March 22, 2024 Dena Jensen
We have passed the second month now that community members, who have been serving on Bellingham’s Immigration Advisory Board, have not been allowed to meet to continue their work to request and analyze data to determine compliance with the Keep Washington Working Act, along with facilitating community involvement and discussions on regional immigration issues.
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February 23, 2024 Dena Jensen
[This introduction was corrected with information on March 20, 2024. The corrected section is noted below within the relevant section of the introduction to this series. It is placed in brackets, in italics, with the date that the correction was made.]
It took less than one minute at the end of the Bellingham City Council’s February 12, 2024 regular meeting for Council Members’ final consideration of an ordinance to suspend the City’s Immigration Advisory Board. The ordinance was approved 6-1, with recently elected, first-term City Council Member Jace Cotton casting the only dissenting vote.
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February 10, 2024 Dena Jensen
The Bellingham City Council will take its final vote on whether to approve an ordinance to suspend the Immigration Advisory Board at their 7:00 p.m. regular meeting on Monday, February 12, 2024. The vote is scheduled to be the Council’s final item of business that night before open session Public Comment and Adjournment. Here is a link to the agenda: https://meetings.cob.org/Meetings/ViewMeeting?id=3124&doctype=1
Since the vote has not yet been taken, however, we still have a chance to weigh in and take a David-worthy shot at the Goliath of City determination to sideline work on critical immigration issues. The suspension likely will be at least for a period beyond the six month estimate for a first report from the City administration on how post-suspension interactions about the fate of the IAB are going.
January 13, 2024 Dena Jensen
Just after the New Year, on January 2, 2024, during the Bellingham City Council’s reorganization meeting, where Council Members take on their committee, board, and commission assignments, the Council took the unusual step of holding their first public discussion of a completed draft ordinance to suspend the City of Bellingham’s Immigration Advisory Board (IAB). There was no option provided for open public comment at this meeting, and a translator, having only been sought out related to a request for one, was not available. The discussion that day was for information only, with potential to revisit the ordinance on January 29.
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January 10, 2024 Dena Jensen
Here’s a little update on part of the January 8, 2023 Bellingham City Council Committee of the Whole meeting related to a couple community areas of interest.
Old and New Business (for which topics are not shown on the agenda ahead of time) took up most of the hour-long meeting. This was where the first 3 items on the Consent Agenda for the evening were pulled out for further discussion by Council Member Stone, including the one about a contract for a Bellingham Police Departement Drug and Crime Prevention Officer that is housed within the Bellingham Housing Authority.
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January 2, 2024 Dena Jensen
During about 30-35 minutes of January 2, 2024 discussion by Bellingham City Council Members of an ordinance to suspend the City’s Immigration Advisory Board, virtually not one positive thing was said about the current IAB – many of whose members are immigrants – or its volume of work over the last four years. New Council Member Jace Cotton did say he’d like to see the current board continue to meet.
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December 30, 2023 Dena Jensen
Remember when Whatcom County officials suddenly shut down the Homeless Strategies Workgroup? The threat of a similar action now looms over the IAB.
Please bear witness to the Bellingham City Council Meeting this coming Tuesday, January 2, 2024 at 3:00 p.m. where Council Members will be discussing the draft of an ordinance “Suspending All Future Meetings of the Immigration Advisory Board (IAB) and Its Subcommittees Until City Council Adopts an Ordinance Rescinding the Suspension.”
Here is a link to the agenda: https://meetings.cob.org/Meetings/ViewMeeting?id=3121&doctype=1
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August 7, 2023 Dena Jensen
Sent: Monday, August 7, 2023, 04:11:24 PM PDT
Subject: Regarding 2E2SSB 5536 and the LEAD program
Dear Incarceration Prevention and Reduction Task Force:
I am writing related to the portion on your July 17, 2023 meeting where there was a brief discussion of the changes in state legislation – specifically 2E2SSB 5536, on controlled substances, possession, and treatment.
It is noteworthy to me that I am hearing a continued focus on the Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) program when some government bodies are speaking of services to address dangers posed by public drug use and possession. This has been the case at Bellingham City Council meetings surrounding both their own legislation outlawing public use of controlled substances in Bellingham that was passed back in April, and their more recent adoption of the state legislation.
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August 4, 2023 Dena Jensen
I listened to this great episode of the Community Voz podcast yesterday that brings up such valuable points related to oppressed and marginalized communities. Here is the link where you can find the episode “The Uses of Anger – IAB Update”: https://www.foodjustice.org/community-voz-radio
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July 28, 2023 Dena Jensen
After about a month of nights where beds were not quite filled up at Base Camp, numbers have been back up near capacity (and above) this week.
I realize that people are working on putting things in place for services that may possibly emerge in the future, but severe weather season starts in three months and I want to point out a list of things that have been happening this year, some of them in the last few months, some in the last few weeks, and some loom ahead as possible in the future.
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noisy waters northwest 
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