# Blaine, WA — Data Source Reconnaissance ## Purpose Catalog all publicly available data sources for the City of Blaine, WA, assess parsing difficulty, and document strategies for automated ingestion. This is the first city in a planned cross-city comparison project. ## Key Identifiers - **FIPS Place Code:** 5306505 (state 53, place 06505) - **Whatcom County FIPS:** 53073 - **Population:** ~6,100 (2024 ACS) - **City website platform:** CivicPlus (common across small WA cities — patterns may transfer) --- ## Tier 1: Structured / API-Accessible ### Census / ACS Data - **Census API:** `api.census.gov/data/2023/acs/acs5?get=...&for=place:06505&in=state:53` - ACS 5-year available at place level (1-year requires 65k+ pop, so not available for Blaine) - Key tables: B01003 (population), B19013 (median income), B25077 (median home value), B25001 (housing units), DP02-DP05 (profiles) - **Census Reporter** (`censusreporter.org/profiles/16000US5306505-blaine-wa/`) — excellent pre-formatted summary with comparison context. Parses cleanly to markdown. - **Data USA** (`datausa.io/profile/geo/blaine-wa/`) — richer visualizations, employment by industry, commute data. Parses well. - **Data Commons** (`datacommons.org/place/geoId/5306505`) — Google's aggregator. Has its own API. - **Parsing verdict:** ✅ Clean. Census API returns JSON. Census Reporter and Data USA parse well via web_fetch. ### Washington State Auditor — Financial Intelligence Tool (FIT) - **URL:** `portal.sao.wa.gov/FIT/` - Has a "Data Extracts" page that should offer downloadable financial data - **Problem:** The FIT tool is a JavaScript SPA — web_fetch returns empty. Need to either find direct download links or use the underlying API. - Audit reports (PDF) are available per city at `portal.sao.wa.gov/ReportSearch` - Financial statements cover revenues, expenditures, fund balances, debt — standardized via BARS manual - **Key advantage:** Same format across ALL WA cities/counties. This is the backbone for financial comparison. - **Parsing verdict:** ⚠️ FIT web app won't scrape directly. Audit report PDFs are available but need PDF parsing. Look for CSV/Excel export options or underlying REST API. ### Whatcom County GIS / Parcel Data - **Tax Parcel Viewer:** ArcGIS web app (`arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/...`) - **Data downloads:** Whatcom County offers free shapefiles for Planning & Development data - Includes parcels, zoning, critical areas, shoreline jurisdiction - Assessor data (property values, land use codes) available by contacting department - **Parsing verdict:** ⚠️ Shapefiles downloadable but need GIS libraries (GeoPandas, Fiona). ArcGIS viewer is JavaScript — can't scrape directly, but may have REST endpoints. --- ## Tier 2: Semi-Structured / Scrapable ### City of Blaine Website (ci.blaine.wa.us) #### Council Agendas - **URL pattern:** `ci.blaine.wa.us/calendar.aspx?EID={event_id}` - Calendar has list of all boards/commissions: City Council, Planning Commission, Public Works Advisory, Arts Commission, Tourism Advisory, Civil Service, etc. - **Parsing verdict:** ✅ Excellent! Full agenda text renders in HTML. Clean markdown extraction. Includes consent agenda items with dollar amounts, action items, department reports. - **Example data found (March 23, 2026 meeting):** Bills of $222K, police department resolution, street sweeping contract, downtown streetscape elements, pavement condition assessment study session, emergency storm water tank usage. #### Council Minutes - Available in Document Center as PDFs - **URL pattern:** `ci.blaine.wa.us/DocumentCenter/View/{doc_id}/...