March 31, 2023 Dena Jensen
On Monday night March 27, 2023, Bellingham City Council voted to advance (first and second reading) “An Ordinance Prohibiting the Use of Controlled Substances in Public Places” toward approval by a vote of 5-2. The earliest final vote on the ordinance will not be until the next regular Council meeting in two weeks on April 10, 2023. If approved on that date, the ordinance would go into effect two weeks later.
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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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December 8, 2021 Dena Jensen
At the December 2, 2021 Whatcom County Coalition to End Homelessness (WCCEH) meeting that took place over Zoom, Whatcom County Human Services Supervisor Ann Beck prefaced her update on Whatcom County winter sheltering efforts by saying it had been a bad day at work for her. She explained that would be the reason, should she tear up at any point during her presentation. Beck also shared that she was due to attend another meeting related to the heavy flooding that has displaced unprecedented numbers of people in the County.
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September 1, 2021 Dena Jensen
9/1/21: This project is a work in progress, will be updated daily until transcription of public comments is complete, and will include transcriptions of public comments from Bellingham City Council meetings before the Council started restricting their public comment periods to 15 minutes on March 22, 2021. The public comments transcribed will be for regular City Council meetings earlier this year, from January 11, 2021 through March 8, 2021.
Continue readingJuly 10, 2021 Dena Jensen
From Introduction – Whatcom Barriers to Equity, a review for 2021 candidates :
Materials that were responsive to a number of recent public records requests obtained from the City of Bellingham, and one request from Whatcom County, provide insights into notable communications strategies of existing City staff, the mayor’s office, and some City Council Members regarding many of the winter’s events related to homelessness. On some of these matters, communications were being coordinated between the City and County executive branches.
Based on information contained in those materials, an important question arises regarding future actions of folks newly stepping up to run, or those continuing on to serve their community in public office: will they take action to eliminate government approaches that view or portray individuals and community organizations serving people in crisis as adversaries?
July 14, 2021 Dena Jensen
After the unsheltered community members who had been camping at Bellingham City Hall were swept from the area known as Camp 210 on January 28, 2021, City of Bellingham Mayor Seth Fleetwood and Bellingham Police Chief Flo Simon held a press conference that same day. They presented their points of view regarding their actions related to the militarized sweep of around 100 unsheltered individuals and their belongings. In his statement, Mayor Fleetwood asserted, “Our civic center was becoming the target of agitators far more intent on mayhem than working toward any social good.”
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July 9, 2021 Dena Jensen
In May of this year, Whatcom County 2021 candidate filing yielded seven candidates running for a total of four Bellingham City Council seats. There are fourteen candidates vying to fill four County Council seats, along with five Port of Bellingham candidates to potentially fill two seats. Whether running unopposed, or facing challengers, each one of them has potential to generate public conversation and advance solutions for critical community issues.
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April 29, 2021 Dena Jensen
Yesterday I attended Bellingham City Club’s online event, “Chronic Homelessness: A Nationwide Challenge.” This was Wednesday, April 28, the same day that Bellingham Police Department’s homeless encampment cleanup coordinator and fellow officers were out to clean up the “remainder,” as the coordinator described it, of homeless encampments at Maritime Heritage Park. (The ACLU equates camp clean–ups and camp sweeps.) Some other encampment locations had been tagged to be vacated or were given instruction to bring all possessions off the streets and into parked RVs.
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March 21, 2021 Dena Jensen
It seems that the Port of Bellingham would benefit from hearing more from all of us here in Whatcom County about the motivations for our desire of them to help contribute solutions to our friends and neighbors sleeping outside and getting swept by police officers in Bellingham and at WWU. Apparently they were also swept from Port of Bellingham property at Laurel and Cornwall on the day that COB swept folks from Geri Field. Contact information is at the bottom fo this post.
noisy waters northwest 
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