Western Front - 2005 July 26

              ISSUE 6
VOLUME 13&J HE WESTERN FRONT
Y, JULY 26, 2005 • WESTERN WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY • BELLINGHAM, WASH. • WESTERNFRONTONLINE.COM
Residents, law-enforcement officers gather to prevent crime
BY SEAN MCGROREY
The Western Front
Approximately 30 local law-enforcement
agencies and crime-prevention organiza­tions
will set up booths to teach residents
about security tools and what they can do to
protect their cars, homes and communities
against crime.
Bellingham's first Crime Prevention In­formation
Fair will take place from 9 a.m. to
2 p.m. Saturday in Boulevard Park.
"You really can't have a successful crime-fighting
force unless you have your citizens
behind you and working with you," said
Mark Young, the Bellingham Police Depart­ment
crime-prevention officer who is orga­nizing
the fair.
Mayor Mark Asmundson, Bellingham
Police Chief Randall Carroll and Whatcom
County Sheriff Bill Elfo will attend the fair,
Young said.
The police department's booth will pro­vide
child-identification kits, pamphlets
about preventing identity theft and free gun
safety locks, he said.
"People can go from one station to an­other
to try to look at and absorb whatever
information they can," Young said.
Also participating in the fair are local
alarm, lock and safety companies such as
Bellingham Lock & Safe, which will give
information on its home safes and display
products that protect locks from corrosion
see SAFETY, page 4
WTA bus riders to pay no fare in August
BY JESSICA DIGNAN
The Western Front
Western students and Bellingham
residents are going to be hard-pressed
for a reason not to ride the bus begin­ning
July 31.
The Whatcom Transit Authority
will introduce three high-frequency
routes, change its existing routes and
offer riders a free-fare month in Au­gust,
said Maureen Camandona, WTA
community relations and marketing
manager.
The entire revision of the bus sched­ules
and routes has taken approxi­mately
a year and a half to implement,
said Rick Nicholson, director of ser­vice
development for WTA.
The transit authority is improving
service to the three routes with the
most passengers by running buses
every 15 minutes in each direction
through the high-frequency areas.
The three routes are color-coded.
The blue line, which includes ser­vice
to Western, runs from downtown
Bellingham to Bill McDonald Park­way
and 21 st Street.
The green line is the route from
downtown Bellingham to the Bellis
. see BUSES, page 4
LAUREN ALLAIN/The Western Front
In addition to adding more buses on high-frequency routes, the Whatcom Transit Authority
will not charge a fare for riding buses during August.
City to update
sports fields
BY BRANDI BRATRUDE
The Western Front
The renovations to take place at
Civic Field and Joe Martin Stadium
aim to please athletes and sports fans
alike with improved grandstands and
artificial field turf.
The Bellingham Parks and Recre­ation
design and development divi­sion
presented the plans to members
of groups that use the facility at a
public meeting July 14.
The renovation plans for the com­plex
are scheduled to begin in Feb­ruary
2006.
The department will remodel Civ­ic
Field's existing locker rooms at
the south grandstand and construct a
new building for locker rooms west
of the field, said Gina Gobo, capital
projects manager for the Bellingham
Parks and Recreation Department.
Workers will also reconstruct the
accessibility ramps at the north and
south grandstands, add seating for
wheelchair-users and an elevator at
the field's south grandstand, and pave
see FIELD, page 4
Construction continues throughout campus
JARED YOAKUM/The Western Front
Construction workers Scott Jones and Jack Wood ren­ovate
classrooms in Bond Hall by painting, installing
new carpet and upgrading electrical systems.
BY ERICA HAM
The Western Front
As students finish summer classes
and prepare to leave campus, construc­tion
managers and workers will spend
long days- planning and remodeling
Western's campus.
In the fall, students will return to ex­panded
food service, a new coffee kiosk
and renovated classrooms and residence
halls. Since mid-June, scaffolding, wire
fences and cranes have adorned many
of the buildings on campus.
Old Main's entire south side is laced
with metal and tape.
Doug MacLean, Western's senior ar­chitect
for facilities management, said
a construction crew is replacing Old
Main's non-insulated windows with
insulated glass, which will make them
more energy efficient.
MacLean said workers temporarily
moved some of Old Main's offices,
such as the Cashier's office, to differ­ent
locations, but by fall thev should
return to their original spaces.
In addition to Old Main, Bond Hall
and Haggard Hall are undergoing
changes.
Ed Simpson, project manager for
facilities management at Western, said
workers in Bond Hall are upgrading
classrooms to make them more acces­sible
for people with disabilities, and
updating them with new electrical sys­tems,
podiums, projection screens, car­peting
and acoustical wall treatments.
"The treatment will make the room
quieter so that the teacher's voice can
be heard more," Simpson said.
This year, the philosophy department
will move from the Humanities Build­ing
to permanently join the math and
history departments in Bond Hall.
Although Western's facilities man­agement
department has not yet started
construction in Haggard Hall, Simpson
said workers will begin constructing a
new coffee kiosk in August. He said
the booth will require only minor in­terior
remodeling, and will be located
where the vending machines currently
are, near the doors in Haggard Hall that
lead to Red Square.
The cafe will serve Tony's coffee
and prepackaged snacks, and will have
a walk-up window on the Red Square
side of the building. It will open at the
beginning of fall quarter.
Workers are also restoring the ceil­ing
of the Fine Arts Building, cleaning
the bricks on the building's exterior
and filling in the mortar lines around
them and painting, said Scott Slagle,
renovations manager of facilities
management.
"We're giving the outside of the
building a. facelift," he said.
The workers are approximately half­way
done with the ceiling, but have not
yet started painting, Slagle said. They
plan to finish the building a week after
classes start in the fall.
A few buildings away from the Fine
Arts Building, toward south campus, a
see CONSTRUCTION, page 3
HOT JOBS
Students bypass summer
school for summer jobs
FEATURES/ACCENT, PAGE 6
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SPORTS, PAGE 8