" before you know it! Promise!
Warning, link contains graphic images of victim in the hospital after being attacked by several homeless in the camp at city hall and taking multiple hatchet blows to the face, head, and neck.
Location: Whatcom County, WA/Cherokee County, NC/Pike County, KY
447 posts, read 335,429 times
Reputation: 609
Quote:
Originally Posted by bartonizer
So I'm sure that you and the other Bellingham haters on C-D salivated at the news coverage we received over the last few days. Not to make light of it, but the "downtown situation" is mostly limited to city hall and the library. I agree that it was starting to get out of hand, though my wife and I walk by daily and have not feared for our safety. In fact, usually it feels somewhat like the camping area at a large music festival.We have gone over there numerous times and handed out food, as well as gloves, socks, handwarmers, etc. and not felt threatened, though there are clearly a lot of people suffering from mental illness and I'm sure some of them dealing with addiction.
Have you heard people play instruments or sing songs there? I saw a trashcan fire with guys standing around it, not sure if they were cooking smores over it or just keeping warm.
Have you heard people play instruments or sing songs there? I saw a trashcan fire with guys standing around it, not sure if they were cooking smores over it or just keeping warm.
Smokin' doobies and listening to Nirvana as well.
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