June 15, 2023 Dena Jensen

During a June 13, 2023 Whatcom County Council Special Committee of the Whole meeting, committee members participated in a work session focused on the June 9, 2023 draft Justice Project Implementation Plan and a ballot measure to be approved by voters in November. The ballot measure would be for a tax which is currently referred to in that latest amended draft implementation plan as a “proposed new sales tax” which is, among other things, “the only feasible funding mechanism to generate the revenue needed to pay for a capital project the size of the jail and behavioral health treatment center.”

Here’s a link where folks can access that three hour work session: https://whatcom.granicus.com/player/clip/954?view_id=1&redirect=true&h=6d891fd0d8197ecf54530989d0fc488c

I wrote the email included below in response to material covered in the first half of the work shop. The presentation that had been made at the June 12, 2023 Incarceration Prevention and Reduction Task Force meeting had reflected a relatively small list of changes had been made to the 5/31/23 version of the draft implementation plan and the plan was not made available to the public at the time of that meeting. Because of that, when I wrote my email this morning, I wrote that it appeared that few changes had been made.

However, since I sent my email, I looked up the meeting materials for the Council work session and was able to see in the “Draft Implementation Plan 6.13.2023-tracked changes” that a significant amount of changes had been made and people should review those. However, there was still a noticeable amount of community feedback on the plan from June 4, 2023 to the June 11, 2023 deadline for implementation plan input, which was not reflected in changes made in the plan, as can be found on the Whatcom County Justice Project comments page.

Below is my email:

Sent: Thursday, June 15, 2023, 08:46:43 AM PDT

Subject: Regarding your actions related to the Justice Project Implementation Plan

Dear Whatcom County Council:

I have listened to the initial hour and a half portion of your June 13, 2023 Special Committee of the Whole workshop on the Justice Project that focused on addressing the Justice Project Implementation Plan. 

I want to note that there was a lot of discussion about increasing the capacity to incarcerate people with a new jail facility and that Council Members approved a motion to define the equation that Whatcom County would use for the number of beds that will be proposed initially and what triggers expansion as soon as possible. I have heard officials suggest such a formula would include provisions that expansion would be triggered if the facility is at an 85% capacity for some number of months during a year, which I assume would include an annual review.

However, while Council Members have made remarks that reflect they are supportive of reducing incarceration, there was no motion made to call for an equation that could involve a yearly review on when to expand health and diversion services available at the jail into former incarceration spaces, as well as expansion of services elsewhere in the community, with such an annual review. If the implementation plan is supposed to be providing a balance of services, it seems important to include such an equation based on a decrease of incarceration into the implementation plan if you are including the one for incarceration growth. 

If we don’t provide ample services, inside the jail – and most importantly, outside the jail – an ever-expanding jail will continue to fail us. Without actions that incentivize officials to stay engaged on projects that prevent and reduce incarceration, trust from community members will continue to deteriorate.

Additionally, I want to support the suggestion during the meeting that Council Members take action to review and more thoroughly incorporate the input which was provided by community members to the 5/31/23 draft of the Justice Project Implementation Plan. Although Council Member Elenbaas expressed there has been a long period of input on the Justice Project and indicated that he feels Council should be ready to make the decisions without further community input, the input on the 5/31/23 draft was requested this month, with a deadline for input of June 11, just 2 days prior to your workshop. 

There was actually very little discussion of the input at the June 12, 2023 Incarceration Prevention and Reduction Task Force meeting related to any changes in the draft plan and it appeared that very few changes were adopted at that time. Additionally, the amended version of the plan was not included in the IPRTF copy of the packet for the June 12 meeting that was linked to online, so the community only had the brief presentation on the changes to get a sense of what was changed. There is a call for transparency and accountability in the very first strategy listed in the implementation plan. I believe you all should be taking this action to create alignment with that strategy.

Sincerely,

Dena Jensen

Birch Bay, WA

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This email was sent to the following addresses:

To: council@co.whatcom.wa.us <council@co.whatcom.wa.us>; Barry Buchanan <bbuchana@co.whatcom.wa.us>; Kaylee Galloway <kgallowa@co.whatcom.wa.us>; Todd Donovan <tdonovan@co.whatcom.wa.us>; Carol Frazey <cfrazey@co.whatcom.wa.us>; Ben Elenbaas <belenbaa@co.whatcom.wa.us>; Tyler Byrd <tbyrd@co.whatcom.wa.us>; Kathy Kershner <kkershne@co.whatcom.wa.us>

Cc: Satpal Sidhu <ssidhu@co.whatcom.wa.us>; mayorsoffice@cob.org <mayorsoffice@cob.org>; ccmail@cob.org <ccmail@cob.org>; Health <health@co.whatcom.wa.us>; phab@co.whatcom.wa.us <phab@co.whatcom.wa.us>

Also, I forwarded a copy of this email to the Incarceration Prevention and Reduction Task Force with the following introduction:

Dear Incarceration Prevention and Reduction Task Force:

I had sent this email to the Whatcom County Council earlier this morning and missed copying it to you, so I am sending it now. Also, in addition to my calling for the County Council take such an action as I describe in the included email, I feel that you should also work to advance an equation that would be used on a regular basis to trigger expanding behavioral health and other urgently needed services for community members in crisis both at the jail and in the greater community. 

I recall that Task Force Members had indicated it was desirable for the structure of the jail to be flexible so that spaces could be used for other purposes if jail population was successfully decreased. I believe it is important for you to take actions that help spur that outcome, especially when there is action being taken that will help spur increasing incarceration instead. 

Sincerely,  

Dena Jensen

Birch Bay, WA