Good morning, Bellingham! It’s December 10, 2025! The lights are twinkling, the skies are pouring, and somehow there are still pine needles in places no tree has ever been. This week we’ve got Christmas chaos to help you tame the house, super-local holiday events to get you out of it, and a couple of big civic conversations brewing in the background.

In today’s Scoop:

• 🎄 A Cascade Home Cleaning pre-holiday special (25% off one-time cleans + 50% off your first recurring clean when you sign up) so your house looks festive instead of “we live here now.”

• 🛍️ A Holiday Must-Do lineup: markets, makers, and a funky Christmas soul show to turn Saturday into one big local-shopping victory lap.

• 🏛️ A breakdown of the Justice Project workshop in Ferndale and what folks are saying about the new jail and behavioral health center.

• 🌧️ A check-in on the latest atmospheric river turning our roads into rivers and our group chats into “is Hannegan open?”

• 🌊 And a preview of Birch Bay’s big incorporation Zoom. What it is, what it isn’t, and why those tax and staffing “dials” matter.

Holiday Cheer, Minus the Dust Bunnies [SPONSORED] 

Let’s be honest: hosting is fun.
Scrubbing baseboards at 11 p.m. the night before? Not so much.

That’s where Cascade Home Cleaning swoops in like the Cleaning Santa of Bellingham.

For Bellingham Scoop readers, they’re running a Pre-Holiday Clean special:

• 🧽 25% off a one-time pre-holiday clean (get the house guest-ready fast)

• 🏡 Love it and want to keep the magic going? Sign up for recurring service and get 50% off your first recurring clean too.

Cascade is local, obsessively reliable, and all about that cozy, hospitable feel in your home (you know, so you can actually enjoy your guests instead of hiding in the kitchen wiping counters… again).

Perfect for:

• In-laws arriving “a little earlier than planned”

• Kids + pets + pine needles everywhere

• Wanting your home to smell like holidays, not like “we’ve been surviving on snacks and coffee for 3 weeks”

👉 Grab your discount and book your pre-holiday clean here: USE KEYWORD “SCOOP” 👉 https://www.cascadehomecleaning.com/contact-us

This Week’s Must-Dos (My Holiday Christmas Edition):

Holiday Festival of the Arts @ Sunset Square
Now through Dec 24 · Daily 10 a.m. – 6 p.m. · 1225 E Sunset Dr, Suite 110

If “Christmas exploded in a former Rite Aid” sounds like your love language, this is your spot.
The Holiday Festival of the Arts is packed with 100+ local artists and makers, plus live music and free kids’ activities on weekends. Think ornaments, jewelry, prints, soaps, weird little gnomes… all the good stocking-stuffer chaos under one roof. (Allied Arts)

Perfect for: getting your gift list done and letting the kids burn off sugar at the craft tables while you browse.

Super Saturday Holiday Markets
Saturday, Dec 13 · Various times & locations in Bellingham

Make Saturday your Christmas market crawl:

• Children’s Holiday Market – 10 a.m. – 2 p.m., Bloedel Donovan Community Building
  Kid vendors selling their own crafts and goodies = peak wholesome.

• Bizarre Bazaar: Art Gallery & Holiday Market – 11 a.m. – 2 p.m., Gabriel’s Art Kids on Dupont
  Artsy, colorful, very “Bellingham in a snow globe.”

• Kulshan Brewing Holiday Maker’s Market (K2) – 4 p.m. – 8 p.m., Roosevelt Taproom
  Local makers + beer + twinkle lights. Enough said. (AllEvents)

Hit one, hit all three, and call it your official “I shopped local” Christmas victory lap.

Funk the Halls: A Holiday Soul Session @ The Blue Room
Saturday, Dec 13 · 7 p.m. · 202 E Holly St

When you’re done shopping and need to trade jingle bells for a bass line:
“Funk The Halls: A Holiday Soul Session” brings live funk/soul to The Blue Room downtown. Expect dancing, ugly sweaters, and probably at least one extremely funky version of a Christmas classic. (AllEvents)

Perfect date night or friends-night-out if you want your Christmas vibes with a side of groove instead of carols at the mall.

Justice Project Workshop Packs Ferndale Hall, Surfaces Big Questions About New Jail & Care Center

More than 100 people showed up in Ferndale recently to talk about two big, complicated things:

1. a new Whatcom County jail, and

2. how we actually want our justice and behavioral health systems to work.