` - Minutes back to at least 2019 found - **Parsing verdict:** ⚠️ PDF format. Text-based PDFs (not scanned images), so extractable. But formatting varies. #### Budget Documents - Budget PDFs linked from `ci.blaine.wa.us/530/Budgets` - Available: 2023, 2024, 2025, 2026 adopted budgets - 2026 budget: $44.3M total, $10M general fund - **Key detail:** Budget ordinances (e.g., Ordinance 25-3039) are at `DocumentCenter/View/{id}` - **Parsing verdict:** ⚠️ PDF. Large documents. Need targeted extraction of fund summaries, revenue/expense tables. #### Document Library - Separate system at `cobdoc.cityofblaine.com:49388/WebLink8/Browse.aspx` - Also accessible at port 9399 for public documents - Contains agendas, minutes, public comment, planning documents - **Parsing verdict:** ⚠️ Hyland OnBase WebLink system — would need to spider the document tree. #### Municipal Code - Hosted on eCode360 (`ecode360.com/BL4358`) - Previously on CodePublishing (`codepublishing.com/WA/Blaine/`) - **Parsing verdict:** ⚠️ eCode360 returned 403 on fetch. May need browser-like headers or API access. CodePublishing URLs redirect. #### Comprehensive Plan & Policy - "Blaine 2036" comprehensive plan - Housing Action Plan - Shoreline Master Program - Wharf District Master Plan - Semiahmoo Resort Master Plan - Currently doing comprehensive zoning code overhaul (RFP issued Feb 2026) - **Parsing verdict:** ⚠️ Mix of PDFs and web pages. High-value documents for understanding city direction. --- ## Tier 3: Unstructured / Narrative-Rich ### The Northern Light Newspaper - **URL:** `thenorthernlight.com` - Weekly newspaper serving Blaine, Birch Bay, Semiahmoo since 1995 - Published by Point Roberts Press, now under new ownership (pivotal moment article March 2026) - **Article index:** `thenorthernlight.com/news/?page_size=20&category_id=192` - **9,616 articles** in archive! - **URL pattern:** `thenorthernlight.com/stories/{slug},{article_id}` - Sections: News, Sports, Letters to Editor, Police Reports, Obituaries, Legals - **Parsing verdict:** ✅ Excellent! Articles parse cleanly to markdown with full text, byline, date. The news index paginates. Article IDs are sequential integers, making systematic crawling straightforward. #### Current Issues Found (from headlines/articles): 1. **Electric fund reserves depleting** — 82% drawdown from $3.2M to $637K (BPA rate pressure) 2. **Downtown zoning Wild West** — 1-year moratorium lifting building height restrictions 3. **Plover ferry** — sunk cost debate, future uncertain beyond 2026 4. **Westman Marine harbor cleanup** — Dept of Ecology environmental remediation 5. **Fire levy lid lift** — North Whatcom Fire & Rescue proposal 6. **Senior Center governance** — $300K investment decision, board elections contested 7. **Library upgrades** — WCLS prioritizing Blaine Public Library 8. **Port of Bellingham contracts** — two contracts just under $100K threshold (avoiding formal bidding) 9. **Blaine Police Department** — council passed resolution of support 10. **Birch Bay ZIP code** — resident pushing to separate from Blaine mailing address 11. **Comprehensive zoning code rewrite** — RFP issued, code described as internally inconsistent and decades overdue ### Letters to the Editor - `thenorthernlight.com/letters-to-the-editor/` - Public sentiment goldmine - **Parsing verdict:** ✅ Same clean article format ### Police Reports - `thenorthernlight.com/police-reports/` - Weekly police blotter - **Parsing verdict:** ✅ Standard article format ### Legal Notices - `thenorthernlight.com/legals/` - Public hearings, ordinances, land use actions - **Parsing verdict:** ✅ Standard article format --- ## Tier 4: State/Regional Context ### Washington State Open Data Portal - `data.wa.gov` — building permits, transportation, environmental data - Socrata-based, has API - **Parsing verdict:** ✅ API-accessible ### State Auditor Audit Reports - Available since 2005 as PDFs - Searchable by government name, type, keyword, date range - Include findings of problems — comparing findings across cities would be valuable - **Parsing verdict:** ⚠️ PDF. But structured enough to extract findings sections. ### Ballotpedia - Election data, council members, ballot measures - Limited for cities under 100K population - **Parsing verdict:** ✅ Web-scrapable ### Whatcom Council of Governments (WCOG) - Regional transportation planning - Environmental justice mapping (GIS) - Blaine is a member jurisdiction - **Parsing verdict:** ⚠️ Mix of GIS apps and PDFs --- ## Recommended Ingestion Strategy for Claude Code ### Phase 1: Grab the easy structured stuff 1. **Census API** — Write a Python script to pull ACS 5-year data for Blaine (and later other cities) using place FIPS codes. Store as JSON/SQLite. 