January 2, 2024 Dena Jensen

During about 30-35 minutes of January 2, 2024 discussion by Bellingham City Council Members of an ordinance to suspend the City’s Immigration Advisory Board, virtually not one positive thing was said about the current IAB – many of whose members are immigrants – or its volume of work over the last four years. New Council Member Jace Cotton did say he’d like to see the current board continue to meet. 

These notes were taken while I was listening to the meeting live. Hopefully the recording will be posted by tomorrow in order to check on any details folks want to confirm. 

Here is a link to access the recording when it is posted: https://meetings.cob.org

Here is a link to the ordinance the Council Members were discussing, which also expresses no appreciation or sense the Council values the current Immigration Advisory Board and its work: https://meetings.cob.org/Documents/DownloadFileBytes/Attachment%20-%20DRAFT%20PROPOSED%20ORDINANCE%20-%20AB_%2023971.pdf?documentType=1&meetingId=3121&itemId=31622&publishId=34713&isSection=False&isAttachment=True

Michael Lilliquist is presiding at this regular Council meeting as last year’s Council President and as acting president for this meeting. He welcomes newly elected Council Member Jace Cotton and Mayor Kim Lund.

He says the purpose of the ordinance is an opportunity to realign City work with IAB. Council Member Stone brought the ordinance forward.

Regarding request for interpreter: they couldn’t get one for this meeting. They are working on getting interpretation for the recording. 

Council Member Hannah Stone:

This particular body was created differently as a Council Member brought forward the establishing ordinance and it was Council initiated. Even if there is a dissenting vote on establishing the board, if adopted, all Council Members own the work of the board.

Should reflect priorities and workload of the City. The Administration and Council feels prone to say yes to things.

As a result, there is a list created and decisions about what priorities are on that list. There are enough responsibilities of Council to be shared.

She doesn’t want to rehash what has happened before. Something has to change. Tipping point is there are members of board saying tension or disfunction/lack of cohesiveness makes people want to step away. Other people step back.

Don’t want to do finger pointing. The responsibiity is shared. Something has to change.

If work is suspended, those who suffer are members of the community the board is trying to help.

There was deliberateness in the broadness of the establishing ordinance for the board. It was important to her that immigrants weigh in on the scope of the board and a need for City to weigh in also. They have things like the Comp Plan that they would like input on from IAB.

She is wanting to refoucus and realign around work in Bellingham first, then they could move beyond their front door.

The need is great and intersects with lots of aspects of comunity, like navigating schools, and taxes.

There are things in day to day business of city that contribute to challenges of immigrants. Need a hard pause to reset to make sure we are aligned and have a commitment of resources.

There is a disconnect that this work is not a priority because the work hasn’t been moved forward.

We can rebuild with small goals and build trust. A system that works for communications because tensions continue to grow and that is harmful.

Hard pause and suspension to find the scope and purpose of the board.

She attended the Dec. IAB meeting to share concerns. It was awkward because she was there as an individual, not as broader Council. She was bringing it forward to see where broader Council is at.

She will go to Jan. IAB meeting for feedback and envisioning next steps. She offers open invitation to Council Members and Mayor to attend.

There have been comments that this is like the shut down of the Homeless Strategies Workgroup. Public perceptions come out of unknowns and mistrust. She doesn’t want to dissolve the IAB. Can’t predict next steps.

Council Member Michael Lilliquist

This is the first time this item has been discussed. They don’t know the opinions of the other Council Members although they talk to individual Council Members. He calls for discussion.

Council Member Lisa Anderson:

She knows it can’t have been easy to bring this forward. She is interested in pursuing a reset. Input from community creates concern. More guidance is needed. IAB subcommittees have not been meeting publicly so there are Open Public Meeting concerns. Need to set up goals and partnerships.

She’s had conversations with organizations with concerns about  what’s been happening and they didn’t want to be targeted or retaliated against. Structure and guidelines are needed to be functional. Should be a partnership. Set some timelines and resources up.

We supported, along with Mayor, for outside communication for overall goals to be met and provide info to Council.

Council Member Dan Hammill:

Bodies of boards are different than the IAB. Rules should be the same.

Council Member Jace Cotton:

He wanted to self-nominate to be the Council liaison to the IAB and felt it could be a pathway to progress. He worries by not allowing board to meet they will miss out on valuable conversations. His preference is for them to meet. Grateful if Council will consider his appointment.

Not sure if this was Cotton or Lilliquist:

Procedurally there will be nothing more in this meeting. The ordinance would come back to the Committee of the Whole.

Council Member Cotton:

Jace would like to make a motion to self nominate as liaison to IAB.

Council Member Lilliquist:

He was going to self-nominate as IAB liaison too but would support Cotton.

Council Member Stone:

She was going to self-nominate as liaison to IAB too.

Council Member Skip Williams:

As he’s read the ordinance, it’s with focus on suspension and to get everything consistent with other policies. Seek to make sure this is an effective board.

Some comments he’s heard think this is the first step to dissolution. Instead it’s first step to re-evaluate. His focus is how do we make this better.

Council Member Lilliquist

[his claims about wanting advice and not getting it from the IAB need to be put in context of the IAB asking in their May 2023 meeting why government is not bringing things to them like the consolidated plan or comprehensive plan for their input. Also regarding his remarks about the Immigrant Resource Center, Council called for a Request For Proposal process that has taken a long time to play out and on which the IAB has been consistently trying to follow up to understand process and find out where things are at in the process]:

He would rather not formally suspend IAB but may have to. He wants specific advice and to run things by people. He’s not getting input from IAB.

He is interested on progress on Immigrant Resource Center. He said to bring us a model and budget. It’s not moved forward yet.

Council Member Stone:

Relationships have deteriorated and there are concerns related to liability. A lot of work happens without City but work has to be aligned with City. Suspension is needed to asses was all the needed parts are.  An informal pause would be detrimental to future.

Council Member Lilliquist:

January 16 is the IAB meeting so likely next discussion on ordinance will be at Committee of the Whole on January 29.

The meeting paused here to relocate and move on to Council reorganization (for which I do not have notes.)

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