📢 Cascadia Voices 08/27/26

As Cascadia eases into autumn and its pursuits, the summer outdoor music festival season is wrapping up. But a CDN guest commentary this week by Bellingham resident Preston Schiller raises questions about where such concerts, particularly of the rock variety, should be staged next summer. Of concern for Schiller was the Fourth Corner PunkFest, July 18 and 19, sponsored by local bike maker Evil Bikes, which placed a sound stage on vacant lots on Fairhaven’s Harris Street in audible range of residential neighborhoods.

“The boom-bah-boom-bah-boom sound checks began rattling windows along Donovan Avenue around 6 p.m. Friday and continued until 9 p.m. Sunday. It probably exceeded the 120-decibel level usually attributed to rock concerts and, up the surrounding hills, probably exceeded the 85-decibel level that can cause hearing damage after relatively short exposure,” Schiller wrote. Nor was he impressed with some acts’ profanity.
Schiller faults the city for not checking noise limits against the festival’s permits and not suggesting alternative sites.

“One would hope that such failures in existing event permitting regulations will be corrected soon so that all residential neighborhoods will be spared such a painful experience,” Schiller wrote.

(A reminder to readers: Noting some confusion in social-media land, guest commentaries are written by members of the community; not by CDN staff. Nor are authors compensated for their contributions. Guest commentaries are intended as a forum for public discussion.)

As the City and Port of Bellingham continue to ponder the future of the waterfront, a tenant of its gateway, the historic Granary Building, wonders about the commitment to earlier visions for the waterfront, especially in light of a potential sale of the building. Elizabeth Azzara, in a CDN guest commentary, writes that since moving her shop, Honey Salon, to the building in 2020, she’s built it into a successful business that provides a state-certified apprenticeship program with 15 graduates and four more in training. She’s not alone.

“Today, the Granary is filled with entrepreneurs who have created jobs, welcomed thousands of visitors, and helped establish the building as a destination on the waterfront. We remain deeply committed to its success.”

With the building for sale, Azzara sees an opportunity for someone, perhaps the port, to purchase the building and sustain that economic success long-term. But there are larger goals and efforts to consider.

“This isn’t simply about one building. It’s about whether the community’s original aspirations for the waterfront remain at the center of future decisions,” she writes.

The current federal administration is recommending harmful changes to the Head Start program, which has been successful for 60 years (CDN, Aug. 20, 2026). It is a program that works, and Head Start needs to maintain its high-performance standards. These standards involve teachers, parents and children from birth to 5.

Head Start’s early childhood screening is known to be among the most effective programs that recognize early signs of developmental and learning disabilities and addresses them by referring parents to proper channels for early intervention.

Head Start socializes preschoolers to be ready to engage with other children and non-parental adults, thus creating a confident child ready to enter into the K-12 system with an expectation of success. It introduces the tools of academia, from ABC’s to logical reasoning skills. Head Start allows children to absorb language naturally, be it English or their home language. I was continually amazed when a 4-year-old spoke his/her home language in one sentence and turned to me and spoke in English.

Head Start works with parents in setting realistic goals for themselves and their children, be it “potty training” or obtaining GEDs, work skills training and college education for themselves.

The tax money spent for Head Start provides positive long-term outcomes that benefit the child, the family and the community.

Jan Hunter
Bellingham

Read more letters to the editor here.

Submit a letter to the editor (250 words max) or guest commentary (500–800 words) online at cascadiadaily.com/submissions.

Whatcom and Skagit counties are supporting their county-run ferry systems — to Lummi Island and Guemes Island, respectively — in different fashions, with little satisfaction among the islands’ residents or taxpayers at large. Whatcom County this summer established a countywide ferry district and will tax property owners 8.7 cents per $1,000 of assessed value, in addition to ferry fares. Without the tax, fares provide about 55% of operating expenses. Skagit County has proposed its fourth fare increase in recent years: 14.1% in 2023, 30% in 2025, 30% in 2026 and 14% scheduled to start in 2027, providing about 65%of operating expenses.

Last week’s poll: How should decisions move forward on data centers?

Sample comments:

With students returning to class, from kindergarten to college — and artificial intelligence anxieties popping up like data centers — Adam Grant, an organizational psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, offers some advice in a New York Times Opinion piece. The only way to stop students from using AI to cheat is by stressing why we do the right thing. “When people have strong moral identities, they view unethical behavior as a violation — not just of the rules but also of their own values. They anticipate more guilt at the thought of wrongdoing and more pride at the prospect of doing the right thing. They believe their choices reflect their character.” But it must start at the youngest ages, he writes. (See this week’s letter to the editor above.)

Whatever one’s opinions about notions of “woke” and the response to it, New York Times columnist David French writes that the “anti-woke” movement has only adopted its excesses and further weaponized it into the “most repressive administration for free speech since Woodrow Wilson arrested and prosecuted thousands of political opponents during World War I.” Better, he says, is to answer bad ideas with good ones, as espoused in “A Letter on Justice and Open Debate,” published in 2020 by Harper’s Magazine, which reads in part: “The restriction of debate, whether by a repressive government or an intolerant society, invariably hurts those who lack power and makes everyone less capable of democratic participation.”

The death of Dolly Parton, a master performer and author of several chapters of the American songbook, will likely prompt many to either revisit or add to their personal collections (or streaming playlists) of Parton’s songs, solo and collaborative. For those whose Parton collections are light, maybe start with the 1974 album, “Jolene,” which features that classic, along with “I Will Always Love You.” But don’t miss “Lonely Comin’ Down.” To draw from the collection of her considerable duos and other collaborative work, check out the first of two “Trio” albums with Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris. A standout on the 1987 album, speaking both to Parton’s childhood and her leaving home, is “Wildflowers,” which showcases her voice and poetry: “When a flower grows wild / It can always survive / Wildflowers don't care where they grow.”