September 1, 2024
First things first
Here is a link to a document that allows readers to search and browse minutes for all meeting dates of the three and a half years of Bellingham City Council’s Immigration Advisory Board:
June 2020 through January 2024 Immigration Advisory Board Meeting Minutes
[Note: the links were corrected above because the first document linked to was missing content]
Also, folks can also access these minutes, along with other year-long searchable versions of local government meeting minutes, along with details on how to interact with them, on this website’s Searchable Minutes page.
Now for the update about Mayor Lund’s update on the IAB
During the Old/New business section of the August 12, 2024 Bellingham City Council Committee of the Whole meeting, Bellingham Mayor Kim Lund made an announcement indicating that due to interest expressed regarding an update on the fate of the incapacitated Immigration Advisory Board, her administration would offer a comprehensive report sometime in September.
The meetings of Bellingham’s first and only advisory board focused on addressing critical issues impacting local immigrants were suspended by City Council Members on February 12 this year. During the time leading up to the vote, a variety of reasons were cited by various City officials in support of the action, numerous of which have proved to be faulty.
Here is the full August 12, 2024 exchange related to the Mayor’s announcement about the update:
Mayor Kim Lund: “I just wanted to share, there’s been some interest on – we’re approaching the six month mark since Council voted to suspend the Immigration Advisory Board. And I just wanted to share that since that time, Council Members Cotton and Stone have been meeting with myself and Deputy Keller. We met in May, in June, and July, and we meet again next week. And we’d like to come back – administration’s requesting to come back in September with a comprehensive update on where that stands.”
Council Member Michael Lilliquist: “Glad to hear about the steady work on this coming back in September. Will there be any report on the Immigrant Resource Center idea in September, as well?”
Mayor Lund: “We could come prepared to speak to that to some degree. I think what we’d like, and the focus of the conversations is really what does it look like to move forward with the Immigration Advisory Board. I think the immigration resource center is a somewhat separate matter, but we could speak with a little bit of, if Council wanted to pursue that, what those next steps would look like.”
Council Member Lilliquist: “It is separate, but it would be nice to re-engage with the IAB on that when the IAB is ready.”
Mayor Lund: “Okay.”
Prior to the Mayor’s announcement, the progressive civic action group, Riveters Collective, had sent an email to Bellingham City Council Members on August 5, 2024 urging them to request a progress update at one of their August committee meetings. In addition they expressed their hope that “progress is, in fact, being made towards the promises made to our immigrant community following the suspension of the IAB.”
Additionally, I had sent an email on August 11, 2024 to Council Members and Mayor Lund. I am including a copy of that email at the bottom of this post. Meanwhile, it will be valuable for community members to stay alert for her upcoming comprehensive update which the Mayor referenced on August 12 so we can know what additional input is needed from us to promote officials forming the workgroup that Council Members called for back in January of this year and which was to include at least some of the IAB Members.
As it stands, there is no evidence I can find that officials have been interacting with members of the Immigration Advisory Board for months now, even though, apparently the Mayor and some Council Members seem to have been having discussions about the IAB on their own.
Similarly, from records requests I have made from the City of Bellingham, there are no documents or communications that indicate any action has been taken to pursue the development of an Immigrant Resource Center. This was one of the primary projects the Immigration Advisory Board had identified as a critical need of local immigrants and was seeking to have officials move forward in collaboration with them.
Sent: Sunday, August 11, 2024 at 04:36:31 PM PDT
Subject: Regarding an update on the status of the Immigration Advisory Board
Dear Bellingham City Council and Mayor Lund:
August 12, 2024 will mark 6 months past the date when City Council Members approved the ordinance to suspend the meetings of the Immigration Advisory Board. Prior to the vote to suspend those meetings, the City administration presented a draft document listing next steps. Within the timeline section of that document, there was a recommendation to Council to request an update on progress in six months.
I checked the agendas for the August 12, 2024 regular Council and and committee meetings and didn’t see any update listed, and I have not heard that Council has yet made that request.
Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to discern any City action publicly taken related to the next steps that were proposed to occur directly related to IAB meetings, other than the development and an initial discussion of a draft copy of the Advisory Group Expectations document which occurred on April 8, 2024, 4 months ago.
I recently transcribed the Mayor’s comments from the January 29, 2024 Committee of the Whole meeting in response to Council Member Cotton’s suggestion of receiving an update in 3 months from that meeting and urging a sunset clause on the timing. (His suggestion did not proceed on to becoming a motion.)
