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 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.
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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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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,”
(https://www.cascadiadaily.com/news/2022/feb/02/bellingham-hires-security-to-patrol-downtown/) is a position that I imagine a lot of community members are getting a strong sense of through the supporting actions that are described throughout the article:
“Fleetwood acknowledged that part of the security team’s job is to reduce the visible population of homeless people in the city’s commercial areas.”
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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
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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.
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January 16, 2022 Dena Jensen
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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noisy waters northwest 
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