May 2, 2022 Dena Jensen
As people are becoming more and more aware, Whatcom County is moving forward in various government meetings towards a needs assessment for what they are calling a “public health, safety and justice facility.” In general, that facility is acknowledged to be a new jail in combination with mental and behavioral health services.
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April 22, 2022 Dena Jensen
On March 14, 2022, a presentation was given on RV parking code enforcement by Bellingham Police Department’s Public Information Officer, Lieutenant Claudia Murphy to Bellingham City Council’s Committee of the Whole. This presentation was given about three and a half months after City of Bellingham had initiated rigorous parking code enforcement following the lifting of the statewide ban on evictions.
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April 2, 2022 Dena Jensen
At Whatcom County Council’s March 22, 2022 public hearing regarding the Ordinance that Council Members Donovan and Galloway proposed for repealing Ordinance 2022-005, temporary closure of Gulf Road, many people turned out to voice their desire to retain vehicular access to a beach area that they testified was a very important element to the well-being in their lives.
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March 31, 2022 Dena Jensen
From some of my experiences and observations over the course of the last year, I would say that we are in a period where the tools for community members in Whatcom County to hold their elected and appointed officials accountable are more challenging to employ in some ways. There are at least some public records requests that are being filled more slowly than they were in years past, and rules around providing open public comment at local government meetings have fluctuated, with some opportunities to do so in the City of Bellingham having been eliminated. It remains to be seen if this pans out to be a temporary phenomenon or one that we continue to increasingly struggle with.
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March 24, 2022 Dena Jensen
PR specialist, Gerald Baron is at it again, continuing to carry out the agenda he described in a 2018 book promoting the defeat of activists, and specifically of Rosalinda Guillen of Community to Community Development (C2C). You can read all about their leadership and ecofeminist efforts at https://www.foodjustice.org/team.
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March 13, 2022 Dena Jensen
For community members who regularly follow or who periodically become interested in the activities of the Whatcom County Council, the Council’s March 1, 2022 Special Meeting and informational retreat is a good resource when we have questions about standards, rules, and laws the Council should be following.
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March 10, 2022 Dena Jensen
From The Belingham Herald article, “After public outcry, Whatcom Council rethinking its closure of this popular beach” by Robert Mittendorf:
Continue reading“Oregon and California give their residents broad freedom to cross private property to reach public tidelands, through the 1967 Oregon Beach Bill and the 1976 California Coastal Act.
“But Washington state’s 1972 Shoreline Management Act, established by referendum, has much less explicit language.”
February 20, 2022 Glenn Stewart
“It ain’t what people know that gives ‘em trouble, it’s what they know that ain’t so” — Will Rogers
The philosopher, theologian, medical doctor and Nobel Laureate Albert Schweitzer disagreed with Descartes’ famous idiom, “Cogito ergo sum,” I think, therefore I am. That was too easy for Schweitzer. “If humans think at all, they must think something,” he wrote. Our most fundamental thought must be, Dr. Schweitzer surmised, “I will to live amongst others who also will to live.” Quite right. Our survival depends upon finding some basis by which we can co-exist—perhaps even thrive if possible—with millions of others. The most fundamental empathy; the very basis of Human Ethics, and our best chance for survival (Schweitzer was saying) is the knowledge that all Humans ‘will to live.’
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February 13, 2022 Dena Jensen
Three years have passed since the City of Bellingham and Whatcom County governments held a joint discussion that broached the subject of advance planning for severe weather shelters without action being taken to do so. But on Tuesday, February 8, 2022, Whatcom County Council finally authorized an interlocal agreement between the two government bodies to provide winter shelters during severe weather emergencies.
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February 5, 2022 Dena Jensen
It finally dawned on me that placing text of the meeting summaries from a series of Bellingham City Council regular meetings in one searchable post could be a way to more quickly discover when certain issues and measures were discussed and/or voted on.
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noisy waters northwest 
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