The county’s Justice Project Community Engagement Workshop at Pioneer Pavilion brought together residents, elected officials, and the newly hired design-build team for the future jail and Behavioral Care Center planned for the LaBounty Drive site in Ferndale. GovDelivery

Instead of a classic sit-and-listen meeting, this one was more “interactive lab” than lecture.

A jar of sand, some beads, and a lot of tradeoffs

One of the most-talked-about stations used jars filled with sand, stones, and beads to help people literally see the tradeoffs in the project.

Here’s what each item stood for:

• Sand – “soft costs”: permits, site cleanup, architects, engineering

• Black stones – beds in the Behavioral Care Center

• White beads – program and admin space in the jail (classrooms, courtroom area, reentry programming, offices)

• Blue beads – jail beds

Residents could scoop their own mix into a jar and say, “If it were up to me, I’d prioritize this.”

It’s a surprisingly simple way to show a complicated reality: If you want more services and treatment space, something else (like bed count or admin footprint) has to give… at least within a finite budget.

What people said: services, size, and serious questions

County staff summed up the feedback into a few main themes:

• Strong support for behavioral health & reentry services
  Many attendees wanted the project to invest heavily in things like mental health care, substance use treatment, and housing support. The message: if we want fewer people cycling through the system, services matter.

• “Show us the data.”
  Folks asked for clear, public, ongoing data: how many people are in jail, how many are using diversion and treatment programs, and whether things are actually improving over time.

• Concerns the jail is too big… and too small.

  • Some attendees argued that the new jail is unnecessary, too large, and too expensive, and would rather see that money go into housing, healthcare, and food security.

  • Others worried the proposed capacity isn’t enough, and pushed for a larger facility and faster construction to address current booking limits and crowding.

• Nuts-and-bolts questions
  People also wanted details on:

  • Transportation to and from the LaBounty site in Ferndale

  • Where exactly the Behavioral Care Center will sit in relation to the jail

  • What diversion programs exist today and which new ones might come with the facility

  • How big the combined justice facilities will ultimately be

County staff said these questions and comments will be rolled into an updated FAQ on the Justice Project website.

How do we know if this thing “worked”?

One station asked a deceptively simple question: “What does success look like for the Justice Project?”

The answers ranged all over the map, including:

• Fewer people incarcerated overall

• Less time spent in jail before trial

• Fewer people with behavioral health needs behind bars

• More people using diversion and treatment instead of jail

• Enough beds that booking restrictions go away

• In one direction: “No jail is built; all funds go to housing, healthcare, and food security.”

• In the opposite direction: “We can incarcerate everyone with an active warrant, and crime rates drop.”

In other words: there isn’t one shared definition of “success” across the community yet.. but the county is at least putting those tensions on the table.

What is the Justice Project, again?

If you’re just now catching up:

The Whatcom County Justice Project is a multi-year effort to overhaul both our jail facilities and our behavioral health system. At a high level, it includes: Source: Whatcom County

• A new county jail on LaBounty Drive in Ferndale

• A co-located Behavioral Care Center with treatment space

• Expansion of:

  • behavioral health services

  • substance use disorder treatment

  • supportive and permanent housing tied to reentry and diversion

Where things stand now (and what’s next)

The county shared a timeline-style “progress tracker” at the workshop. Highlights:

Recent work (Summer–Fall 2025):

• Jail capacity analysis completed, projecting future bed needs out to 2050

• Initial review of different Behavioral Care Center models (in-custody vs. out-of-custody; on-site vs. off-site)

• A design-build team has been hired for the LaBounty site

• Wetland assessments and mitigation are underway in preparation for construction

• County and city partners evaluated permanent supportive housing projects and invested about $6.6 million in workforce and affordable housing tied to justice-related needs

What’s happening next (Winter 2025 and into 2026):

• The design team continues work on the facility with key decisions on size, scope, and services

• The court system is slated for digital upgrades (evidence handling, client communication, etc.)

• The Prosecutor’s Office and Public Defender’s Office are reviewing ways to expand diversion options as the future facilities come online

• Two more community workshops are planned in early 2026, where the public will again be asked to weigh in on design, services, and budget choices.

The target completion date for the new jail is currently summer 2028, though the county stresses that construction timelines can shift with costs, labor, and site conditions.

^{Atmospheric River}

“Chance of showers” officially leveled up into what the meteorologists politely call a strong atmospheric river: a long, concentrated band of Pacific moisture pointed straight at western Washington, including us here in Whatcom.