2. **Census Reporter** — Fetch the profile page, parse key metrics into structured records. 3. **Data USA** — Same approach. ### Phase 2: Crawl The Northern Light 1. Paginate through `thenorthernlight.com/news/?page_size=20&category_id=192&page={n}` 2. For each article: fetch full text, extract title, date, author, body 3. Store raw articles in SQLite 4. Use Claude to generate per-article summaries: topic tags, entities mentioned, sentiment, key decisions/issues 5. This is the highest-value unstructured source — 9,600+ articles spanning decades ### Phase 3: Council agendas & minutes 1. Spider the CivicPlus calendar for all council meeting events 2. Fetch each agenda page (renders well as HTML) 3. Download minute PDFs from Document Center 4. Extract: meeting date, agenda items, votes, dollar amounts, contracts awarded, staff reports ### Phase 4: Budget & financial documents 1. Download budget PDFs from Document Center links 2. Extract fund summaries, revenue sources, expenditure categories 3. Cross-reference with State Auditor FIT data if CSV export is available ### Phase 5: GIS & property data 1. Download Whatcom County shapefiles 2. Filter to Blaine city boundary 3. Count parcels by land use, zoning district 4. Calculate developed vs. vacant land --- ## Data Model Sketch (v0.1) ``` cities id, name, state, fips_place, fips_county, population, area_sq_mi city_demographics city_id, year, source, metric_name, metric_value -- (population, median_age, median_income, housing_units, etc.) city_finances city_id, year, fund_name, revenue, expenditure, ending_balance council_meetings city_id, date, meeting_type, agenda_url, minutes_url agenda_items meeting_id, item_number, item_type, title, description, dollar_amount, vote_result news_articles city_id, source, date, title, author, url, body_text article_extracts article_id, topics[], entities[], sentiment, key_decisions[], summary issues city_id, issue_name, category, first_mentioned, last_mentioned, status, summary infrastructure_assets city_id, asset_type, description, condition, age, replacement_cost ``` ### The "notable" field Per the fishing expedition philosophy: every extraction should include a freetext `notable` field for things that seem interesting but don't fit categories. After processing many records, review what's accumulating in `notable` to discover new schema columns. --- ## Key Findings from This Recon 1. **The Northern Light is the crown jewel.** 9,600+ articles, clean parsing, sequential IDs, rich narrative content about what the city is actually doing and fighting about. This is where groundware-relevant signal lives. 2. **CivicPlus is everywhere.** Blaine's website platform is used by hundreds of small cities. The URL patterns, calendar structure, and Document Center patterns should transfer to other cities with minimal adaptation. 3. **The State Auditor FIT data is the financial Rosetta Stone** — same format across all WA local governments. If we can crack the data export, cross-city financial comparison is automatic. 4. **Census data is the easy baseline.** FIPS place code 5306505. ACS 5-year API works at place level. Multiple aggregator sites (Census Reporter, Data USA, Data Commons) pre-digest it. 5. **The city is at an interesting inflection point.** Electric reserves nearly depleted, downtown zoning in flux, comprehensive code rewrite underway, new police leadership, infrastructure assessment just starting. A city in transition — exactly the kind of moment where patterns become visible.