January 12, 2025 Dena Jensen

With the Committee of the Whole meeting agenda this week for Whatcom County Council, there is an attached draft letter created by one – or some – of the Council Members (there’s no attribution to the author/s on the letter so far). The letter is addressed to Whatcom County Executive Satpal Sidhu. It emphasizes the need for increasing reliable shelter for our friends and neighbors who will be losing a place to live and sleep this winter, among other things. One reason for such loss will be due to the planned sweep of the Bakerview encampment which begins this week.

I had written an email to Council Members last week about this because I heard there was a community call to action on it. Here is a link to that email where folks can also find contact information with which to send their own input to officials: https://noisywatersnw.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/jensen-01062025-email-to-county-officials-re-shelter-and-bakerview-sweep.pdf

It will be valuable for us to contact officials to support the general intent of the draft letter. Additionally, we can add important feedback on details that any of us feel need to be added and/or changed in the letter.

The Council’s letter is up for County Council Committee of the Whole “Committee Discussion and Recommendation to Council” this Tuesday, 1/12/25 at 2:00 p.m.

Link to the letter on the County website: https://whatcom.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=13665538&GUID=E4330BA5-F339-4368-8CCD-0F2871063956

Link to the County Committee of the Whole agenda for Tuesday: https://whatcom.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=A&ID=1234652&GUID=A6B865E2-464A-4A03-992F-F39F8302DE03 (edited)