In plain Bellingham: the sky had turned into a firehose

• Flood Watch in effect for Whatcom through the end of the week.

• Coastal flood advisory along the bays and beaches, with king tides adding a salty little extra to the mix.

• “Check on family and neighbors in flood-prone areas. Move vehicles to higher ground. Plan alternate routes.” Ferndale and county alerts were basically saying: Hey, remember November 2021? Let’s not do that again if we can help it. Ferndale Official Website

Public works crews were already out in Everson, Nooksack, and Sumas stacking sandbags along familiar trouble spots. A stretch of Hannegan Road between Lynden city limits and Polinder Road was closed after water spilled over the roadway.Whatcom County

State officials have been begging people all week not to drive through floodwater after yet another rescue of a car stuck in three feet of water down south. “Turn around, don’t drown” is cheesy, but accurate. Stay safe out there!

Birch Bay’s Next Big Chat: Virtual Info Session on Incorporation (Dec. 17)

Birch Bay neighbors: there’s a community Zoom worth bookmarking. On Wednesday, December 17, 2025, 6:00–7:00 PM, Whatcom County and consultants will host a virtual information session on the Birch Bay Incorporation Feasibility Study. What it examines, what it doesn’t, and how you can dig into the details yourself.

Link to all the materials: https://www.whatcomcounty.us/4615/Birch-Bay-Incorporation-Feasibility-Stud

Register for the Virtual Event here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/YyQSPMwJQwmARBg0uGNZvw#/

What this meeting is (and isn’t)

• Purpose: Share how the feasibility study evaluates the financial practicality of incorporation and compares today’s county-provided services with what a city might handle or contract.

• Neutral by design: The study doesn’t recommend for or against becoming a city; it’s a fact base for future community discussions.

• Your turn to ask: There’ll be time for community questions after the overview.

Why this matters (quick context)

Over the summer and fall, the team gathered local input and refreshed the numbers behind a modern incorporation model:

• Community voices: A County-led survey drew 694 responses. Most folks reported overall satisfaction with core utilities, while many flagged planning/development, roads/traffic, and public safety as top improvement areas.

• Methodology refresh: The financial model updates population, housing, and employment assumptions, and uses Blaine as the most comparable nearby city for certain revenues/costs. It also clarifies which services a new city could operate directly vs. contract (e.g., public safety, roads, planning).

• Timeline & team: The County contracted Community Attributes Inc. (CAI) in March 2025, with Maul Foster & Alongi (MFA) supporting analysis and engagement. The final report is expected Fall 2025.

A few fast facts from the draft framework

• Population & housing: Birch Bay’s permanent population is estimated just under 9,000 in 2024, with a medium forecast reaching about 11,500 by 2045. Housing growth since 2010 has averaged closer to 35 units/year (not the 85/year assumed in 2008), which affects revenue and service projections.

• Services people care about: Survey themes point to interest in better long-range planning, traffic/safety improvements, and law-enforcement presence, alongside solid satisfaction with water, sewer, and waste.

The Scoop takeaway

Two simple dials decide everything in that model: (1) the city property-tax rate you choose and (2) how big you make police staffing.

Turn the tax dial up or the staffing dial down and the budget goes black (surplus). Keep taxes at today’s level while staffing high and it goes red (deficit).

Key assumptions & revenue anchors

• Property tax rate (modeled):

  • Current rate: $0.877158 per $1,000 of assessed value

  • Maximum city rate: $1.60 per $1,000 of assessed value

  • Starting taxable AV (2025): $2.507B

  • Property appreciation (annual): 5.81%

• Sales tax (city portion):

  • City local rate modeled: 1%, with the city retaining 85% of its local take (the rest goes to the county).

  • The model splits general local sales, criminal justice/public safety distributions, and hotel/motel sales & use separately.

• Tourism signals baked in:

  • Short-term rental (STR) RevPAR (market area): $96.64

  • Hotel RevPAR (market area): $60.11

  • Birch Bay STR count (modeled): 133 units

  • Hotel rooms (market area): 117

  • RV park “gross booking income” proxy (WA benchmark): $377,985 per park
    These drive the model’s hotel/motel sales & lodging tax line.

Police staffing knobs (the other big lever)

• High staffing scenario: 16 commissioned officers + 3 civilians (19 total)

• Low staffing scenario: 9 commissioned officers + 3 civilians (12 total)

• Public safety is the largest single cost center in every scenario.

  • Example, Year 1 (Current tax + High police): Public Safety ≈ $3.82M of the general fund.