Please vote in this primary election / Facebook post, Sj Robson

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10:04pm  July 23, 2017  Sandy Robson

Please vote in this primary election, and remind your family, friends and neighbors to vote too. If you live in Bellingham, when you vote for the City Council At-Large position, please vote for either Jean Layton or Roxanne Murphy. The Republican candidate running against them is Eric Bostrom.  [Eric Bostrom has been broadcasting hate speech on the streets of Bellingham for years and is now a candidate for office who is endorsed and supported financially by the Whatcom Republican Party.] Continue reading →

City Council Member responses to the idea of changing the name of Pickett Bridge / Facebook Post, Noisy Waters Norhtwest

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western front pickett bridge
July 25, 2017  Dena Jensen
I encourage people to read this opinion piece in The Western Front by Suzanna Leung, and take a look at the chart of Bellingham City Council Member responses to the idea of changing the name of Pickett Bridge, which is named for a Confederate General who, according to historian Leslie Gordon “was appalled by the notion of freeing slaves and arming black men to fight.”

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Both Councils Ignore Jail Studies / NorthwestCitizen, Juliette Davis

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Jul 15, 2017  Juliette Daniels

On Monday, July 10, The Vera Institute presented its preliminary data findings on the Whatcom County justice system at a special meeting of the Incarceration Prevention and Reduction Task Force (IPRTF). It took months for the Vera Institute to obtain the necessary data on the County Jail population in 2016, but the results confirmed stunning racial disparities in the jailed population, as well as a sizable pre-trial population that could be significantly reduced with the use of evidence-based methods of incarceration prevention. Continue reading →

Accounting of the 6/27/17 afternoon Whatcom County Council Special Committee of the Whole RE: the jail agreement / Noisy Waters Northwest

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Click the graphic to  access the complete 6/20/2017 letter from the Bellingham City Council to the Whatcom County Council

July 1. 2017  Dena Jensen

On June 27, 2017 the Whatcom County Council’s Special Committee of the Whole (made up of all seven council members) met for an afternoon session to discuss the letter they had been sent by the Bellingham City Council regarding the currently proposed Jail Facility Finance and Use Agreement.  I listened to the audio of the meeting and wrote up fairly detailed summaries of the comments and discussions during the meeting that I had posted in the comment section to a Facebook post. I thought I would share that material here to give more people access to the information, since it might come in handy over the next few weeks while the JFFUA is under consideration and the potential looms of a .2% tax to finance a new Whatcom County Jail going on the November 2017 ballot.  Here is the link to the audio for that meeting: Special Committee of the Whole PM June 27 2017.mp3

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6/13/2017 Public Hearing “to gather comments on the sizing of a proposed new jail in Whatcom County” / Facebook post, Noisy Waters Northwest

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June 8, 2017  Dena Jensen

At the Public Hearing at next week’s County Council Meeting on Tuesday June 13 at 7 p.m. (rally at 6:00 beforehand), it seems our comments on jail bed numbers (the number of people we envision being incarcerated in our county in the future) need to be based on all the best statistical data we have in our private-citizen hands that supports that we now have all the tools at our disposal, and will continue to have more, that will allow a reduction in the number of people we are incarcerating and that we are ready to begin a new age that abandons our failed justice system. Continue reading →

Surly Citizens Object to Backroom Deals / NorthwestCitizen, Guest writer, Anne Mackie

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At the height of the objections to the rule breaking by Vargas.

Anne Mackie guest writes about the Monday, Oct 17, Bellingham City Council meeting.  She is a community leader who lives in the York neighborhood.

Wed, Oct 19, 2016, 4:27 pm // Guest writer, Anne Mackie

What does it look like when a special interest group has your City Council president in their back pocket? It looks like what transpired at the October 17 Bellingham City Council Public Hearing on the Comprehensive Plan.

Rumors of a “crowd control problem” at city hall Monday night circulated on police scanners. As someone who was there, I can say the only control problem was emanating from Council President Pinky Vargas who violated meeting rules to accommodate her friends in the real estate and building industry. […]

Read Anne’s complete article on NorthwestCitizen here.

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Writing in support of the ordinance imposing an interim moratorium on fossil fuel facility expansion at Cherry Point / Letter to the Whatcom County Council, Dena Jensen

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Public Hearing on this ordinance will be held Tuesday, September 27, 2016 at 7 p.m. at 311 Grand Ave., Bellingham. You can view the resolution on the Whatcom County website at this link: http://whatcomcounty.us/DocumentCenter/View/21171
Public Hearing on this ordinance will be held Tuesday, September 27, 2016 at 7 p.m. at 311 Grand Ave., Bellingham. You can view the resolution on the Whatcom County website at this link: http://whatcomcounty.us/DocumentCenter/View/21171
Public Hearing on this ordinance will be held Tuesday, September 27, 2016 at 7 p.m. at 311 Grand Ave., Bellingham. You can view the resolution on the Whatcom County website at this link: http://whatcomcounty.us/DocumentCenter/View/21171
Public Hearing on this ordinance will be held Tuesday, September 27, 2016 at 7 p.m. at 311 Grand Ave., Bellingham. You can view the resolution on the Whatcom County website at this link: http://whatcomcounty.us/DocumentCenter/View/21171

 

September 25, 2016  Dena Jensen

Dear Whatcom County Council:
I am writing in support of the “Ordinance imposing an interim moratorium on the acceptance and processing of applications and permits for new or expanded facilities in the Cherry Point urban growth area, the primary purpose of which would be the shipment of unrefined fossil fuels not to be processed at Cherry Point.”

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Temper Tantrum Taints City Council / NorthwestCitizen, Dick Conoboy and Anne Mackie

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3 minsAfter three minutes at city council you are cooked – or else!.

[Note:  This article was written by NWCitizen regular contributor, Dick Conoboy and by Anne Mackie, a community activist for 50 years. Her first encounter with authoritarianism was in 1966 when a bucket of mop water was thrown out the window of the Federal Court House building on Magnolia St. at a group of anti-war protesters that she was part of.]

Mon, Aug 15, 2016, 3:13 am  //  Dick Conoboy

The August 8 evening meeting of the Bellingham City Council must be viewed (video here) if you want to see the direction the city is taking on stifling citizen involvement in planning for our future.

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