“I’d just like to bring for consideration from Council, is that we have approved the working group, which I am personally happy about because I’m deeply committed to making sure that that is a successful product, that it is – my intention is that we will be coming back to you with a robust progress update. When that happens though, will be dependent on the vote that you have yet to take on the ordinance because what has happened now is that we have committed staff resources to a robust working group and if we do not move to suspend – we have talked about about limited staff resources.
“We’ve heard from our communications director and our deputy that this has been her biggest single issue over the last year. As a new mayor this has been the biggest issue before me. I want to make sure that we’re not doubling down on – I want to make sure that we pick a path and we are committed to that path.”
In other words, the Mayor identified that the workgroup and having resources necessary to make it successful were dependent on the decision to suspend IAB meetings, and if that were the Council’s decision, that is what would allow a timely, robust progress update. The Mayor highlighted that according to the Communications Director/Deputy Administrator and herself, a comparatively high amount of administration focus was being given to the IAB during the year leading up to that Committee of the Whole meeting, and therefore there was a need for committing to either the path of the IAB meetings continuing or that of a successful robust working group.
Subsequently, with the ordinance to suspend IAB meetings approved by the Council on February 12, 2024, it seems reasonable to have believed the development and activation of the workgroup would be proceeding in place of the IAB meetings – including the one for that month of February – which were no longer scheduled and which would, for an undetermined period of time, not be receiving City resources to operate and support that work.
From the Mayor’s remarks, it appeared to me, that if Council Members agreed to suspend meetings, a commitment had been made for ample staff resources to allow the workgroup to not only be formed, but to be successfully taking actions soon enough that it would be feasible to offer a timely and robust report.
Unfortunately, I have found no signs that the workgroup has been formed to date. There also has not been a presentation given to Council on details related to the Immigrant Resource Center after their decision to suspend meetings of the IAB. Regarding the resource center, also at the January 29, 2024 Committee of the Whole meeting, the Communications Director/Deputy Administrator had stated, first, that while the work on the IRC could still continue, both Mayor Fleetwood and Mayor Lund had asked for her to hold off on work on that project until a resolution had been accomplished, presumably about whether or not to suspend the meetings of the IAB. Additionally, in the interest of time that day, she requested to come back at a different time with an update about the project.
I fear that so far, according to public records and other information I have been able to obtain, negligible progress has been made that would make good on numerous Council Members’ assurances that their desire in suspending meetings of the Immigration Advisory Board was to improve the ability of the board to achieve more successful results from their work and for the work on the IRC to continue during the suspension.
Regardless, it will be valuable to prevent further delay and to offer a chance for trust and hope to grow between the City and community members. All of you, the members of the immigrant community who are facing direct dangers and impacts, members of the Immigration Advisory Board, and members of the public are worthy of a public discussion about the status of the Immigration Advisory Board. The need for more responsive and transparent communication had been a consistent message from the members and supporters of the Immigration Advisory Board throughout the three and a half years of their meetings. This message carried through to their last meeting before they were suspended, in January of this year.
It is now time for the City officials to share with each other and the community what barriers there have been to numerous next steps taking place related to the Immigration Advisory Board and the Immigrant Resource Center, and especially, what it will take to expedite honoring the stated intent of Council Members for the purpose of the suspension of IAB meetings, along with commitments identified by Council Members to the IRC, and by the Mayor to the workgroup.
Sincerely,
Dena Jensen
Birch Bay, WA
The email above was sent to the following addresses:
To: ccmail@cob.org <ccmail@cob.org>; Daniel C. Hammill <dchammill@cob.org>; Jace A. Cotton <jacotton@cob.org>; Hannah E. Stone <hestone@cob.org>; Michael W. Lilliquist <mlilliquist@cob.org>; Hollie Huthman <hahuthman@cob.org>; ehwilliams@cob.org <ehwilliams@cob.org>; Lisa A. Anderson <laanderson@cob.org>; mayorsoffice@cob.org <mayorsoffice@cob.org>
Cc: G. CC. Immigration Board <immigrationboard@cob.org>; Janice L. Keller <jkeller@cob.org>; council@co.whatcom.wa.us <council@co.whatcom.wa.us>; Satpal Sidhu <ssidhu@co.whatcom.wa.us>; WREC <wrec@chuckanuthealthfoundation.org>; phab@co.whatcom.wa.us <phab@co.whatcom.wa.us>; Robert Mittendorf <robert.mittendorf@bellinghamherald.com>; Denver Pratt <denver.pratt@bellinghamherald.com>; Cascadia Daily News <ronjudd@cascadiadaily.com>
noisy waters northwest 
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