Top Stories: Downtown parking; Bells games brews; Lydia Place’s new apartment

From a parking app upgrade to a long-awaited update in a vehicular homicide case, Bellingham saw a busy news day. Here’s a quick look at top stories from The Bellingham Herald on June 1, 2026.

Here are key takeaways:

• A new PayByPhone app feature now lets Bellingham drivers move their cars between downtown parking spots without paying again, as all downtown street parking shifts to a single zone starting Monday. About 576,000 drivers used PayByPhone transactions in 2025, with nearly 60% of drivers using the app.
• Larrabee Lager Company has joined Kulshan Brewing Company as one of two official beer sponsors of the Bellingham Bells for the 2026 season. The family-owned brewery, which opened in 2023, created a special collaboration brew called Hittin’ Dingers Ballpark Lager available exclusively at Joe Martin Field.
• Lydia Place opened its first five-bedroom apartment for a family exiting homelessness, the only permanent supportive housing unit of its size in Whatcom County. The unit is expected to be ready to lease by June 1 and addresses a growing need, with about 1,160 Whatcom County students meeting the federal definition of homeless in the 2024-2025 school year.
• After more than nine years on the Washington State Patrol’s Most Wanted list, investigators confirmed that Luciano Ailon-Garcia is dead. Ailon-Garcia was wanted in the August 2016 vehicular homicide of Georgianna James near Ferndale and had fled to Guatemala following the crash.

The summary points above were compiled with the help of AI tools and edited by journalists. The source reporting referenced above was written and edited entirely by journalists.