June 19, 2024 Dena Jensen
“Things are trying to suppress it, right?” That was a remark made by a Bellingham City Council Member to the City’s Immigration Advisory Board members back in 2021. The context and specific timing will be made clear later in this post, but the question evokes an atmosphere of oppression that too many members of marginalized communities dwell within.
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May 20, 2024 Dena Jensen
When government officials make a statement claiming something happened, when information available in public records shows it didn’t happen, it’s a reason for concern. When such instances of faulty statements start to stack up in the officials’ process of targeting a group focused on removing dangers from a specific marginalized community, I’d say there’s good reason for folks to be as alarmed as they can be about it.
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March 27, 2024 Dena Jensen
During her Mayor’s Report at the March 11, 2024 Bellingham City Council meeting, Bellingham Mayor Kim Lund had announced that at the next City Council meeting the Administration was going to bring forward a Boards and Commissions Expectations document “to establish clear expectations about the important work that these groups do.” At Bellingham’s City Council meeting this week on March 25, that did not happen.
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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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September 14, 2023 Dena Jensen
From a recently closed Whatcom County Request for Proposal (RFP): “The County and the City would consider making additional funding available to support the operation of a continuous Winter Shelter, if necessary.”
“…if necessary”??? What kind of language is this after years of brutality to many community members otherwise left to sleep outside during winter?
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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 22, 2023 Dena Jensen
For folks who are receiving campaign literature with claims like this one of current Bellingham Mayor Seth Fleetwood’s, “Sustaining and expanding shelters, with a threefold increase in facilities for our unhoused population.” >>>>>>>
Be sure and do your homework to prevent yourself having illusions of grand services being provided without context for what terms like “threefold increase” really mean related to benefits to the community. In other words, does this mean are we actually getting ahead or falling behind in getting folks into stable living situations?
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June 23, 2023 Dena Jensen
The 2023 election season is underway and candidates are busy making themselves known to the community. Liz Darrow is one of those candidates, and is also a person who has been making herself known to the community through her acts of showing up for many years to support and learn from those who live and grapple with challenges in Bellingham and Whatcom County. So much so, that a more home-body type like me, who lives in north Whatcom, has met her in person and is happy to keep getting to know this individual who I am lucky to be able to call a friend.
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noisy waters northwest 
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