July 7, 2023 Dena Jensen

There are two public hearings scheduled for the Tuesday 7/11/23 Whatcom County Council meeting. The one for the sales tax for the jail and services comes first. (The second is about Nooksack River tubing regulations to better protect endangered-species-listed salmon). Here’s the link to the Council meeting agenda: https://whatcom.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=A&ID=1007093&GUID=EB6D8780-A7ED-41A1-B94C-DAFDD2B40057

I’m posting this email I wrote to the Incarceration Prevention and Reduction Task Force today to add some more recent material to help inspire folks to stay engaged and voice their input prior to and during that hearing. 

Something I missed saying in my email is that there are positions on the membership list of the proposed Justice Project Oversight and Planning Committee that would be reserved for elected leaders who may at any given time end up being ones who want to try to influence decisions that have already been made or who don’t fully support the Justice Project Implementation Plan for any number of reasons. In fact, there seem to be some of them on the Incarceration Prevention and Reduction Task Force now, even among those who voted for the plan. However, I am not sure they would be presumed to be folks wanting to tear the projects apart, or freelance, before they were ever seated on the committee. 

Link to the IPRTF Steering Committee Meeting meeting related to my email: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrY0ll4s1M0

Here’s my email:

Sent: Friday, July 7, 2023, 12:25:50 PM PDT
Subject: Regarding Steering Committee discussion of Justice Project Oversight and Planning Committee

Dear Incarceration Prevention and Reduction Task Force:

Yesterday I listened to the July 6, 2023 meeting of your Steering subcommittee. I have appreciated the increase in action the Task Force has taken to get more community members engaged and involved in efforts to prevent and reduce incarceration. My comments below are coming from the value I hold for continuing those efforts. 

I wanted to address the following perspective that was expressed during the Steering Committee’s discussion of the formation of the Justice Project Oversight and Planning (JPOP) Committee: 

“It seems to me it would be useful to have a charter for this committee, as well. I would like to say that there are a lot of people trying to influence decisions that have already been made, who don’t really support the plan. They’ve called it terrible. They’ve called it, you know, out of sync with the community. I would like, myself, to have people who have some baseline commitment to the implementation plan and the process that’s been laid out – not to start tearing it apart or free associating ideas they think would be good for it. There’s been a lot of work put into this plan so far. And I think the first responsibility is to oversee the operations and the implementation of the plan that the Council passes. So I don’t want to have a litmus test, necessarily, but I’d like to have a fairly high level of confidence in the people we put on that committee that they’d be working constructively, rather than freelancing.”

I can understand wanting to create a flexible charter with general rules and purpose that all the members of the committee seek to work under. However, the apprehension expressed in the quoted remarks doesn’t seem far from what I feel is the ungrounded fear expressed by some of the County Council Members over a voting-age youth representative being placed in an oversight role related to the Justice Project. 

There are over 20 members being suggested for this committee, all with specific roles of background and expertise they will be filling. In other words, these aren’t 20 people all coming from one particular organization with a particular agenda. Plus, from my understanding they are being placed in a position of guidance to the Task Force which, in turn, provides guidance to the County Council. I think it’s very important that IPRTF members involved in appointing JPOP members – and coming up with a system of appointing members – approach that from a place of seeking to be empowering and inclusive, rather than one that seeks to fend off people they assume hold viewpoints or attitudes that they are leery of. 

I do see efforts being made to be more inclusive and empowering during IPRTF meetings and in some aspects of your approach, and I also think it can be significantly improved upon. 

People trying to influence “decisions that have already been made” is something that everyone is doing on a regular basis, including the IPRTF. And it’s actually important that this happens or we would be stuck in one place forever. I believe being constructive is more than trying to conform to one person’s or a whole group’s idea of what constructive is; it is finding ways to identify and openly value strengths in what each member contributes and to put those to the best possible use for the job that’s being done. The success of any of the Justice Project projects in actually increasing justice and well-being in Whatcom County will depend on our success in being able to do this in community.

Sincerely, 
Dena Jensen
Birch Bay, WA

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This email was sent to the following addresses:  
To: iprtaskforce@co.whatcom.wa.us <iprtaskforce@co.whatcom.wa.us>
Cc: council@co.whatcom.wa.us <council@co.whatcom.wa.us>; ccmail@cob.org <ccmail@cob.org>; G. CC. Immigration Board <immigrationboard@cob.org>