Click the image of the Whatcom County Council 3/1/22 Special Meeting agenda to access it on the Whatcom County website
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.
Click the image to access the March 8, 2022 Bellingham Herald article, “After public outcry, Whatcom Council rethinking its closure of this popular beach”
March 10, 2022 Dena Jensen
From The Belingham Heraldarticle, “After public outcry, Whatcom Council rethinking its closure of this popular beach” by Robert Mittendorf:
“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.”
This image links to an August 15, 2017 CBS video, ‘Tiki torch CEO says he’s “appalled” at protesters’
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.’
Click the image of the book cover of Maus by Art Spiegelman to access the author sharing the story behind the book on NPR
February 13, 2022 Glenn Stewart
The price we pay for a world where information from one human to another flows freely may be that some foul language and lascivious behavior is part of the lexicon. So be it. And if that were all that mattered, the discussion about banning books would be over.
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.
Click the image to access the City of Bellingham meetings page on the COB website
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.
Click the image of two unmasked security officers in black jackets walking together in downtown Bellingham’s commercial district to access the Cascadia Daily News article, “Bellingham hires security to patrol downtown”
February 3, 2022 Dena Jensen
Sent: Thursday, February 3, 2022, 01:11:02 PM PST
Subject: Calling for more sheltering and services and less policing
Dear Mayor Fleetwood and Bellingham City Council:
I don’t know what question was asked by the reporter or what the exact statement was that Mayor Fleetwood made, but the following acknowledgement of the mayor’s that was highlighted in the February 2, 2022 Cascadia Daily article, “Bellingham hires security to patrol downtown,”
Screenshots of the scope of work and map of security service boundary included in the City of Bellingham Contract with Risk Solutions Unlimited to provide security officers in downtown Bellingham from January 2022 through April 2022
January 31, 2022 Dena Jensen
On Friday, January 28, 2022, I submitted a records request for the contract the City of Bellingham has entered into with Risk Solutions Unlimited related to currently providing security personnel who, the City has said, “are scheduled 24 hours a day, 7 days a week as part of an initiative to support a safe, clean, welcoming downtown.” I received a copy of the contract today, of which people can access a copy at this link: https://noisywatersnw.files.wordpress.com/2022/01/rsu_contract_-_downtown_security.pdf
Image of a billboard illustration with a person papering over a dog logo and the wording “watchdog” with a new sign showing a logo of linking squares and the wording “The Center Square.” Click the image to access a linked PR Watch article “Franklin’s Right-Wing Watchdog.org Rebrands as The Center Square”
January 21, 2022 Dena Jensen
Earlier this week, Blaine’s weekly community newspaper, The Northern Light, reported that an unidentified Blaine business owner had funded the United States Postal Service delivery of hundreds of copies of a startup publication called The Flame to Blaine and Birch Bay residents.
In a communications document from early last year, with the header “Winter Into Spring Communications Strategy,” shared in an email by Bellingham Parks and Recreation Director Nicole Oliver, there was an outline point that stated, “Health Dept. recommends no government-run emergency winter shelters in future.”
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